Quotes about thing (10000 quotes, page 94)

“In one sense 'there are' both universals and material objects, in another sense there is no such thing as either: statements about each can usually be analysed, but not always, nor always without remainder.”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 43.

Sense , Universe

“This railway system practically administers the government of the United States, in all things that concern the system, and the governments of the several states of the Union as well. The majority of the United States senators recently elected have been its mere appointees and lobbyists, and agents at the same time for other corporate properties.
In all this corrupt exploitation of the nation by the most degrading sort of economic force, in this debauchery of every citizen of my commonwealth, I am obliged to participate, in order to travel anywhere upon the national highways, whether I go upon God's errands or go in quest of evil to do.”

George D. Herron (1862–1925) American clergyman, writer and activist

Source: Between Caesar and Jesus (1899), pp. 21-22

God , Travel , Evil , Time

“Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Light of Stars

The Light of Stars, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

World , Fear , Strong , Suffering

“Let us suppose that the idea of art can be expanded to embrace the whole range of man-made things, including all tools and writing in addition to the useless, beautiful, and poetic things of the world. By this view the universe of man-made things simply coincides with the history of art. It then becomes urgent to devise better ways to devise better ways of considering everything men have made. This we may achieve sooner by proceeding from art rather than from use, for if we depart from use alone, all useless things are overlooked, but if we take the desirableness of things as our point of departure, then useful objects are properly seen as things we value more or less dearly.”

George Kubler (1912–1996) American art historian

Source: The Shape of Time, 1982, p. 1

Men , World , Beauty , Art

“Your gatherings are a living testimony of a determination to support these principles. It would be impossible to come into this presence, which is a symbol of more than 300 years of our advancing civilization, which represents to such a degree the hope of our consecrated living and the prayers of our hallowed dead, without a firmer conviction of the deep and abiding purpose of our country to live in accordance with this vision. There have been and will be lapses and discouragements, surface storms and disturbances. The shallows will murmur, but the deep is still. If We shall be made aware of the boisterous and turbulent forces of evil about us seeking the things which are temporal. But we shall also be made aware of the still small voice arising from the fireside of every devoted home in the land seeking the things which are eternal. To such a country, to such a cause, the American Legion has dedicated itself. Upon this rock you stand for the service of humanity. Against it no power can prevail.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Hope , Home , Support , Evil

“For a tear is an intellectual thing,
And a sigh is the sword of an Angel King,
And the bitter groan of the martyr's woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

The Gray Monk, st. 8
1800s, Poems from the Pickering Manuscript (c. 1805)

Angels , Tear

“A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

This saying appears to be due to John Augustus Shedd; it was quoted in "Grace Hopper : The Youthful Teacher of Us All" by Henry S. Tropp in Abacus Vol. 2, Issue 1 (Fall 1984) ISSN 0724-6722 . She did repeat this saying on multiple occasions, but she called it "a motto that has stuck with me" and did not claim coinage. Additional variations and citations may be found at Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/09/safe-harbor/
Misattributed

Sea

“When it is said, that we are not justified by any righteousness or goodness of our own, what is meant is, that it is not out of respect to the excellency or goodness of any qualifications or acts in us whatsoever, that God judges it meet that this benefit of Christ should be ours; and it is not, in any wise, on account of any excellency or value that there is in faith, that it appears in the sight of God a meet thing, that he who believes should have this benefit of Christ assigned to him, but purely from the relation faith has to the person in whom this benefit is to be had, or as it unites to that mediator, in and by whom we are justified.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Justification By Faith Alone (1738)

God , Faith , Appearance , Christ

“Afrikaners: The time for white supremacism is gone. You cannot hope to survive while you are so intrinsically entwined with black labour. You used them for everything, even to murdering you and then digging your grave. You cannot survive while every single thing you do, every enterprise, every interaction, every aspect of your lives, is determined by your reliance on black labour. Because, whether you like it or not, black people also have rights, and they have claimed them. You cannot think that you have a right to rule over black people — you do not.”

Arthur Kemp (1962) British writer

Let Eugene Terre’Blanche’s Tomb be the End of Apartheid and White Supremacism, blog post http://www.arthurkemp.com/?p=508
Quotes from other works:

People , Hope , Thinking , Time

“There is no law, in literature, against picking up a rusty weapon; the important thing is to be able to sharpen the blade and to reforge the hilt to fit one's hand.”

Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897) French novelist

Il n'est pas défendu, en littérature, de ramasser une arme rouillée; l'important est de savoir aiguiser la lame et d'en reforger la poignée à la mesure de sa main.
Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres (Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1888) p. 178; George Burnham Ives (trans.) Thirty Years in Paris (Boston: Little, Brown, 1900) p. 134.

Law , Literature

“The artist make things move, and is moved. He is policeman, motor car, everything at once. He who makes things move also creates rest. That which aesthetically is brought to rest is art.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

In 'The Grand Boulevards' (of Paris), Piet Mondriaan, in 'De Groene Amsterdammer', 27 March 1920 pp. 4-5
1920's

Art , Cars

“I introduced what I called "outside-in problem solving," which nowadays is called "top-clown." But I prefer outside-in because outside-in allows you to have many different viewpoints instead of a single top that you stupidly try to get to the bottom of, and things of that sort. came out of that.”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

Source: Retrospectives : The Early Years in Computer Graphics at at MIT, Lincoln Lab and Harvard (1989), p. 25.

