Quotes about thing
page 96

“"Is it not a strange drift this of men," said the curate, "to hide what is under the veil of what is not? to seek refuge in lies, as if that which is not, could be an armor of adamant? to run from the daylight for safety, deeper into the cave? In the cave house the creatures of the night, — the tigers and hyenas, the serpent and the old dragon of the dark; in the light are true men and women, and the clear-eyed angels. But the reason is only too plain; it is, alas! that they are themselves of the darkness and not of the light. They do not fear their own. They are more comfortable with the beasts of darkness than with the angels of light. They dread the peering of holy eyes into their hearts; they feel themselves naked and fear to be shamed, therefore cast the garment of hypocrisy about them. They have that in them so strange to the light that they feel it must be hidden from the eye of day, as a thing hideous, that is, a thing to be hidden. But the hypocrisy is worse than all it would hide. That they have to hide again, as a more hideous thing still.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Source: Paul Faber, Surgeon (1879), Ch. 31 : A Conscience

Women, Men, Fear, Angels

“My attitude was always to keep open, to keep scanning. I think that's how things work in nature. Many people are close-minded, rigid, and that's not my inclination.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People, Nature, Thinking

“Like most fanatics,” I pointed out coolly, “you share at least one characteristic with children—you want everything now. All improvements take time. You cannot make the world perfect overnight. Things are considerably better for more people today than they were in my—in the early years of this century, for instance.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 3, Chapter 1 “General O. T. Shaw” (p. 92)
Oswald Bastable, The Warlord of the Air (1971)

Children, People, World, Time

“If I have learned anything as a scientist it is that one should not make things complicated when a simple explanation will do.”

Ivar Giaever (1929) Norwegian physicist

Nobel lecture (1973)

Learning

“I wouldn't say that I'm an orthodox Christian at all and the longer we live in the twentieth century the more fantastic discoveries are made, the more we hear what the universe is like I find it very difficult to be a kind of orthodox believer in Jesus as my saviour and that sort of thing. I'm more interested in the extraordinary nature of God. If there is God, if there is deity, then He, even as the old hymn says, He moves in a mysterious way and I'm fascinated by that mystery and I've tried to write out of that experience of God, the fantastic side of God, the quarrel between the conception of God as a person, as having a human side, and the conception of God as being so extraordinary. … So these are still things that occupy me, and every now and again, if you're lucky, you're able to make a poem out of this conception of God … so I suppose I'm trying to appeal to people to open their eyes and their minds to the extraordinary nature of God.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen" in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

God, People, Way, Nature

“If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Arlo has repeatedly updated this part through the years to help it match modern life more. He has updated to say that if only one person does it, they say the person in question is a certain amount of years too late. He also referenced the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy during the 40th anniversary recording. He has also started adding the phrase, "And most of them would be too young to know what a movement was." once he says, "Friends they may think it's a movement."
Alice's Restaurant Massacree

People, Imagination, Thinking, Singing

“The most important thing I found out from [my father] is that if you asked any question and pursued it deeply enough, then at the end there was a glorious discovery of a general and beautiful kind.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Source: No Ordinary Genius (1994), p. 28

Beauty, Question

“The exciting thing about seeing a new show is that you are taken on a journey of surprises, if you know what’s coming it takes away the fun.”

Kerry Ellis (1979) English stage actress and singer

As quoted in "Brian May/Kerry Ellis: Exclusive Interview" (21 February 2011) http://queenonline.com/en/features/brian-maykerry-ellis-exclusive-interview/

“Imitation can acquire pretty much everything but the power which created the thing imitated.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 96

“When we observe a thing, we see too much in it, we fall under the spell of the wealth of empirical detail which prevents us from clearly perceiving the notional determination which forms the core of the thing. The problem is thus not that of how to grasp the multiplicity of determinations, but rather to abstract from them, how to constrain our gaze and teach it to grasp only the notional determinism.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

xi
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Problem, Wealth

“It is when physicians are bogged down by their incomplete technologies, by the innumerable things they are obliged to do in medicine when they lack a clear understanding of disease mechanisms, that the deficiencies of the health-care system are most conspicuous. If I were a policy-maker, interested in saving money for health care over the long haul, I would regard it as an act of high prudence to give high priority to a lot more basic research in biologic science.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"The Technology of Medicine"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

Money, Health, Disease, Understanding

“The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life, in general, so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it — this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur in country and in town, and in the most differing stages of education. If experience consists of impressions, it may be said that impressions are experience, just as (have we not seen it?) they are the very air we breathe. Therefore, if I should certainly say to a novice, "Write from experience, and experience only," I should feel that this was a rather tantalizing monition if I were not careful immediately to add, "Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!"”

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

The Art of Fiction http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/artfiction.html (1884)

Life, People, Education, Way

“Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.”

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays

La solitude est certainement une belle chose, mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un qui sache répondre, à qui on puisse dire de temps en temps, que c'est un belle chose.
Dissertations chrétiennes et morales (1665), XVIII: "Les plaisirs de la vie retirée".

