Quotes about street
page 15

Jeff VanderMeer photo
Charles Dickens photo
Gary Johnson photo

“I share in their outrage and the outrage is that we don’t have a system that has a level playing field. That the government picks winners and losers and in the case of Wall Street what absolutely outrages me is the fact that these people that made such incredibly bad decisions, and I’m believing that these decisions were not necessarily criminal or I think they would have been prosecuted, but that they were just horrible decisions. That they should have been rewarded with failure. Meaning they should have lost all of their money. But they didn’t loose all of their money did they? We bailed them out at the tune of a trillion bucks. You and I. You and I bailed them out. They continue to receive their bonuses and that is … that is the outrage and I share in that outrage… Government should be a level playing field where all of us have the same advantages and the same threats if you will. Implementing the Fair Tax for example throws out the entire Federal tax system. No income tax, no IRS, no business tax, no corporate tax and isn’t the fact that some people pay tax and others don’t isn’t it it the fact that some corporations pay tax and others don’t that has us outraged. It’s just not fair. Let’s implement something that totally fair and in fact is a system where you make the more you consume the more Fair Tax you’ll pay. In a Fair Tax environment you’ll be incentivised to save money.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
Economic Policy

Rod Serling photo

“In his grave, we praise him for his decency - but when he walked amongst us, we responded with no decency of our own. When he suggested that all men should have a place in the sun - we put a special sanctity on the right of ownership and the privilege of prejudice by maintaining that to deny homes to Negroes was a democratic right. Now we acknowledge his compassion - but we exercised no compassion of our own. When he asked us to understand that men take to the streets out of anguish and hopelessness and a vision of that dream dying, we bought guns and speculated about roving agitators and subversive conspiracies and demanded law and order. We felt anger at the effects, but did little to acknowledge the causes. We extol all the virtues of the man - but we chose not to call them virtues before his death. And now, belatedly, we talk of this man's worth - but the judgement comes late in the day as part of a eulogy when it should have been made a matter of record while he existed as a living force. If we are to lend credence to our mourning, there are acknowledgements that must be made now, albeit belatedly. We must act on the altogether proper assumption that Martin Luther King asked for nothing but that which was his due… He asked only for equality, and it is that which we denied him.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Letter to The Los Angeles Times in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.; April 8, 1968.
Other

John Steinbeck photo
H. G. Wells photo
Daniel Suarez photo

“This was as far from Main Street as he'd ever been. This wasn't the tattooed, pierced, neo-tribal rebellious bullshit of his generation. This was a quiet demonstration of networked power. This was it.”

Source: Daemon (2006), Chapter 19: Sarcophagus
Context: He was beginning to feel the rush now. This wasn't a game, and it was clearly designed by a well-funded and technologically capable person. He had always sought the edge—and this was it. This was as far from Main Street as he'd ever been. This wasn't the tattooed, pierced, neo-tribal rebellious bullshit of his generation. This was a quiet demonstration of networked power. This was it.

Mike Scott photo

“He made all Manhattan shake
and every street and sidewalk quake”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

"The Return of Jimi Hendrix"
Dream Harder (1993)
Context: He made all Manhattan shake
and every street and sidewalk quake
his stratocaster caused the mighty Empire State
to vibrate

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Richard Wright photo
Cyrano de Bergerac photo

“Do people really think that because the sun gives us light every day and year, it was made only to keep us from bumping into walls? No, no, this visible god gives light to man by accident, as a king's torch accidentally shines upon a working man or burglar passing in the street.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)
Context: Most men judge only by their senses and let themselves be persuaded by what they see. Just as the man whose boat sails from shore to shore thinks he is stationary and that the shore moves, men turn with the earth under the sky and have believed that the sky was turning above them. On top of that, insufferable vanity has convinced humans that nature has been made only for them, as though the sun, a huge body four hundred and thirty-four times as large as the earth, had been lit only to ripen our crab apples and cabbages.
I am not one to give in to the insolence of those brutes. I think the planets are worlds revolving around the sun and that the fixed stars are also suns that have planets revolving around them. We can't see those worlds from here because they are so small and because the light they reflect cannot reach us. How can one honestly think that such spacious globes are only large, deserted fields? And that our world was made to lord it over all of them just because a dozen or so vain wretches like us happen to be crawling around on it? Do people really think that because the sun gives us light every day and year, it was made only to keep us from bumping into walls? No, no, this visible god gives light to man by accident, as a king's torch accidentally shines upon a working man or burglar passing in the street.

Jack Valenti photo

“By summer of 1966, the national scene was marked by insurrection on the campus, riots in the streets, rise in women's liberation, protest of the young, doubts about the institution of marriage, abandonment of old guiding slogans, and the crumbling of social traditions.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

The Voluntary Movie Rating System (2004)
Context: By summer of 1966, the national scene was marked by insurrection on the campus, riots in the streets, rise in women's liberation, protest of the young, doubts about the institution of marriage, abandonment of old guiding slogans, and the crumbling of social traditions. It would have been foolish to believe that movies, that most creative of art forms, could have remained unaffected by the change and torment in our society.
The result of all this was the emergence of a "new kind" of American movie — frank and open, and made by filmmakers subject to very few self-imposed restraints.

Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“The man in the street is always making this demand for concrete explanation of the things referred to in science; but of necessity he must be disappointed.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Introduction http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Extras/Eddington_Gifford.html
The Nature of the Physical World (1928)
Context: Science aims at constructing a world which shall be symbolic of the world of commonplace experience. It is not at all necessary that every individual symbol that is used should represent something in common experience or even something explicable in terms of common experience. The man in the street is always making this demand for concrete explanation of the things referred to in science; but of necessity he must be disappointed. It is like our experience in learning to read. That which is written in a book is symbolic of a story in real life. The whole intention of the book is that ultimately a reader will identify some symbol, say BREAD, with one of the conceptions of familiar life. But it is mischievous to attempt such identifications prematurely, before the letters are strung into words and the words into sentences. The symbol A is not the counterpart of anything in familiar life.

Bill Maher photo

“And because he didn't do it by football season, we are ready to throw him out on the street and bring back the guys who messed it up just two years ago. That's a little too impatient.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: The country can't get well if the people are sick. And the people are sick. Now, I know Obama's not been the best president and the Democrats are not the best politicians, but you know what? We elected him just two years ago to fix this massive bunch of problems we have. And because he didn't do it by football season, we are ready to throw him out on the street and bring back the guys who messed it up just two years ago. That's a little too impatient. Yes, when he got the patient, the patient was bleeding to death — he got the patient to stop bleeding. But, OK, the patient is not up and back at the office quite yet. It's no reason to throw the doctor out and get back the doctor who was using leaches.

Psy photo

“I'm still walking down the street like, 'Why I'm here? Why I'm here?”

Psy (1977) South Korean singer

Ibid.
Context: I'm still walking down the street like, 'Why I'm here? Why I'm here?' You know, I've done this 12 years in Korea, and I'm rookie here now. I never expect I would become a K-pop star.

Phillips Brooks photo

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.”

Phillips Brooks (1835–1893) American clergyman and author

O little Town of Bethlehem (1868), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Context: p>O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.</p

George William Curtis photo

“Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, walked through the streets of Richmond and respectfully lifted his hat to the men who blacked Louis Wigfall's boots and curried his horse. What did it mean? It meant that the truest American president we have ever had, the companion of Washington in our love and honor, recognized that the poorest man, however outraged, however ignorant, however despised, however black, was, as a man, his equal. The child of the American people was their most prophetic man, because, whether as small shop-keeper, as flat-boatman, as volunteer captain, as honest lawyer, as defender of the Declaration, as President of the United States, he knew by the profoundest instinct and the widest experience and reflection, that in the most vital faith of this country it is just as honorable for an honest man to curry a horse and black a boot as it is to raise cotton or corn, to sell molasses or cloth, to practice medicine or law, to gamble in stocks or speculate in petroleum. He knew the European doctrine that the king makes the gentleman; but he believed with his whole soul the doctrine, the American doctrine, that worth makes the man”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)
Context: In January 1865, Louis Wigfall, one of the rebel chiefs, said, in Richmond, 'Sir, I wish to live in no country where the man who blacks my boots or curries my horse is my equal'. Three months afterwards, when the rebel was skulking away to Mexico, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, walked through the streets of Richmond and respectfully lifted his hat to the men who blacked Louis Wigfall's boots and curried his horse. What did it mean? It meant that the truest American president we have ever had, the companion of Washington in our love and honor, recognized that the poorest man, however outraged, however ignorant, however despised, however black, was, as a man, his equal. The child of the American people was their most prophetic man, because, whether as small shop-keeper, as flat-boatman, as volunteer captain, as honest lawyer, as defender of the Declaration, as President of the United States, he knew by the profoundest instinct and the widest experience and reflection, that in the most vital faith of this country it is just as honorable for an honest man to curry a horse and black a boot as it is to raise cotton or corn, to sell molasses or cloth, to practice medicine or law, to gamble in stocks or speculate in petroleum. He knew the European doctrine that the king makes the gentleman; but he believed with his whole soul the doctrine, the American doctrine, that worth makes the man. He stood with his hand on the helm, and saw the rebel colors of caste flying in the storm of war. He heard the haughty shout of rebellion to the American principle rising above the gale, 'Capital ought to own labor and the laborer, and a few men should monopolize political power'. He heard the cracked and quavering voice of medieval Europe in which that rebel craft was equipped and launched, speaking by the tongue of Alexander Stephens, 'We build on the comer-stone of slavery'. Then calmly waiting until the wildest fury of the gale, the living America, which is our country, mistress of our souls, by the lips of Abraham Lincoln thundered jubilantly back to the dead Europe of the past, 'And we build upon fair play for every man, equality before the laws, and God for us all'.