Problem

“'So then at forty-six years of age I came here to learn to live by cliches,' is what Day says to Charlotte Treat right after Randy Lenz asked what time it was, again, at 0825. 'To turn my will and life over to the care of cliches. One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back.' […] I walk around with my arms out straight in front of me and recite these cliches. In a monotone. No inflection necessary. Could that be one? Could that be added to the cliche-pool? "No inflection necessary"? Too many syllables, probably.'”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Life , Age , Fear , Courage

“I went to New York. I had a dream. I wanted to be a big star. I didn’t know anybody. I wanted to dance. I wanted to sing. I wanted to do all those things. I wanted to make people happy. I wanted to be famous. I wanted everybody to love me. I wanted to be a star. I worked really hard and my dream came true.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

(Spoken at the beginning of the Virgin Tour concert video).

Love , People , Dreams , Star

“Normally, foreign media organizations and others from the developed countries do not see anything good on the African continent. Those of us, who are well-traveled, know better. In their countries, the only news you get or hear about Africa is negative news… However, due to the good work done by our electoral bodies, the exemplary conduct of our defence and security organs, and your calmness and patience, we denied them the bad things they wanted to write about.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

2007-01-01 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4572438.stm
2006

Travel , Patience , Country

“It's a bit early in the midnight hour for me / To go through all the things that I want to be
Take me away / 'Cos I just don't want to stay / And the lies you make me say / Are getting deeper every day
If you're lost at sea / Well I hope that you drownd"
Please don't cry / Never say die”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

All Around The World
Be Here Now (1997)

Hope , Cry , Sea

“He had a theory about it. It happened, and re-happened, because it was a city uninterested in history. Strange things occurred precisely because there was no necessary regard for the past. The city lived in a sort of everyday present. It had no need to believe in itself as a London, or an Athens, or even a signifier of the New World, like a Sydney, or a Los Angeles. No, the city couldn't care less about where it stood. He had seen a T-shirt once that said: NE YORK FUCKIN' CITY. As if it were the only place that ever existed and the only one that ever would.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book Three: Part of the Parts

World , Angels , History , Past

“But one can't go without his sleep forever.
The immortals give each thing its proper place
in our mortal lives throughout the good green earth.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIX. 592–594 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Sleep

“Ships, houses, mills… in one word everything that is made by people must stand upright and be painted with care. This is actually a good presentation compared to other, less symmetrical things, like the trees, skies, etc. It doesn't create the painting, but it certainly strengthen the illusion. It's just like somebody who is neatly dressed, but whose tie is coming off. The windows of a house must be straight, a mill in a pure construction, the blades well-positioned in perspective.”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Schepen, huizen, molens eb in één woord alles, wat door menschen gemaakt is, moet recht staan en met zorg geschilderd worden. Dit staat juist zeer goed tegenover andere, minder symmetrische dingen, als boomen, luchten enz. Het maakt het schilderij wel niet, maar draagt toch bij tot de illusie. 't Is er net mee, als met iemand, die keurig gekleed is, maar wiens das los zit. De ramen van een huis moeten recht, een molen zuiver van constructie zijn, de wieken in het perspectief staan.
Quote of Roelofs; as cited by H.F.W. Jeltes, in Willem Roelofs : bizonderheden betreffende zijn leven en zijn werk, met brieven en andere bijlagen, Van Kampen, Amsterdam, 1911, pp. 86-87
undated quotes

People , Tree , Painting , Housing

“I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.”

Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) Brazilian architect

Quoted in "Architect of Optimism," Angel Gurria-Quintana, Financial Times (2007-04-13).

Chance

“Unschooling is first and foremost an educational approach. Unschooling was not created by Holt, nor propagated by my colleagues and me since Holt’s death in 1985, to be an ideological parenting method, though I think unschooling certainly informs one’s parenting. Just as we trust children to discover and learn things in their own way, so, too, can parents be trusted to figure out how unschooling will work in their family and adapt it to their relationships with each of their children.”

Pat Farenga American activist

On Unschooling, Parenting, and Video Addiction (2011)

Death , Children , Education , Family

“College education tends to make simple things complicated and hard to understand. What we should do is to teach our children the most essential and simple principles of life and ways to handle problems.”

Zheng Yuanjie (1955) Chiese writer

Zheng Yuanjie (2004) in: "Zheng Yuanjie's 19 years in fairy tales" on chinadaily.com.cn, May 10, 2004 ( online http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-05/10/content_329434.htm).

Life , Children , Education , Way

“This “sublime revenge” of ressentiment (in Nietzsche's words) has indeed played a creative role in the history of value systems. It is “sublime,” for the impulses of revenge against those who are strong, healthy, rich, or handsome now disappear entirely. Ressentiment has brought deliverance from the inner torment of these affects. Once the sense of values has shifted and the new judgments have spread, such people cease to be enviable, hateful, and worthy of revenge. They are unfortunate and to be pitied, for they are beset with “evils.” Their sight now awakens feelings of gentleness, pity, and commiseration. When the reversal of values comes to dominate accepted morality and is invested with the power of the ruling ethos, it is transmitted by tradition, suggestion, and education to those who are endowed with the seemingly devaluated qualities. They are struck with a “bad conscience” and secretly condemn themselves. The “slaves,” as Nietzsche says, infect the “masters.” Ressentiment man, on the other hand, now feels “good,” “pure,” and “human”—at least in the conscious layers of his mind. He is delivered from hatred, from the tormenting desire of an impossible revenge, though deep down his poisoned sense of life and the true values may still shine through the illusory ones. There is no more calumny, no more defamation of particular persons or things. The systematic perversion and reinterpretation of the values themselves is much more effective than the “slandering” of persons or the falsification of the world view could ever be."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Variant: The man of ressentiment cannot justify or even understand his own existence and sense of life in terms of positive values such as power, health, beauty, freedom, and independence. Weakness, fear, anxiety, and a slavish disposition prevent him from obtaining them. Therefore he comes to feel that “all this is vain anyway” and that salvation lies in the opposite phenomena: poverty, suffering, illness, and death. This “sublime revenge” of ressentiment (in Nietzsche’s words) has indeed played a creative role in the history of value systems. It is “sublime,” for the impulses of revenge against those who are strong, healthy, rich, or handsome now disappear entirely. Ressentiment has brought deliverance from the inner torment of these affects. Once the sense of values has shifted and the new judgments have spread, such people cease to been viable, hateful, and worthy of revenge. They are unfortunate and to be pitied, for they are beset with “evils.” Their sight now awakens feelings of gentleness, pity, and commiseration. When the reversal of values comes to dominate accepted morality and is invested with the power of the ruling ethos, it is transmitted by tradition, suggestion, and education to those who are endowed with the seemingly devaluated qualities. They are struck with a “bad conscience” and secretly condemn themselves. The “slaves,” as Nietzsche says, infect the “masters.” Ressentiment man, on the other hand, now feels “good,” “pure,” and “human”—at least in the conscious layers of his mind. He is delivered from hatred, from the tormenting desire of an impossible revenge, though deep down his poisoned sense of life and the true values may still shine through the illusory ones. There is no more calumny, no more defamation of particular persons or things. The systematic perversion and reinterpretation of the values themselves is much more effective than the “slandering” of persons or the falsification of the world view could ever be.
Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 76-77

