Quotes about talk
page 18

Kathy Griffin photo
Maithripala Sirisena photo

“Hoda Abdel Hamid (Interviewer for Al Jazeera): President Mathripala Sirisena, thank you for talking to Al Jazeera. Now you've been a year in power, you have received a lot of praise whether it is at home [Sri Lanka] or on the international level. Some go as far as saying 'Sri Lanka is finally on track to fix its democracy.”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Looking at your second year, what other priorities?
Talk to Al Jazeera - Sri Lankan president: No allegations of war crimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udGmG-eqJ6o

“I think art has a right—not an obligation—to be difficult if it wishes. And, since people generally go on from this to talk about elitism versus democracy, I would add that genuinely difficult art is truly democratic.”

Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) English poet and professor

Interview, The Paris Review No. 80, Spring 2000 http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/730/the-art-of-poetry-no-80-geoffrey-hill

Yasunari Kawabata photo
Anatoliy Tymoshchuk photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Wir sprechen überhaupt viel zu viel. Wir sollten weniger sprechen und mehr zeichnen. Ich meinerseits möchte mir das Reden ganz abgewöhnen und wie die bildende Natur in lauter Zeichnungen fortsprechen.
Attributed to Goethe by Johannes Falk in Goethe aus näherm persönlichen Umgange dargestellt (1832). http://www.literatur-live.de/salon/_falk_goethe.pdf
Attributed

Jordan Peterson photo

“We're adapted to the meta-reality, which means that we're adapted to that which remains constant across the longest spans of time. And that's not the same things that you see around you day to day. They're just like clouds, they're just evaporating, you know? There are things underneath that that are more fundamental realities, like the dominance hierarchy, like the tribe, like the danger outside of society, like the threat that other people pose to you, and the threat that you pose to yourself. Those are eternal realities, and we're adapted to those. That's our world, and that's why we express all those things in stories. Then you might say, well how do you adapt yourself to that world? The answer, and I believe this is a neurological answer, is that your brain can tell you when you're optimally situated between chaos and order. The way it tells you that is by producing the sense of engagement and meaning. Let's say that there's a place in the environment that you should be. So what should that place be? Well, you don't want to be terrified out of your skull. What good is that? And you don't want to be so comfortable that you might as well sleep. You want to be somewhere where you are kind of on firm ground with both of your feet, but you can take a step with one leg and test out new territory. Some of you who are exploratory and emotionally stable are going to go pretty far out there into the unexplored territory without destabilizing yourself. And some people are just going to put a toe in the chaos, and that's neuroticism basically - your sensitivity to threat that is calibrated differently in different people. And some people are more exploratory than others. That's extroversion and openness, and intelligence working together. Some people are going to tolerate more chaos in their mixture of chaos and order. Those are often liberals, by the way. They're more interested in novel chaos, and conservatives are more interested in the stabilization of the structures that already exist. Who's right? It depends on the situation. That's why liberals and conservatives have to talk to each other, because one of them isn't right and the other is wrong. Sometimes the liberals are right and sometimes the liberals are right, because the environment is unpredictable and constantly changing, so that's why you have to communicate. That's what a democracy does. It allows people of different temperamental types to communicate and to calibrate their societies. So let's say you're optimally balanced between chaos and order. What does that mean? Well, you're stable enough, but you're interested. A little novelty heightens your anxiety. It wakes you up a bit. That's the adventure part of it. But it also focuses the part of your brain that does exploratory activity, and that's associated with pleasure. That's the dopamine circuit. So if you're optimally balanced - and you know you're there if you're listening to an interesting conversation or you're engaged in one…you're saying some things that you know, and the other person is saying some things that they know - and what both of you know is changing. Music can model that. It provides you with multi-level predictable forms that can transform just the right amount. So music is a very representational art form. It says, 'this is what the universe is like.' There's a dancing element to it, repetitive, and then little variations that surprise you and produce excitement in you. In doesn't matter how nihilistic you are, music still infuses you with a sense of meaning because it models meaning. That's what it does. That's why we love it. And you can dance to it, which represents you putting yourself in harmony with these multiple layers of reality, and positioning yourself properly.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

"The selection pressure that women placed on men developed the entire species. There's two things that happened. The men competed for competence, since the male hierarchy is a mechanism that pushes the best men to the top. The effect of that is multiplied by the fact that women who are hypergamous peel from the top. And so the males who are the most competent are much more likely to leave offspring, which seems to have driven cortical expansion."
Concepts

