Quotes about thing
page 99

John Varley photo
Morrissey photo
George Berkeley photo
Anthony Trollope photo
George F. Kennan photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
John Doe photo

“If I was a better poet like William Carlos Williams I’d be able to write about anything, but I’m just a minor poet. So I just write about things like moments of crisis that tend to be on the sadder, darker side. You can spend ten minutes in a really dark place and write a song about it that lasts forever.”

John Doe (1954) American singer, songwriter, actor, poet, guitarist and bass player

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11304560, John Doe: The 'X' Man Returns, 2008-06-02, Wertheimer, Linda, 2007-06-23, audio, Weekend Edition Saturday, National Public Radio

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“In most Life Situations, the truth is irrelevant. Once in a great while, however, it’s the only thing you've got.”

Bradley Denton (1958) American science fiction author

Source: Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede (1991), p. 114

John Ruysbroeck photo
Tim Shieff photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Julian Schwinger photo
José Ortega Y Gasset photo
Trip Hawkins photo
Robin Williams photo
Charles Lyell photo
Jim Gaffigan photo

“Of course what makes breakfast in bed so special is you're lying down and eating bacon, the most beautiful thing on Earth. Bacon's the best, even the frying of bacon sounds like an applause. (sizzling sounds) YEAAAA BACON!!!! You wanna hear how good bacon is? To improve other food they wrap it in bacon. If it wasn't for bacon we wouldn't even know what a water chestnut is. "Thank you bacon. Sincerely, Water Chestnut the third". And those bits of bacon, bits of bacon are like the fairy dust of the food community. "you don't want this baked potato," bbbrrriinnnggg! it's now your favorite part of the meal. "not interested in a salad?" bippady boppidy bacon! Just turned it into an entre. And once you put bacon into a salad it's no longer a salad, it just becomes a game of find the bacon in the lettuce. It's like you're panning for gold, hmmmmm, EUREKA! bacon! not many ways to prepare bacon, you can either fry it or get botulism. It's amazing the shrinkage that occurs. You start with a pound you end up with a book mark. You know the only bad part about bacon is it makes you thirsty… for more bacon! I never feel like I get enough bacon. at breakfast it's like they're rationalizing it. "Here's your two strips of bacon." "But I want more! More bacon!" Whenever you're at a brunch buffet and you see that metal tray filled with the four thousand strips of bacon, don't you almost expect a rainbow to be coming out of it? "I found it I found the source of all bacon!"”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

That bacon tray is always at the end of the buffet, you always regret all the stuff on your plate. "What am I doing with all this worthless fruit? I should have waited! If I had known you were here I would've waited...."
King Baby

Joseph Addison photo

“It's a funny thing about weaknesses…. Most people will tell you they know their weaknesses. When asked, they'll tell you, 'Well for one thing, I'm overgenerous.”

... that's what innkeepers are for.
Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 1

Northrop Frye photo

“In society's eyes the virtue of saying the right thing at the right time is more important that the virtue of telling the whole truth, or even of telling the truth at all.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 6: The Vocation of Eloquence

Margaret Sanger photo

“I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance to be a human being, practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin — that people can — can commit.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

The Mike Wallace Interview (ABC) http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/sanger_margaret_t.html,
Posed question: "Do you believe in sin — When I say "believe" I don't mean believe in committing sin, do you believe there is such a thing as a sin

Sarada Devi photo

“The grace of God is the thing that is needful. One should pray for the grace of God.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 301]

Robert Menzies photo
Woody Allen photo

“You know, the whole American culture is going down the drain, you can't turn on a television set and see anything, or walk in the street and not find garbage, or neighborhoods that were formerly beautiful now have McDonald's in them, and it's all a part of an enormous degeneration of culture in the United States. People that exist in that culture are forced to make moral decisions all the time about their lives, their occupations, their love-lives, and they make decisions that are commensurate with what's happening to them in this culture, and it's too bad that that's happening because that's what Manhattan is about, that New York used to be such a great city, so wonderful, and it has to fight every day for its survival against the encroachment of all this terrible ugliness that is gradually overcoming all the big cities in America.
This ugliness comes from a culture that has no spiritual center, a culture that has money and education, but no sense of being at peace with the world, no sense of purpose in life. They don't know what they're doing, or why they're here. They have no religious center, they have no philosophical center, and so they act, they do what's expedient at the moment. They have no long view of society. They only have the view of quick money, and kill the pain of the moment, and so instead of dealing with the real problems that exist, that are complicated, they sweep them under the rug by turning on the television set, or taking cocaine, or doing many things that enable them to escape confrontation with the unpleasant realities of the world.”

