Quotes about thing
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“Ishabal: "If you may correct your vision as you like, why do you wear spectacles?"
Tris: "Because I like them. Because I have better things to do with my magic than fixing my vision when ordinary glass will do.”

Tamora Pierce book The Will of the Empress

Source: The Will of the Empress

“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Birthday

“Simplicity is not a simple thing.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

“Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.”

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) English children's writer and illustrator

“It is my belief that books are living things…. And as living things, they need to be protected.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Books

“I’m to attend balls and banquets without my squire?" demanded Raoul, all innocence. "I can't handle things like requesting water to shave with, or getting my clothes pressed. I need Kel.”

Tamora Pierce Squire

Source: Squire

Water, Clothes

“How strange! This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life…. Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!… Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? … But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is - a strange state…”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Stuttgart. After 8th September 1831.
Source: "Selected Correspondence Of Fryderyk Chopin"; http://archive.org/stream/selectedcorrespo002644mbp/selectedcorrespo002644mbp_djvu.txt

Life, Children, People, Lie

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Part Two, Ch. 4
On the Road (1957)

Star, Night

“Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

Life, Beauty, Way, Understanding

“If there really is such a thing as turning in one's grave, Shakespeare must get a lot of exercise.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Exercises

“I studied every thing but never topped…. But today the toppers of the best universities are my employees”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Study, Universe

“It is good to be a cynic—it is better to be a contented cat — and it is best not to exist at all. Universal suicide is the most logical thing in the world—we reject it only because of our primitive cowardice and childish fear of the dark. If we were sensible we would seek death—the same blissful blank which we enjoyed before we existed.”

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

"Nietzscheism and Realism" from The Rainbow, Vol. I, No. 1 (October 1921); reprinted in "To Quebec and the Stars", and also in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 71
Non-Fiction
Source: Collected Essays 5: Philosophy, Autobiography and Miscellany

Death, World, Fear, Cats

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 2

People, Cars, Silence

“Even if things don't unfold the way you expected, don't be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Way

“At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Courage, Dead

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one.”

John Ruskin book Modern Painters

Volume III, part IV, chapter XVI (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)

People, World, Religion, Way

“If you have insight, you use your inner eye, your inner ear, to pierce to the heart of things, and have no need of intellectual knowledge.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Knowledge, Heart

“It is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

“The love we do not show here on Earth is the only thing that hurts us in the after-life.”

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

Love, Life, Hurt

“You are unhappy because you believe in such a thing as happy.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Happiness

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

Elliott Erwitt (1928) American photographer

Art, Way

“Maybe it's just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows — maybe even tomorrow.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Love, Home, Appearance

“There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.”

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

World, Idea

“Well, now you can see for yourself that she was delicate", said Davey triumphantly. "She's dead. It killed her. Doesn't that show you? I do wish I could make you Radletts understand that there is no such thing as imaginary illness. Nobody who is quite well could possibly be bothered to do all the things that I, for instance, am obliged to, in order to keep my wretched frame on its feet.”

Nancy Mitford book Love in a Cold Climate

Source: Love in a Cold Climate

Understanding, Dead

“Fear is a good thing. It mean you're paying attention.”

Tamora Pierce book Page

Source: Page

Fear

“Logic is the science not of external forms of thought, but of the laws of development "of all material, natural and spiritual things", i. e., of the development of the entire concrete content of the world and of its cognition, i. e., the sum-total, the conclusion of the History of knowledge of the world.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

World, Law, History, Nature

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Aldous Huxley, using the term "the doors of perception" which originated with William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. It is sometimes credited to Morrison because he cited it in interviews as the inspiration for the name The Doors and without always crediting Huxley as the source.
Misattributed

“There are essentially two things that will make you wise -- the books you read and the people you meet.”

Jack Canfield (1944) American writer

People, Books, Reading

“To live fully, we must learn to use things and love people, and not love things and use people.”

John Powell (1645–1713) American Jesuit priest

Love, People, Learning

“Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Men

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people that they don't like.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Money, People, Funny

“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Hate, Books

“You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing. But when you get there you find it's not that simple.”

Richard Adams book Watership Down

Source: Watership Down

Thinking

“I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Source: Lost Highway

Way

“Communists love to make films about composers, because composers compose music and don't talk subversive things.”