Pleasure, Solitude, Time

“God, I have said, is the fulfiller, or the reality, of the human desires for happiness, perfection, and immortality. From this it may be inferred that to deprive man of God is to tear the heart out of his breast. But I contest the premises from which religion and theology deduce the necessity and existence of God, or of immortality, which is the same thing. I maintain that desires which are fulfilled only in the imagination, or from which the existence of an imaginary being is deduced, are imaginary desires, and not the real desires of the human heart; I maintain that the limitations which the religious imagination annuls in the idea of God or immortality, are necessary determinations of the human essence, which cannot be dissociated from it, and therefore no limitations at all, except precisely in man’s imagination.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Lecture XXX, Atheism alone a Positive View Lectures on the Essence of Religion http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/lectures/index.htm (1851)

God, Happiness, Religion, Imagination

“In Somalia, we know exactly what they had to gain because they told us. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, described this as the best public relations operation of the Pentagon that he could imagine. His picture, which I think is plausible, is that there was a problem about raising the Pentagon budget, and they needed something that would be, look like a kind of a cakewalk, which would give a lot of prestige to the Pentagon. Somalia looked easy. Let's look back at the background. For years, the United States had supported a really brutal dictator, who had just devastated the country, and was finally kicked out. After he's kicked out, it was 1990, the country sank into total chaos and disaster, with starvation and warfare and all kind of horrible misery. The United States refused to, certainly to pay reparations, but even to look. By the middle of 1992, it was beginning to ease. The fighting was dying down, food supplies were beginning to get in, the Red Cross was getting in, roughly 80% of their supplies they said. There was a harvest on the way. It looked like it was finally sort of settling down. At that point, all of a sudden, George Bush announced that he had been watching these heartbreaking pictures on television, on Thanksgiving, and we had to do something, we had to send in humanitarian aid. The Marines landed, in a landing which was so comical, that even the media couldn't keep a straight face. Take a look at the reports of the landing of the Marines, it must've been the first week of December 1992. They had planned a night, there was nothing that was going on, but they planned a night landing, so you could show off all the fancy new night vision equipment and so on. Of course they had called the television stations, because what's the point of a PR operation for the Pentagon if there's no one to look for it. So the television stations were all there, with their bright lights and that sort of thing, and as the Marines were coming ashore they were blinded by the television light. So they had to send people out to get the cameramen to turn off the lights, so they could land with their fancy new equipment. As I say, even the media could not keep a straight face on this one, and they reported it pretty accurately. Also reported the PR aspect. Well the idea was, you could get some nice shots of Marine colonels handing out peanut butter sandwiches to starving refugees, and that'd all look great. And so it looked for a couple of weeks, until things started to get unpleasant. As things started to get unpleasant, the United States responded with what's called the Powell Doctrine. The United States has an unusual military doctrine, it's one of the reasons why the U. S. is generally disqualified from peace keeping operations that involve civilians, again, this has to do with sovereignty. U. S. military doctrine is that U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat. That's not true for other countries. So countries like, say, Canada, the Fiji Islands, Pakistan, Norway, their soldiers are coming under threat all the time. The peace keepers in southern Lebanon for example, are being attacked by Israeli soldiers all the time, and have suffered plenty of casualties, and they don't like it. But U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat, so when Somali teenagers started shaking fists at them, and more, they came back with massive fire power, and that led to a massacre. According to the U. S., I don't know the actual numbers, but according to U. S. government, about 7 to 10 thousand Somali civilians were killed before this was over. There's a close analysis of all of this by Alex de Waal, who's one of the world's leading specialists on African famine and relief, altogether academic specialist. His estimate is that the number of people saved by the intervention and the number killed by the intervention was approximately in the same ballpark. That's Somalia. That's what's given as a stellar example of the humanitarian intervention.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Responding to the question, "what did the United States have to gain by intervening in Somalia?", regarding Operation Provide Relief/Operation Restore Hope/Battle of Mogadishu.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999

People, World, Peace, Food

“RockNet: Were you terribly uncomfortable at the recent Grammy Award Show?
Cornell: I don't know. It's just a strange subject. It's almost as if the music industry is patting itself on the back in a way. This was the seventh Grammy nomination for us and had we won one for our first nomination I would have had a really cool attitude about it because it would have meant that the people who were actually voting were paying attention to music for music's sake as opposed to some other reason.
I was happy that we were nominated because it was an independent record company and it was a low-profile record. We didn't win a Grammy until we'd sold several millions and it seems that what sells a lot is what wins, even though the record may or may not be any good, but that seems to be the requirement.
I'm not critical of the people who work in the music industry, and I appreciate the Grammy. (But) to me it's their party and it's not really mine. It's not for the musicians. It has more to do with the industry. You can tell after a Grammy period all the record labels and artists who won a bunch take out full-page ads in the trades gloating. That's fine. That's what they do, they sell records and they work really hard to develop careers. If they're into it, I'm not going to be disrespectful, but I'd hate for anyone to think that it's something that was a necessity for me or the rest of the band, or that it was a benchmark to us of legitimacy for us because it's not. It doesn't really matter that much to us. It seems like it's for someone else. I'd never get up and say that. If I was totally not into it, the best thing to do is to not show up.
Maybe ten years from now I'll reflect and say "wow, that happened and it was pretty unusual. Not every kid on the block gets to go up and pick up a Grammy Award."”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

It's just one more thing to take the focus away from what we like to do, which is to write music and make records and try not to think about anything whether it's how many records we sell or what people think of us. For us, I think the key to success for being a band and always making good records is always going to be forgetting about everything else outside our own little band. RockNet Interview: Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, May 1, 1996 https://web.archive.org/web/19961114054327/http://www.rocknet.com/may96/soundgar.html, Soundgarden Era

