Quotes about thing
page 28

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I have never believed that the securing of material resources ought to form the central interest of human life—but have instead maintained that personality is an independent flowering of the intellect and emotions wholly apart from the struggle for existence. Formerly I accepted the archaic dictum that only a few can be relieved of the engulfing waste of the material struggle in its bitterest form—a dictum which is, of course, true in an agricultural age having scanty resources. Therefore I adopted an aristocratic attitude; regretfully arguing that life, in any degree of fulness, is only for the fortunate few whose ancestors' prowess has given them economic security and leisure. But I did not take the bourgeois position of praising struggle for its own sake. While recognising certain worthy qualities brought out by it, I was too much impressed by its stultifying attributes to regard it as other than a necessary evil. In my opinion, only the leisured aristocrat really had a chance at adequate life—nor did I despise him because he was not forced to struggle. Instead, I was sorry that so few could share his good fortune. Too much human energy was wasted in the mere scramble for food and shelter. The condition was tolerable only because inevitable in yesterday's world of scanty resources. Millions of men must go to waste in order that a few might really live. Still—if those few were not upheld, no high culture would ever be built up. I never had any use for the American pioneer's worship of work and self-reliance for their own sakes. These things are necessary in their place, but not ends in themselves—and any attempt to make them ends in themselves is essentially uncivilised. Thus I have no fundamental meeting-ground with the rugged Yankee individualist. I represent rather the mood of the agrarian feudalism which preceded the pioneering and capitalistic phases. My ideal of life is nothing material or quantitative, but simply the security and leisure necessary for the maximum flowering of the human spirit.... Well—so much for the past. Now we live in an age of easy abundance which makes possible the fulfilment of all moderate human wants through a relatively slight amount of labour. What shall be the result? Shall we still make resources prohibitively hard to get when there is really a plethora of them? Shall we allow antique notions of allocation—"property," etc.—to interfere with the rational distribution of this abundant stock of resources among all those who require them? Shall we value hardship and anxiety and uncertainty so fatuously as to impose these evils artificially on people who do not need to bear them, through the perpetuation of a set of now irrelevant and inapplicable rules of allocation? What reasonable objection is there to an intelligent centralised control of resources whose primary object shall be the elimination of want in every quarter—a thing possible without removing comfortable living from any one now enjoying it? To call the allocation of resources something "uncontrollable" by man—and in an age when virtually all natural forces are harnessed and utilised—is simply infantile. It is simply that those who now have the lion's share don't want any fresh or rational allocation. It is needless to say that no sober thinker envisages a workless equalitarian paradise. Much work remains, and human capacities differ. High-grade service must still receive greater rewards than low-grade service. But amidst the present abundance of goods and minimisation of possible work, there must be a fair and all-inclusive allocation of the chances to perform work and secure rewards. When society can't give a man work, it must keep him comfortable without it; but it must give him work if it can, and must compel him to perform it when it is needed. This does not involve interference with personal life and habits (contrary to what some reactionaries say), nor is the absence of insecurity anything to deplore.... But of course the real need of change comes not from the mere fact of abundant resources, but from the growth of conditions making it impossible for millions to have any chance of getting any resources under the present outworn set of artificial rules. This development is no myth. Machines had displaced 900,000 men in the U. S. before the crash of '29, and no conceivable regime of "prosperity" (where by a few people will have abundant and flexible resources and successfully exchange them among one another) will ever make it possible to avoid the permanent presence of millions of unemployed, so long as old-fashioned laissez-faire capitalism is adhered to.... And so I have readjusted my ideas. … I have gone almost reluctantly—step by step, as pressed by facts too insistent to deny—and am still quite as remote from Belknap's naive Marxism as I am from the equally naive Republican orthodoxy I have left behind. I am as set as ever against any cultural upheaval—and believe that nothing of the kind is necessary in order to achieve a new and feasible economic equilibrium. The best of culture has always been non-economic.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Hitherto it has grown out of the secure, non-struggling life of the aristocrat. In future it may be expected to grow out of the secure and not-so-struggling life of whatever citizens are personally able to develop it. There need be no attempt to drag culture down to the level of crude minds. That, indeed, would be something to fight tooth and nail! With economic opportunities artificially regulated, we may well let other interests follow a natural course. Inherent differences in people and in tastes will create different social-cultural classes as in the past—although the relation of these classes to the holding of material resources will be less fixed than in the capitalistic age now closing. All this, of course, is directly contrary to Belknap's rampant Stalinism—but I'm telling you I'm no bolshevik! I am for the preservation of all values worth preserving—and for the maintenance of complete cultural continuity with the Western-European mainstream. Don't fancy that the dethronement of certain purely economic concepts means an abrupt break in that stream. Rather does it mean a return to art impulses typically aristocratic (that is, disinterested, leisurely, non-ulterior) rather than bourgeois.
Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (28 October 1934), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 60-64
Non-Fiction, Letters

