Quotes about talking
page 39

“Children - change that to infants - dream of their past lives, remembering; for example, how to walk and talk. They are born with the knowledge of how to think, with the propensity for language. They are guided by memories that they later forget.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 904, Page 258
Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Volume One (1986)

Children, Dreams, Knowledge, Thinking

“If I had to take eveything into consideration, [the truly essential song] would have to be "Conga." First, because I don't think I can get away with not performing that song in some shape or form. Second, because it started the possiblility of "Mi Tierra" [Estefan's top-selling Spanish album] happening. Not only did it talk about a specific rhythm of my homeland [Cuba], it talked about being Latino, and the celebratory nature of dance. It was very musically forward in that it mixed a funk bassline and a 2/4 beat on the drums and the Latin percussion. It was something that really put us on the map. And even though it's a frivolous and fun song, it talks about who we are as immigrants in this land.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Reuters (November 17, 2006)
2007, 2008

Music, Nature, Thinking, Dance

“I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries, not their solution.”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

Health

“Dean Swift's rule is as good for women as for men — never to talk above a half minute without pausing, and giving others an opportunity to strike in.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

"Parisian Morals and Manners", published in The Edinburgh Review (1843)
Smith might have been thinking of the final words of Swift's "Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation": "It is not a Fault in Company to talk much; but to continue it long, is certainly one; for, if the Majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the Conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can start new Subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but leaveth Room for Answers and Replies".

Women, Men

“You have ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony; but forty thousand German boors never can conquer ten times the number of British freemen. You may ravage—you cannot conquer; it is impossible: you cannot conquer the Americans. You talk, my Lords, of your friends among them to annihilate the Congress, and of your powerful forces to disperse their army: I might as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch! …If you conquer them, what then? You cannot make them respect you; you cannot make them wear your cloth: you will plant an invincible hatred in their breasts against you. Coming from the stock they do, they can never respect you…”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Speech in the House of Lords (30 May 1777), quoted in William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), p. 144.

Time, Clothes

“However, [Novick] does not account for the reality that views of Israel as being "beleaguered" are part of the same Zionist and Israeli strategy positing rising anti-Semitism to garner more support and immigration to Israel after the pool of immigrants had dried up in the mid-1950s. His point is that the perception of anti-Semitism is what led to more talk of the holocaust. However, it is this causal relationship that is suspect. One could posit that perceptions of a "beleaguered Israel," "oppressed" Soviet Jews, and the new "anti-Semitism," as well as talk of the holocaust, are all part of the same phenomenon rather than being caused by each other. One could further posit a different causal relationship with much of the same evidence Novick provides: namely, that it is Zionism, Israel, and America's use of past Jewish victimization to advance the Zionist agenda that informs the exaggeration of the relatively mild Soviet discriminatory policies against Jews (among other national and religious groups facing similiar discrimination) as holocaustal, the presentation of Israel as a victim of the new Arab "anti-Semites," or the condemnation of any criticism of American Jewry's support for Zionism or any criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitic."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness"

Support, Reality, Past, Parting

“Stephen Jay Gould is extremely bright, inventive. He thoroughly understands paleontology; he thoroughly understands evolutionary biology. He has performed an enormous service in getting people to think about punctuated equilibrium, because you see the process of stasis/sudden change, which is a puzzle. It's the cessation of change for long periods of time. Since you always have mutations, why don't things continue changing? You either have to say that the particular form is highly adapted, optimal, and exists in a stable environment, or you have to be very puzzled. Steve has been enormously important in that sense. Talking with Steve, or listening to him give a talk, is a bit like playing tennis with someone who's better than you are. It makes you play a better game than you can play. For years, Steve has wanted to find, in effect, what accounts for the order in biology, without having to appeal to selection to explain everything—that is, to the evolutionary "just-so stories." You can come up with some cockamamie account about why anything you look at was formed in evolution because it was useful for something. There is no way of checking such things. We're natural allies, because I'm trying to find sources of that natural order without appealing to selection, and yet we all know that selection is important.”

Stuart Kauffman (1939) American biophysicist

Kauffman in: John Brockman, ed. (1995) The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution, p. 64-65. ( online http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/i-Ch.2.html)

People, Way, Game, Optimism

“…the existence of a 'system' that was ruining the country. The system of upstarts; of low-bred, low-minded sycophants usurping the stations designed by nature, by reason, by the Constitution, and by the interests of the people, to men of high birth, eminent talents, or great national services; the system by which the ancient Aristocracy and the Church have been undermined; by which the ancient gentry of the kingdom have been almost extinguished, their means of support having been transferred, by the hand of the tax gatherer, to contractors, jobbers and Jews; the system by which but too many of the higher orders have been rendered the servile dependents of the minister of the day, and by which the lower, their generous spirit first broken down, have been moulded into a mass of parish fed paupers. Unless it be the intention, the solemn resolution, to change this system, let no one talk to me of a change of ministry; for, until this system be destroyed…until the filthy tribe of jobbers, brokers and peculators shall be swept from the councils of the nation and the society of her statesmen…there is no change of men, that can, for a single hour, retard the mighty mischief that we dread.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (20 April 1805), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), pp. 27-28, 71-72.

Men, People, Birth, Support

“In 1942 when I was in New York, I was struck by the neon advertisements flashing all over Broadway. You are there, you talk to someone, and all of a sudden he turns blue. Then the colour fades - another one comes and turns him red or yellow. The colour – the colour of neon advertising is free; it exists in space. I wanted to do the same in my canvases.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Quote from Legér and America, exhibition catalogue Fernand Léger, Buffalo 1982, p. 52
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1980's

“Tara: No more talk of gloomy Angel, though. Only happy thoughts. Sunshine, picnic, that spell we did last night. With the oil?”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

Seeing Red [6.19]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)

Happiness, Angels, Night

“It is clear that man has functioned in a multitude of states of consciousness and that different cultures have varied enormously in recognition and utilization of, and attitudes toward, ASC's. Many "primitive" peoples, for example, believe that almost every normal adult has the possibility to go into a trance state and be possessed by a god; the adult who cannot do this is a psychological cripple. How deficient Americans would seem to a person from such a culture. In many Eastern civilizations, elaborate techniques have been developed for inducing and utilizing ASC's, such as Yoga and Zen systems. In some cases vocabularies have been developed for talking about these ASC's more adequately. Fredrick Spiegelberg, the noted Indian scholar, pointed out that Sanskrit has about 20 nouns which we translate into "consciousness" or "mind" because we do not have the vocabulary to specify the different shades of meaning in these words.”