Life , Hate , People , World

“The latest & loudest thing in your psyche is seldom the most important thing that should take up residence there.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

3 August 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/98970279044321280
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“Barring love and war, few enterprises are undertaken with such abandon, or by such diverse individuals, or with so paradoxical a mixture of appetite and altruism, as that group of avocations known as outdoor recreation. It is, by common consent, a good thing for people to get back to nature. But wherein lies the goodness, and what can be done to encourage its pursuit?”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Conservation Esthetic", p. 165.

Love , War , People , Nature

“This moment in time will be remembered for three things: the war against terror, sure; the Internet, probably; and how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

CNN Larry King Weekend (2002)

War , Water , Time

“I remember when I first went to Singapore. I marveled at how planned everything was. But the sense of marvel was not totally positive. They had everything laid out for you: where you were going to be born, what you were going to do as a child, where you were going to get your education, where they would channel you when you’d go to work. They had things planned out for your retirement, and then for your death. It gives rise to the feeling that you might as well go ahead and die and get it over with, if that was going to circumscribe the totality of your life. But thinking about the possibility that true awakening can be found through your efforts: that breaks through those circumscribed limits. That’s not part of anybody else’s plan, but that can be part of your plan. And to whatever extent you can nurture that conviction, it keeps your heart nurtured and nourished as well.”

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1949) Theravadin Buddhist Monk and Scholar

Conviction and Confidence (2010)

Life , Death , Education , Feeling

“Love and War are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 21.

Love , War

“My being Jewish does not inform the things I do, necessarily. 'Exodus' is a wonderful piece, no matter what religion you are. 'The Shiva Club,' which is a movie I am attempting to make sometime soon, is about crashing a shiva, if you will. A couple of comics crash a shiva. I could have, I suppose, made it an Irish wake, but the shiva I was more familiar with.”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

Of his album telling the story of the Exodus, "Beam Me Up Moses William Shatner Album Tells Exodus Story In Spoken Word, Song https://archive.is/20130103131701/www.jweekly.com/article/full/34780/beam-me-up-moses-william-shatner-album-tells-exodus-story-in-spoken-word-so/, Jweekly 18 April 2008.

Religion

“I don't say that it is a bad or useless profession: but it isn't one of the superlatively fine and striking ones, and the material used is of a strange sort — you don't even see it. But I'd like all the things I used to see to be in it: the ringing hammer-strokes of the smith and the colors of the whisping of the stone-mason, the bustling of the baker, the humility of the poor, and all the lusty strength and skill which men of towering stature put into their work before the astonished and fascinated eyes of a child.”

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) Czech writer

"On Literature" in Toward the Radical Center : A Karel Čapek Reader (1990) http://www.catbirdpress.com/bookpages/reader.htm, edited by Peter Kussi

Men , Color

“All the Way; All or Nothing at All. This is the Sicilian in Sinatra; he permits his friends, if they wish to remain that, none of the easy Anglo-Saxon outs. But if they remain loyal, then there is nothing Sinatra will not do in turn — fabulous gifts, personal kindnesses, encouragement when they're down, adulation when they're up. They are wise to remember, however, one thing. He is Sinatra. The boss. Il Padrone.”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (Esquire, April 1966)

Way , Personality

“Our life is all one human whole, and if we are to have any real knowledge of it we must see it as such. If we cut it up it dies in the process: and so I conceive that the various branches of research that deal with this whole are properly distinguished by change in the point of sight rather than by any division in the thing that is seen. Accordingly, in a former book (Human Nature and Social Order), I tried to see society as it exists in the social nature of man and to display that in its main outlines. In this one the eye is focussed on the enlargement and diversification of intercourse which I have called Social Organization, the individual, though visible, remaining slightly in the background.”

Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American sociologist

Source: Social Organization: a Study of the Larger Mind, 1909, p. vii, Preface , lead sentece

Life , Books , Nature , Knowledge

“Now, having a play on the same bill with a play by the one and only, the good and great, the impish and noble, the man and superman, George Bernard Shaw, is for me an honor, and I think a most fitting thing.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Hello Out There (1941)

Thinking

“I think that for me any picture that works even if it is in the guise of pure color application, if it works, involved drawing. That is falt space on a flat surface. And for me, and I always say this, whether it's a Titian or a [Kenneth] Noland, the ones that come off work in that depth and the color perhaps it is divine and the thing that makes it work, but it is line color. If it doesn't work then it's decorative or dead or just applied colors on a surface. That's what wallpaper is. And that's the difference between the striped wallpaper and a great Noland.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

quote about drawing in a picture
1960s, Interview with Barbara Rose', Archives - American Art, 1968

Color , Thinking , Drawing , Dead

“Character does count. For too long we have gotten by in a society that says the only thing right is to get by and the only thing wrong is to get caught. Character is doing what's right when nobody is looking…”

J. C. Watts (1957) American politician

Speech at the Republican National Convention (1996-08-13)

“"Couples should explore their mutual fantasies." There's no such thing as a mutual fantasy. Yours bore us; ours offend you.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Victory Begins at Home (20 January 2004)

“It's all coming from the haters on the far left. Just throw it in the garbage. But the regular folks who really enjoy this program, what we want you to ask, Laurie, is why do we do things? Why do we do them?”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

2007-11-12
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
MSNBC
Television
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21771581/
explaining to his ombudsman, Laurie Dhue, what to do about mail complaining about the low quality of Fox News Channel material; November 2007

“Or is all this fuss actually important for << art history >>? Oh, no, never. If things only ever originated as a result of such competition (between subject- and subjectless art), it wouldn't be worth living among them, like an accidental, capricious toy. Clearly there is a greater, a more serene and more modest power, but we are either too lazy to live by its laws, or we have no time, or it "hurts too much."”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Chagall's letter to A. N. Benois, 1918; as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 150
1910's

Law , Art , History , Time

“One of the fundamental things is in a jihad. That sounds like a country western term like, "Jiii-had!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

Country

“There is no reason to assume that only those who finally commit a deviant act actually have the impulse to do so. It is much more likely that most people experience deviant impulses frequently. At least in fantasy, people are much more deviant than they appear. Instead of asking why deviants want to do things that are disapproved of, we might better ask why conventional people do not follow through on the deviant impulses they have. Something of an answer to this question may be found in the process of commitment through which the “normal” person becomes progressively involved in conventional institutions and behavior.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Source: Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963), pp. 26-27.

People , Behavior , Question , Appearance

“Cinema returns us to anima, religion of matter, which gives each thing its special divinity and sees gods in all things and beings. Cinema, heir of alchemy, last of an erotic science.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

The Lords and the New Creatures: Poems (1969), The Lords: Notes on Vision

God , Religion , Science

“So, Brussels have come up with a little thing called a European Constitution, which will unite all of the European Union into a single superstate, governed by a single government. There may be a problem with everyone speaking different languages and hating each other, but seemingly insurmountable problems have been solved in the past. Like Mount Everest, or making a film based on the Lord of the Rings.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

14 May 2003
Fully Ramblomatic

Hate , Problem , Past

“People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 210

Life , People

“We shall have several hard fights in the H. of Cs. this week and next, in some of which I fear we shall be beat, but whether we are or not I think it certain that in about a fortnight we shall come in; If we carry our questions we shall come in in a more creditable and triumphant way, but at any rate the Prince must be Regent and of consequence the Ministry must be changed…I am rather afraid they will get some cry against the Prince for grasping as they call it at too much power, but I am sure that I can not in conscience advise him to give up any thing that is really necessary to his Government, or indeed to claim any thing else as Regent, but the full power of a King, to which he is certainly entitled.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Mrs. Armistead (15 December 1788), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 84.
1780s

Fear , Way , Question , Thinking

“When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity. The greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

"The Masterpiece," in A Stroll with William James (1983)

“Well, at first I wanted to put blinds on the building [of the outdoor-sculpture Josef Strau did for her recently]. But when I do something I've already done before, I sometimes have a certain feeling of uncertainty. Although I am falling back on something that I know is safe and pretty good. But then it was all too expensive. I had seen glowing green, fresh bamboo at the KaDeWe store. It had attracted my attention and I thought it would be nice to do something with it. Back home, sitting over the photo, drawing some things on it, I remembered this lovely green bamboo again and also that there was this fascist building – or partly fascist building – next to the store, a theater, an ugly building. And then I thought, bamboo is politically correct, that's just the thing. But I also think it's visually beautiful. Simple. The work is called 'Haare wachsen wie sie wollen”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

'Hair grows the way it wants'
2001 - 2010, Isa Genzken in conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans' (2003)

Love , Beauty , Way , Feeling

“Gravitational force is simple, and a thing by itself, as also are electric and magnetic forces as long as the electric and magnetic poles stand at rest. But as soon as motion comes into the picture, the whole situation is changed. Forces of new kinds come into play, for moving electric charges exert magnetic forces in addition to the electric forces they exert when at rest, while moving magnets exert electric forces in addition to the magnetic forces they exert while at rest. When the exact laws governing these intricate laws had been discovered by a great number of experimenters, Clerk Maxwell succeeded in expressing them in a mathematical form which was both simple and elegant.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Law , Mathematics , Change

“If, in order to obtain a correct and complete answer to a given question, all other things being equal, one construction requires a shorter observation time than another construction, we can say that it is more efficient for this question.”

