Quotes about state
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“And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many.”

Carson McCullers (1917–1967) American writer

Source: The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories

Love, Truth, Secret, Way

“You belong neither to God nor the state nor me. You belong to yourself and no one else.”

Oriana Fallaci book Letter to a Child Never Born

Source: Letter to a Child Never Born

God

“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right…The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

222
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Source: Minority Report

Democracy, History, Intelligence, Fraud

“The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, The Great Learning
Context: The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.

Family, Knowledge, Heart, Personality

“But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Pain, Happiness, Education, Hope

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Pain, Future

“The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Suffering, Time

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Source: The Constitution of the United States of America

People

“In a certain state of mind, all trace of feeling is banished. Whenever I remain silent in a certain way, I don't love you, have you noticed that?”

Marguerite Duras book The Ravishing of Lol Stein

Source: The Ravishing of Lol Stein

Love, Way, Feeling

“Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions”

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) Martiniquais writer, psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary

“I really do think that if for one week in the United States we saw the true face of war, we saw people's limbs sheared off, we saw kids blown apart, for one week, war would be eradicated. Instead, what we see in the U. S. media is the video war game.”

Amy Goodman (1957) American broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author

War, People, Game, Thinking

“Nick‘s eyes widened as a total state of befuddled huh possessed him. Was he in the
Twilight Zone?”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

“All oppression creates a state of war”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Conclusion http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/ch04.htm, p. 717 Source: The Second Sex (1949) Context: All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception. The existent who is regarded as inessential cannot fail to demand the re-establishment of her sovereignty. Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavours to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realms of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence.

War

“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention."

[, The Nation, June 18, 2001]”

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American journalist

Shrub Flubs His Dub http://www.thenation.com/article/shrub-flubs-his-dub, May 31, 2001. Retrieved October 24, 2011. Context: The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention. Bush was replaced by his exceedingly Lite Guv Rick Perry, who has really good hair. Governor Goodhair, or the Ken Doll (see, all Texans use nicknames—it's not that odd), is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But the chair of a major House committee says, "Goodhair is much more engaged as governor than Bush was." As the refrain of the country song goes, "O Please, Dear God, Not Another One."

Time

“A beach house isn't just real estate. It's a state of mind.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Housing

“It would require a singularly stupid man to go hang around in narrow tunnels and cramped spaces alongside a threat like that.

"And I, Harry Dresden, am that man," I stated.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

Stupidity

“Heaven is for thee too high
To know what passes there; be lowly wise.
Think only what concerns thee and thy being;
Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there
Live, in what state, condition, or degree,
Contented that thus far hath been revealed.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

World, Dreams, Thinking

“Macey couldn't decide whether to be intrigued that Hale was walking around with a state-of-the-art covert communications device or be jealous because she'd been caught without one of her own.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Double Crossed: A Spies and Thieves Story

Art, Communication

“The incorporation of a bank and the powers assumed [by legislation doing so] have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution. They are not among the powers specially enumerated.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bill for Establishing a National Bank., 1791. http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/natbank.html ME 3:146 Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“The Emperor decided to make a proclamation to his troops about the importance of compassion in the face of the rising tide of heinous fuckery and political weaselocity in the nearby kingdom of the United States.”

Christopher Moore book A Dirty Job

Source: A Dirty Job

“Where were you born?"
"On a battlefield," [Yossarian] answered.
"No, no. In what state were you born?"
"In a state of innocence.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 117 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_117 The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)

Happiness, World, Wise, Hope

“I’m scared I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a state of yearning, regardless of where I am.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Life

“In the world we live in, what weand what weare like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

World

“The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply, 'Create silence'.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Life, World, Disease, Silence

“Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Collected Poems

Change, Dead

“It has been discovered that with a dull urban population, all formed under a mechanical system of State education, a suggestion or command, however senseless and unreasoned, will be obeyed if it be sufficiently repeated.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Source: An Essay on the Restoration of Property

Education

“Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you'll have a marvelous time!”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Time

“This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Life, Youth, World, Imagination

“Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Source: The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty

“Unrequited love is a ridiculous state, and it makes those in it behave ridiculously.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Love

“We shall live even in this state of living death, we shall love, we shall feel, we shall defy all who would judge and destroy us.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Love, Death, Feeling

“Love is not something you think about, it is a state in which you dwell”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Love, Thinking

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

Mary Ellen Chase (1887–1973) Educator, scholar, novelist

Children, Christmas, Christmas

“Was it fair to say I didn't know the full state of my soul?”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Soul

“Alec had his arms around Magnus and was kissing him, full on the mouth. Magnus, who appeared to be in a state of shock, stood frozen.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Kiss, Appearance

“Everyone is an idiot," I stated. "Except me.”

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

Source: The Trouble with Kings

“Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being.”

Laura Lippman book What the Dead Know

Source: What the Dead Know

Reading

“Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Islam: A Short History (2000)
Context: The Western media often give the impression that the embattled and occasionally violent form of religiosity known as "fundamentalism" is a purely Islamic phenomenon. This is not the case. Fundamentalism is a global fact and has surfaced in every major faith in response to the problems of out modernity. There is fundamentalist Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity, fundamentalist Hinduism, fundamentalist Buddhism, fundamentalist Sikhism, and even fundamentalist Confucianism.

Democracy

“A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.”

John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces

Source: A Confederacy of Dunces

“It would seem from this fact, that man is naturally a wild animal, and that when taken from the woods, he is never happy in his natural state, 'till he returns to them again.”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Source: A Memorial Containing Travels Through Life or Sundry Incidents in the Life of Dr Benjamin Rush

Happiness, Nature, Animals

“As we live our precarious lives on the brink of the void, constantly coming closer to a state of nonbeing, we are all too often aware of our fragitlity.”