Charles Tart (1937) American spiritual writer

Foreword to Altered States of Consciousness (1969)

God, People, Personality

“Like Bancroft, MacIntyre had been a man of power, and like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing.
Someone else was paying.”

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 16 (p. 217)

Men

“It was important to talk about the students and put their work forward and the light on them.”

Caroline, Princess of Hanover (1957) Princess of Monaco

Light

“Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
What's going on.”

Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) American singer-songwriter and musician

What's Going On.
Song lyrics, What's Going On (1971)

“I know what the power of silence is. When I used to play in clubs, everybody was loud; there was a lot of noise. So I would take my mute off the microphone, and I would play something so soft that you could hardly hear it… and you talk about listening. Roy Eldridge did that. He's one of my favorites.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40
1970s

Silence

“The terrifying experience and obsession of death, when preserved in consciousness, becomes ruinous. If you talk about death, you save part of yourself. But at the same time, something of your real self dies, because objectified meanings lose the actuality they have in consciousness.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Death, Time, Parting

“The need of the hour is to get people to talk to each other and to clear the air. I don't approve of fusion in art, but I definitely approve of it in the field of politics.”

Vyjayanthimala (1936) Indian actress, politician & dancer

Vyjayanthimala still cuts a striking figure tall

People, Art

“We very deeply deplore that sentence should have been pronounced that allows of the interpretation as though our military successes were not of a kind which alone present the possibility of attained peace…What was it that brought peace in the East? Not the talk of statesmen, not diplomatic negotiations, not diplomatic notes, not Reichstag resolutions, but 'Ludendorffs hammer,' as Lloyd George has called it. The force of our army, the force of our power.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Source: 1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 21 June 1918, p. 179.

Peace, Success

“I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)

God, Truth

“We will talk only about machines with very simple internal structures, too simple in fact to be interesting from the point of view of mechanical or electrical engineering. Interest arises, rather, when we look at these machines or vehicles as if they were animals, in a natural environment. We will be tempted, then, to use psychological language in describing their behavior. And yet we know very well that there is nothing in these vehicles that we have not put there ourselves.”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

p 2
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (1984)

Behavior, Nature, Animals

“On this score, I will briefly address the re-entry of Biafra as a talking drum in our recent polity. A minister of state (Mrs. Dupe Adelaja) had the recklessness to say that Biafran soldiers cannot enjoy retirement benefits, not minding, for instance, the reality that some of them were Nigerian soldiers before the emergence of Biafra and that pardon has been granted to all ex-Biafran soldiers.”

Chuba Okadigbo (1941–2003) Nigerian politician

Address to the December 2001 debates concerning Biafra, USAfrica Online http://www.usafricaonline.com/okadigbo.biafra2001.html

Reality

“I've been talking only of some of the things Wagner did in the field. But he was a terror with that bat. The only other right-handed batter I could compare him with was Rogers Hornsby. Wagner could hit line drives into right field all day long. And when you started to shade him toward right field, he'd flip that bat, fake the third baseman into a bunt and hit it past him. And how he could run, too, even with his bowlegs. Honus had as much baseball instinct as I ever saw in a player. It was an education to play against him and a delight to watch him.”

Casey Stengel (1890–1975) American baseball player and coach

As quoted in "The Scoreboardː Stengelː 'Wagner Best I Ever Saw'" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_kYqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9U4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7207%2C1231475

Education, Past

“The entire world has been upset. The entire world, it's a different place. During Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's term, she's done a horrible job.
She has caused death. She has caused tremendous death with incompetent decisions. I was against the war in Iraq. I wasn't a politician, but I was against the war in Iraq. She voted for the war in Iraq.
Look at Libya. That was her baby. Look. I mean, I'm not even talking about the ambassador and the people with the ambassador. Young, wonderful people. With messages coming in by the hundreds, and she's not even responding. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about all of the death that's been caused and not only our side.
There was nothing saved. If we would have never done anything in the Middle East, we would have a much safer world right now. … All of this has led to the migration. All of this has led to tremendous death and destruction. And she for the most part was in charge of it along with Obama.
She's constantly playing the woman card. It's the only way she may get elected. I mean frankly… Personally, I'm not sure that anybody else other than me is going to beat her. And I think she's a flawed candidate. And you see what's happened recently. And it hasn't been a very pretty picture for her or for Bill. Because I'm the only one that's willing to talk about his problems. I mean, what he did and what he has gone through I think is frankly terrible, especially if she wants to play the woman card.
I have more respect for women by far than Hillary Clinton has. And I will do more for women than Hillary Clinton will. I will do far more including the protection of our country. She caused a lot of the problems that we have right now.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

CBS interview with John Dickerson (taped 1 January 2016) for Face the Nation — as quoted in "Trump: Clinton has ruined the world" http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-hillary-clinton-donald-217294 by Nick Gass, Politico (3 January 2016) 2010s, 2016, January

Death, Women, War, People

“The girls always think we're going to throw them over a table or toss them in the air. Their muscles tense up right away. So Fred and I go and sit in a corner and pretend we're talking business.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Gene Kelly on the subject of social dancing, in Lawrenson, Helen. "It's Better to Remember Fred." Esquire, August 1976, pp92-96, 106, 109-110. (M).