Jacques Bertin (1918–2010) French geographer and cartographer

Source: Semiology of graphics (1967/83), p. 139: Bertin’s definition of efficiency as cited in: Naomi B. Robbins (2009) Creating More Effective Graphs http://www.ssc.ca/ottawa/documents/SSO2009FallRobbins.pdf

Question , Time

“It is true that the successful quest for wisdom might lead to the result that wisdom is not the one thing needful. But this result would owe its relevance to the fact that it is the result of the quest for wisdom: the very disavowal of reason must be reasonable disavowal.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: Natural Right and History (1953), p. 36

Wisdom , Success

“To write his views or his observations, his ideas, but not his judgments. Our judgments limit our views of things. Some enclosures, but no walls. The man who always write his judgments places before his eyes the calpe and abyla. He goes no further and creates a nec plus ultra. Thus, in the study of wisdom, many views and few judgments.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Wisdom , Idea , Study

“[learning European modern art by seeing it in the art-magazine 'w:Cahiers d'art']…. my heritage was all those things; [De Stijl, Constructivism, Cubism, Surrealism ] simultaneously, so I am all those things. I hope with a very strong intellectual regard for Cubism, and an admiration for it, because it was great at a particular time. It was both painting and sculpture. It was a great point of liberation in both painting and sculpture, and especially sculpture. [David Smith was one of the few sculptors in the art scene of American Abstract Expressionism ]”

David Smith (1906–1965) American visual artist (1906-1965)

In an interview with w:David Sylvester (1960), edited for BBC broadcasting: first published in 'Living Arts', April 1964; as quoted in Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, p. 8
1960s

Hope , Art , Strong , Learning

“The mass-man has very little spare time, does not live a life that appertains to a whole, does not want to exert himself except for some concrete aim which can be expressed in terms of utility; he will not wait patiently while things ripen; everything for him must provide some immediate gratification; and even his mental life must minister to his fleeting pleasures. That is why the essay has become the customary form of literature, why newspapers are taking the place of books… People read quickly and cursorily.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

Der Massenmensch hat wenig Zeit, lebt kein Leben aus einem Ganzen, will nicht mehr die Vorbereitung und Anstrengung ohne den konkreten Zweck, der sie in Nutzen umsetzt; er will nicht warten und reifen lassen; alles muß sogleich gegenwärtige Befriedigung sein; Geistiges ist zu den jeweils augenblicklichen Vergnügungen geworden. Daher ist der Essay die geeignete Literaturform für alles, tritt die Zeitung an die Stelle des Buches... Man liest schnell.
Man in the Modern Age (1933)

Life , People , Pleasure , Books

“Verbal ability is a highly overrated thing in a guy, and it's our pathetic need for it that gets us into so much trouble.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

From the screenplay Sleepless in Seattle (1993), written and directed by Ephron

Guy

“Together, us gamers are strong. For too long we have been oppressed by all these groups; everyone is against us, but we are the toughest, most hard-working, most vigilant, most powerful group on the Internet! If we all together will rise up, we can defeat anything! We can take over the world! We can create the gaming utopia that we all wanted to live in! Cars are not cars - they are carmers; houses are not houses - they are gaming studios; roads are not roads - they are Candy Crush displays. Imagine it, just think of how good things would really be! Think about how bad we are now because we haven't risen up yet! The more we wait, the harder it will get, but now it is time for gamers to rise together!”

PewDiePie (1989) Swedish YouTuber and video game commentator

25 July 2018
2018, ONLY REAL GAMERS CAN WATCH THIS

World , Cars , Imagination , Game

“Economists can often be remarkably obtuse, failing to see things that are right in front of them. But sometimes a bit of obtuseness is not entirely a bad thing.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Development, Geography, and Economic Theory (1995), Ch. 2. Geography Lost and Found

“The abstracts are the opposite to work on. That process is more like walking, step by step, without an intention, until you discover where you are going. When I paint a landscape from a photograph or an image like this one, I can see the end point before I start, although in fact it always turns out slightly different than I imagined. What I have is not facility, because this really doesn't take skill. I have an eye. I couldn't make a drawing of you sitting here right now. I would love to have that ability, in the same way that I would love to play the piano. Virtuosity is a precondition for pianists, but in addition you have to be good. These are not the same thing.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Love , Way , Imagination , Drawing

“Perhaps the Doors, Curtains, Surface Pictures, Panes of Glass [like in his work '4 Panes of Glass', 1967], etc. are metaphors of despair, prompted by the dilemma that our sense of sight causes us to apprehend things, but at the same time restricts and partly precludes our apprehension of reality.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 86, note 12

Reality , Sense , Time , Despair

“Now if plurality and difference belong only to the appearance-form; if there is but one and the same Entity manifested in all living things: it follows that, when we obliterate the distinction between the ego and the non-ego, we are not the sport of an illusion. Rather are we so, when we maintain the reality of individuation, — a thing the Hindus call Maya, that is, a deceptive vision, a phantasma. The former theory we have found to be the actual source of the phaenomenon of Compassion; indeed Compassion is nothing but its translation into definite expression. This, therefore, is what I should regard as the metaphysical foundation of Ethics, and should describe it as the sense which identifies the ego with the non-ego, so that the individual directly recognises in another his own self, his true and very being. From this standpoint the profoundest teaching of theory pushed to its furthest limits may be shown in the end to harmonise perfectly with the rules of justice and loving-kindness, as exercised; and conversely, it will be clear that practical philosophers, that is, the upright, the beneficent, the magnanimous, do but declare through their acts the same truth as the man of speculation wins by laborious research … He who is morally noble, however deficient in mental penetration, reveals by his conduct the deepest insight, the truest wisdom; and puts to shame the most accomplished and learned genius, if the latter's acts betray that his heart is yet a stranger to this great principle, — the metaphysical unity of life.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book On the Basis of Morality

Part IV, Ch. 2, pp. 273 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/273/mode/2up-274
On the Basis of Morality (1840)

Love , Life , Wisdom , Truth

“There is no such thing as a secret among our leaders; communication is very open and honest, and if it's not, then it can become seemingly brutal. You've heard my arguments for love, friends, and authenticity, but there are the deceivers, the manipulators, the control freaks, and the self-appointed teachers in the Body who would love to use our system for their own selfish purposes. We all know the realities of the old sin nature.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

[Haggard, Ted, Dog Training, Fly Fishing, And Sharing Christ In The 21st Century: Empowering Your Church To Build Community Through Shared Interests, Nelson Books, May 14, 2002, p. 154, ISBN 0785265147]

Love , Secret , Communication , Nature

“What's this Chungian analyst?" he asked.
"Five years' training in Zurich at the C. G. Jung Institute," I said. "Jung was a student of Freud until they quarreled."
"Oh, yes," he said. "Dreams and all that kind of thing.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

I felt his dismissal; I made no response.
Source: Bone: Dying into Life (2000), p. 33

Dreams , Training

“Well, maybe 'tis natural. Of course things you don't know about are always nicer'n things you do, same as the pertater on 'tother side of the plate is always the biggest. But I wish I looked that way ter somebody 'way off. Wouldn't it be jest great, now, if only somebody over in India wanted ME?”