Miloš Forman (1932–2018) czech-American director, screenwriter, and professor

Love, Music

“Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Said to one of his students, according to "Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by His Pupils" by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger

Beauty, Art, Music, Idea

“In particular, at this point also urge governing authorities and parents to rule well and to send their children to school. Point out how they are obliged to do so and what a damnable sin they commit if they do not, for thereby, as the worst enemies of God and humanity, they overthrow and lay waste both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Explain very clearly what kind of horrible damage they do when they do not help to train children as pastors, preachers, civil servants, etc., and tell them that God will punish them dreadfully for this. For in our day and age it is necessary to preach about these things. The extent to which parents and governing authorities are now sinning in these matters defies description. The devil, too, intends to do something horrible in all this.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19

God, Children, Age, World

“The only goal is in the process. The process is the thing…with little flashes of light here and there. Those are the gigs, those are the live shows. But it’s the life in between—that’s all I got.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

From Grace EPK (Electronic Press Kit)

Life, Light

“In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with othe pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Life, Wisdom, God, Truth

“People should be a little loony, Helena. That's the best thing about them.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

People

“There is no such thing in life as normal”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Lauretta Bender / Quotes / 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings into Juvenile Delinquency, "Testimony of Dr. Lauretta Bender, senior psychiatrist, Belleveu hospital Newyork N.Y." http://www.thecomicbooks.com/bender.html From songs

Life, Sad, Moving On

“Goethe as an old man: he was so very punctual. At that time he also wrote many things that were very punctual. The rounded thing is boring. Turn it as you may, it remains round and pretty.
I love the edges, the sharp lines, and fractures.
I show to him a picture of Dostoevsky. How ruptured, furrowed, tormented!
He looks like Michelangelo; the face of an endurer and a prophet.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Der alte Goethe: er war so pünktlich. Er schrieb damals auch vieles, was sehr pünktlich war. Das Runde ist langweilig. Dreh es wie du willst, es bleibt rund und schön.
Ich liebe Ecken, Kanten und Risse.
Ich lege ihm ein Bild von Dostojewski vor. Wie zerrissen, wie zerfurcht und zerhauen!
So sieht auch Michelangelo aus; ein Dulder- und Prophetengesicht.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Love, Time

“…racial hatred is not a natural phenomenon innate in man. It is the product of ideologies. But even if such a thing as a natural and inborn hatred between various races existed, it would not render social cooperation futile and would not invalidate Ricardo's theory of association. Social cooperation has nothing to do with personal love or with a general commandment to love one another. People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

Part 2, VIII.84
Human Action (1949)

Love, Men, People, Peace

“The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life they're free
Stars belong to everyone
They cling there for you and for me.”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

The Best Things in Life Are Free
Song lyrics, Sam Cooke at the Copa (1964)

Life, Star

“Esaias says: “The wolf also shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall take his rest with the kid; the calf also, and the bull, and the lion shall eat together; and a little boy shall lead them. …” I am quite aware that some persons endeavour to refer these words to the case of savage men, both of different nations and various habits, who come to believe, and when they have believed, act in harmony with the righteous. But although this is [true] now with regard to some men coming from various nations to the harmony of the faith, nevertheless in the resurrection of the just [the words shall also apply] to those animals mentioned. For God is rich in all things. And it is right that when the creation is restored, all the animals should … revert to the food originally given by God … that is, the productions of the earth.”

Irenaeus (130–202) Bishop and saint

Book 5, Chapter 33, Section 4. Translated by Philip Schaff et al. (full text at Wikisource).
Against Heresies

Men, God, Faith, Food

“The central idea is that government fiscal policy, its spending and taxing, its borrowing and repayment of loans, its issue of new money and withdrawal of money, shall be undertaken with an eye only to the results of these actions on the economy and not to any established traditional doctrine what is sound and what is unsound …Government should adjust its rates of expenditure and taxation such that total spending is neither more or less than that which is sufficient to purchase the full employment level of output at current prices. If this means there is deficit, greater borrowing, "printing money," etc., then these things in themselves are neither good or bad, they are simply the means to the desired ends of full employment and price stability.”