Richard Wright photo
Herman Melville photo

“As soon as you say Me, a God, a Nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him in the street.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, including bits of a review of his work that he had written (c. 16 April 1851); published in Nathaniel Hawthorne and His WIfe Vol, I (1884) by Julian Hawthorne, Ch. VIII : Lenox, p. 388
Context: There is a certain tragic phase of humanity which, in our opinion, was never more powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne. We mean the tragedies of human thought in its own unbiassed, native, and profounder workings. We think that into no recorded mind has the intense feeling of the usable truth ever entered more deeply than into this man's. By usable truth, we mean the apprehension of the absolute condition of present things as they strike the eye of the man who fears them not, though they do their worst to him, — the man who, like Russia or the British Empire, declares himself a sovereign nature (in himself) amid the powers of heaven, hell, and earth. He may perish; but so long as he exists he insists upon treating with all Powers upon an equal basis. If any of those other Powers choose to withhold certain secrets, let them; that does not impair my sovereignty in myself; that does not make me tributary. And perhaps, after all, there is no secret. We incline to think that the Problem of the Universe is like the Freemason's mighty secret, so terrible to all children. It turns out, at last, to consist in a triangle, a mallet, and an apron, — nothing more! We incline to think that God cannot explain His own secrets, and that He would like a little information upon certain points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us. But it is this Being of the matter; there lies the knot with which we choke ourselves. As soon as you say Me, a God, a Nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him in the street.
There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,—why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag, — that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House. What's the reason, Mr. Hawthorne, that in the last stages of metaphysics a fellow always falls to swearing so? I could rip an hour.

Nathaniel Hawthorne photo

“Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst.”

Source: The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Ch. I : The Old Pyncheon Family
Context: Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm.

Pearl S.  Buck photo

“The street is noisy and the men and women are not perfect in the technique of their expression as the statues are.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

The Chinese Novel (1938)
Context: The street is noisy and the men and women are not perfect in the technique of their expression as the statues are. They are ugly and imperfect, incomplete even as human beings, and where they come from and where they go cannot be known. But they are people and therefore infinitely to be preferred to those who stand upon the pedestals of art.

Vitruvius photo

“Let the directions of your streets and alleys be laid down on the lines of division between the quarters of two winds. On this principle of arrangement the disagreeable force of the winds will be shut out from dwellings and lines of houses.”

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter VI, Sec. 7-8
Context: Let the directions of your streets and alleys be laid down on the lines of division between the quarters of two winds. On this principle of arrangement the disagreeable force of the winds will be shut out from dwellings and lines of houses. For if the streets run full in the face of the winds, their constant blasts rushing in from the open country, and then confined by narrow alleys, will sweep through them with great violence. The lines of houses must therefore be directed away from the quarters from which the winds blow, so that as they come in they may strike against the angles of the blocks and their force thus be broken and dispersed.

Fred Phelps photo

“For ten long weary years prior to 9/11, WBC warned you daily on the mean streets of this nation that your sodomite sins will be avenged by an angry God except you repent.”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

2000s, 9/11: God's Wrath Revealed (2006)
Context: For ten long weary years prior to 9/11, WBC warned you daily on the mean streets of this nation that your sodomite sins will be avenged by an angry God except you repent. You persecuted us for our trouble, thereby aggravating your great transgression. On 9/11/01, God Almighty dealt backsliding America a staggering blow.

Jesse Ventura photo

“We shouldn't be wasting so much time and so many resources on prosecuting consensual crimes such as prostitution and drug possession. I hold drug possession and drug dealing as two totally different concepts. The drug dealers who resort to deadly street violence should be dealt with severely as the criminals they are.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)
Context: We shouldn't be wasting so much time and so many resources on prosecuting consensual crimes such as prostitution and drug possession. I hold drug possession and drug dealing as two totally different concepts. The drug dealers who resort to deadly street violence should be dealt with severely as the criminals they are.
But we have to become willing to admit as a nation that our war against drugs has failed. And we have to start looking for other solutions. I want the drug business stopped. But I know it never will stop as long as people want the drugs. It's supply and demand. You can even get drugs in prison.

Miranda July photo

“Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

The Shared Patio (2005)
Context: Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

Margaret Atwood photo

“Your righteous eyes, your laconic
trigger-fingers
people the streets with villains:
as you move, the air in front of you
blossoms with targets and you leave behind you a heroic
trail of desolation”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

"Backdrop addresses cowboy" (1974)
Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)
Context: Your righteous eyes, your laconic
trigger-fingers
people the streets with villains:
as you move, the air in front of you
blossoms with targets and you leave behind you a heroic
trail of desolation:
beer bottles
slaughtered by the side
of the road, bird-
skulls bleaching in the sunset.

Simone de Beauvoir photo

“He walks in the street, a picture of modesty in his felt hat and his gabardine suit, and all the while he's thinking, "I'm immortal."”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

The world is his, time is his, and I'm nothing but an insect.
Regina to herself, p. 28
All Men are Mortal (1946)

Frank Sinatra photo

“But it is Billie Holiday, whom I first heard in 52nd Street clubs in the early 1930s, who was and still remains the single greatest musical influence on me.”

Frank Sinatra (1915–1998) American singer and film actor

In "The Way I Look at Race" https://sinatrafamily.com/forum/showthread.php/46953-Frank-Sinatra-on-Racism by Sinatra (as told to Allan Morrison), in Ebony (July 1958)
Context: In terms of my singing I have sometimes been asked how it all began, and it’s usually been a little hard for me to set the story down in any continuous narrative. From the days of my childhood I’ve been listening to sounds and singers, both colored and white, and absorbing a little bit here and a little bit there. Countless musicians of talent have helped. But it is Billie Holiday, whom I first heard in 52nd Street clubs in the early 1930s, who was and still remains the single greatest musical influence on me. It has been a warm and wonderful influence and I am very proud to acknowledge it. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last 20 years. With a few exceptions, every major pop singer in the U. S., during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius.