Hate, Happiness, People, Music

“The masses are only to be regarded as one of three things: either as copies of great personalities, bad copies, clumsily produced in a poor material, or as foils to the great, or finally as their tools”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 20

Personality

“I'm not so sure I could have done otherwise, but I wish I... I'm re-going to a French shrink now, and she's helped me a lot. I wish I'd gone sooner, because I think women are inclined more than men to be self-destructive, and I really think I had the masochistic medal there for a while, and I, you know, I want to, that I wish I had stopped. I think it's also very masochistic to sit and cry in my spilt Scotch for areas in my life that have been very creepy and that I should have cut, left sooner. So what's, that's, I feel sorry about that. But I'm getting to [me, be] perhaps more, oh, I don't know, trying to look at that in a more positive way. Maybe I got something out of that too, I don't know... Maybe. I mean... I feel also uncomfortable about staying in France, but then, if I could only make sort of a.., instead of saying negative, 'I'm too lazy to move,' a positive thing, 'I really like this house. I really like this view. I really like Paris better than New York”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

or not better, or equally, or differently, or something, which is quite true - instead of sitting - which I can do, I used to do - and missing the country and missing New York, or missing France.
Tape number two, side A
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Life, Women, Men, Way

“We wear the clothes and embrace the forms of democracy. Are they worth anything? We don't know yet. But we do know one thing. We know it for sure. That some of the largest and most civilized nations of Europe have discarded those clothes and have acquired new ones. Did they get rid of them forever? Other nations are doing their best to dispose of them and to get new ones also. Why? Have all nations gone mad? Are the Rumanian politicians the only wise men in the world? Somehow I doubt it.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Men, World, Democracy, Madness

“Baseball people are generally allergic to new ideas; it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms, and it is the hardest thing in the world to get Major League Baseball to change anything—even spikes on a new pair of shoes—but they will eventually…they are bound to.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

In 1954.
Source: http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=45283&start=25&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

People, World, Shoe, Idea

“A tiny remnant of a big thing is better than a whole little thing.”

Abraham Isaac Kook book Orot

Orot Hatchiah 14.
Orot

“In the Islamic world, from the beginning, Islam was the primary basis of both identity and loyalty. We think of a nation subdivided into religions. They think, rather, of a religion subdivided into nations. It is the ultimate definition, the prime definition and the one that determines, as I said, not only identity, but also basic loyalty. And this is quite independent of religious belief. In Islam, there isn't or rather, there wasn't until recently any such thing as the church, in the Christian sense of that word. The mosque is a place of worship. It's a building, a place of worship and study. And in that sense, it is the equivalent of the church. But in the sense of an institution with a hierarchy and its own laws and usages, there was no such thing in Islam until very recently. And one of the achievements of the Islamic Revolution in Iran has been to endow an Islamic country for the first time with the equivalents of a pope, a college of cardinals, a bench of bishops and, above all, an inquisition. All these were previously unknown and nonexistent in the Islamic world.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)

World, Religion, Law, Thinking

“It's the things that aren't accepted as conventionally beautiful that I find more attractive.”

Marc Jacobs (1963) American fashion designer

Freeman, Hadley (2007). "The geek of chic" http://www.theage.com.au/news/fashion/the-geek-of-chic/2007/03/08/1173166892312.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2 TheAge.com.au (accessed April 19, 2007)

Beauty

“One of the remarkable things about Russ Meyer's films is that they continue to live and play, long after the other work of the soft-core era has been forgotten. That is partly because of their craftsmanship, partly because of Meyer's leading ladies, and partly because of a spirit of paramilitary commitment that can be sensed as the cast and crew struggle through rugged terrain to enact their rural melodramas. But the central reason, I believe, is that Meyer is an auteur whose every frame reflects his own obsessions. Like all serious artists, he doesn't allow any space between his work and his dream.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

"Russ Meyer busts sleazy stereotype" Chicago Sun-Times (15 November 1985) http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/russ-meyer-busts-sleazy-stereotype

Dreams, Sense

“Ginger was brilliantly effective. She made everything work for her. Actually she made things very fine for both of us and she deserves most of the credit for our success.”

Ginger Rogers (1911–1995) American actress and dancer

Fred Astaire to Raymond Rohauser, Film Curator of the New York Gallery of Modern Art, at the San Francisco Film Festival, in 1966.
About

Success

“The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

As quoted in Education for Democracy, Proceedings from the Cambridge School Conference on Progressive Education (1988) edited by Kathe Jervis and Arthur Tobier

Women, Men, Education, School

“In life we only try to produce, to win, and enjoy the more we can; in science, to discoverand invent the more we can; in religion, to dominate (or rule over) on the greatest number of people we can; whereas the forming of the character, the further development (or in-dept analysis, "appronfondissement", Fr.) of the faculties of the intelligence ("les facultés de l'intelligence", Fr.), the refinement of the consciousness and of the heart, are considered incidental (or subordinate) things.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 52 -

Life, People, Religion, Intelligence

“It is often said that in prosperity we have many friends, but that we are usually neglected when things go badly. I disagree. Not only do malicious people flock about us in order to witness our ruin, but other unfortunates as well, who have been kept away by our happiness, and now feel close to us on account of our troubles. When Shelley was poor and unknown, he had more friends than the triumphant Lord Byron. It takes great nobility of soul to be able, without any taint of self-interest, to be friends with fortunate people.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Happiness, People, Feeling, Soul

“We are not smart enough to leave things to the market.”