Abba Lerner (1903–1982) American economist

On Functional Finance: (1943, pg.354) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=174849

Money, Idea

“As the thing more perfect is,
The more it feels of pleasure and of pain.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto VI, lines 107–108 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Pain, Pleasure, Feeling, Perfection

“The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named (see also, Alfred Korzybski).”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Source: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, 1979, p. 30

“Only those are happy who never think or, rather, who only think about life's bare necessities, and to think about such things means not to think at all. True thinking resembles a demon who muddies the spring of life or a sickness which corrupts its roots. To think all the time, to raise questions, to doubt your own destiny, to feel the weariness of living, to be worn out to the point of exhaustion by thoughts and life, to leave behind you, as symbols of your life's drama, a trail of smoke and blood — all this means you are so unhappy that reflection and thinking appear as a curse causing a violent revulsion in you.”

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

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Life, Happiness, Feeling, Spring

“I know my fans look up to me and that's why I make my songs so personal; it's all about things I've experienced and things I like or hate. I write for myself and hope that my fans like what I have to say.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Avril Lavigne Over the Hedge Interview" https://www.girl.com.au/avril-lavigne-over-the-hedge-interview.htm by Gaynor Flynn, in Girl.com.au (July 2006)

Hate, Hope, Personality

“All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite.”

Anaxagoras (-500–-428 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

Frag. B 1, quoted in John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, (1920), Chapter 6.

“The world is full of wonderful things you haven’t seen yet. Don’t ever give up on the chance of seeing them.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

Online tweet, in response to an extremely depressed person contemplating https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/595148783056527360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.etonline.com%2Fnews%2F163965_jk_rowling_sends_beautiful_message_to_fan_who_wants_to_finally_give_up%2F suicide, as quoted in "J.K. Rowling Sends Beautiful Message to Fan Who Wants to 'Finally Give Up'" by Alex Ungerman ET Online (5 May 2015) http://www.etonline.com/news/163965_jk_rowling_sends_beautiful_message_to_fan_who_wants_to_finally_give_up/ 2010s

World, Chance

“[Bill Evans talking about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion] I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation.”

Bill Evans (1929–1980) American jazz pianist

http://jazztimes.com/articles/20128-miles-davis-and-bill-evans-miles-and-bill-in-black-white.

People, Music, Feeling, Business

“I was born under a lucky star, and I have nothing whatsoever to regret. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

In his interview with Nina Myskow for Saga magazine, July 2007

Life, Star, Change

“Now, of all acts the most complete is that of constructing. A work demands love, meditation, obedience to your finest thought, the invention of laws by your soul, and many other things that it draws miraculously from your own self, which did not suspect that it possessed them. This work proceeds from the most intimate center of your existence, and yet it is distinct from yourself.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Socrates, p. 145
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

Love, Law, Soul, Drawing

“Whatever people do in the market economy, is the execution of their own plans. In this sense every human action means planning. What those calling themselves planners advocate is not the substitution of planned action for letting things go. It is the substitution of the planner's own plan for the plans of his fellow-men. The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans. He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute pre-eminence of his own plan.”

Ludwig von Mises book Socialism

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)

Men, People, Sense

“The past is a curious thing. It's with you all the time. I suppose an hour never passes without your thinking of things that happened ten or twenty years ago, and yet most of the time it's got no reality, it's just a set of facts that you've learned, like a lot of stuff in a history book. Then some chance sight or sound or smell, especially smell, sets you going, and the past doesn't merely come back to you, you're actually in the past.”

George Orwell book Coming Up for Air

Coming Up for Air, Part I, Ch. 4 (1939)

Books, History, Thinking, Reality

“When you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to be saved, you are saved, and miserable forever.”

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

The New Gods (1969)

Appearance

“The kibbutz way of life is not for everyone. It is meant for people who are not in the business of working harder than they should be working, in order to make more money than they need, in order to buy things they don't really want, in order to impress people they don't really like.”

Amos Oz (1939–2018) Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual

"The Great Disruption", In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, 17 Jun 1999, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545kh

Life, Money, People, Way

“Neither the circle without the line, nor the line without the point, can be artificially produced. It is, therefore, by virtue of the point and the Monad that all things commence to emerge in principle.
That which is affected at the periphery, however large it may be, cannot in any way lack the support of the central point.”