Richard Stallman photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo
Tommy Douglas photo
Alexander McCall Smith photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Johann Georg Hamann photo

“Let us assume that we invited an unknown person to a game of cards. If this person answered us, “I don’t play,” we would either interpret this to mean that he did not understand the game, or that he had an aversion to it which arose from economic, ethical, or other reasons. Let us imagine, however, that an honorable man, who was known to possess every possible skill in the game, and who was well versed in its rules and its forbidden tricks, but who could like a game and participate in it only when it was an innocent pastime, were invited into a company of clever swindlers, who were known as good players and to whom he was equal on both scores, to join them in a game. If he said, “I do not play,” we would have to join him in looking the people with whom he was talking straight in the face, and would be able to supplement his words as follows: “I don’t play, that is, with people such as you, who break the rules of the game, and rob it of its pleasure. If you offer to play a game, our mutual agreement, then, is that we recognize the capriciousness of chance as our master; and you call the science of your nimble fingers chance, and I must accept it as such, it I will, or run the risk of insulting you or choose the shame of imitating you.” … The opinion of Socrates can be summarized in these blunt words, when he said to the Sophists, the leaned men of his time, “I know nothing.””

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Therefore these words were a thorn in their eyes and a scourge on their backs.
Socratic Memorabilia, J. Flaherty, trans. (Baltimore: 1967), pp. 165-167.

“Some talk in quarto volumes and act in pamphlets.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 77

Cole Porter photo

“Relax for a moment my Jerry
Come out of your dark monastery
While Venus is beaming above.
Darling, let's talk about love.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Let's Not Talk About Love"
Let's Face It (1941)

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce photo
Don Coscarelli photo

“The goal was just to finish the movie and get it out in a few theaters. To think that decades later people would still be thinking and talking about it, I could have never imagined.”

Don Coscarelli (1954) American film director, producer and screenwriter

Happy birthday, Tall Man! ‘Phantasm’ turns 30 https://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/phantasm/ (October 16, 2009)

Dan Quayle photo

“What we have here is clear-cut evidence that illegitimacy—something I've always said we should talk about in terms of not having it—leads to drug abuse.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Remarks (20 May 1992), quoted in Esquire (August 1992) and Ann Beatts (23 November 1997) "ABSURDUM; Murphy Brown's Got Dan All Fired Up Again," Los Angeles Times
Attributed

C. N. R. Rao photo
Newton Lee photo

“We do need education, just not the one-size-fits-all education. Albert Einstein did not talk until he was four years old.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

Robert Rauschenberg photo

“I am sick of talking about What and Why I am doing. I have always believed that the WORK is the word. Action is seen less clearly through reason. There are no shortcuts to directness.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

around 1965
Quote from Robert Rauschenberg, The early 1950s, Walter Hopps, Houston Fine Art Press, 1991
1960's

Swami Vivekananda photo
Courtney B. Vance photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Hilary Duff photo
Aung San Suu Kyi photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“There has been a lot of talk about the formation of a new centre party. Some have even been kind enough to suggest that I might lead it. I find this idea profoundly unattractive. I do so for at least four reasons. First, I do not believe that such a grouping would have any coherent philosophical base…A party based on such a rag-bag could stand for nothing positive. It would exploit grievances and fall apart when it sought to remedy them. I believe in exactly the reverse sort of politics…Second, I believe that the most likely effect of such an ill-considered grouping would be to destroy the prospect of an effective alternative government to the Conservatives…Some genuinely want a new, powerful anti-Conservative force. They would be wise to reflect that it is much easier to will this than to bring it about. The most likely result would be chaos on the left and several decades of Conservative hegemony almost as dismal and damaging as in the twenties and thirties. Third, I do not share the desire, at the root of much such thinking, to push what may roughly be called the leftward half of the Labour Party…out of the mainstream of British politics…Fourth, and more personally, I cannot be indifferent to the political traditions in which I was brought up and in which I have lived my political life. Politics are not to me a religion, but the Labour Party is and always had been an instinctive part of my life.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech to the Oxford University Labour Club (9 March 1973), quoted in The Times (10 March 1973), p. 4
1970s

Christopher Reeve photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Rush Limbaugh photo
Andy Warhol photo
Clay Shirky photo
Dean Acheson photo