Ha-Joon Chang book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Thing 16
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2010)

“What is to be the nature of the domestic legislation of the future? (Hear, hear.) I cannot help thinking that it will be more directed to what are called social subjects than has hitherto been the case.—How to promote the greater happiness of the masses of the people (hear, hear), how to increase their enjoyment of life (cheers), that is the problem of the future; and just as there are politicians who would occupy all the world and leave nothing for the ambition of anybody else, so we have their counterpart at home in the men who, having already annexed everything that is worth having, expect everybody else to be content with the crumbs that fall from their table. If you will go back to the origin of things you will find that when our social arrangements first began to shape themselves every man was born into the world with natural rights, with a right to a share in the great inheritance of the community, with a right to a part of the land of his birth. (Cheers.) But all these rights have passed away. The common rights of ownership have disappeared. Some of them have been sold; some of them have been given away by people who had no right to dispose of them; some of them have been lost through apathy and ignorance; some have been stolen by fraud (cheers); and some have been acquired by violence. Private ownership has taken the place of these communal rights, and this system has become so interwoven with our habits and usages, it has been so sanctioned by law and protected by custom, that it might be very difficult and perhaps impossible to reverse it. But then, I ask, what ransom will property pay for the security which it enjoys? What substitute will it find for the natural rights which have ceased to be recognized?”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech to the Birmingham Artisans' Association at Birmingham Town Hall (5 January 1885), quoted in ‘Mr. Chamberlain At Birmingham.’, The Times (6 January 1885), p. 7.
1880s

Life, Men, Happiness, People

“It's one thing to remember history and to put up historical markers that get it right. It's quite another thing to commemorate someone and to name stuff for him. You don't learn anything from driving the Jefferson Davis Highway about Jefferson Davis except that he was a great man and should be honored. And it's precisely that last little bit - should be honored - that we need to take away from him.”

James W. Loewen (1942) American historian

As quoted in "Rejection Of Flag Exposes Larger Truths About The Confederacy" http://www.npr.org/2015/07/02/419554834/rejection-of-flag-exposes-larger-truths-about-the-confederacy (2 July 2015), by Robert Siegel, NPR 2015

History, Learning

“And no I can't find no reason to explain the way that I feel.
I remember things being more clearer, at one time things were more real.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

All Mixed Up
Lyrics, Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) (1987)

Way, Feeling, Time

“Thinking that it was time to bring down the Monarch from his raptures to the level of common sense, I determined to endeavour to open up to him some glimpses of the truth, that is to say of the nature of things in Flatland.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 14. How I Vainly Tried to Explain the Nature of Flatland

Truth, Nature, Thinking, Sense

“You cannot know at all what will comes out of you because all your knowledge is running otherwise. What you do not know and what you thought that there would not come at all, that comes out and appears at once, sometimes with a curse and a sigh, and there you have it. - Everything ends well. I made things that I had forgotten for twenty five years. At first I knew them too well, but then I forgot them, I 'had to' forget them. And then I made them. - If some work does not becomes beautiful, well, then you go back to do something else. Worrying doesn't help at all. It will be better later? No, you should not say such things, because you don't know anything about 'becoming better'. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls in Nederlands): Je kunt er niets van weten wat er uit je komt: al je weten komt verkeerd uit: wat je niet weet en heelemaal niet dacht dat er komen zou, dat komt er in eenen, soms met een vloek en een zucht, en daar heb je 't. - Alles komt terecht. Ik heb dingen gemaakt, die ik vergeten had van voor vijf en twintig jaar. Eerst wist ik ze te goed, maar toen vergat ik ze, ik moest ze vergeten en toen maakte ik ze. - Als iets niet mooi wordt, dan ga je maar weer aan wat anders. Tobben geeft niet. Straks beter? Neen, straks beter, dat moet men ook niet meer zeggen. Je weet niet of het straks beter wordt. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek) Quote of Israels, as cited in a letter of A. Verwey, The Hague 28 August 1888, to his wife K. van Vloten; as cited in Briefwisseling 1 juli 1885 tot 15 december 1888 (1995)–Albert Verwey http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/verw008brie01_01/verw008brie01_01_0580.php, pp. 497-98 Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

Beauty, Knowledge, Appearance, Help

“He (Mr. Cobden) wanted hon. Gentlemen opposite to bring in a little head, as well as a little heart, when they were dealing with this question…he trusted the time was coming when men would no longer rush into hasty legislation prompted by feelings of benevolence and philanthropy alone, but repudiating the facts of that science which taught how to legislate with something like probability of the result being for the general benefit of the community. He did not oppose interference between masters and men for the sake of employers alone; he opposed all interference whatever with the labour of adults, primarily for the sake of the adults themselves. If they were to establish the principle that Parliament would not interfere at all with labour, and would not interfere between masters and workmen, it would be the best thing for the working men that that House could do.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/may/22/factories-bill in the House of Commons (22 May 1846) against the Factory Act 1847. 1840s

Men, Feeling, Communication, Question

“I am still convinced that the American people, since 1932, continue to insist on two requisites of private enterprise, and the relationship of Government to it. The first is complete honesty at the top in looking after the use of other people's money, and in apportioning and paying individual and corporate taxes according to ability to pay. The second is sincere respect for the need of all at the bottom to get work — and through work to get a really fair share of the good things of life, and a chance to save and rise.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Fireside Chat in the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)