John Dee (1527–1608) English mathematican, astrologer and antiquary

Theorem II
Monas Hieroglyphica (1564)

Way, Support

“Recently somebody asked me if I’m still in touch with my feminine side. They ask me why did I do the Lux ad and things like that. I think there is a feminine side to me, as people like to assume.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Rajeev Masand

People, Thinking

“A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky.”

Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350) japanese writer

Tsurezure-Gusa (Essays in Idleness)

Life

“I was just reading some poetry, and it talked about how things start as one thing and change into another, and I just thought, what a great concept for a song.”

Tommy Lee (1962) American drummer

http://www.drdrew.com/article.asp?id=393.

Change, Reading

“They [men] have corrupted this [God's supernatural] order by making profane things what they should make of holy things, because in fact, we believe scarcely any thing except which pleases us.”

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

The Art of Persuasion

Men, God

“People think God is a man. People think God has got ears, nose, teeth and he rises daily in the morning, brushes his teeth and washes his mouth. And he is an old man and he has a beard. All these things people think. But no, God is energy. God is perfect and pure energy.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Central Hall, Westminster, London, UK, November 2, 1971
1970s

God, People, Thinking, Perfection

“Germany, on the other hand, has based its domestic policies on new and modern social principles. That is why it is a danger to English plutocracy. It is also why English capitalists want to destroy Hitlerism. They see Hitlerism as all the generous social reforms that have occurred in Germany since 1933. The English plutocrats rightly fear that good things are contagious, that they could endanger English capitalism.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

“Englands Schuld,” Illustrierter Beobachter, Sondernummer, p. 14. The article is not dated, but is from the early months of the war, likely late fall of 1939. Joseph Goebbels’ speech in English is titled “England's Guilt.”
1930s

Fear

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Collected Writings Vol. I (1926) edited by Bernhard Aschner, p. 110

Water

“In the finished article, the only thing that is important is whether it moves you or not. There is nothing else that is important at all.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Music

“It's always the same thing, one war after another”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

War

“Paddy and I had scarcely a wink of sleep, for there was a man near us who had some nervous trouble, shell-shock perhaps, which made him cry out 'Pip!' at irregular intervals. It was a loud, startling noise, something like the toot of a small motor-horn. You never knew when it was coming, and it was a sure preventer of sleep…. he must have kept ten or twenty people awake every night. He was an example of the kind of thing that prevents one from ever getting enough sleep when men are herded as they are in these lodging houses.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 29

Men, People, Sleep, Housing

“So we are engaged in these material activities, but we forget at the same time that there is ready, atom bomb. As soon as there will be declared war, these things will be finished, immediately. These people are not declaring war. America is not declaring war against Asia, Russia or China. They are thinking because they know they have got the deadly weapons, atom, and that is the now diplomacy. When there will be war, the first dropping of atom bomb will be victorious. Aah, victorious.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 6, Chapter 1, verse 6; Sydney; February 17, 1973
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: False Prophecies

War, People, Thinking, Time

“The sport is more important than anything. More important than any of the people in it. Of course I say what I think. I always have, even if it upsets people like Ecclestone and Balestre. Why should I be afraid of them? The fans aren't here to see politicians and manipulators. They're here to see me. I am very secure in my feelings about racing. I make a lot of money from it, but one thing I can tell you for sure: if the money disappeared overnight, I would still be in racing, because I love it. The entrepreneurs would be gone.”

Gilles Villeneuve (1950–1982) Canadian racecar driver

Interview during the driver's strike at the 1982 South African Grand Prix, Donaldson, pg. 297

Love, Money, People, Feeling

“Over the years I kept everything and anything from stuff and things that I came across during my life in trade, if they had emotional value to me. Always the simple goods and tools, from the farmers, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the baker and so on. I loved those things most in which I saw reflected the struggle for life very clearly.... old used up shoes, trousers, jackets, hats and children's vests, which I found in the rags, often patched up endlessly.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Door de jaren heen heb ik van alles en nog wat bewaard aan dingen en voorwerpen die ik in mijn leven in de handel tegenkwam, als ze gevoelswaarde voor me hadden. Altijd eenvoudig gebruiksgoed en gereedschap van de boer, de smid, de timmerman, de bakker enzovoorts. Dingen waarin ik de strijd om het bestaan het duidelijkst weerspiegeld zag vond ik het mooist.. ..afgetrapte oude schoenen, broeken, jassen, hoeden en kindervestjes, die ik in de vodden vond, vaak tot in den treure versteld en opgelapt.
Source: Jopie de Verteller' (2010) - postumous, p. 19