Barack Obama photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“Beauty lies not in the things we see, but in the soul.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 158

John Allen Paulos photo

“There is no such thing as free lunch, and even if there were, there’d be no guarantee against indigestion.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 5, “Statistics, Trade-Offs, and Society” (p. 147)

Barack Obama photo

“You know, there’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about what America has lost — people who tell us that our way of life is being undermined by pernicious changes and dark forces beyond our control. They tell voters there’s a “real America” out there that must be restored. This isn’t an idea, by the way, that started with Donald Trump. It’s been peddled by politicians for a long time — probably from the start of our Republic.
And it’s got me thinking about the story I told you 12 years ago tonight, about my Kansas grandparents and the things they taught me when I was growing up. See, my grandparents, they came from the heartland. Their ancestors began settling there about 200 years ago. I don’t know if they have their birth certificates — but they were there. They were Scotch-Irish mostly — farmers, teachers, ranch hands, pharmacists, oil rig workers.  Hardy, small town folks.  Some were Democrats, but a lot of them — maybe even most of them — were Republicans.  Party of Lincoln.
And my grandparents explained that folks in these parts, they didn’t like show-offs.  They didn’t admire braggarts or bullies. They didn’t respect mean-spiritedness, or folks who were always looking for shortcuts in life. Instead, what they valued were traits like honesty and hard work, kindness, courtesy, humility, responsibility, helping each other out. That’s what they believed in. True things. Things that last. The things we try to teach our kids.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, DNC Address (July 2016)

Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Heber C. Kimball photo
Bruce Lee photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Hans Zimmer photo

“There was a dodgy digital period when things didn't sound that great, but now we are figuring that out. The basics haven't changed, which is talented human beings playing together in a room.”

Hans Zimmer (1957) German film composer and music producer

Source http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13964918.

Catherine of Genoa photo
Andy Rooney photo

“Ive had quite a few complaints lately from people who like it when I complain about things. They say I havent complained about anything lately. So tonight, for you complaint fans, I have a complaint.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

[Andy Rooney, w:Andy Rooney, 197, Labels, Years of Minutes, 2003, PublicAffairs, 978-1586482114]

John Locke photo
Mark Twain photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Anne Hathaway photo
Blaise Pascal photo
Thomas Paine photo
Blaise Pascal photo
Nikolai Gogol photo
Chris Colfer photo
Socrates photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Edwin Hubble photo

“The whole thing is so much bigger than I am, and I can't understand it, so I just trust myself to it; and forget about it.”

Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) American astronomer

Hubble's reply when asked about his beliefs from a friend, as quoted in Edwin Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae (1996) by Gale E. Christianson, p. 183.

Fukuzawa Yukichi photo
Mike Shinoda photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Mark Twain photo

“Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul — let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances — is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men — but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.
Letter to Helen Keller, after she had been accused of plagiarism for one of her early stories (17 March 1903), published in Mark Twain's Letters, Vol. 1 (1917) edited by Albert Bigelow Paine, p. 731

Angela of Foligno photo
Adelaide Crapsey photo

“These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow…the hour
Before the dawn…the mouth of one
Just dead.”

Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914) American writer

Triad.
Verses (1915)

Harper Lee photo

“I would get up and explain how things really work. That was my job.”

Clair Cameron Patterson (1922–1995) American chemist and geochemist

In a Interview With Shirley K. Cohen http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/32/1/OH_Patterson.pdf

José Martí photo

“A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots. He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself a radical.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

Steven Spielberg photo

“There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

The Making of Jurassic Park

Plato photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Hans-Hermann Hoppe photo
José Saramago photo

“Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.”

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 126

David Manners photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Francis S. Collins photo

“Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.”