Girl, Business, Thinking

“When people think of Islamic terrorism, they think of Afghanistan, or maybe they think of some place in the Middle East, but the truth is that threat exists all over the world … There are a number of threats on a number of levels, but if you are talking about terrorism it is Islamicism … There are other threats out there, but that is the one that I can tell you occupies the security apparatus most regularly in terms of actual terrorist threats … homegrown [Islamic] terrorism is something we keep an eye on.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

S. Harper: ‘Islamicism’ Canada’s Biggest Threat: PM http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/453806-islamicism-canadas-biggest-threat-pm.html - OnIslam, September 7, 2011</ref><ref> Harper says 'Islamicism' biggest threat to Canada http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/06/harper-911-terrorism-islamic-interview.html - CBC News, September 6, 2011 2011

People, Truth, World, Thinking

“…my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking; the silent touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality.”

Andre Dubus (1936–1999) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

On Charon’s Wharf.
Broken Vessels (1991)

Love, God, Faith, Idea

“[Tim Cook's] position at Apple was to do the things Steve didn't want to do and to never be a threat to Steve, which means he likely is everything Steve isn't — yet he is trying to fit into a spot custom designed for Steve. Talk about your round peg in a square hole.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Meg Whitman vs. Tim Cook by the Numbers http://technewsworld.com/story/74694.html in Tech News World (26 March 2012)

Cooking

“Don't be cross with me that I've come all of a sudden [to move from Antwerp to Paris]. I've thought about it so much and I think we'll save time this way. Will be at the Louvre from midday, or earlier if you like. A reply, please, to let me know when you could come to the Salle Carrée. As for expenses, I repeat, it comes to the same thing. I have some money left, that goes without saying, and I want to talk to you before spending anything.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to Theo van Gogh, from Paris, on or about Sunday, 28 February 1886; from original text of letter 567 - vangoghletters online http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let567/letter.html Van Gogh went hotfoot from Antwerp to Paris with no prior warning; later he confessed he left Antwerp without paying his bills 1880s, 1886

Money, Way, Thinking, Time

“A business tip, you never know who's having "pillow talk" with one another. Watch what u say, who u say it to, & WHO u talk about.”

Keshia Chante (1988) Canadian actor and musician

Official Website (2009)

Business

“If you happen into company where the talk runs into party, obscemty, scandal, folly, or vice of any kind, you had better pass for morose or unsocial, among people whose good opinion is not worth having, than shock your own conscience by joining in conversation which you must disapprove of.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

People

“Matthew Leiah Keller sat beneath a watershed tree and brooded. Other children played all around him, but they ignored Matt. So did two teachers on monitor duty. People usually ignored Matt when he wanted to be alone.
Uncle Matt was gone. Gone to a fate so horrible that the adults wouldn't even talk about it.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Ch. 1 : The Ramrobot

Fate, Children, People, Tree

“Bancroft wants privacy, he spends half a million on discretion systems. Me, I just go talk where no one’s listening.”

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 21 (pp. 280-281)

“The game went on. John had understood nothing. Everything was too fast: the game, the other's talk, the goings-on in the street…”

Sten Nadolny book The Discovery of Slowness

p, 125
The Discovery of Slowness (1983, 1987)

Game

“There was much idle talk at the Conference of Paris about the disappearance of four mighty empires, German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Turkish. But the cynical Clemenceau, at the head of the French delegation knew that the strongest of them remained -- even though it had reluctantly become a Republic. His task at the peace parleys, as he saw it, was to see that Germany was permanently weakened, or, if this could not be achieved, confronted for at least a generation with an Allied coalition which, having won the war, would keep the peace by guarding France's northeastern border to make sure that any future invasion from across the Rhine would be met with overwhelming force.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

War, Peace, Future

“Speech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The New Gods (1969)

Feeling, Silence

“On this planet there are people who are suffering beyond description. They are innocent people, they didn’t bring this upon themselves. They are the victims of the sins of other people. And while it’s hard to see, it’s important to understand that these people exist. I’m talking to you now because they can’t and I hope to be a voice for them. They need support.”

Mia Farrow (1945) American actress, singer, humanitarian and former fashion model

On human rights, quoted in MSNBC piece http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3080861/ns/community-msnbc_com_chat/t/mia-farrow/#.WPW1AlKZPu0 (August 28, 2013)

People, Hope, Understanding, Support

“I am only human, I am weak.
I want his power inside of me.
And I'm not talking about a piece of meat.
I'm saying something really deep.”

Juliana Hatfield (1967) American guitarist/singer-songwriter and author

"President Garfield"
Become What You Are (1993)

“The fact that people are so willing to disclose (deeply personal issues in their lives) shows you how much we avoid talking about these very serious issues in our everyday lives”

Brandon Stanton (1984) American photographer

CBS News, 2014 [Blogger makes intimate connections with strangers on streets of NYC, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/humans-of-new-york-blogger-talks-connecting-with-strangers/, CBS NEWS, January 2, 2014, January 6, 2014]

People, Personality

“The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. He lives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another. He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord and asks no portion or share for himself. He delights not to be honored but to see his Saviour glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to see his Lord promoted and himself neglected. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and overserious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

Man: The Dwelling Place of God (1992)

Men, People, Search, Heart

“Because even though there is all this talk about multiculturalism in television and the movie industries, I have yet to see any evidence of it.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, RACISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

“There,' I said to a friend, 'lies the best man I ever knew or ever expect to know; he was just to all men, and his heart was full to overflowing with kindness toward those who accomplished his death.' I have been satisfied that the persons who called at the Malvern were some of the assassins who would have killed him there if they could have got on board, and they could easily have escaped in the confusion by jumping overboard and swimming to the shore, which was not more than twenty yards distant. More-over, I do not think that the prime instigator of the deed was ever suspected, though I have my own opinion on the subject, as also had Senator Nye, that stanch old patriot who held, in the latter part of the war, a position somewhat analogous to that of a minister of police, or was in consultation, by the wish of President Lincoln, with the police authorities of our great cities. He picked up many interesting incidents in relation to the President's assassination which he talked about freely to me; but he was a prudent man, and a politician, and did not desire to raise questions which might affect his personal interests in the future.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), pp. 319–320