Life, Money, People, Chance

“Perhaps we'll be able to do beautiful things, since I have a stellar, insane desire to assassinate beauty.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

Source: Quote in Picabia's letter to Tristan Tzara, Summer 1919; as cited in TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara, Marius Hentea, MIT Press, 12 Sep 2014, p. 151

Beauty

“So, there was a girl.
What I’ve guessed, and what the history books imply, is that she was unlucky enough to have been sired by a cruel man. He beat both wife and daughter and abused them in other ways. Bright Itempas is called, among other things, the god of justice. Perhaps that was why He responded when she came into His temple, her heart full of unchildlike rage.
“I want him to die,” she said (or so I imagine). “Please Great Lord, make him die.”
You know the truth now about Itempas. He is a god of warmth and light, which we think of as pleasant, gentle things. I once thought of Him that way, too. But warmth uncooled burns; light undimmed can hurt even my blind eyes. I should have realized. We should all have realized. He was never what we wanted Him to be.
So when the girl begged the Bright Lord to murder her father, He said, “Kill him yourself.” And He gifted her with a knife perfectly suited to her small, weak child’s hands.
She took the knife home and used it that very night. The next day, she came back to the Bright Lord, her hands and soul stained red, happy for the first time in her short life. “I will love you forever,” she declared. And He, for a rare once, found Himself impressed by mortal will.
Or so I imagine.
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“The first thing that strikes [one] in Cézanne is not apples, but balance of tones. With elements drawn from nature, what did [Cézanne] attempt? To create, to arouse powerful feeling, to awaken in the hearts of men that which is eternal in men.”

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France

in a writing of Maillol, quoted in 'Aristide Maillol', ed. Andrew C. Ritchie, Albright Art Gallery N Y 1945, p. 31; as quoted by Angelo Carnafa, in 'A sculpture of interior Solitude', Associated University Presse, 1999, p. 168

Men, Feeling, Nature, Heart

“Who hopeth in Gods helpe, his helpe can not starte:
Nothing is impossible to a willyng hart,
And will maie wyn my herte, herein to consent,
To take all thinges as it cometh, and be content.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Who hopes in God's help, his help can not start:
Nothing is impossible to a willing heart,
And will may win my heart, herein to consent,
To take all things as it comes, and be content.
Part I, chapter 4.
Proverbs (1546)

God, Help

“People are surprised at the depth of resentment against Asian Americans, but it never shocks me. We are the object of hatred not only for the things we do but just being who we are, ching chong chinamen.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

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

People

“It’s odd to look out there and see a bunch of Mini-Mes,” says Williams. “You’re wondering what possessed them to do such a thing... It sort of does a reverse psychology on you. You’d think you’d be like `Hey, all these people want to look like me. I feel pretty cool.’ But actually it makes you feel more self aware and I’m not really fond of that.”

Hayley Williams (1988) American singer-songwriter and musician

About the Fayley's during the tour with the band No Doubt http://everythingintime.com/tag/hayley-williams

People, Feeling, Thinking

“He had a personality that was hopeless. He had a profound distrust of people's possibilities, and it came out in his personality. … There was an almost indecent pleasure he took in being sentimental about all the worst things.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

On Richard Nixon
Interview for French TV (1998)

People, Pleasure, Personality

“The central thing I learned was that reformism was a rational strategy for workers. It was in the interest of workers to support capitalist democracy. An electoral victory of pure workers’ parties was not historically feasible, because the assumption that manual workers in industry and transportation would one day become the overwhelming majority of the population in industrializing countries was mistaken.”

Adam Przeworski (1940) Polish-American academic

interview by Gerardo Munck on February 24, 2003, published in Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics edited by Gerardo L. Munck and Richard Snyder

Democracy, Support, Learning, Victory

“I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceit of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of think, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many thing which before were all mystery and riddle.”

George Berkeley book Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Said by Philonous (Berkeley) to Hylas in the opening of dialog 1 with reference to the recent surge philosophic endeavors (Locke, Newton, et al) that seemed to lead to skepticism about the existence of the world
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

School, Way, Understanding, Nature

“A real mother, who knows the will of God by experience, will prepare her children also to fulfil it. Such a mother will suffer if she sees her child overfed, effeminate, and dressed-up, for she knows that these things will make it difficult for it to fulfil the will of God which she recognizes.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What then must we do? (1886)

God, Children, Suffering

“I think it is a rule that men in business should not be taught other things. Any one will be almost sure to make money who has no other idea in his head. A college education, or intense study of abstract truth, will not enable a man to drive a bargain … The best politicians are not those who are deeply grounded in mathematical or in ethical science. Rules stand in the way of expediency. Many a man has been hindered from pushing his fortune in the world by an early cultivation of his moral sense.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Men, Money, Truth, World

“I will not demand that the Jewish Agency allocate a sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help European Jewry. And I think that whoever demands such things is performing an anti-Zionist act.”

Yitzchak Gruenbaum (1879–1970) Israeli politician

During an early 1943 discussion suggesting allocation of some “Zionist money” for rescue during the Holocaust:
Tom Segev, The Seventh Million ISBN 978-0805066609.

Thinking, Help

“A system in which a few things interacting produce tremendously divergent behavior; deterministic chaos; it looks random but its not.”

Christopher Langton (1949) American computer scientist

Christopher Langton in: Roger Lewin (1990) Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos New York, Macmillan. p. 12

Behavior

“All things, in all their aspects, consist exclusively of 'souls', that is, of various kinds of subjects, or units of experiencing, with their qualifications, relations, and groupings, or communities.”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

Source: Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (1941), P. 183.