Love, Life, Children, Shoe

“The false interpreters of nature declare that quicksilver is the common seed of every metal, not remembering that nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

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

World, Nature, Falseness

“It is a rather unpleasant sensation to feel yourself pulled by the strings and made to do things whether you want to or not — that is quite irrelevant — but to be compelled to act because something pulls you by the strings, something which you do not even see — that is exasperating. … I knew nobody who could help me and I did not have the chance that you have, someone who can tell you: "This is what you have to do!" There was nobody to tell me that. I had to find it out all by myself. And I found it. I started at five.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

On developing her inner experiences, as narrated in later years to her disciples at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in "Birth and Girlhood", also in The Mother On Herself http://www.miraura.org/bio/herself.html

Feeling, Chance, Help

“I was not intrigued with the accouterments of success and fame, the furs, jewels, expensive automobiles and mansions… I can assure you that these things were not on my mind when I sat spellbound in that Pozzuoli movie house. It was what these performers on the screen were doing, not what they received for doing it.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

As quoted in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979) by A. E. Hotchner, p. 63.

Success, Housing

“If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844) Variant: If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

Forgetting

“Successful people do things, and get over with it, and leave others to live their life off it. I DO them. And then I leave it to others to live their life off it.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

Life, People, Success

“In fact the only thing that I don't like about Whisky, is that if I take the merest sip of the stuff, it sends a sharp pain from the back of my left eyeball down to the tip of my right elbow, and I begin to walk in a very special way, bumping into people and snarling at the furniture. I have therefore learned to turn my attention to other tipples. Margaritas, I'm very fond of, but they make me buy very stupid things. When ever I've had a few margaritas I always wake up in the morning with a sense of dread as to what I will find downstairs. The worst was a 6ft long pencil and a 2ft wide India rubber that I had shipped over from New York, as a result of one injudicious binge.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

Pain, People, Stupidity, Way

“This world is empty to him alone who does not understand how to direct his libido towards objects, and to render them alive and beautiful for himself, for Beauty does not indeed lie in things, but in the feeling that we give to them.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

The Psychology of the Unconscious (1943)

Lie, World, Beauty, Feeling

“I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.”

Magnus Carlsen (1990) Norwegian chess player

Magnus Carlsen, chess prodigy from Norway - The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/world/europe/01iht-profile.4.15806138.html?_r=1

“If there's something you like very much then you should regard this not as you feeling good but as a kind of brain cancer, because it means that some small part of your mind has figured out how to turn off all the other things.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

In "The Many Minds of Marvin Minsky (R.I.P.)" by John Horgan, Scientific American Blogs, 26 January 2016 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-many-minds-of-marvin-minsky-r-i-p/

Feeling, Parting

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown. Misattributed

Dreams, Disappointment, Success, Courageous

“I admonish you regarding five things:”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

1) If you are wronged, do not commit wrong doing to others;
2) If you are betrayed, do not betray anyone;
3) If you are called a liar, do not be furious;
4) If you are praised, do not be jubilant;
5) If you are criticised, do not fret and think of what is said in criticism - if you find in yourself what is criticised about you, then you are falling down in the eyes of God; when you are furious about the truth, it is a much greater calamity then your falling down in the eyes of the people. And if you are opposite of what is said (in criticism) about you, then it is a merit you acquired without having to tire yourself in obtaining it.
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.75, p. 162

“The main thing missing from cartoons is today that old cartoons were cartoony. They did things you can't do in any other medium. Today's cartoons are very conservative and are more like live action. The characters look the same in every frame of the damn cartoon. The old cartoons squashed, stretched, and did crazy expressions. They were imaginative and crazy. A lot of cartoons aren't imaginative, they just say things. It might as well be radio. There is no point in having anything to look at in modern cartoons. But you can't say that about every cartoon. Genndy Tartakovsky's cartoons are beautiful. The closest thing now to what I'm saying is SpongeBob but even that doesn't go very far. It's like a conservative version of Ren & Stimpy.”

John Kricfalusi (1955) Canadian animator

Daniel Robert Epstein (Oct 12, 2004), " John Kricfalusi, interview http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/John%20Kricfalusi/", SuicideGirls, retrieved 2011-03-01

Beauty, Imagination

“I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Soul, Confidence, Spring, Evil

“About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter.”