Death, Men, War, Question

“I watch the sea and the sky; sometimes I wade in the surf and build roads in the sand. At night I study the stars.”
“You have no friends?”
“No.”
“And what of the future?”
“The future stops at ‘now’.”
“As to that, I am not so sure,” said Shimrod. “It is at best a half-truth.”
“What of that? Half a truth is better than none: do you not agree?”
“Not altogether,” said Shimrod. “I am a practical man, I try to control the shape of the ‘nows’ which lie in the offing, instead of submitting to them as they occur.”
Melancthe gave an uninterested shrug. “You are free to do as you like.” Leaning back in the divan, she looked out across the sea.
Shimrod finally spoke. “Well then: are you ‘good’ or ‘bad’?”
“I don’t know.”
Shimrod became vexed. “Talking with you is like visiting an empty house.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Melancthe considered a moment before responding. “Perhaps,” she said, “you are visiting the wrong house. Or perhaps you are the wrong visitor.”
Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 5, section 4 (p. 783)

Truth, Lie, Star, Study

“The media, the galleries, the collectors – it's all very chaotic actually. The artworld doesn't have this defined corporate structure that people imagine. Of course there's a system of sorts. This person will talk to that person and somebody else will pass it on to somebody else… you can trace a line of power of some kind. But its nothing like as clear and set as people think. And this chaos leads to a lot of insecurity. It's only after an artist has achieved some independence from it that he MODERN PAINTERS can really stand up to the collectors and the dealers and do his art.”

Jeff Koons (1955) American artist

Jeff Koons in: Modern Painters. Vol. 2 (1989), p. 63
1980s

People, Art, Imagination, Thinking

“When I talk to farmers about how they treat the animals on their farms, I come up against a strange fact: while the general public and most research scientists all acknowledge that farm animals suffer, the farmers responsible for them have a tendency to deny it.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: The Face on Your Plate (2009), Ch. 2, p. 64

Suffering, Animals

“The clerk of Al-Mughira bin Shu'ba narrated, "Muawiya wrote to Al-Mughira bin Shu'ba: Write to me something which you have heard from the Prophet (p. b. u. h)." So Al-Mughira wrote: I heard the Prophet saying, "Allah has hated for you three things: 1. Vain talks, (useless talk) that you talk too much or about others. 2. Wasting of wealth (by extravagance) 3. And asking too many questions (in disputed religious matters) or asking others for something (except in great need). (See Hadith No. 591, Vol. Ill)”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sunni Hadith

Hate, Question, Wealth

“Some people, myself included, advocated foreign intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo while opposing our adventure in Iraq. Sam Moyn might find this inconsistent, but (on this occasion at least) it is the world that is inconsistent, not us. During the Balkan wars individuals’ rights were under ascertainable threat in real time. Outside intervention could make a difference, and it did. This was not the case in Iraq. We should always be suspicious of the invocation of universal “rights” as a cover for sectional interests. But it doesn’t follow from this that talk of rights is “really” always about something else. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. How, then, should we adjust our response? Well, there is a serviceable Keynesian answer to that: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?””

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

"Double-Entry Moral Bookkeeping", The Nation (April 25, 2007)

War, People, World, Universe

“They carved your name into a stone and then they put it in the ground.
I run my fingers through the grooves when no one's around,
Drink till I'm sick and I talk to myself in the dog days of the summer.
Then I feel you coming but I don't know how…”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

September
29 (2005)

Dogs, Feeling, Drink, Summer

“After all there is throughout this world so far as man is concerned but a single race - the human race, kept alive by one common blood, the human blood. All other talk is at best provisional, a makeshift and only relatively true. (…) Even as it is, not even the aborigines of the Andamans are without some sprinkling of the so-called Aryan blood in their veins and vice-versa. Truly speaking all that one can claim is that one has the blood of all mankind in one’s veins. The fundamental unity of man from pole to pole is true, all else only relatively so.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Hindutva, p. 90.

World

“He told me he was having the time of his life and then fell to the floor unconscious. I didn't take this too personally, although he was not the first person to collapse while talking to me; to tell the truth it has happened quite often.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Life, Truth, Time, Personality

“…the standard arm was the most beautiful firearm ever invented, the famous short Lee Enfield……. She's a museum piece now, but I still see her on T. V. newsreels, in the hands of hairy, outlandish men like the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan and capable-looking gentry in North Africa, and I have a feeling that she will be loosing off her ten rounds rapid when the Kalashnikovs and Armalites are forgotten. That's the old reactionary talking: no doubt Agincourt die-hards said the same of the long bow.”

George MacDonald Fraser book Quartered Safe Out Here

Source: Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), p. 29-30.

Men, Beauty, Feeling

“"I'm not sure I ever 'got it' when it comes to how to live my life in a way that was original and free," reflected Steven Salt, a retired businessman. "Of course, like most men, I always believed I had the answers and that I was not going to live my life the stupid way other men do. I was going to be unique and avoid their mistakes, but instead I'm just another male stereotype. I started off thinking that being an achiever and a 'winner' would be the key to real freedom. So all my energy went that way and I faked everything else when it came to caring about other people. Then I thought I'd marry the 'perfect' woman and be the 'perfect' dad and husband, not like the other married men. I'd be different. But no matter how I tried I was forcing it and probably fooling no one but myself. My wife finally left and I barely know who my kids really are. When we talk it's mainly 'business.' I fell into all the traps. Now that I'm in my seventies, I'm becoming just like all those guys I felt sorry for when I was younger— guys with no real friends and with no patience for anyone else's ideas or opinions. I can barely stand to talk to anyone and yet I'm still looking to fulfill myself by meeting the 'perfect' woman. I've become a macho cliché. It's taken me this long to realize that even if she existed I really wouldn't know how to be with her and make it feel good anyway."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

The Personal Journey of Masculinity: From Externalization to Disconnection to Oblivion, p. 9
What Men Still Don't Know About Women, Relationships, and Love (2007)

Life, Men, People, Stupidity

“Let me say quite categorically that there is no such thing as a fuzzy concept… We do talk about fuzzy things but they are not scientific concepts. Some people in the past have discovered certain interesting things, formulated their findings in a non-fuzzy way, and therefore we have progressed in science.”