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

[Allen, Woody, France Roche, Woody Allen, ou L'Anhedoniste; le Plus Drole du Monde, New York, 1979, France 2, 05 January 2013]
Others

George Washington Plunkitt photo

“If I have a good thing to hand out in private life, I give it to a friend. Why shouldn’t I do the same in public life? p.6”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 1, Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft

John Green photo

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”

Quentin "Q" Jacobsen, p. 282
Paper Towns (2008)

Larry Wall photo
Anton Mauve photo

“Nowadays I make ugly things, but I think they are nevertheless better than before, more made out-of-me myself, just simple cows with air and greenishness. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Ik maak tegenwoordig leelijke dingen, maar ik vind ze toch beter dan vroeger, meer uit me zelven, eenvoudig koeien met lucht en groenigheid.
In a letter of Mauve to Willem Maris, 21 Jan. 1869; as cited by H.L. Berckenhoff, in Anton Mauve, Etsen van Ph. Zilcken, met fascimiles naar schilderijen, teekeningen en studies, Amsterdam 1890, ( microfiche RKD-Archive https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/111 Den Haag: Berckenhoff, 1890, p. 20)
1860's

Báb photo

“The acts of Him Whom God shall make manifest are like unto the sun, while the works of men, provided they conform to the good-pleasure of God, resemble the stars or the moon… Thus, should the followers of the Bayán observe the precepts of Him Whom God shall make manifest at the time of His appearance, and regard themselves and their own works as stars exposed to the light of the sun, then they will have gathered the fruits of their existence; otherwise the title of ‘starship’ will not apply to them. Rather it will apply to such as truly believe in Him, to those who pale into insignificance in the day-time and gleam forth with light in the night season.
Such indeed is the fruit of this precept, should anyone observe it on the Day of Resurrection. This is the essence of all learning and of all righteous deeds, should anyone but attain unto it. Had the peoples of the world fixed their gaze upon this principle, no Exponent of divine Revelation would ever have, at the inception of any Dispensation, regarded them as things of naught. However, the fact is that during the night season everyone perceiveth the light which he himself, according to his own capacity, giveth out, oblivious that at the break of day this light shall fade away and be reduced to utter nothingness before the dazzling splendour of the sun.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

VIII, 1
The Persian Bayán

“Too much chicken soup for the soul is not a good thing. Working men eat meat and potatoes.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

John Stuart Mill photo
Charlotte Brontë photo

“Have you yet read Miss Martineau’s and Mr. Atkinson’s new work, Letters on the Nature and Development of Man? If you have not, it would be worth your while to do so. Of the impression this book has made on me, I will not now say much. It is the first exposition of avowed atheism and materialism I have ever read; the first unequivocal declaration of disbelief in the existence of a God or a future life I have ever seen. In judging of such exposition and declaration, one would wish entirely to put aside the sort of instinctive horror they awaken, and to consider them in an impartial spirit and collected mood. This I find difficult to do. The strangest thing is, that we are called on to rejoice over this hopeless blank — to receive this bitter bereavement as great gain — to welcome this unutterable desolation as a state of pleasant freedom. Who could do this if he would? Who would do this if he could? Sincerely, for my own part, do I wish to know and find the Truth; but if this be Truth, well may she guard herself with mysteries, and cover herself with a veil. If this be Truth, man or woman who beholds her can but curse the day he or she was born. I said however, I would not dwell on what I thought; rather, I wish to hear what some other person thinks,--someone whose feelings are unapt to bias his judgment. Read the book, then, in an unprejudiced spirit, and candidly say what you think of it. I mean, of course, if you have time — not otherwise.”

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) English novelist and poet

Charlotte Brontë, on Letters on the Nature and Development of Man (1851), by Harriet Martineau. Letter to James Taylor (11 February 1851) The life of Charlotte Brontë

Ellen G. White photo
Johannes Kepler photo

“Discover the force of the heavens O Men:
Once recognised it can be put to use:
No use could be seen in unknown things.”

Vim coeli reserate viri: venit agnita ad usus: Ignotae videas commoda nulla rei.