Francis S. Collins (1950) Geneticist; Director of the National Institutes of Health

"Collins: Why this scientist believes in God" http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html, editorial, CNN (April 6, 2007)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Jean Vanier photo
Juan Donoso Cortés photo
Jane Goodall photo
Paul Graham photo

“The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"What you can't say" http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, January 2004

Helen Keller photo
Galileo Galilei photo
Barack Obama photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Democritus photo
Peter F. Drucker photo

“Executives do many things in addition to making decisions. But only executives make decisions. The first managerial skill is, therefore, the making of effective decisions.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 2, p. 465

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“How can a man know himself? He is a thing dark and veiled; and if the hare has seven skins, man can slough off seventy times seven and still not be able to say: “this is really you, this is no longer outer shell.””

Wie finden wir uns selbst wieder? Wie kann sich der Mensch kennen? Er ist eine dunkle und verhüllte Sache; und wenn der Hase sieben Häute hat, so kann der Mensch sich sieben mal siebzig abziehn und wird noch nicht sagen können: »das bist du nun wirklich, das ist nicht mehr Schale«.
“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 129
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Barack Obama photo
René Descartes photo

“The entire method consists in the order and arrangement of the things to which the mind’s eye must turn so that we can discover some truth.”

Rules for the Direction of the Mind: X.379
As quoted in [Clarke, Desmond M., 2006, Descartes : a Biography, Cambridge Press, 67, ISBN 978-0-521-82301-2]

Pablo Picasso photo

“I deal with painting as I deal with things, I paint a window just as I look out of a window. If an open window looks wrong in a picture, I draw the curtain and shut it, just as I would in my own room. In painting, as in life, you must act directly.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Herschel Browning Chip (1968, p. 271).
1930s, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

Pythagoras photo

“Despise all those things which when liberated from the body you will not want; invoke the Gods to become your helpers.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

"Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus" (1904)
Florilegium

Sophie Taeuber-Arp photo

“I think I have spoken enough to you about serious things; which is why I speak [now] of something to which I attribute great value, still too little appreciated — gaiety. It is gaiety, basically, that allows us to have no fear before the problems of life and to find a natural solution to them.”

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) Swiss artist

In a letter of Taeuber-Arp, 1937, to a goddaughter on the occasion of her confirmation; as quoted in Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Carolyn Lanchner; https://www.moma.org/d/c/exhibition_catalogues/W1siZiIsIjMwMDA2MjY2MCJdLFsicCIsImVuY292ZXIiLCJ3d3cubW9tYS5vcmcvY2FsZW5kYXIvZXhoaWJpdGlvbnMvMjI2MSIsImh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm1vbWEub3JnL2NhbGVuZGFyL2V4aGliaXRpb25zLzIyNjE%2FbG9jYWxlPWVuIiwiaSJdXQ.pdf?sha=73a64e585a97e2b9 Museum of Modern Art, 1981, p. 18 ISBN 0870705989

John Locke photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Isa Genzken photo

“I always wanted to have the courage to do totally crazy, impossible, and also wrong things.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

Quote of Isa Genzken, 1994; as cited on the website of Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/isa-genzken#sthash.9tR3JC9l.dpuf: exhibition Isa Genzken: Mach dich Hübsch! 11-2015 - 03-2016.
1990 - 2000

Mechthild of Magdeburg photo

“What we know is as nothing, if we do not love God properly in all things.”

Mechthild of Magdeburg (1210–1282) German mystic

[Norris, K., The Cloister Walk, Penguin Publishing Group, 1997, 978-1-101-21566-1, http://books.google.com/books?id=pZkLNwpYcJ0C&pg=PT115]

Blaise Pascal photo

“As soon as the soul has been made to perceive that a thing can conduct it to that which it loves supremely, it must inevitably embrace it with joy.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

Bertrand Russell photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“Destiny gave me only two things: a few accounting books and the gift of dreaming.”

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Duas coisas só me deu o Destino: uns livros de contabilidade e o dom de sonhar.

Sukirti Kandpal photo

“If I was in a 9-6 job, I would want to come home and see someone pleasant on television. I don't mean that someone has to be extremely gorgeous, but there has to be a pleasant personality. The moment you look at a flower you feel nice — that is exactly what beauty does to a person. With good looks, things surely become easier.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On the need of good looks for success in industry https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tv/news/hindi/My-boyfriend-doesnt-enjoy-watching-my-romantic-scenes-Sukirti-Kandpal/articleshow/20330247.cms/

Catherine of Genoa photo
Bayazid Bastami photo

“The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it.”