Rudolf E. Kálmán (1930–2016) Hungarian-born American electrical engineer

Kálmán (1972), cited in: Lotfi A. Zadeh (2004) Fuzzy Logic Systems, origin, concepts and trends http://wi-consortium.org/wicweb/pdf/Zadeh.pdf November 10, 2004

People, Way, Science, Past

“The most important thing is that we need to be a party that is inclusive and tolerant. We can be those things and be the party we always have been. We need to think about the environment. Teddy Roosevelt was a great environmentalist and people forget Reagan was the one who dealt with the ozone layer with the Montreal protocol. We also need to talk about healthcare honestly. Nixon almost passed universal healthcare. We need to have an talk about immigration and realize you can't just deport people. We need a comprehensive answer. We also need to stay out of people's bedrooms. The party that is for small government shouldn't be over-reaching into people's private lives. Mainly, we need to be a party where people know what we are for, not just what we are against.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/16mq0g/iamarnold_ask_me_anything/c7xg9aa (2013) 2010s

People, Thinking, Universe, Forgetting

“Without communities, no infant will be sufficiently socialized… and that occurs in the first four or five years of life. …The first two years are important. …of vital importance. He has to be loved, above all he has to be talked to.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Love, Life, Communication

“On Judgement Day, those who think such talk is 'fear mongering' will find out that it's not. It is simply the truth, and they will wish to God (understatement) that they had obeyed the Gospel.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God, Truth, Fear, Thinking

“Nothing has happened since two or three days.... nothing special, only the Ladies van Loon have visited me this morning, I have shown them a few of my studies, and talked a lot about [Huis] 't Velde and {[w|nl:Vorden|Vorden}}. Now I could tell you further, how little I still feel at home, how a certain nostalgia or quiet sorrow plunges me down, and how an indefinite hurry for an even more uncertain future dominates my whole [being? ]; but why should I bother You by telling You my inner life..”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands): Er is sedert de twee of drie dagen.. ..niets bijzonders voorgevallen, alleen de freules van Loon zijn heden morgen bij mij geweest, ik heb paar mijn studies laten zien, en verder veel over 't Velde en Vorden met hen gesproken; nu zou ik UE nog verder kunnen zeggen, hoe weinig ik mij nog te huis gevoel, hoe een zeker heimwee, of stil verdriet mij ter nederdrukt, en, hoe een onbestemd jagen, naar een nog onbestemder toekomst mijn gehele [aanschijn[?] beheerst; maar waar om zou ik UE vermoeijen; door UE mijn innerlijk leven mede te delen.. J.W. Bilders, in his letter [including a pencil-sketch of trees along a water] to Georgina van Dijk van 't Velde, from Castle Voorst in Warnsveld, 22 Oct. 1868; from an excerpt of the letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/751208 in the RKD-Archive, The Hague In 1868 Bilders traveled to the North of The Netherlands, to make sketches 1860's + 1870's

Life, Feeling, Home, Nostalgia

“Science Digest asked me to see the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind and write an article for them on the science it contained. I saw the picture and was appalled. I remained appalled even after a doctor’s examination had assured me that no internal organs had been shaken loose by its ridiculous soundwaves. (If you can’t be good, be loud, some say, and Close Encounters was very loud.) … Hollywood must deal with large audiences, most of whom are utterly unfamiliar with good science fiction. It has to bend to them, meet them at least half-way. Fully appreciating that, I could enjoy Planet of the Apes and Star Wars. Star Wars was entertainment for the masses and did not try to be anything more. Leave your sophistication at the door, get into the spirit, and you can have a fun ride. … Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions, or reading a bad book for the dirty parts. Optical wizardry is something a movie can do that a book can’t but it is no substitute for a story, for logic, for meaning. It is ornamentation, not substance. In fact, whenever a science fiction picture is praised overeffusively for its special effects, I know it’s a bad picture. Is that all they can find to talk about?”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"Editorial: The Reluctant Critic", in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Vol. 2, Issue 6, (12 November 1978) https://archive.org/stream/Asimovs_v02n06_1978-11-12/ General sources

War, Books, Way, Star

“It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious — to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality — he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote from Degas' Notebook entry c. 1860's; as quoted in Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century, ed. Robert Goldwater (Pantheon, 1945)
1855 - 1875

People, Intelligence, Idea, Solitude

“"Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Who is he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb, but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do nothing, he can't talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes."”

Anton Chekhov book In the Ravine

Source: In the Ravine (1900), Ch. 6, pp. 216

Love, Feeling, Tear, Light

“I have noticed that my likes and dislikes do not create any great excitement. And how people try to get away when I attempt to talk!”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

E.W. Howe's Monthly January, 1912.

People

“When they accepted their assignments they were not very confident, especially the assistant head surgeon who simply believed in his own past experience, in the statistics of international medical literature, and in the medical equipment and resources of the hospitals in capitalist countries. Therefore when he first heard the talk of the vice-superintendent, who was the secretary of the general Party branch, he had some inner feeling of resistance. He thought to himself, "This is simply coercing people to try and do the impossible! But since I have accepted the assignment I'll do what I can. At any rate, the patients will die either in the shock stage or later."”