Eleanor H. Porter (1868–1920) American novelist

Jimmy Bean
Works, Pollyanna (1913)

Way , Nature

“General Wei Qing's victory was only a thing of chance.
And General Li Guang's thwarted effort was his fate, not his fault.”

Wang Wei (699–759) a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman

"Song of an Old General" (老将行)

Fate , Effort , Chance , Victory

“there is an irrepressible tendency in every man to develop himself according to the magnitude which Nature has made him of; to speak out, to act out, what nature has laid in him. This is proper, fit, inevitable; nay it is a duty, and even the summary of duties for a man. The meaning of life here on earth might be defined as consisting in this: To unfold your self, to work what thing you have the faculty for.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

Life , Nature

“I remember distinctly, during the summer of 1901, at Les Andelys-on-Seine, that upon two days and for two hours in the afternoons of those days all Nature, animate and inanimate, bore the aspect of things seen under a strong glare of violet light, exactly as though a tinted glass were suspended between the sun's rays and the earth. The effect was most curious and disturbing. Nature appears to be toneless and flat. Highlights and shadows are attenuated almost to extinction, whilst in this dull purple glare the heat became more intense than ever, possibly through lack of wind, for all was still.”

Wynford Dewhurst (1864–1941) British artist

Wynford Dewhurst, 'What is Impressionism?' in Contemporary Review. vol. XCIX, 1911, p. 300.

Nature , Light , Strong , Appearance

“It's not so important what you [high school students] work on, so long as you're not wasting your time. Work on things that interest you and increase your options, and worry later about which you'll take.”

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

"What You'll Wish You'd Known", January 2005

School , Time

“Punk: Tonight, the Straight-edge Society becomes the first ever Straight-edge World Unified Tag Team Champions. I came out here for a reason, I came out with a purpose. I'm here to lead my crusade, [Crowd chants you suck] and I've brought my disciples, Luke Gallows and the beautiful Serena with me.
Triple H: Punk, I have been watching Smackdown. And I gotta say, while I'm relieved to know that your straight, this whole I don't drink thing, I don't think anybody really gives a crap, do you know what I mean? [Crowd cheers]
Punk: You're looking at three people who give a crap, and don't try to pretend you know anything about me, or you know anything about Straight-edge, or you know anything about my society at all.
Triple H: No, no, no, no, you're right. I don't know anything about it, I don't get it, Punk, that's the thing. I don't get it, I mean you don't drink, you don't do drugs, you don't smoke. Okay, neither do I. But then again, I don't look like I've been on a week long crack binge with Amy Winehouse! [Serena shakes her head, Punk looks pissed] I'm just saying, have a little pride, man. Pick yourself up, clean yourself off. Maybe take them clippers out of the bag, shave that squirrel off you got on your chin. [Punk grabs his beard and mouths off] Hey, do yourself a favor. Grab a shower, cause I don't know if it's you, Lobotomy Man, or Britney Spears right there, but one of you's got a bad case of swamp butt!
Punk: Alright, are you done? Is amateur comedy hour over? Because I came here to claim those tag titles!”

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

January 29, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

People , World , Beauty , Drink

“Religions all have different names, but they all contain the same truths. … I think the people of our religion should be tolerant and understand people believe different things.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

When asked how he felt about the suspects in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks sharing his Islamic faith
As quoted in "Bush: 'Justice Will Be Done'" at CNN (20 September 2001) http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.america.under.attack/

People , Truth , Religion , Understanding

“. Here [ Guernsey ] people bath among the rocks which serve as cabins, since there's nothing else; nothing is more attractive than this mixture of women and men crowded on these rocks. One would belief oneself in a landscape by Watteau rather than in the real world. So I'll have a source of real and graceful motives which I will be able to make use of. Some enchanting bathing-costumes... Nothing is more amusing when one is strolling through these rocks, than to surprise young girls getting ready to bathe... Despite the small number of things that I'll be able to bring back [to Paris], I hope to be able to give you an idea of these charming things.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

In Renoir's letter to Paul Durand-Ruel, from Guernsey, 27 Sept, 1883; as cited in 'Renoir in Guernsey' (in 1883), text by John House http://museums.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=81297&p=0, Guernsey museum
1880's

Women , Men , People , World

“We needn’t take things like reasoning on faith. We use reason because it works. And science isn’t really based on axioms: it’s not math. It’s based on a method that, refined over time, leads us to widely accepted facts about the universe: the facts that we can rely on to do things like establish the genealogy of species, cure disease, and land probes on comets. You can’t accomplish such things through prayer.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" The TLS on Plantinga and me https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/the-tls-on-plantinga-and-i/" May 3, 2017

Disease , Faith , Universe , Science

“Certainly, we live in a different world … for the first time in all of known human history, we live in a world absent of the likelihood of superpower conflict. Now we live in a world in which there are superpowers, but we're not butting heads all the time. That's a very good thing for the world… but… there's still a few bad guys out there.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, CNN interview (2000)

World , Guy , History , Time

“I had wanted to talk with you about lots of things... I am anxious to get to work for the fall – it is always my best time I had one particular painting – that tree in Lawrence's front yard as you see it when you lie under it on the table – with stars – it looks as tho it is standing on its head – I wanted you to see it..”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

In a letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, Taos, August 1929; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists, ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 226
1917 - 1929

Lie , Star , Tree , Time

“She says “Do I know you?” I say “Well, no, not biblically,
But I've been waiting for you to come and talk to me.
I have been playing too many of those boy-girl games.”
She says, “Honey, you are safe here. This is a girl-girl thing.””