“No change (Marshall replacing former SecDef. Louis Johnson, who, soon after he resigned, was diagnosed with a fatal "brain malady") could have been more welcome to me. It brought only one embarrassment. The General (Marshall) insisted, overruling every protest of mine, in meticulously observing the protocol involved in my being the senior Cabinet officer. Never would he go through a door before me, or walk anywhere but on my left; he would go around an automobile to enter it after me and sit on the left; in meetings he would insist on my speaking before him. To be treated so by a revered and beloved former chief was a harrowing experience. But the result in government was, I think, unique in the history of the Republic. For the first time and perhaps, though I am not sure, the last, the Secretaries of State and Defense, with their top advisors, met with the Chiefs of Staff in their map room and discussed common problems together. At one of these meetings General Bradley and I made a treaty, thereafter scrupulously observed. The phrases 'from a military point of view' and 'from a political point of view' were excluded from our talks. No such dichotomy existed. Each of us had our tactical and strategic problems, but they were interconnected, not separate.”

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), State Department Management, Leadership Perspectives

Nigel Cumberland photo

“True empathy is not about waiting to understand another person; it is about proactively seeking to do so. It takes effort to give another person your full time and attention; to ask others how they are feeling and if they coping well with things. And don’t overlook those closest to you. Never take anyone for granted. Avoid being too preoccupied to sit down and talk with your children, partners and colleagues.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Bob Nygaard photo

“When the veil drops, victims face financial wreckage… A lot of people call me, and they just want to talk, tell me what happened. But they don't want to go forward. They're too embarrassed. They don't want to see their name in the papers.”

Bob Nygaard private detective specializing in psychic fraud

How Modern Fortunetellers Pull Off Their Scams https://web.archive.org/web/20180222195134/http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/how-modern-fortunetellers-pull-off-their-scams-6352098, Broward Palm Beach New Times (6 June 2013)

Chris Colfer photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo
Georges Braque photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty, I should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under that. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were distinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a man's "intellectual nature," and of his "moral nature," as if these again were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all. But words ought not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but names; that man's spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a man, what is this but another side of the one vital Force whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiognomical of him. You may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings; his courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is one; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Sania Mirza photo
Jack Valenti photo
Chris Cornell photo
Warren Buffett photo
John F. Kennedy photo
William Stanley Jevons photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“Mr. Trump may talk a big game on trade, but his approach is based on fear, not strength. Fear that we can’t compete with the rest of the world even when the rules are fair. Fear that our country has no choice but to hide behind walls.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)

Lewis Black photo
Jean-François Lyotard photo

“While we talk, the sun is getting older. It will explode in 4.5 billion years. … In comparison everything else seems insignificant. Wars, conflicts, political tension, shifts in opinion, philosophical debates, even passions—everything’s dead already if this infinite reserve from which you now draw energy to defer answers, if in short thought as a quest, dies out with the sun. … The inevitable explosion to come, the one that’s always forgotten in your intellectual ploys, can be seen in a certain way as coming before the fact to render these ploys … futile. … In 4.5 billions years there will arrive the demise of your phenomenology and your utopian politics, and there’ll be no one there to toll the death knell or hear it. It will be too late to understand that your passionate, endless questioning always depended on a “life of the mind.” … Thought borrows a horizon and orientation, the limitless limit and the end without end it assumes, from the corporeal, sensory, emotional and cognitive experience of a quite sophisticated but definitely earthly existence. With the disappearance of the earth, thought will have stopped—leaving that disappearance absolutely unthought of. … The death of the sun is a death of mind. … There’s no sublation or deferral if nothing survives. … The sun, our earth, and your thought will have been no more than a spasmodic state of energy, an instant of established order, a smile on the surface of matter in a remote corner of the cosmos. … Human death is included in the life of the mind. Solar death implies an irreparably exclusive disjunction between death and thought: if there’s death, then there’s no thought.”

Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) French philosopher

Source: Thought Without a Body? (1994), pp. 286-289

Cesare Pavese photo

“I started explaining to her that nothing is vulgar in itself but that talking and thinking make it so.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The Beach (1941), Chapter 6, p. 36

Henry James photo

“People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Said by Mrs. Brookenham in The Awkward Age http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/akage10.txt (1899), book VI, ch. III.

Joe Biden photo

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.”