Ba Jin (1904–2005) Chinese novelist

With such downhearted feelings he entered the ward to see his patients.
A Battle For Life (July 1958)

People, Feeling, Confidence, Literature

“At times, we [the White Stripes] almost ignore our own music. If we have the stage, we've gotta play Son House's music, because there's nobody to keep it alive. We don't wanna be known as the band that's conducting music instruction class. But that's all everyone talks about - why MTV's not good, why radio's not good. And the answer is really because whatever you want to call it - blues, country, folk - isn't around any more. That's why everyone's so mad, and I'm tired of it being my job to bring it back.”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

On why he tends to look to the past Perry, Andrew (2004). "The White Stripes uncut" http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1349947,00.html Observer Music Monthly (accessed June 19, 2007). 2010

Music, Time, Housing, Madness

“All this talk of using tax policy to ‘assess social costs’…what a dumb idea. The only way to stop polluters is to put them against walls and shoot them.”

David Brin book Earth

Part VII (p. 327)
Earth (1990)

Way, Idea

“Clowntime is over
Time to take over
While others just talk and talk
Somebody's watching where the others don't walk.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Clowntime Is Over
Song lyrics, Get Happy!! (1980)

Time

“Whatsoever is not beaverish seems to go forth in the shape of talk. To such length is human intellect wasted or suppressed in this world!”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

World

“I forsook the company and the dinner-parties, the port-wine and champagne of the middle-classes, and devoted my leisure-hours almost exclusively to the intercourse with plain working men; I am both glad and proud of having done so. Glad, because thus I was induced to spend many a happy hour in obtaining a knowledge of the realities of life—many an hour, which else would have been wasted in fashionable talk and tiresome etiquette; proud, because thus I got an opportunity of doing justice to an oppressed and calumniated class of men who with all their faults and under all the disadvantages of their situation, yet command the respect of every one but an English money-monger.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Source: The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845), p. 27

Life, Men, Money, Happiness

“I think there were a lot of Christian people who simply stayed home for reasons that I can't figure out. But I think every time we lose major elections or major issues like the same-sex marriage issue or the marijuana issue, it's because Christians just didn't show up and vote.I lay the blame though at the feet of those who sit faithfully in church each Sunday; they probably heard their pastor talk about the importance of this election and how so much was on the line, and yet maybe because they just didn't want to bother with having to stand in line at an election polling place, they just didn't go vote. And we're going to pay dearly for that.If I were Cardinal Dolan or any of the Catholic bishops or priests, I would certainly be very frustrated and discouraged and wonder why aren't they understanding that if they join a church and belong to it, why would they not respect its teachings as having validity. It's one thing to say "well, I can't agree with everything" although I'm not sure why you'd join a church if you dismiss it. But to be openly contemptuous of its teaching and doctrine, it's something I can't understand.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Focus on the Family radio program http://www.focusonthefamily.com/radio.aspx?ID={D560C7FD-E01C-4B76-845E-9B5C2FCD3A34}, , quoted in [2012-11-08, Huckabee: Any Time We Lose 'It's Because Christians Just Didn't Show Up and Vote', Kyle, Mantyla, Right Wing Watch, http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/huckabee-any-time-we-lose-its-because-christians-just-didnt-show-and-vote, 2012-11-09]

Marriage, People, Sex, Home

“As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The Weight of Glory (1949)

Understanding, Victory

“Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

"1892", p. 1
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

People, World

“Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It's the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe. It's a very archaic form. Same things can be said with words, writing poetry, making sounds, music. It is a unique thing.... I think that the original revolutionary impulse behind the New York School, as I felt it anyway, and as I think my colleagues felt and the way we talked all the time, was a kind of a.... you felt as if you were driven into a corner against the wall, with no place to stand, just the place you occupied as if the act of painting was not making a picture.... it was as if you had to prove to yourself that truly the act of creation was still possible.... I felt as if I was talking to myself, having a dialectical monologue with myself to see if I could create.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, p. 66

School, Music, Way, Imagination

“Maybe knowledge doesn't accrue, maybe it doesn't happen sequentially. Maybe I need to go back and read Hunger of Memory again. Maybe there's a wisdom that I had in those years that I need to learn from now. And maybe there will be a year when I will have the courage to read that book. When I think about it or when I hear other people talk about it, it strikes me as very naked prose, and I'm embarrassed by it. I'm embarrassed by how much I told you. And people say, "Well you didn't tell us you were gay." Or "You didn't tell us you had all these friends or that you were student body president. You never said that."”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

I think to myself, "My God, but what I told you I've never told anybody. And I'll never tell anybody again."
Violating the Boundaries: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez (1999)

Wisdom, Hunger, God, People

“The talkative person is one who speaks more than he thinks. Someone who thinks a great deal and talks a great deal is never considered a talkative person. The talkative man speaks from his mouth, the eloquent man speaks from his heart.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Thinking, Heart, Personality

“The first notion of constructing a free goal-seeking mechanism goes back a wartime talk with the psychologist, Kenneth Craik, whose untimely death was one of the greatest losses Cambridge has suffered in years. When he was engaged on a warjob for the Government, he came to get the help of an automatic analyzer with some very complicated curves he had obtained, curves relating to the aiming errors of air gunners. Goal-seeking missiles were literally much in the air in those days; so, in our minds, were scanning mechanisms. Long before the home study was turned into a workshop, the two ideas, goal-seeking and scanning, had combined as the essential mechanical conception of a working model that would behave like a very simple animal.”

William Grey Walter (1910–1977) American-born British neuroscientist and roboticist

Source: The Living Brain (1953), p. 82.

Death, Error, Home, Idea

“I talk kinda slow, especially for the Northeast, so it was a way to beat (would-be hecklers) to the punch.”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

Explaining his use of "inner voice" speech during his stand-up routines — interview in Michael Corcoran (February 18, 2007) "When studios need a doofus, Jim Gaffigan is their main man", Austin American-Statesman, p. J01.