Soul, Communication

“I've always been a religious person, and I try to think that every disappointment might just be a blessing in disguise. … I pray every day. In the mornings and, before I go to bed. I think it's important to pray not just when things are going bad.”

Jermain Defoe (1982) English association football player

"Prayer helped Defoe bounce back", interview with Football Focus (22 December 2006) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/football_focus/6200993.stm.

Disappointment, Thinking, Personality

“What is the main thing in love? To know and to hide. To know about the one you love and to hide that you love. At times the hiding (shame) overpowers the knowing (passion). The passion for the hidden — the passion for the revealed.”

Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) Russian poet and writer

The House at Old Pimen, ch. 2 (1934).

Love, Passion, Time

“Things which seem in poor taste: too many personal effects cluttering up the place where one is sitting; too many brushes in an ink-box; too many Buddhas in a family temple; too many stones and plants in a garden; too many children in a house; too many words on meeting someone; too many meritorious deeds recorded in a petition. Things which are not offensive, no matter how numerous: books in a book cart, rubbish in a rubbish heap.”

Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350) japanese writer

72
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)

Children, Books, Family, Housing

“Where do those golden rainbows end?
Why is this song so sad?
Dreaming the dreams I've dreamed my friend
Loving the love I love
To love is just a word I've heard when things are being said
Stories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold
And in between what might have been and what has come to pass
A misbegotten guess alas and bits of broken glass…”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Long Ago and Far Away" · Early performance on Youtube (before he had given it a title) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuvO2Vw-M2Y Song lyrics, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971)

Love, Sadness, Dreams

“[wrote_the_exam]What keeps me awake at night: wondering whether human species is just too stupid to figure out the Universe. I just wonder. I lose sleep over that. Because we define ourselves as intelligent— because we made up the test to say that. And we sit alone at the top of the intelligence chart because we invented the exam, and all the other species of life on Earth are not. So who's to say that the first species (us) to be intelligent (us) has just enough intelligence to actually decode everything that's decodable in the Cosmos? […] Think of the next closest thing to us, the bonobo chimp— 98½% identical DNA, yet you cannot teach them trigonometry, they have no concept of it. So if that's only 1½% difference in our DNA— and so imagine 1½% beyond us, rather than below us, in intelligence. […] Their toddlers would be talking about things that would completely confound us.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Nerdist podcast, Episode #489 http://www.nerdist.com/2014/03/nerdist-podcast-neil-degrasse-tyson-returns-again/ (2014-04) 2010s

Life, Stupidity, Imagination, Intelligence

“The worst thing happens when ideologists are trying to analyse scientific researches.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulani, Jerzy (2008): Neurobiologia inteligencji. Wiedza i Życie, 2, pp. 14–19 (in Polish).

“That's what the whole Sixties Flower-Power thing was about: "Go away, you bunch of boring people."”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 296

People, Flowers

“Attachment to spiritual things is… just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.”

Beverly Sills (1929–2007) opera soprano

Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation (1961)
Misattributed

Love

“A person can find anything if he takes the time, that is, if he can afford to look. And while he’s looking, he’s free, and he finds things he never expected.”

Tove Jansson (1914–2001) Finnish children's writer and illustrator

Sommarboken (A Summer Book) (1972).

Time, Personality

“Dotty: Archie says the Church is a monument to irrationality.
George: … The National Gallery is a monument to irrationality! Every concert hall is a monument to irrationality! — and so is a nicely kept garden, or a lover's favour, or a home for stray dogs! You stupid woman, if rationality were the criterion for things being allowed to exist, the world would be one gigantic field of soya beans!”

Tom Stoppard Jumpers

Act I
Jumpers (1972)

Stupidity, World, Dogs, Home

“This is the understanding of this word: — That it shall be done for me, meaneth that it shall be done for the general Man: that is to say, all that shall be saved. It shall be worshipful and marvellous and plenteous, and God Himself shall do it; and this shall be the highest joy that may be, to behold the deed that God Himself shall do, and man shall do right nought but sin. Then signifieth our Lord God thus, as if He said: Behold and see! Here hast thou matter of meekness, here hast thou matter of love, here hast thou matter to make nought of thyself, here hast thou matter to enjoy in me; — and, for my love, enjoy in me: for of all things, therewith mightest thou please me most.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 36

Love, God, Understanding, Joy

“I can't make people change, and I can't change myself. I can't change the political climate, or fix the myriad problems of the world, or make anyone else happy. When I think about these things, I feel impotent and sad. When I don't think about them, I am running away from the truth. Either way I lose.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

December 17
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Happiness, People, Truth, World

“To kind of explain what Linux is, you have to explain what an operating system is. And the thing about an operating system is that you're never ever supposed to see it. Because nobody really uses an operating system; people use programs on their computer. And the only mission in life of an operating system is to help those programs run. So an operating system never does anything on its own; it's only waiting for the programs to ask for certain resources, or ask for a certain file on the disk, or ask to connect to the outside world. And then the operating system steps in and tries to make it easy for people to write programs.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Interview in Revolution OS http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308808/, documentary, 2001. 2000s, 2000-04