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“I train to be worthy enough to be worthy enough to 'carry water' for my barbarian fathers, and to be worthy of the company of the men most like them today. I train because I imagine the disgust and contempt out ancestors would have for us all if they lined up modern men on the street. I train to be less of an embarrassment to their memory. I train because most modern men dishonor all of the men who came before them. I train "as if" they were watching and judging us”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Train for honor
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)
Context: 'I train for honor'... I train because somewhere in my DNA there's a memory of a more ferocious world, a world where men could become what they are and reach the most terrifyingly magnificent state of their nature. I don't train to impress the majority of modern slobs. I train to be worthy enough to be worthy enough to 'carry water' for my barbarian fathers, and to be worthy of the company of the men most like them today. I train because I imagine the disgust and contempt out ancestors would have for us all if they lined up modern men on the street. I train to be less of an embarrassment to their memory. I train because most modern men dishonor all of the men who came before them. I train "as if" they were watching and judging us... I train because it is better to imagine oneself as a soldier in a spiritual army training for a war that may never come than it is to shrug, slouch and shuffle forward into a dysgenic and dystopian future.

Adam Smith photo

“By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter II, p. 17.
Context: By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Subhas Chandra Bose photo

“You will readily understand my mental condition as I stand on the threshold of what the man-in-the-street would call a promising career.”

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) Indian nationalist leader and politician

In a letter to his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose on 22 September 1920, as quoted in Life and times of Subhas Chandra Bose, as told in his own words (1978) by himself, p. 83
Context: You will readily understand my mental condition as I stand on the threshold of what the man-in-the-street would call a promising career. There is much to be said favour of such a service. It solves once for all what is paramount problem for each of us—the problem of bread and butter. One has not to go face life with risk or uncertainty as to success or failure. But for a man of my temperament who has been feeding on ideas which might be called eccentric—the line of least resistance is not the best to follow. Life loses half its interest if there is no struggle—if there are no risks to be taken. The uncertainties of life are not appalling to one who has not, at heart, worldly ambitions. Moreover, it is not possible to serve one's country in the best and fullest manner if one is chained to the Civil Service. In short, national and spiritual aspirations are not compatible with obedience to Civil Service Examinations.

Khalil Gibran photo

“There are the men who say, "He preached tenderness and kindliness and filial love, yet He would not heed His mother and His brothers when they sought Him in the streets of Jerusalem."
They do not know that His mother and brothers in their loving fear would have had Him return to the bench of the carpenter, whereas He was opening our eyes to the dawn of a new day.”

Nicodemus The Poet, The Youngest Of The Elders In The Sanhedrim: On Fools And Jugglers
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
Context: There are the men who say, "He preached tenderness and kindliness and filial love, yet He would not heed His mother and His brothers when they sought Him in the streets of Jerusalem."
They do not know that His mother and brothers in their loving fear would have had Him return to the bench of the carpenter, whereas He was opening our eyes to the dawn of a new day.
His mother and His brothers would have had Him live in the shadow of death, but He Himself was challenging death upon yonder hill that He might live in our sleepless memory.

“Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he'll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats.”

Nemesis
Context: Petronius once told me that pathological murderers tend to start their killing sprees while they are children. Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he'll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats.

Fred Phelps photo

“Alas, the United States no longer allows the Gospel to be freely and openly preached on the streets, because militant sodomites now control our government, and they violently object to the Bible message”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

Fred Phelps, in a letter to Saddam Hussein, November 30, 1997.
About the Westboro Baptist Church http://www.adl.org/special_reports/wbc/print.asp. Anti-Defamation League.
1990s, Letter to Saddam Hussein (1997)
Context: We understand that Iraq is the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets without fear of arrest and prosecution. Alas, the United States no longer allows the Gospel to be freely and openly preached on the streets, because militant sodomites now control our government, and they violently object to the Bible message... The same majoritarian sodomite tyranny that now guides the Clinton administration's repressive policies toward Gospel preaching on America's streets, is apparently responsible — at least in part — for the merciless slaughter by starvation of 400 innocent Iraqi babies each day in your country. If our government and laws will allow it, and at the invitation of your government, we would like to send a delegation from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, to preach the Gospel on the streets of Baghdad for one week in the near future.

Kenneth Grahame photo

“I've no doubt they've been telling you what a hero you were, and how you were bound to win, in the cause of right and justice, and so on; but let me tell you, I came down the street just now, and they were betting six to four on the dragon freely!”

Dream Days (1898), The Reluctant Dragon
Context: "Our villagers are the biggest story-tellers in all the country round. It's a known fact. You're a stranger in these parts, or else you'd have heard it already. All they want is a fight. They're the most awful beggars for getting up fights — it's meat and drink to them. … I've no doubt they've been telling you what a hero you were, and how you were bound to win, in the cause of right and justice, and so on; but let me tell you, I came down the street just now, and they were betting six to four on the dragon freely!"
"Six to four on the dragon!" murmured St. George sadly, resting his cheek on his hand. "This is an evil world, and sometimes I begin to think that all the wickedness in it is not entirely bottled up inside the dragons..."