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

Interview with CBS Evening News. CBS Evening News http://cbs2.com/politics/joe.biden.interview.2.823202.html, September 22, 2008
2000s

Camille Paglia photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson photo
Nile Kinnick photo
Edward Snowden photo

“I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Edward Snowden: 'The US government will say I aided our enemies' – video interview http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jul/08/edward-snowden-video-interview, published by The Guardian on 8 July 2013.
Interview with Glenn Greenwald, 6 June 2013, Part 2

Carlo Carrà photo
Yolanda King photo
William Ellery Channing photo
Jane Austen photo
KT Tunstall photo

“Well my heart knows me better than i know myself
So I'm gonna let it do all the talking.”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Black Horse and the Cherry Tree".
Eye to the Telescope (2004)

Fausto Cercignani photo

“If you talk to the shadows,
at least you know them well
and the words, all of them,
unfold themselves with ease
on muddled walls and streets,
when dusk comes on.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Adagio (2004)
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004)

Emil M. Cioran photo
Daniel Drezner photo
John Cage photo
W. Edwards Deming photo

“Zen is a form of liberation - being liberated from Yin and Yang elements, and enabling you to remain calm and cool when you are troubled. Zen is not something definite and tangible, it is a refuge for mental solace. Zen is about concentration of mind. It is a profound culture, enabling people to gain spiritual tranqulity and be awakened. Even though not a word is spoken, it enables one to gain a thorough understanding of the truth of life. This is what we call the harmony between Yin and Yang. It is like a substance deep in your soul, generating a kind of wisdom and energy in your mind. It is also a kind of energy of self-confidence, helping you to achieve self-emancipation, self-regulation and self-perfection, leading you to the path of success. As such, Buddhism talks about ‘Faith, Commitment, and Action’. The theory, when applied in the human realm, is all about Zen. Concentration gives rise to wisdom. With concentration, the mind will be focused and it will not be drifting apart. Hence, the problem of schizophrenia will not arise. Zen culture is about the state of mind. It is a kind of positive energy! Positive energy is a kind of compassion, which enables people to understand each other when they encounter problems, to understand the country and society at large, and to understand their family and children, colleagues and friends. In this way, people will be able to live in peaceful co-existence and remain calm when they are faced with problems. When you see things in perspective using rationality and positive energy, you are able to change your viewpoint pertaining to a certain issue. This is the moment Zen arises in your mind! In fact, Zen is within you. This theory is very profound.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

10 October 2013
Special Interview by People' Daily, Europe Edition

Nigella Lawson photo
Samantha Bee photo
Joe Namath photo

“I said, 'Whoa, wait a minute. You guys have been talking for two weeks now [meaning the Colts' fans and the media] and I'm tired of hearing it.' I said, 'I've got news for you. We're gonna win the game. I guarantee it.”

Joe Namath (1943) American football player

Quoted in "He guaranteed it" http://www.profootballhof.com/news/he-guaranteed-it1/, ProFootballHOF.com (January 1, 2005).

Raymond Carver photo
Rob Enderle photo

“Apple tends to aggressively work to not discover problems with products that are shipped and certainly not talk about them.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Tesla and Apple: When Analytics Can Bite You http://itbusinessedge.com/blogs/unfiltered-opinion/tesla-and-apple-when-analytics-can-bite-you.html in IT Business Edge (28 October 2015)

Margaret Cho photo
Ivana Trump photo

“He’s no politician. He’s a businessman. He knows how to talk. He can give an hour speech without notes... He’s blunt.”

Ivana Trump (1949) Czech model and entrepreneur

Ivana Trump on how she advises Donald — and those hands https://nypost.com/2016/04/03/ivana-trump-opens-up-about-how-she-advises-donald-his-hands/ (April 3, 2016)

Mr. T photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Constitutional Government in the United States, New York: NY, Columbia University Press, (1908) p. 16.
1900s

Heather Brooke photo
Antoine Bethea photo

“It was important for me to get involved with ‘Ink, Not Mink’ just because of what it’s about. It’s about really talking about the cruelty to animals, what they have to go through. I’m most definitely a big fan of ink, as you can see, and … I would rather wear ink than mink any day.”

Antoine Bethea (1984) American football player, defensive back, safety

"Colts Safety Antoine Bethea Signs With PETA’s No-Fur Team" https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/colts-safety-antoine-bethea-signs-petas-fur-team/, interview with PETA (18 December 2013).

Mike Patton photo
Jane Roberts photo
Margaret Cho photo
John Constable photo
Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“Live morality before you talk of it. Practise meditation before you preach it. Taste goodness before you recommend it. Gain bliss before you offer it to others.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

In Conscious Living http://books.google.co.in/books?id=cUPoxT6C-DYC&pg=PA85, p. 85
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
Variant: Live morality before you talk to him. Practicing meditation before you preach. Goodness taste before you recommend. Gain bliss before you offer to others.