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus [On the more Certain Fundamentals of Astrology or On Giving Astrology Sounder Foundations] (written 1601; published 1602) in Opera Omnia, Vol. 1, Heyder & Zimmer, 1858, p. 417 (title-page)

Martin Rushent photo

“The little things are what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Las pequeñeces son lo eterno, y lo demás. todo lo demás, lo breve, lo muy breve
Voces (1943)

Chinua Achebe photo

“There is truth in all things, if you understand them well.”

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book II: The Black Cauldron (1965), Chapter 3

“Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Pat Conroy photo
Thomas Browne photo
Salman Rushdie photo

“Two things form the bedrock of any open society—freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

The Times of India, ‘Don’t allow religious hooligans to dictate terms’ http://archive.is/ecOpa (16 January 2008)

Lauryn Hill photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Walt Whitman photo

“Society waits unformed and is between things ended and things begun.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Thoughts, 1
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

John Crowley photo
Eugène Delacroix photo
Ed Bradley photo
Ken Livingstone photo
Skye Sweetnam photo
Simone Weil photo
James Allen photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“And I say to you this morning in conclusion that I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in things. I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in gadgets and contrivances. As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Not in the little gods that can be with us in a few moments of prosperity, but in the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and causes us to fear no evil. That's the God. Not in the god that can give us a few Cadillac cars and Buick convertibles, as nice as they are, that are in style today and out of style three years from now, but the God who threw up the stars to bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity. Not in the god that can throw up a few skyscraping buildings, but the God who threw up the gigantic mountains, kissing the sky, as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty blues. Not in the god that can give us a few televisions and radios, but the God who threw up that great cosmic light that gets up early in the morning in the eastern horizon, (who paints its technicolor across the blue—something that man could never make. I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in the little gods that can be destroyed in an atomic age, but the God who has been our help in ages past, and our hope for years to come, and our shelter in the time of storm, and our eternal home. That's the God that I'm putting my ultimate faith in.”

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

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)

Piet Mondrian photo
Johnny Cash photo
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo

“Your honoured letter regarding suppression of the Jats has arrived. Allah is merciful, and it is hoped that he will crush the enemy. You should rest assured… You should forge unity with Musa Khan and other Muslim groups, and put to use this friendship and unity for facing the enemies. I hope for sure that on account of this unity among Muslims and their nobility, victory will be achieved.
The reason for the rise of enemies and the fall of Muslims is nothing except that, led by their lower nature, Muslims have shared their (Muslims’) concerns with Hindus. It is obvious that Hindus will not tolerate the suppression of non-Muslims. Being farsighted and practising patience are praiseworthy things, but not to the extent that non-Muslims take possession of Muslim cities, and go on occupying one (such) city every day… This is no time for farsightedness and patience. This is the time for putting trust in Allah, for manifesting the might of the sword, and for arousing the Muslim sense of honour. If you will do that, it is possible that winds of favour will start blowing. Whatever this recluse knows is this that war with the Jats is a magic spell which appears fearful at first but which, if you depend fully on the power of Allah and draw His attention towards this (war), will turn out to be no more than a mere show. Let me hope that you will keep me informed of developments and the faring of your arms…”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

To Taj Muhammad Khan Baluch Translated from the Urdu version of K.A. Nizami, Shãh Walîullah Dehlvî ke Siyãsî Maktûbãt, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, pp. 150-51.
From his letters

Penn Jillette photo

“In the evening I study a fair.... if you could see the pomp and luxury of the merry-go-round and the stands and booths. Everything is decorated in Baroque-style, all gold and silver; there are mirrors, fabrics, and electric lightning. By night the whole thing is fantastic and rowdy. First of all I shall make a small picture and some drawings for illustrations.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

quote c. 1900, in: Giacomo Balla (1871 – 1951), ed. Fagiolo dell'Arco, exh. catalogue, Galleria Nationale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, 1971
Balla studied a fair for his later painting ' Luna park in Paris https://www.wikiart.org/en/giacomo-balla/luna-park-par-s-1900,' he painted in 1900

Thomas Brooks photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“You will see things that other people never see.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Jerome K. Jerome photo
Stella Adler photo

“It takes three things to make it in this business: the tenacity of a bulldog, the hide of a rhinoceros and a good home to come home to.”