Way

“I can hardly believe we are talking about a possibility so inconceivable as that other universes exist—and that the Geometers originate there!"
In this, Zh'vaern seemed to speak for the entire table.
Except for Jad. "The words fail. There is one universe, by the definition of universe. It is not the cosmos we see through our eyes and our telescopes—that is but a single Narrative, a thread winding through a Hemn space shared by many other Narratives besides ours. Each Narrative looks like a cosmos alone, to any consciousness that partakes of it. The Geometers came from other Narratives—until they came here, and joined ours."
Having dropped this bomb, Fraa Jad excused himself, and went to the toilet.
"What on earth is he going on about?" Fraa Lodoghir demanded. "It sounded like literary criticism!”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Part 10, "Messal"
Anathem (2008)

Universe

“I’ve spent a lot of time in London over the last few years and I liked the idea of the Mughal emperor Babur meeting with modern-day disaffected youth and talking to them about their actions. He was a sharp literary critic who could be very sweeping and cruel about poetry if he thought it was bad poetry, and he said some fantastic things that I quoted word for word in the opera. I read the Baburnama – the memoirs of Babur – and quoted lines from it. “Writing badly will make you ill.” What a beautiful thing to say. I read that book and I thought, how dramatic! If he had been a figure in western history it would have been an opera. War, murder, love, tragedy, poetry. It always jumped out at me as something worth doing.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

Jeet Thayil: Confessions of an Indian Opium-Eater

Love, War, Books, Youth

“I'm not a lawyer— I'm a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

Microsoft Research DRM talk http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt(17 June 2004)

“Sometimes it is pleasant for a husband to have a jealous wife: he always hears what he loves being talked about.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Il est quelquefois agréable à un mari d'avoir une femme jalouse; il entend toujours parler de ce qu'il aime.
Maxim 48 from the Manuscrit de Liancourt.
Later Additions to the Maxims

Love

“Temple, who was driving, suddenly faltered and wept. “I’ve read that libraries are where immortality lies.... I don’t want my thoughts to die with me.... I want to have done something.... I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution—know that my life has meaning. Right now, I’m talking about things at the very core of my existence.” I was stunned. As I stepped out of the car to say goodbye, I said, “I’m going to hug you. I hope you don’t mind.””

Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) British neurologist and writer

I hugged her—and (I think) she hugged me back.
An Anthropologist On Mars, The New Yorker, 27 December 1993

Life, Money, Hope, Cars

“And so I decided to actually start a street exhibition to show the images of the violence across the country and get people talking about it. We traveled the country and showed the images, and this was a journey that has started me to the activist path, where I decided to become silent no more, to talk about those things. … And what is most powerful is that the images have been picked by the media and amplified across the country, across the continent.”

Boniface Mwangi (1983) Kenyan photojournalist

The day I stood up alone

People, Travel, Country

“When [Born and Heisenberg and the Göttingen theoretical physicists] first discovered matrix mechanics they were having, of course, the same kind of trouble that everybody else had in trying to solve problems and to manipulate and to really do things with matrices. So they had gone to Hilbert for help and Hilbert said the only time he had ever had anything to do with matrices was when they came up as a sort of by-product of the eigenvalues of the boundary-value problem of a differential equation. So if you look for the differential equation which has these matrices you can probably do more with that. They had thought it was a goofy idea and that Hilbert didn’t know what he was talking about. So he was having a lot of fun pointing out to them that they could have discovered Schrödinger’s wave mechanics six month earlier if they had paid a little more attention to him.”

Edward Condon (1902–1974) physicist

Constance Reid Hilbert (Springer-Verlag, 1996) [ISBN 0-387-94674-8] p. 182. Also quoted in Max Jammer, The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics (McGraw-Hill, 1966) pp. 207-208. Jammer cites the original reference: Edward U. Condon 60 Years of Quantum Physics, Physics Today 15 37-49 (1962)

Idea, Problem, Time, Help

“Trump Steaks are the world's greatest steaks, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Treat yourself to the very, very best life has to offer you. And as a gift, Trump Steaks are the best you can give. One bite, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, and believe me. I understand steaks, it's my favorite food.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Source: 2000s, Lines marking the introduction of Trump Steaks by The Sharper Image (2007)

Life, World, Food, Understanding

“I am the kind of guy who believes that films are supposed to be entertainment. I do not subscribe much to movies that leave you with a lingering feeling, make you feel angry or depressed. I am not yet ready to make films like that. I have grown up with films that are entertaining. Since I am such a huge fan of entertainment, I believe that the films that I do should also be entertaining, people can talk about it for three days and forget about it.”

R. Madhavan (1970) Indian actor

Interview, "Sify Movies", 30 Aug 2005 http://www.sify.com/movies/bollywood/interview.php?id=13928252&cid=2398

People, Guy, Feeling, Forgetting

“[The decisionmaking role of the firm has progressed from the neoclassical standpoint of profit maximization to sales maximization, utility maximization, and satisficing. From the Operation Research point of view] …the ideal picture is that someone, presumable the firm that hires the operations researcher, hands him, on a silver platter, an objective function. By talking to the engineers, or by looking into a few scientific laws, he determines the policy alternatives available and also the model”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Source: 1970s-1980s, The Economics of Information (1984), p. 55 as cited in: Demetri Kantarelis (2008) " Book Review: Title: Theories Of The Firm 2nd Edition http://www.inderscience.com/books/TOF_american_econ_review.pdf". In: The American economist. Vol 52, Nr 1. p. 117