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

If It Isn't Her
Song lyrics

Girl , Game , Boy , Waiting

“When you are deprived of something that you long for desperately, the mind finds ways of doing the same thing in different ways; it creates the potential which you never knew you had – the potential to create something out of nothing.”

Lydia Canaan Lebanese singer-songwriter

As quoted in an interview with Sudha Chandran, Gulf Today/Panorama, November 24, 2000

Way

“In this large and fierce world of ours, there are many, many unpleasant places to be. You can be in a river swarming with angry electric eels, or in a supermarket filled with vicious long-distance runners. You can be in a hotel that has no room service, or you can be lost in a forest that is slowly filling up with water. You can be in a hornet's nest or in an abandoned airport or the office of a pediatric surgeon, but one of the most unpleasant things that can happen is to find yourself in a quandary.”

Daniel Handler book The Vile Village

Lemony Snicket
The Vile Village (2001)

World , Water

“"What happened?" Arthur asked. He caught a glimpse of something below, but couldn't quite make out what it was. "The Nithling-"
"Missed me," called out Suzy. "Close-run thing. Bit off my right clog. I was kicking it in the teeth, so I s'pose that's fair."”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Grim Tuesday (2004), p. 177.

“Americans cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die,… They clutch everything but hold nothing fast, and so lose grip as they hurry after some new delight. An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming into bearing; he will clear a field and leave others to reap the harvest; he will take up a profession and leave it, settle in one place and soon go off elsewhere with his changing desires. If his private business allows him a moment’s relaxation, he will plunge at once into the whirlpool of politics. Then, if at the end of a year crammed with work he has a little spare leisure, his restless curiosity goes with him traveling up and down the vast territories of the United States. Thus he will travel five hundred miles in a few days as a distraction from his happiness. Death steps in in the end and stops him before he has grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes him. At first sight there is something astonishing in this spectacle of so many lucky men restless in the midst of abundance. But it is a spectacle as old as the world; all that is new is to see a whole people performing in it.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Two, Chapter XIII.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Two

Death , Men , People , Age

“I am not doing very much as yet. I am put out by this manner of the Salon. They will end by persuading me that I have produced a veritable fiasco. But I am not yet entirely convinced of it. Some say it is a complete downfall; that the 'Death of Sardanaplus' [Delacroix painted this painting in 1827 after the drama, written by Byron] is that of the Romantics, inasmuch as Romantics do exist; others merely say that I am an 'inganno' [a fraud].... So I say they are all imbeciles, that the picture has its qualities and its defects, and that while there are some things I could wish to be better, there are not a few others that I think myself fortunate to have created, and which I wish them.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

Quote in a letter to Delacroix' friend Charles Soulier, 11 March 1828; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, pp. 67-68
1815 - 1830

Death , Fraud , Thinking , Painting

“It is the incongruous thing in my entire life, this isolation.... My work requires it – but I myself have no need or use for it – Perhaps once on a time I found isolation imperative – I think all chrysalises do – all embryos go for the underside of the leaf in the time of body-change preparing for the final reassertion –resurrection – the establishment of the entity. But now I’ve come up tot the outside of my casements.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

Quote from Marsden Hartley Revisited or, Were We Really Ever There, Peter Plagens; Artforum 7, May 1969, p. 41
1931 - 1943

Life , Thinking , Change , Time

“If we accomplish a good deed, a charity in the hope of (getting…) future rewards, or with a more or less confessed (or admitted) ulterior motive to profit from personal advantages ("d'en retirer quelque avantage personnel", Fr.), we are probably doing a useful thing, but which is devoided of any ("tout", Fr.) truly moral character (or disposition)"”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

p .39.
Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)

Hope , Motivation , Future , Personality

“I was thinking the other day about a time machine…and the first thing I thought of doing if I actually had a time machine, is that I would go back in time to about 1993 or '94, and kill George Lucas with a shovel.”

Patton Oswalt (1969) stand-up comedian

Werewolves and Lollipops (2007)

Thinking , Time

“The truth is nobody finances tiny movies anymore. I mean there are so many movies I like that I hope will get their money together. It's a different world than it was when I first started making independent movies. Something is really wrong right now. I was a part of it and things are so different now. You can't make a movie for three million dollars with a kind of known actor. It's impossible. I think in general it has to do with the financial state of the country. It's tough for everybody in every business, but the independent movies have really suffered I think…they would never have made Secretary. They never would have financed Secretary with an unknown actress and James Spader. There's just no way.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal (1977) American actress

2008-07-11, Comics2Film

Money , Truth , World , Hope

“Behold me, Lucius; moved by thy prayers, I appear to thee; I, who am Nature, the parent of all things, the mistress of all the elements, the primordial offspring of time, the supreme among Divinities, the queen of departed spirits, the first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation of the Gods and Goddesses; who govern by my nod the luminous heights of heaven, the salubrious breezes of the ocean, and the anguished silent realms of the shades below: whose one sole divinity the whole orb of the earth venerates under a manifold form, with different rites, and under a variety of appellations.”
En adsum tuis commota, Luci, precibus, rerum naturae parens, elementorum omnium domina, saeculorum progenies initialis, summa numinum, regina manium, prima caelitum, deorum dearumque facies uniformis, quae caeli luminosa culmina, maris salubria flamina, inferum deplorata silentia nutibus meis dispenso: cuius numen unicum multiformi specie, ritu vario, nomine multiiugo totus veneratus orbis.