Life, People, World, Waiting

“Were I, who to my Cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious Creatures Man,
A Spirit free, to choose for my own Share,
What sort of Flesh and Blood I pleas’d to wear,
I’d be a Dog, a Monkey, or a Bear,
Or any thing, but that vain Animal,
Who is so proud of being Rational.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

ll. 1-7.
A Satire Against Mankind (1679)

Dogs, Animals

“I get that I’m a little bit of an anomaly in terms of a lawyer in that a lot of lawyers don’t do the things I do, aren’t interested in the things I’m interested in. What drew me to it initially was this idea of dissent online and moving protests forward to a new generation, a new way of thinking, a new philosophy, a way to redress our grievances to the government that was unique and novel, and to have them actually listen to us about the things that are important to us. Chief among them of course was the preservation of our privacies as we move forward into the digital age, into the complete ubiquity of digital technology pervading our lives.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As stated in The Sabu Effect: An Interview with Jay Leiderman BY RAINCOASTER on AUGUST 22, 2014 http://thecryptosphere.com/2014/08/22/the-sabu-effect-an-interview-with-jay-leiderman/

Age, Way, Idea, Thinking

“More murders are committed at ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit than any other temperature. Over one hundred, it’s too hot to move. Under ninety, cool enough to survive. But right at ninety-two degrees lies the apex of irritability, everything is itches and hair and sweat and cooked pork. The brain becomes a rat rushing around a red-hot maze. The least thing, a word, a look, a sound, the drop of a hair and—irritable murder.”

Ray Bradbury book The October Country

Touched With Fire (1954)
The October Country (1955)

Cooking

“It is at once by way of poetry and through poetry, as with music, that the soul glimpses splendors from beyond the tomb; and when an exquisite poem brings one’s eyes to the point of tears, those tears are not evidence of an excess of joy, they are witness far more to an exacerbated melancholy, a disposition of the nerves, a nature exiled among imperfect things, which would like to possess, without delay, a paradise revealed on this very same earth.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

C'est à la fois par la poésie et à travers la poésie, par et à travers la musique, que l'âme entrevoit les splendeurs situées derrière le tombeau; et, quand un poème exquis amène les larmes au bord des yeux, ces larmes ne sont pas la preuve d'un excès de jouissance, elles sont bien plutôt le témoignage d'une mélancolie irritée, d'une postulation des nerfs, d'une nature exilée dans l'imparfait et qui voudrait s'emparer immédiatement, sur cette terre même, d'un paradis révélé.
XI: "Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe III," IV
L'art romantique (1869)

Music, Way, Soul, Nature

“I'd like to say that people people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world. People are running about following their little tracks. I am one of them. But we've all gotta stop just stop following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything; this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other; it's because they've been dehumanized. It's time to take that humanity back into the centre of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed… it ain't going anywhere! They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square. Think on that. Without people you're nothing.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007).

People, World, Thinking, Learning

“I started doing electronics when I was a little kid, in the 5th or 6th grade, buying computer parts at a swap meet and writing my first programs. Simple things just blew my mind with respect to the sort of infinite simulation or combinatorial possibility inside the computer. My personal obsession from my childhood was that I just wanted to recreate reality inside the computer and then go in there.”

Philip Rosedale (1968) American businessman, founder of Second Life

Source: Peter Diamandis. " Second Life: How a Virtual World Became a Reality http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-diamandis/second-life-how-a-virtual_b_2831270.html," at huffingtonpost.com, 03/07/2013.

Reality, Parting, Childhood, Personality

“Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

source http://www.greenplastic.com/coldstorage/articles/guitarworld0498.html

“And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause:”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 15, p. 78
Leviathan (1651)

“Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity.”

Ludwig Feuerbach book The Essence of Christianity

Preface to Second Edition (1843)
The Essence of Christianity (1841)

Religion, Dreams, Imagination, Reality

“They were now as a party engaged in carrying laboriously uphill the last few columns out of the Gladstonian quarry. … Foremost among the tasks of Liberalism in the near future was the regeneration of rural life and the emancipation of the land of this country from the paralysing grip of an effete and unprofitable system. … [The reports into rural life] were startling. When they were published they would prove conclusively that there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men, women, and children dependent upon the land in this country and engaged in cultivating it, hardworking men and women, who were living under conditions with regard to wages, to housing, as well as hours of labour—conditions which ought to make this great Empire hang its head in shame that such things could be permitted to happen in any corner of its vast dominions, let alone in this country, the centre and source of all its glory.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Liberal Club (31 January 1913), quoted in The Times (1 February 1913), p. 8.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Life, Women, Men, Children

“[Nelson] "…One nice thing about Florida, it makes Pennsylvania look unspoiled."”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“Every individual, from the common mechanic, that works in wood or clay, to the prime minister that regulates with the dash of his pen the agriculture, the breeding of cattle, the mining, or the commerce of a nation, will perform his business the better, the better he understands the nature of things, and the more his understanding is enlightened.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter VI, Section II, p. 432

Understanding, Business, Nature

“My business is too difficult. My business is trying to arouse human pity. There are few things that'll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is when they've been used several times, they no longer work. So it happens, for instance, that a man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time that he'll give him sixpence. But the second time it'll only be a threepenny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he'll hand him over cold-bloodedly to the police.”