Joan of Arc (1412–1431) French folk heroine and Roman Catholic saint

From the trial transcript, as quoted in The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994)

Christ

“I'm telling you folks, nerds are one of the most dangerous groups in this country, because they end up running things. But they still hate everybody, because they weren't the jocks in high school. So they play little dirty games on everybody. They use their brains to hurt people. And I'm aware of them. OK? I see you, you little rats!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

The Alex Jones Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTDLdDEJwZg, April 20, 2013. 2013

Hate, People, School, Game

“The whole idea of what happens when you read a book, I find absolutely stunning. Here's some product of a tree, little black squiggles on it, you open it up, an inside your head is the voice of someone speaking, who may have been dead 3000 years, and there he is talking directly to you, what a magical thing that is.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (full interview, May 20th, 1977)
Others

Books, Idea, Tree, Reading

“Even if at times I can still experience outwardly some little sadness and joy, nonetheless there is in my soul a chamber in which no joy, sadness, or enjoyment from any virtue, or delight over anything that can be named, enters. This is where the All Good, which is not any particular good, resides, and it is so much the All Good that there is no other good. Although I blaspheme by speaking about it -- and I speak about it so badly because I cannot find words to express it -- I nonetheless affirm that in this manifestation of God I discover the complete truth. In it, I understand and possess the complete truth that is in heaven and in hell, in the entire world, in every place, in all things, in every enjoyment in heaven and in every creature. And I see all this is so truly and certainly that no one could convince me otherwise. Even if the whole world were to tell me otherwise, I would laugh it to scorn. Furthermore, I saw the One who is and how he is the being of all creatures. I also saw how he made me capable of understanding those realities I have just spoken about better than when I saw them in that darkness which used to delight me so. Moreover, in that state I see myself as alone with God, totally cleansed, totally sanctified, totally true, totally upright, totally certain, totally celestial in him. And when I am in that state, I do not remember anything else…”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, pp. 214-216

God, Truth, World, Sadness

“AXIOM. — Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. IV

“You have to work from one point to go to another. So I admire work ethic, I think it should be re-inforced through out our neigbourhoods, that everybody should work hard, practice makes perfect, you have to be diligent with what you want, you have to apply your self, you have to motivate your self. You have to do for-self by your self, and then you can do things for other people. But that's what I had to do, I had to do for-self.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview (1994)

People, Motivation, Thinking, Perfection

“Maybe you're the same as me / We see things they'll never see / You and I are gonna live forever.”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Live Forever
Definitely Maybe (1994)

“The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (4 February 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/hiwbtw/ As I Please (1943–1947)

Truth, Past, Future

“Progress? There's no such thing as progress. There's only change. You dig a hole in the ground, you build up a city, and you fight a war, and you call it progress?”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview track from Charles Manson Sings (2006)

War, Change, Fight

“There is no doubt a difference in the right hon. gentleman's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. But that's the old story; you must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true that the right hon. gentleman's conduct is different. I remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right hon. gentleman say: "I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the confidence of Sovereigns". That was a grand thing. We don't hear much of "the gentlemen of England" now. But what of that? They have the pleasures of memory—the charms of reminiscence. They were his first love, and, though he may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man almost has gone through it. My hon. gentleman does what he can to keep them quiet; he sometimes takes refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity; and if they knew anything of human nature they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens? What happens under all such circumstances? The right hon. gentleman, being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the genteelest manner: "We can have no whining here". And that, sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest—that beauty which everybody wooed and one deluded. There is a fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the hon. member for Stockport than by one who through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed. For me there remains this at least—the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/17/agricultural-interest in the House of Commons (17 March 1845). 1840s

Love, People, Pleasure, Beauty

“I walked into the range, rented a handgun from the ugly old redneck cashier, and started to practice shooting at paper targets. As I fired my first few rounds, I felt so sick to the stomach. I questioned my whole life, and I looked at the gun in front of me and asked myself “What am I doing here? How could things have led to this?” I couldn’t believe my life was actually turning out this way. There I was, practicing shooting with real guns because I had a plan to carry out a massacre. Why did things have to be this way, I silently questioned myself as I looked at the handgun I was holding in front of me. I paid my fee and left the range within minutes, feeling as if I was going to be sick.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Life, Way, Feeling, Question