Bono photo

“I want to run,I want to hide,I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside.I want to reach out and touch the plains,Where the streets have no names”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"Where the streets have no name"
Lyrics, The Joshua Tree (1987)
Context: I want to run, I want to hide, I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside. I want to reach out and touch the plains, Where the streets have no names

Albert Camus photo

“At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.”

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning, p. 155

Bill Maher photo

“That's America for you — a red herring culture, always scared of the wrong things. The fact is, there are a lot of creepy middle-aged men out there lusting for your kids. They work for MTV, the pharmaceutical industry, McDonald's, Marlboro and K Street.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

"Bill Maher on very scary child predators" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQi-KiO6K2k
Real Time with Bill Maher
Context: That's America for you — a red herring culture, always scared of the wrong things. The fact is, there are a lot of creepy middle-aged men out there lusting for your kids. They work for MTV, the pharmaceutical industry, McDonald's, Marlboro and K Street. And recently, there's been a rash of strangers making their way onto school campuses and targeting our children for death. They're called military recruiters. More young Americans were crippled in Iraq last month than in any month in the past three years. And the scandal is that Mark Foley wants to show them a good time before they go? When will our closeted gay congressmen learn? Our boys aren't for pleasure. They're for cannon fodder. They shouldn't be another notch on your bedpost. They should be a comma in Bush's war. If I hear a zipper, it had better be on a body bag. Why aren't Democrats and the media hammering away every day about who we're supposed to be fighting for over there and what the plan is. Yes, Mark Foley was wrong to ask teenagers how long their penises were — but at least someone on Capitol Hill was asking questions. We're the predators. Because we have an entire economy built on asking young people what they want, making the cheapest, sleaziest form of it they'll accept, and selling it to them until they choke on it and die. You know who’s grabbing your kids at too young an age? Merck, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, by convincing you they're depressed, hyperactive or suffering from attention-deficit disorder and so they must all get medicated. The drug dealers hooking your kids aren't in South America, they're in the halls of Congress handing out campaign donations to your congressmen. Mark Foley says he never slept with those kids, and I believe him, because American children are so hopped up on pills I doubt any of them could get it up. From 1995 to 2002, the number of children prescribed antipsychotic drugs increased by over 400 percent. Either our children are going insane — which we might look on as a problem — or, more likely, we have, for profit, created a nation of little junkies. So stop already with the righteous moral indignation about predators — this whole country is trying to get inside your kid's pants because that's where he keeps the money Daddy gave him to stay out of his hair. I don't care if Mark Foley had been asking boys to describe their penises because I have some sad news for you: Your kid is so larded out on Cheetos and Yoo-hoo, he can't even see his penis. We live in a country where the ultimate consumer is an obese 16-year-old hooked up at one end to a Big Gulp and at the other to a PlayStation. So many of our kids today are fat drug addicts, it's almost as if Rush Limbaugh had had puppies. In conclusion, we can pretend that the biggest threat to “our children” is some creep on the Internet, or we can admit it's Mom and Dad. Because, when your son can't find France on a map, or touch his toes with his hands, or understand that the ads on TV are lying — including the one in which the Marine turns into Lancelot — then the person fucking him is you.

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“This is barbarism, no matter whether it came from heaven or from hell, from a God or from a devil, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very Sodom of perdition. It is barbarism complete and utter.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: 10. “When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, 11. “And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife, 12. “Then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails.”— Deut. Xxi. This is barbarism, no matter whether it came from heaven or from hell, from a God or from a devil, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very Sodom of perdition. It is barbarism complete and utter.

Toni Morrison photo

“Beginning Beloved with numerals rather than spelled out numbers, it was my intention to give the house an identity separate from the street or even the city…”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

"Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature" in Michigan Quarterly Review 28, no. 1 (Winter 1989)
Context: Beginning Beloved with numerals rather than spelled out numbers, it was my intention to give the house an identity separate from the street or even the city... Numbers here constitute an address, a thrilling enough prospect for slaves who had owned nothing, least of all an address. And although the numbers, unlike words, can have no modifiers, I give these an adjective — spiteful… A few words have to be read before it is clear that 124 refers to a house … and a few more have to be read to discover why it is spiteful, or rather the source of the spite. By then it is clear, if not at once, that something is beyond control, but is not beyond understanding since it is not beyond accommodation by both the "women" and the "children." The fully realized presence of the haunting is both a major incumbent of the narrative and sleight of hand. One of its purposes is to keep the reader preoccupied with the nature of the incredible spirit world while being supplied a controlled diet of the incredible political world. … Here I wanted the compelling confusion of being there as they (the characters) are; suddenly, without comfort or succor from the "author," with only imagination, intelligence, and necessity available for the journey. …. No compound of houses, no neighborhood, no sculpture, no paint, no time, especially no time because memory, pre-historic memory, has no time. There is just a little music, each other and the urgency of what is at stake. Which is all they had. For that work, the work of language is to get out of the way.

“Since we have quaffed
the beaker of Thy love, we yield our hearts
and make our Lives Thy ransom: since we come
again into Thy street, we turn our backs
on all that is, save Thee.”