Law

“Punk: Hey, Jeff. Jeff, aren't you nervous sitting way up there so… high? Especially in the condition you're in, and by "condition", I mean that you're probably drunk right now, just like all these people here tonight. (Crowd boos) Yeah, that's something to be proud of, I mean, you'd have to be under the influence to stomach this "live in the moment" crap that you spew. What's living in the moment gotten you, Jeff? I know it got you a night in a hospital, and for what? The adulation of these people? One brief moment of attention? (Crowd chants "Hardy") You know, I don't know what's more pathetic—all these people hanging on your every word, waiting for the next pitiful example for you to set that they can lead, or you and your egotistical addiction to their cheers and support and adulation. Listen, listen to them, Jeff. They actually believe that you can beat me at SummerSlam. (Crowd cheers)
Jeff: So do I.
Punk: So does our general manager. Teddy Long's the guy that said TLC is your match. It's Jeff Hardy's match, everybody. They're right, it is your match. This TLC is your last match. I know what I have to accomplish to get everything I want. When I beat you at SummerSlam and I take back my World Heavyweight Title, it will validate everything I've said in the past. I will prove once and for all, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that straight edge is the right way, that straight edge means I'm better than you. Jeff, I have to get rid of you to teach these people the difference between right and wrong. I have to get rid of you to teach them how to say, "just say no." I have to get rid of you so they stop living in your moment, and they wake up, and they start living in my reality. Make no mistake about it, Jeff; there's no turning back from this point on. You can talk about the space from the top of that ladder to this mat, but from here on out, there's nothing left. At SummerSlam, I will hurt you, and I will remove you and the stain of all your bad examples from the WWE forever.
Jeff: Punk, you can't destroy me, you can't destroy what I've created over my ten years here. Kansas City's not gonna listen to you. You won't beat me at SummerSlam, Punk. I will prove that I'm better than you in my specialty: Tables, Ladders, & Chairs.
Punk: You're right, Jeff. You know what, you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, because you need them to enable you. You need them to justify your reckless behavior with their support and their cheers, just like they need you to somehow justify their reckless behavior, with their smoking and their drinking and their use of prescription medication. They try in vain to live vicariously through a man who, by way of his lifestyle, thinks he can fly.”

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

Interrupting Jeff Hardy's promo from the top of a ladder. August 21, 2009.
Friday Night SmackDown

People, World, Way, Guy

“I have no idea what that means, Nick,” Paulson said. “Talk normal human to me.”

John Scalzi book Redshirts

Source: Redshirts (2012), Chapter 20 (p. 200)

Idea

“I call my music the healing music… It makes the blind feel that they can see, the lame feel that they can walk, the deaf and dumb that they can hear and talk.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

Pop Chronicles: Show 5 - Hail, Hail, Rock 'n' Roll: The rock revolution gets underway. (Part 1) https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19751/m1/#track/6, interview recorded 1.2.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

Music, Feeling

“You are talking to dead men here.”

Friedrich Paulus (1890–1957) German general

To a Luftwaffe officer sent to Stalingrad. Quoted in "Voices From The Third Reich: An Oral History" - Page 152 - by Johannes Steinhoff, Peter Pechel, Helmut D. Schmidt, Dennis E. Showalter - History - 1994

Men, Dead

“[How is it consistent with what you advocated this evening in terms of a vision for peace, that you continued to allow the building of settlements in the West Bank, during your primeministership? ] Let me tell you, first of all, during my term as a Prime Minister, we have not built a single new settlement. I ordered the dismantling of many voluntary -- I don't know how to call it -- new settlements that had been set on top of hills in different parts of the West Bank, basically. But, I allowed contracts, contracts that had been signed, legally, in Israel, beforehand. To build new neighborhoods in some big cities in the West Bank, cities with 25,000 or 30,000 people. And very few new homes, in small settlements, where youngsters, who came back from the army service, asked to build their home near the home of their parents. Now, Israel is a law-abiding state, you cannot break contracts, there is Supreme Court. If the government behaves in a way that is not proper, any individual can appeal and change whatever we decide. Realizing that this is a sensitive issue from the Palestinian side, I talked to Arafat, at the beginning of my term as a Prime Minister, and I told him: Mr. Chairman, I know that you are worried about it, it creates some problems, in your own constituency. But let me tell you, we have a great opportunity here to put an end to the whole conflict, in a year and a half. When President Clinton that invested unbelievable amount of energy and political capital in trying to solve it, and he's still in power. Now, I understand your problem with settlement if there is no end, there is no time limit, and you are afraid that maybe the accumulation of new settlements will change the nature of the situation, for the worse, from your position. So I tell you, out of our own considerations, independent of you, we have decided not to set even a single new settlement. We will not allow anyone to establish his own private initiatives on the hills, for our own reasons, not because of you. But at the same time I will respect any contract that has been signed, under law, in Israel. But -- and here is a point -- bearing in mind that we can put an end to the conflict, to reach an agreement within a year and a half, why the hell it will matter? To build a new building in Israel takes more than a year and a half, so you won't see any building that is not already emerging from the ground, having it's roof before we can reach an agreement. Now if such a building happens to be in a settlement that will become, under the agreement, part of the new independent Palestine, why the hell you have to care? Take it, use it, put some refugees in it. And if it will happen to be a part of what will be agreed, as Israel, in a mutual agreement that is signed by you, why the hell do you care, if you agree? I believe that that simple answer would not solve his public -- or internal political -- problems, but it would solve the real issue if the will was there to make peace, and not just to politically maneuver and manipulate.”

Ehud Barak (1942) Israeli politician and prime minister

Speech at UC Berkeley http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/19324/edition_id/391/format/html/displaystory.html, November 22, 2002

People, Peace, Law, Way

“Surely no one will consider us lacking in reverence if we say that every one of the "principles of modern salesmanship" on which business men so much pride themselves, are brilliantly exemplified in Jesus' talk and work.”

Bruce Fairchild Barton book The Man Nobody Knows

Source: The Man Nobody Knows (1924), Ch. 4 : His Method

Men, Business

“When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

Ben Stein interviewed by Paul Crouch Jr. on Trinity Broadcasting Network, First To Know with Paul Crouch Jr., April 21, 2008, 21 April 2008, 2011-12-19 http://www.tbn.org/video_portal/?which=bts,

Thinking, Science, Time

“Talk of the "imperial decay" of your invalid port. "Its gracious withdrawal from perfection, keeping a hint of former majesty withal, as it hovers between oblivion and the divine Untergang of infinite recession."”

Stephen Potter (1900–1969) British writer

One-Upmanship (1952) p. 143
On how to talk up a faded Cockburn 1897.

Perfection

“Be Godzilla. Don't do anything else. Write books about playing Godzilla, talk to reporters about playing Godzilla, but don't do anything else. Just be Godzilla.”

Kenpachiro Satsuma (1947) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Kenpachiro Satsuma Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/satsum3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Books