“Well, for people that like that sort of thing, I think it is just about the sort of thing they would like.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Attributed to "an American President" in Ármin Vámbéry (1884), All the Year Round. It more likely originates in a spoof testimonial that Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne) wrote in an advertisement in 1863:
Posthumous attributions

People, Thinking

“I could make Halo. It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

Source http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20037961,00.html?cid=recirc-peopleRecirc

People, Game

“Glorified art Thou, O God my God! I indeed testify to Thee and all-things at the moment when I am in Thy presence in pure servitude, upon this, that verily Thou art God, no other God is there besides Thee! Thou art unchanged, O my God, within the elevation of Grandeur and Majesty, and shall be unalterable, O my desirous boon, within the pinnacle of power and perfection inasmuch as nothing shall frustrate Thee and nothing shall extinguish Thee! Thou art unchanged as Thou art the Capable above Thy creation and Thou art unalterable as Thou indeed shall be as from before inasmuch as nothing is with Thee of anything and nothing is in Thy rank of anything! Thou accomplisheth and willeth and doeth and desireth! Glorified art Thou, O God my God, with Thy praise, salutations be upon the Primal Point, the Chemise of Thy Visage and the Light of Thy direction and the Luminosity of Thy Beinghood and the Clarity of Thy Selfhood and the Ocean of Thy Power by all that which Thou hath bestowed upon Him of Thy Stations and Thy Culminations and Thy Foundations, for nothing shall frustrate Thee of anything and nothing shall extinguish Thee of anything! No other God is There besides Thee, for verily Thou art the Lord of all the worlds! And blessings, O God my God, be upon the one who was the first to believe in Thee, the Visage of Thy Selfhood and the Decree of Thy direction; and upon the one who was the last to believe in Thee, the Essence of Thy direction and the Visage of Thy Holiness; and upon those whom Ye have made martyrs/witnesses (shuhadá’) unknown except by Thy Command nor restrained except by Thy Wisdom; then upon those to whom Ye have promised that Ye shall make Him manifest on the Day of Resurrection and He whom Ye will upraise on the Day of the Return by all which Thou will bestow upon Him of Thy Power and Thy Strength, for nothing shall extinguish Thee and nothing shall frustrate Thee! Ye determine all-things, for verily Thou art powerful over whatsoever Thou willeth! And I indeed testify, O my God, between Thy hands that verily there is no other god besides Thee and that He whom Ye shall make manifest on the Day of Resurrection is the Chemise of Thy Creativity and the Visage of Thy Manifestation and the direction of Thy Victory and the substance of Thy Pardoning and the branch of Thy Singularity and the clarity of Thy Unicitarianism and the Pen [of the Letter] Nún (al-qalam al-nún) within Thy Beinghood and the setting of the Cause-Command within Thy Essentiality inasmuch as there is no difference between Him and Thee except that He is Thy servant in Thy grasp, such that whatsoever is in the Heavens and the earth and what is between them will then be filled by His Name and by His Light until it be made apparent that no other god is there besides Thee and no Beloved is there like unto Thee and no Desired One is there other than Thee and no Dread is there of Thy like and no Justice of Thy equal! No other god is there besides Thee! Glorified art Thou, O God, and by Thy praise, blessings, O my God, be upon the Guide to the Throne of the Hidden Cloud and the Path to Thy Presence in the Sina'i of Authorization and the Caller by Thy Logos-Self and the Crier of Thy Permission between Thy Hands and the Ariser of Thy Attendance by Thy Command; then the Triumph, O my God, by all that which Thou will bestow upon Him of Thy Power, then that which will be made manifestly apparent of the Word upon the earth and what is upon it by Thy grandeur, and also in this that nothing shall ever put out His Light! Verily nothing shall frustrate Thee of anything and nothing shall extinguish Thee of anything! Thy mercy encompasseth all-things and verily Thou art powerful over what Ye have willed; and to the one who prays to Thee, Hearing, Answering, for verily Thou art Observant over us, and verily Thou art High, Praised beyond that which the inner hearts can comprehend!”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Ethics of the Spirituals

Wisdom, God, World, Justice

Quotes about thing page 8

Quotes about thing
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