Iris Murdoch book Nuns and Soldiers

Source: Nuns and Soldiers

“Sometimes it feels like we're all living in a Prozac nation. The United States of Depression.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Feeling

“We bury things so deep we no longer remember there was anything to bury. Our bodies remember. Our neurotic states remember. But we don't.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

“Traits don't change, states of mind do.”

Elizabeth Strout book Olive Kitteridge

Source: Olive Kitteridge

Change

“Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of people.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

People, World, Forgiveness

“I grew on you, though," Jace stated confidently. "Eventually," Alec agreed. "Like moss, or a skin disease.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Disease, Confidence

“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Men, Personality

“Frankly, our ancestors don't seem much to brag about. I mean, look at the state they left us in, with the wars, the broken planet. Clearly, they didn't care about what would happen to the people who came after them.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

War, People

“The dreamers, those who misread the actual state of affairs and act upon their emotions, are often the source of the greatest mistakes in history—the wars that are not thought out, the disasters that are not foreseen”

Robert Greene book The 50th Law

Source: The 50th Law

War, History

“Like poetry, fashion does not state anything. It merely suggests”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

Fashion

“I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Source: Gift from the Sea

God

“Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Men, God, Happiness

“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Lie, Forgetting

“The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“Love does not exist, it's like religion, the state wants you to believe in that kind of crap so they can control you, and f**k your head up.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Source: Trainspotting

Love, Religion

“California, the department store state.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

“It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Time

“When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope

Hope, Way, Problem

“We've finally given liberals a war against fundamentalism, and they don't want to fight it. They would, except it would put them on the same side as the United States.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

War, Fight

“The death penalty can be tolerated only by extreme statist reactionaries who demand a state that is so powerful that it has the right to kill.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Death, Penalty

“Most ballet teachers in the United States are terrible. If they were in medicine, everyone would be poisoned.”

George Balanchine (1904–1983) Georgian choreographer, dancer and ballet master (1904-1983)

Teachers

“The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of a country.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Source: (1962), Ch. 3 The Control of Money, p. 50

Men, Parting, Country

“Public opinion, in its raw state, gushes out in the immemorial form of the mob's fear. It is piped into central factories, and there it is flavoured and coloured and put into cans.”

H.L. Mencken book Notes on Democracy

1920s
Source: Notes on Democracy (1926)

Fear

“it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Thinking

“Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, 'Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Attitude

“If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a
happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a
moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one's desk, is
a source of profound satisfaction.”

Primo Levi book The Periodic Table

Source: The Periodic Table

Happiness, Mood, Time

“In the deepest sense, the being in a state of sin is the sin, the particular sins are not the continuation of sin, they are expressions of its continuation.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

Sense

“if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to `Yes,' she ought to say `No' directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

Feeling, Heart

“Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Source: Foundation

Fools

“I've mastered many things in my life. Navigating the strets of London, dancing the quadrille, the Japanese art of flower arranging, lying at charades, concealing a highly intoxicated state, delighting young women with my charms…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Life, Women, Art, Flowers

“The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Source: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Pain, Pleasure, Thinking, Parting

“Winning is a state of mind that embraces everything you do.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

“I don't need a baby growing inside me for nine months. If I'm going to feel nauseous and achy when I wake up, I want to achieve that state the old-fashioned way: getting good and drunk the night before.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Way, Feeling, Fashion, Baby

“I expect that you must receive top marks at school, young lady."
Madeleine smiled as she stirred her tea. "There are always rewards for those who state the obvious frequently and with conviction.”

Scott Westerfeld book Touching Darkness

Source: Touching Darkness

School, Smile, Tea

“Being the best was as equal to being in the middle, which was equal to being the worst. All were merely a state of being. It was how a person felt in that state and why they were in that state that was the important thing.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: The Gift

Personality

“That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

Source: The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

“Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a “standing in,” not a “falling for.” In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

Source: The Art of Loving

Love, Way

“Now what state do you live in?'
'Denial.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

“Illness reduces man to his basic state: a cloaca in which the chemical processes continue. The meaningless hegemony of the involuntary.”

Paul Bowles book The Sheltering Sky

Source: The Sheltering Sky

“Think of love as a state of grace not as a means to anything… but an end in itself.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Variant: It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Thinking

“I had been experiencing brief flashes of disassociation, or shallow states of non-ordinary reality.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Reality

“History shows that it is not only senseless and cruel, but also difficult to state who is a foreigner.”

Claudio Magris (1939) Italian scholar, translator and writer

Source: Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea

History

“I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Passion

“Oliver: Fear is the natural state of anything that dies.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Last Breath

Fear, Nature

“Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government.”

Philip G. Zimbardo book The Lucifer Effect

Source: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

Fear, Law, Freedom

“Natalya asked, "How'd you escape all the vampires out for your head?"

In a monotone voice, Lothaire stated, "I'mgood.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Failure, Hell

“And that is how we are. By strength of will we cut off our inner intuitive knowledge from admitted consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse when it does fall.”

D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover

Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Knowledge, Time

“A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty

Men

“I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Children, World

“When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”

Euripidés Orestes

Source: Orestes (408 BC), l. 907

Evil

“HI. I’m from Arkansas, the cantaloupe state. And tonight, I hope you will hold my melons close to your heart and vote me your Miss Teen Dream.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Dreams, Hope, Heart

“You should be concerned about the state of your soul, not the state of your bank account.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

Source: Little Earthquakes

Soul

“It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.”

Gaston Bachelard book The Poetics of Space

Source: The Poetics of Space

“Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Livewire interview (2002)
Context: Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods' presence in his life. He is the 21st century man. However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

World, Light

“In terms of morals there is no such thing as ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Men