Bertolt Brecht The Threepenny Opera

Peachum in Act 1, scene 1, pp. 5-6
The Threepenny Opera (1928)

People, Business, Time

“The boat people, the boat people, in getting out what got in, getting out of South Vietnam, that so called communist paradise and that’s to show enough to the whole world that the communist regime doesn't work in South Vietnam. And maybe if we are in fight now inside in…in…South Vietnam, we will have certainly the support of the general, of the majority, of the population. We never had that thing before. But now, if there is some, something, you know, moving over there, I am almost sure that we have I am sure that we have, the support, the majority of the population.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

Political resentment in contemporary Vietnam
1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

People, World, Support, Fight

“Religion, as embodied in the character and conduct of its disciples, cannot survive without doctrinal purity. In the absence of this element, religious feeling inevitably decays; while even religious necessity becomes a thing of naught.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 194.

Religion, Feeling

“When the economy is in a depression, scarcity ceases to rule. Productive resources sit idle, so that it is possible to have more of some things without having less of others; free lunches are all around. As a result, all the usual rules of economics are stood on their head; we enter a looking-glass world in which virtue is vice and prudence is folly. Thrift hurts our future prospects; sound money makes us poorer. Moreover, that's the kind of world we have been living in for the past several years, which means that it is a kind of world that students should understand. […] Depression economics is marked by paradoxes, in which seemingly virtuous actions have perverse, harmful effects. Two paradoxes in particular stand out: the paradox of thrift, in which the attempt to save more actually leads to the nation as a whole saving less, and the less-well-known paradox of flexibility, in which the willingness of workers to protect their jobs by accepting lower wages actually reduces total employment. […] In times of depression, the rules are different. Conventionally sound policy – balanced budgets, a firm commitment to price stability – helps to keep the economy depressed. Once again, this is not normal. Most of the time we are not in a depression. But sometimes we are – and 2013, when this chapter was written, was one of those times.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

“Depressions are Different”, in Robert M. Solow, ed. Economics for the Curious: Inside the Minds of 12 Nobel Laureates. 2014.

Money, World, Understanding, Time

“The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.”

Francis Thompson (1859–1907) British poet

St. 4. The Kingdom of God http://www.bartleby.com/236/245.html (1913)

Angels

“If you would have a right to account of things from illiterate people, let them tell their story in their own way; if you put them upon talking according to logical rules, you will confound them.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

People, Way

“And the color, the overcast blue
Of the air, in which the blue guitar
Is a form, described but difficult,
And I am merely a shadow hunched
Above the arrowy, still string,
The maker of a thing yet to be made;
The color like a thought that grows
Out of a mood, the tragic robe
Of the actor, half his gesture, half
His speech, the dress of his meaning, silk
Sodden with his melancholy words,
The weather of his stage, himself.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Color, Mood, Weather

“That original intelligence, say the MAGIANS, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city. Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest of his works, if compared to him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections? His smile and favour renders men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman catholics, about an inch or an inch and a half square, join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part VII - Confirmation of this doctrine
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

Men, Happiness, Children, Lie

“I think we must honestly face a fact if one gets behind in a race, he must eternally remain behind or run faster than the man in front. You've got to give him the equipment to catch up. Now the fact is that the Negro has had 244 years of slavery in America and working without wages and then he's had a hundred years of segregation and mistreatment in generally. Now, he's faced with a very serious problem and that is that he is required to be as productive as people who have not had these conditions and the only thing that a society can do for individuals who have been deprived of something is to give them a little special treatment. Now you don't put anybody out of a job, but you just make it possible for the individuals who are behind to catch up.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

"Social Justice and the Emerging New Age" address at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse, Western Michigan University (18 December 1963)
1960s

People, Problem, Thinking

“Where did this filthy thing come from?”

Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) American physician

While throwing a book on psychoanalysis into a fire; reported in Ernest Penney Earnest, S. Weir Mitchell, Novelist and Physician (1950), p. 180.
Attributed

“Franz Marc.... is more human, he loves more warmly, is more demonstrative.... I only try to relate myself to God, and if I am in harmony with God, I don't fancy that my brothers are not also in harmony with me; but that is their business... My fire is more like that of the dead or the unborn... Art is like Creation: it holds good on the last days as on the first.
What my art probably lacks, is a kind of passionate humanity. I don't love animals and every sort of creature with an earthly warmth... I tend rather to dissolve into the whole of creation and am then on a footing of brotherliness to my neighbour, to all things earthly. I possess. The earth-idea gives way to the world-idea. My love is distant and religious.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1916), # 1008, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1916 - 1920

Love, God, World, Art

“In this I saw matter of mirth and matter of moaning: matter of mirth: for our Lord, our Maker, is so near to us, and in us, and we in Him, by sureness of keeping through His great goodness; matter of moaning: for our ghostly eye is so blind and we be so borne down by weight of our mortal flesh and darkness of sin, that we may not see our Lord God clearly in His fair Blissful Cheer. No; and because of this dimness scarsely we can believe and trust His great love and our sureness of keeping. And therefore it is that I say we may never stint of moaning nor of weeping. This "weeping" meaneth not all in pouring out of tears by our bodily eye, but also hath more ghostly understanding. For the kindly desire of our soul is so great and so unmeasurable, that if there were given us for our solace and for our comfort all the noble things that ever God made in heaven and in earth, and we saw not the fair Blissful Cheer of Himself, yet we should not stint of moaning nor ghostly weeping, that is to say, of painful longing, till when we see verily the fair Blissful Cheer of our Maker. And if we were in all the pain that heart can think and tongue may tell, if we might in that time see His fair Blissful Cheer, all this pain should not aggrieve us.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 72

Love, God, Pain, Soul