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher

"We Yield Our Hearts" ~ Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty (2002) Edited by Alan Jacobs
Context: Since we have quaffed
the beaker of Thy love, we yield our hearts
and make our Lives Thy ransom: since we come
again into Thy street, we turn our backs
on all that is, save Thee. Our souls are bound
to serve Thee, though in grief, and we have died
to selfhood! We are captives of Thy love
and have not strength to flee. Thy beauty's fever
has lit a flame: shall not our hearts be burned?

Marian Wright Edelman photo

“We looked out from the little pulpit in that little church and talked about how something so big started from a place so small. Just a lot of committed people of faith in church on one side of the street, and all the power of Alabama in the state capitol right across the street. As a young lawyer, I used to listen to Dr. King in chapel at Spelman College. One of the thngs I liked about him was that he didn't pretend to be a great powerful know-it-all.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

As quoted in Mother Jones Magazine May-Jun 1991. Vol. 16, No. 3. p. 77 http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=IecDAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22Take+the+first+step+in+faith.+You+don%27t+have+to+see+the+whole+staircase%2C+just+take+the+first+step.%22&q=%22Take+the+first+step+in+faith.+You+don%27t+have+to+see+the+whole+staircase%2C+just+take+the+first+step.%22#v=snippet&q=%22Take%20the%20first%20step%20in%20faith.%20You%20don't%20have%20to%20see%20the%20whole%20staircase%2C%20just%20take%20the%20first%20step.%22&f=false. ISSN 0362-8841.
Context: In Montgomery, Alabama, Jonah and I went to the Civil Rights Memorial, and then we walked around to Dexter Baptist Church and went up into Martin's pulpit. I'd forgotten what a little place it was. We looked out from the little pulpit in that little church and talked about how something so big started from a place so small. Just a lot of committed people of faith in church on one side of the street, and all the power of Alabama in the state capitol right across the street. As a young lawyer, I used to listen to Dr. King in chapel at Spelman College. One of the thngs I liked about him was that he didn't pretend to be a great powerful know-it-all. I remember him discussing openly his gloom, depression, his fears, admitting that he didn't know what the next step was. He would then say: "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

Helen Thomas photo
Roger Ebert photo

“This is the kind of film that makes you feel intensely alive while you're watching it, and sends you out into the streets afterwards eager to talk deeply and urgently, to the person you are with. Whoever that happens to be.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/red-1994 of Three Colors: Red (2 December 1994)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: We are connected with some people and never meet others, but it could easily have happened otherwise. Looking back over a lifetime, we describe what happened as if it had a plan. To fully understand how accidental and random life is — how vast the odds are against any single event taking place — would be humbling. … This is the kind of film that makes you feel intensely alive while you're watching it, and sends you out into the streets afterwards eager to talk deeply and urgently, to the person you are with. Whoever that happens to be.

Manuel Fraga Iribarne photo

“Streets are mine!”

Manuel Fraga Iribarne (1922–2012) Spanish politician

Interior Ministry during social problems in Gasteiz Fets de Vitòria de 1976. Frases que reflejan el recorrido de Manuel Fraga, 16th January 2012, Gara, 16th January 2012, castellà http://www.gara.net/azkenak/01/315809/es/Frases-que-reflejan-recorrido-Manuel-Fraga,
Gasteiz Facts

Richard Wright photo

“Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth.”

Source: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Chapter 6
Context: Who knew? Perhaps she'd be hounded someday as far as joining Tristero itself, if it existed, in its twilight, its aloofness, its waiting. The waiting above all; if not for another set of possibilities to replace those that had conditioned the land to accept any San Narciso among its most tender flesh without a reflex or cry, then at least, at very least, waiting for a symmetry of choices to break down, to go skew. She had heard all about excluded middles; they were bad shit, to be avoided; and how had it ever happened here, with the chances once so good for diversity? For it was now like walking among matrices of a great digital computer, the zeroes and ones twinned above, hanging like balanced mobiles right and left, ahead, thick, maybe endless. Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth. In the songs Miles, Dean, Serge and Leonard sang was either some fraction of the truth's numinous beauty (as Mucho now believed) or only a power spectrum. <!-- p. 150

Kenneth Grahame photo

“St. George paced slowly up the street. The Boy's heart stood still and he breathed with sobs, the beauty and the grace of the hero were so far beyond anything he had yet seen.”

Dream Days (1898), The Reluctant Dragon
Context: St. George paced slowly up the street. The Boy's heart stood still and he breathed with sobs, the beauty and the grace of the hero were so far beyond anything he had yet seen. His fluted armour was inlaid with gold, his plumed helmet hung at his saddle-bow, and his thick fair hair framed a face gracious and gentle beyond expression till you caught the sternness in his eyes. He drew rein in front of the little inn, and the villagers crowded round with greetings and thanks and voluble statements of their wrongs and grievances and oppressions. The Boy heard the grave gentle voice of the Saint, assuring them that all would be well now, and that he would stand by them and see them righted and free them from their foe; then he dismounted and passed through the doorway and the crowd poured in after him. But the Boy made off up the hill as fast as he could lay his legs to the ground.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Reza Pahlavi photo
Reza Pahlavi photo
Reza Pahlavi photo
Reza Pahlavi photo