Bill Engvall photo

“[Talking about the difference between the first and twentieth year of marriage] Remember that first year of marriage, you used to argue just so you could make up and have sex? Twenty years later, you're arguing just so they'll sleep in the other room.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Remember that first year of marriage, when you went to the bathroom? Oh, lock the bathroom door, turn on the shower, because God forbid they knew you were going poo. Twenty years later, that bathroom door is wide open...you're saying "Bring the camera!"
Remember that first year of marriage, you'd come home and go "Ugh, what a bad day at work" and your wife would go, "Oh, they shouldn't be treating you so bad. Here, go sit down, I'll get you a beer, you can tell me all about it." Twenty years later, you come home, "Ugh, I had a bad day at work," she's going, "YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AT THIS HOUSE TODAY?! While you were at your 'job'?"
Here's Your Sign Live! (2004)

Gene Roddenberry photo
Phil Brooks photo
Phil Brooks photo

“So all you people here, despite evidence to the contrary, still choose to support a man that for all intents and purposes can't even support himself? OK, OK, so if you're a Jeff Hardy fan, if you're wearing a Jeff Hardy t-shirt, if you're wearing one of his diabolical little handsleeves, God forbid if you have your face painted, I want to see you stand up right now. I want to hear you make some noise! Go ahead, if you love and support Jeff Hardy, let the world know! (Crowd cheers, stands up.) Cameraman, cameraman get a good shot, get a real good shot at all these people. The truth is ladies and gentlemen, I don't blame you. I don't blame anybody here for supporting Jeff Hardy. The people I blame, are their parents. Or let's be realistic here, I said parents, what I should have said was parent. Because it's obviously a single parent situation, just like the way Jeff Hardy grew up. See you people are so concerned with the relationship with your children failing, just like your marriage did, that you acquiesce to their every whim and their every desire. I hate to tell you, this doesn't make you a good parent, Philadelphia, it makes you an enabler. (Crowd boos. Starts chanting for Hardy.) And the fact that you even let your children look up to a guy like Jeff Hardy, just shows that you really don't care what happens to them to begin with. It's a sad situation. So I don't blame anybody here or sitting at home watching this, that supports Jeff Hardy if they're under 17, because they're young and they're, well, they're impressionable. The real problem lies with the parents, it's the parents who don't make a conscious effort to sit their children down and teach them the proper way to live! (Crowd boos.) You see it starts with a Jeff Hardy t-shirt, next thing you know they're smoking a pack of cigarettes, after that, they're drinking a bottle of beer. Right after that they move on to shots of Jack Daniels, which is a gateway drug for marijuana…(Crowd pops for marijuana.) And the fact that you people sit here and cheer that goes to show that I'm telling the truth! How about some old fashioned street drugs? And before you know it they're digging through Mom's purse because they're addicted, they're addicted to prescription medication. (Crowd cheers, Punk mouths,"That's not cool!" to fans.) All of this can be stopped before it's too late! Parents, all you have to do is talk to your children. Sit them down and show them the way, tell them the words that can save their lives, show them that sometimes it's what you don't do that makes you who you are! For weeks, for weeks I've been saying to people like you, just say no. But today I think we should just say yes. Yes to the future of a straight edge, drug free America! Just say yes to the winner of tonight's match, just say yes, to the World Heavyweight Champion! Thank you!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

At Night of Champions 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Bernie Sanders photo

“It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don't line up for food: the rich get the food and the poor starve to death.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

As quoted in "When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson" http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/28/when-bernie-sanders-thought-castro-and-the-sandinistas-could-teach-america-a-lesson.html by Michael Moynihan, The Daily Beast (28 February 2016)
1980s

Francisco De Goya photo

“I haven't heard them [n. d. r. he's talking about some Spanish popular folk songs] and probably never shall because I no longer go to the places where one could hear them, for I have got into my head that I should maintain a certain presence and air for dignity.... that a man should have, and you can imagine that I'm not very happy about it.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter 206, c. 1787; in Goya, A life in Letters, edited and introduced by Sarah Simmons; transl. Philip Troutman, London, Pimlico, 2004
Goya understands that the social role he has reached (he is royal painter from 1789) will prevent him from attending places where people sing http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/09/goya-life-in-letters-edited-and.html
1780s

Giovanni Gentile photo