Stella Adler (1901–1992) American actress and teaching coach

Quoted in "The Advocate", 2 Feb 1999, p. 44

Charles Erwin Wilson photo

“No plan can prevent a stupid person from doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time - but a good plan should keep a concentration from forming.”

Charles Erwin Wilson (1890–1961) American secretary of Defence

Charles E. Wilson, quoted in: Louis E. Boone, ‎David L. Kurtz (1987), Management, p. 100

Anne Hathaway photo
Rio Ferdinand photo

“Football is the most important thing in my life, but I do have a life outside football and this is one part. The TV, the music, the fashion - it all goes to make up Rio Ferdinand.”

Rio Ferdinand (1978) English association football player

Rio Ferdinand on his TV Show, "Rio's World Cup Wind Ups" http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article670046.ece

Giorgio Morandi photo
Vernor Vinge photo

“So high, so low, so many things to know.”

A Deepness in the Sky (1999)

Jean Baudrillard photo
Otto Weininger photo

“Great men take themselves and the world too seriously to become what is called merely intellectual. Men who are merely intellectual are insincere; they are people who have never really been deeply engrossed by things and who do not feel an overpowering desire for production. All that they care about is that their work should glitter and sparkle like a well-cut stone, not that it should illuminate anything. They are more occupied with what will be said of what they think than by the thoughts themselves.”

Große Männer nehmen sich selbst und die Dinge zu ernst, um öfter als gelegentlich »geistreich« zu sein. Menschen, die nichts sind als eben »geistreich«, sind unfromme Menschen; es sind solche, die, von den Dingen nicht wirklich erfüllt, an ihnen nie ein aufrichtiges und tiefes Interesse nehmen, in denen nicht lang und schwer etwas der Geburt entgegenstrebt. Es ist ihnen nur daran gelegen, daß ihr Gedanke glitzere und funkle wie eine prächtig zugeschliffene Raute, nicht, daß er auch etwas beleuchte! Und das kommt daher, weil ihr Sinnen vor allem die Absicht auf das behält, was die anderen zu eben diesen Gedanken wohl »sagen« werden—eine Rücksicht, die durchaus nicht immer »rücksichtsvoll« ist.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 104.

Freeman Dyson photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
William Hazlitt photo

“The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

Burke and the Edinburgh Phrenologists in The Atlas (15 February 1829); reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt, William Hazlitt and Percival Presland Howe (ed.), (2nd edition, 1925), p. 117; also reprinted in The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, Volume 20: Miscellaneous writings, (J.M. Dent and Sons, 1934), (AMS Press, 1967), p. 201

Phil Collins photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Marvin Minsky photo
James Branch Cabell photo
Philo photo
Henri Lefebvre photo
Will Rogers photo

“The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram #1597, Will Rogers Finds Larnin' Spoils One For Real Work (4 September 1931)
Daily telegrams

John Galsworthy photo

“Is not the training of an artist a training in the due relation of one thing with another, and in the faculty of expressing that relation clearly; and, even more, a training in the faculty of disengaging from self the very essence of self — and passing that essence into other selves by so delicate means that none shall see how it is done, yet be insensibly unified? Is not the artist, of all men, foe and nullifier of partisanship and parochialism, of distortions and extravagance, the discoverer of that jack-o'-lantern — Truth; for, if Truth be not Spiritual Proportion I know not what it is. Truth it seems to me — is no absolute thing, but always relative, the essential symmetry in the varying relationships of life; and the most perfect truth is but the concrete expression of the most penetrating vision. Life seen throughout as a countless show of the finest works of Art; Life shaped, and purged of the irrelevant, the gross, and the extravagant; Life, as it were, spiritually selected — that is Truth; a thing as multiple, and changing, as subtle, and strange, as Life itself, and as little to be bound by dogma. Truth admits but the one rule: No deficiency, and no excess! Disobedient to that rule — nothing attains full vitality. And secretly fettered by that rule is Art, whose business is the creation of vital things.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Vague Thoughts On Art (1911)

Ringo Starr photo
Mariano Rajoy photo

“«A truly remarkable thing has happened to me, that I have written it here and I do not understand my handwriting.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

1 February, 2011
As Opposition Leader, 2011
Source: Público http://www.publico.es/espana/medidas-crear-he-escrito-y.html

Jeff Flake photo

“Death is real. Death changes things. Everything else is filler, merely a message from our sponsor.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 16

John Hagee photo