“I hope it will take less than five years to have a fundamental change if our movement is successful and I believe it has every potential to be successful. But as I said and I hate to be repetitive, the time is really now. Because as much as the Iranian people can be empowered, and therefore heartened and therefore optimistic toward their future -- and I'm specifically speaking about today's generation -- these are tomorrow's leaders in Iran. These are the kids, the daughters, the sons of a previous generation who are left there to fight and fend for themselves with no possible help so far available to them and yes, they are resilient in their struggle. This could turn quickly to cynicism and deception if they think the world has abandoned them. Remember what the slogans were on the streets of Tehran one year ago. There were signs in different languages -- in English, in French -- and this was not for some Iranians practicing their language skills among themselves. They were clearly aimed at the West. And among those slogans were “Obama, Obama, are you with us or with them?” That warrants a response. We have yet to hear that response. That means Iranians could turn more radical as a result of their deception; as a result of their cynicism; and that doesn't bode well, not only for Iran but for the world. And it will be a testimony to the fact that no real help is ever given to nations that want to struggle for liberty because perhaps there are some other interests that no one really wants to talk about. If that is not true, then we need to see a genuine attempt to help the society. We are not asking the world to determine our fate—that is the business of the Iranian people alone. All we are asking is that today it is time to engage with the people of Iran; with the freedom movements; with those who are struggling for their rights for self-determination and liberty. We are fighting against those who have denied us these rights and it's about time that we are heard and have our “day in court,” as the saying goes. This is an opportunity that we are facing right now as I speak to you. It's right in front of us. It's right under our noses literally, and I have yet to see a concrete policy -- whether it's the U. S. government or some of its other allies in the region or in Europe -- that will indicate that beyond attempting a few diplomatic negotiating tactics and besides posturing for the possibility of conflict, there is any real effort made to go beyond the regime and its representatives and try to connect and try to see how they can be of help to the Iranian people without having to attack our country and bomb our homeland.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

Reza Pahlavi photo

“I don't think [Ahmadinejad is] a “mad man.” He's an individual who is very committed to his view and ideology. There's almost a sort of apocalyptic mentality that reigns here and he's not alone in it. Unfortunately, there are a few people who may sign up for that kind of a point of view. The problem is that we have this kind of regime represented by such individuals who have taken, first-and-foremost, the Iranian people hostage for the past 30 years and who are completely uninterested about the state of our own citizens. They are only interested to use Iran as a base from which to launch what was from the very beginning the exploitation of a theocracy and Islamic ideology across the planet as a challenge to the rest of the world… I think you should take him very seriously. The last time the world was not quite sure about the final threat was at the time of Hitler in Nazi Germany and we know the rest of the story. If we look at these kind of regimes that have been completely merciless vis-à-vis their own population; who have been brutally shooting our youth on the streets simply because they ask for their freedom; and are willing to stop at nothing to intimidate the whole world to submit to their demand, I think we should take it very seriously.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

Gustav Hasford photo
Madonna photo
Chris Hedges photo
Erik Spiekermann photo
George Galloway photo
Jamaica Kincaid photo
Paulo Lins photo

“From the outside, the favela and everyone in it look the same, but there are various strata, and my family was one of those at the top of the pyramid…Below us were the garbage collectors, delivery boys and street vendors who made even less money than we did, and then those who were so poor that they never even left the favela and lived from odd jobs here and there.”

Paulo Lins (1958) Brazilian author

On where his family stood in the strata of the favelas in “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Out of the Slums of Rio, an Author Finds Fame” https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/26/world/the-saturday-profile-out-of-the-slums-of-rio-an-author-finds-fame.html in The New York Times (2003 Apr 26)

Philip Kan Gotanda photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“If I am assassinated, there is only one person responsible: the president of the United States. If, by the hand of the devil, these perverse plans succeed...forget about Venezuelan oil, Mr Bush. I will not hide, I will walk in the streets with all of you...but I know I am condemned to death.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Source: Hugo Chávez message to George Bush during his television/radio show ¡Aló Presidente! on February 20, 2005. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/feb/22/venezuela.julianborger

Willard van Orman Quine photo
Newton Lee photo
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo

“There can thus be no manner of doubt that the Muslim Society in India is afflicted by the same social evils as afflict the Hindu Society. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more. That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women. As a consequence of the purdah system, a segregation of the Muslim women is brought about. The ladies are not expected to visit the outer rooms, verandahs, or gardens; their quarters are in the back-yard. All of them, young and old, are confined in the same room. …She cannot go even to the mosque to pray, and must wear burka (veil) whenever she has to go out. These burka women walking in the streets is one of the most hideous sights one can witness in India. Such seclusion cannot but have its deteriorating effects upon the physical constitution of Muslim women. They are usually victims to anaemia, tuberculosis, and pyorrhoea. Their bodies are deformed, with their backs bent, bones protruded, hands and feet crooked. Ribs, joints and nearly all their bones ache. Heart palpitation is very often present in them. The result of this pelvic deformity is untimely death at the time of delivery. Purdah deprives Muslim women of mental and moral nourishment. Being deprived of healthy social life, the process of moral degeneration must and does set in. Being completely secluded from the outer world, they engage their minds in petty family quarrels, with the result that they become narrow and restricted in their outlook. They lag behind their sisters from other communities, cannot take part in any outdoor activity and are weighed down by a slavish mentality and an inferiority complex. They have no desire for knowledge, because they are taught not to be interested in anything outside the four walls of the house. Purdah women in particular become helpless, timid, and unfit for any fight in life. … Not that purdah and the evils consequent thereon are not to be found among certain sections of the Hindus in certain parts of the country. But the point of distinction is that among the Muslims, purdah has a religious sanctity which it has not with the Hindus. Purdah has deeper roots among the Muslims than it has among the Hindus, and can only be removed by facing the inevitable conflict between religious injunctions and social needs. The problem of purdah is a real problem with the Muslims—apart from its origin—which it is not with the Hindus. Of any attempt by the Muslims to do away with it, there is no evidence.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