Apuleius book The Golden Ass

Bk. 11, ch. 5; p. 226.
Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)

God , Nature , Parent , Appearance

“A. A violent order is disorder; and
B. A great disorder is an order. These
Two things are one.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

"Connoisseur of Chaos"
Parts of a World (1942)

“The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.”

Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) American politician

Time magazine (12 February 1979)

“Grace and peace from God to you, respected, honoured, wise clement, gracious and beloved Masters: An exceedingly unfortunate affair has happened to me, in that I have been publicly accused before your worships of having reviled you in unseemly words and, be it said with all respect, of having called you heretics, my gracious rulers of the State. I am so far from applying this name to you, that I should as soon think of calling heaven hell. For all my life I have thought and spoken of you in terms of praise and honour, gentlemen of Abtzell, as I do to-day, and, as God favours me, shall do to the end of my days. But it happened not long ago when I was preaching against the Catabaptists that I used these words: 'The Catabaptists are now doing so much mischief to the upright citizens of Abtzell and are showing so great insolence, that nothing could be more infamous. You see, gentle sirs, with what modesty I grieved on your account, because the turbulent Catabaptists caused you so much trouble. Indeed I suspect that the Catabaptists are the very people who have set this sermon against me in circulation among you, for they do many of those things which do not become true Christians. Therefore, gentle and wise sirs, I beg most earnestly that you will have me exculpated before the whole community, and, if occasion arise, that you will have this letter read in public assembly. Sirs, I assure you in the name of God our Saviour, in these perilous times you have never been our of my thoughts and my solicitious anxiety; and if in any way I shall be able to serve you I will spare no pains to do so. In addition to the fact that I never use such terms even against my enemies, let me say that it never entered my mind to apply such insulting epithets to you, pious and wise sirs. Sufficient of this. May God preserve you in safety, and may He put a curb on these unbridled falsehoods which are being scattered everywhere, which is an evidence of some great peril - and may He hold your worships and the whole state in the true faith of Christ@ Take this letter of mine in good part, for I could not suffer that so base a falsehood against me should lie uncontradicted.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter to Abtzell February 12, 1526 (vi., 473), ibid, p.250-251

Life , God , Pain , People

“I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I'd never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn't prove something had happened if it hadn't happened. And second, I hadn't killed anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time, anyway.”

Lee Child book Killing Floor

Killing Floor, Ch. 1.

Time

“Programs today get very fat; the enhancements tend to slow the programs down because people put in special checks. When they want to add some feature, they'll just stick in these checks without thinking how they might slow the thing down.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Interview from Programmers at Work (1986)

People , Thinking

“I'm not in politics for cheap cheers; if I was I could probably have had a safe Tory seat years ago. I'm in it, among other things, because I want to help stop the immigration which is destroying this and every other white nation in the world. Then I want to see that deadly tide turned.”

Nick Griffin (1959) British politician

Nick Griffin, No More Time For Peter Pan.

World , Help

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Ch. III

Intelligence , Idea

““The fact is, there’s no such thing as an ultimate state of consciousness. It’s a myth; sentience has meaning only insofar as it’s connected into the physical world…
If you’d like to see it, here’s a view of the Omega Point.” It gestured to open a large inscape window in the sky. Instantly Doran’s head was filled with an undifferentiated roar; white noise matched in the window by endless video snow.
Choronzon laughed. “The more information there is in a signal, the more it resembles noise. You’re looking at infinite information density, gentlemen, a signal so packed with information that it has become noise. These idiots pushed so far in one direction that they ended up at the opposite pole…
Perhaps the fanatics of Omega Point had gotten their wish, but if so they had been mistaken in thinking that the Absolute was something that hadn’t been there all along. Absolute meaning, it seemed, was no different from no meaning at all.”

Karl Schroeder (1962) Author. Technology consultant

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 14 (p. 158).

World , Thinking

“I can tell you that once upon a time when I was doing public events people would ask me, "What do you think about the arts?, What do you think of the role of women?, What do you think of men?, What do you think of all of these things?", and now they ask one thing, and that one thing is this, "Is there hope?"”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Turning Pages: The Life and Literature of Margaret Atwood (2007)

Women , Men , People , Hope

“Spike: I had a muscle cramp. Buffy was, uh, helping.
Tara: A muscle cramp… in your pants?
Spike: What? It's a thing.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

I Was Made to Love You [5.15]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)

Help

“My ideal body, you know, would be just probably something like, ahm… One eye, you probably only need one. A kind of sucker thing instead of teeth, because they just give you grief in the end, you know. And a long, long tube with my arse way over there so I don't have to deal with it. That would be ideal.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

Describing ideal body.
Monster (2004)

Way

“Sighed and looked unutterable things.”

James Thomson (poet) The Seasons

Source: The Seasons (1726-1730), Summer (1727), l. 1188.

“We were rebuilding the nation, looking to a more just society. It was a time when many of us were going to the villages to live there. We were a generation that had no confusion in our minds as to how to do things. Gandhiji had shown the way. This atmosphere infused politics and the way we did things.”

Ela Bhatt (1933) founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA)

Discussion with Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)

Way , Time

“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.”

Phillips Brooks (1835–1893) American clergyman and author

As quoted in Primary Education (1916) by Elizabeth Peabody, p. 190

Love

“We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves.”

Michael Shermer (1954) American science writer

quoted in [Berger, Kevin, August 23, 2006, http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/08/23/shermer/print.html, "The joys of life without God", Salon.com, 2006-08-26]

People , Age , Sense