Bayazid Bastami (804–846) Persian Sufi mystic

Quoted in James Fadiman and Robert Frager, eds., Essential Sufism (Castle Books, 1998, ISBN 0-7858-0906-6, p. 37.
Quoted earlier in " Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose https://archive.org/stream/translationsofea00nich#page/140/mode/2up/search/impossible" by RA Nicholson (p.140) (Macmillan, 1922)

Thomas Paine photo
Roger Federer photo
Catherine of Genoa photo
Mark Twain photo

“Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.”

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. VII
Following the Equator (1897)

Bertrand Russell photo

“Science, ever since the time of the Arabs, has had two functions: (1) to enable us to know things, and (2) to enable us to do things.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, The Impact of Science on Society (1952)

Cassandra Clare photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo

“How shall I hold on to my soul, so that
it does not touch yours? How shall I lift
it gently up over you on to other things?
I would so very much like to tuck it away
among long lost objects in the dark,
in some quiet, unknown place, somewhere
which remains motionless when your depths resound.
And yet everything which touches us, you and me,
takes us together like a single bow,
drawing out from two strings but one voice.
On which instrument are we strung?
And which violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweetest of songs.”

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möchte ich sie bei irgendetwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn diene Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
die aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.
Liebes-Lied (Love Song) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Neue Gedichte (New Poems) (1907)

Patrick Stump photo
Thomas the Apostle photo
John Lennon photo

“Well, I just want him to grow up happy. That's the main thing.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Talking about his son, Julian Lennon, in Ticket to Ride : Inside the Beatles' 1964 Tour That Changed the World (2003) by Larry Kane http://books.google.com/books?id=5MYmhGAmfUkC&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=%22well+i+just+want+him+to+grow+up+happy+that's+the+main+thing%22&source=web&ots=o-UOaUrmcr&sig=svkKFzayFfeFgYVwxKn0GsDysPU

Fernando Pessoa photo

“I have now so many fundamental thoughts, so many really metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write more, not to think more, but allow the fever of saying to make me sleepy, and fondle, with closed eyes, as if to a cat, all that I could have said.”

Ibid., p. 56
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Tenho neste momento tantos pensamentos fundamentais, tantas coisas verdadeiramente metafísicas para dizer, que me canso de repente, e decido não escrever mais, não pensar mais, mas deixar que a febre de dizer me dê sono, e eu faça festas, como a um gato, a tudo quanto poderia ter dito.

Galileo Galilei photo

“Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments derived from many things in my new celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic system while admirably agreeing with and confirming the contrary hypothesis.”

Variant translation: I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover … I confirm this view not only by refuting Ptolemy's and Aristotle's arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and other astronomical discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree admirably with this other position and confirm it.
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)

Ozzy Osbourne photo
Mark Twain photo
Maria Montessori photo

“If a child finds no stimuli for the activities which would contribute to his development, he is attracted simply to 'things' and desires to posses them.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Secret of Childhood (1936), Ch. 23

Jordan Peterson photo

“A thing isn't quite real until you name it.”

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

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"

Ernest Hemingway photo

“But life is a cheap thing beside a man's work. The only thing is that you need it.”

Pt. 3: At Sea, Section 21
Islands in the Stream (1970)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Roman Polanski photo

“Without her I feel lost, I can't explain this in words. However there are things that I just can't stand thinking of; the way she and our son died.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

Interview in Telecran magazine (25 January 1970)

Jennifer Garner photo

“I know I live a charmed, beautiful life and nobody wants to hear a celebrity whine. The last thing I want to do is complain; I love what I do and I know every job comes with a downside.”

Jennifer Garner (1972) American actress

Jennifer Garner interview: Still the girl next door http://www.nj.com/entertainment/movies/index.ssf/2012/08/jennifer_garner_interview.html

J. J. Thomson photo
Steve Jobs photo
Dave Grohl photo

“What's the last thing a drummer says in a band? "Hey guys, why don't we try one of my songs?”

Dave Grohl (1969) American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter

"Give the Drummer Some," http://www.fooarchive.com/gpb/tenjokes.htm www.fooarchive.com (1995)

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared.”

1:1:1 English http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine/ddc1.html Latin http://www.sant-agostino.it/latino/dottrina_cristiana/index2.htm
Latin: Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est.
De doctrina christiana