Donald J. Trump photo
Jeanine Áñez photo

“On Monday, as looting and violence spread across several cities, Ms. Añez at first appeared rattled, sobbing as she called for calm. But by the evening, she was projecting strength, and demanding that the army accept the national police’s call to jointly patrol the streets of La Paz to restore order.”

Jeanine Áñez (1967) President of Bolivia

Clifford Krauss https://www.nytimes.com/by/clifford-krauss, in ‘I Assume the Presidency’: Bolivia Lawmaker Declares Herself Leader https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/world/americas/evo-morales-mexico-bolivia.html, The New York Times, (12 November 2019)
About

“The Vietnam War was raging at that particular time, so I wanted to do a positive play about a country character who was yearning for his home, as I was doing at Christmas…I drew on my experience growing up in the country - plowing mules, cropping tobacco, bootleggers, going to church. The rest was my imagination. I wanted to do something that could be performed on the streets - I love street theater. And I wanted my character to have a conscience.”

Samm-Art Williams (1946) American playwright and screenwriter

On what inspired him to write the play Home in “Lyrical, Uplifting HOME by Samm-Art Williams Comes to ICT” https://www.broadwayworld.com/los-angeles/article/Lyrical-Uplifting-HOME-by-Samm-Art-Williams-Comes-to-ICT-20170915 in Broadway World: Los Angeles (2017 Sep 15)

Charles Stross photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Bernie Sanders photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Abbie Hoffman photo
Abbie Hoffman photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Joe Biden photo

“What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Twitter https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1090422326783606784, , quoted in * 2019-02-21 Jussie Smollett Supporters: Rooting for a 'Modern Lynching' Larry Elder RealClearPolitics

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/02/21/jussie_smollett_supporters_rooting_for_a_modern_lynching_139531.html 2020-03-12

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Joe Biden / Quotes / 2010s / 2019
2019

“I want to take poetry to walk other genres. I want poetry to walk through other genres. When I started writing, this was my main concern: get out of poetry. Let poetry walk the streets of New York. Make her cosmopolitan. See the world. Not in these estrofas, not in these stanzas, which are camisas de fuerza. I have to get out of poetry. I have to do what James Joyce did to the novel: he took the novel out of the novel…”

Giannina Braschi (1953) Puerto Rican writer

On how she hopes to change poetry by bringing it towards visual art in “A Graphic Revolution Talking Poetry & Politics with Giannina Braschi” https://www.academia.edu/36916781/A_Graphic_Revolution_Talking_Poetry_and_Politics_with_Giannina_Braschi in Chiricú Journal (2018)

Tony Benn photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Frantz Fanon photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“I defend torture. A drug dealer who acts on the streets against our children must to be immediately put on a pau-de-arara.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

There would be no human rights in this case. There would be pau-de-arara, beating. The same thing for kidnappers. The guy must be broken to open his mouth.
"Eu defendo a tortura" https://web.archive.org/web/20000526120540/http://www.terra.com.br/istoegente/28/reportagens/entrev_jair.htm. IstoÉ Gente (14 February 2000).

John Conyers photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“If I am assassinated, there is only one person responsible: the president of the United States. If, by the hand of the devil, these perverse plans succeed…forget about Venezuelan oil, Mr Bush. I will not hide, I will walk in the streets with all of you…but I know I am condemned to death.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Hugo Chávez message to George Bush during his television/radio show ¡Aló Presidente! on Febraury 20, 2005. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/feb/22/venezuela.julianborger
2005

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto photo
Smedley D. Butler photo
Joseph Wu photo

“The way forward (in Hong Kong) is genuine democratic elections, not violence in the streets and MTR (Mass Transit Railway) stations. The freedom and human rights of the people (of Hong Kong) must be protected.”

Joseph Wu (1954) Taiwanese politician

Joseph Wu (2019) cited in " Foreign minister urges genuine democratic elections in Hong Kong http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201907220012.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 22 July 2019.

Edmund Burke photo
Bono photo

“We had a street gang that was very vivid — very surreal. We were fans of Monty Python.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

We'd put on performances in the city center of Dublin. I'd get on the bus with a stepladder and an electric drill. Mad shit. Humor became our weapon. Just stand there, quiet — with the drill in my hand. Stupid teenage shit.
Rolling Stone interview (2005)

Jussie Smollett photo

“What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

Jussie Smollett (1982) American actor, singer, director and photographer

29 January 2019 https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1090422326783606784 by Joe Biden
About, January 2019

Margaret Sanger photo