Quotes about thought (9954 quotes, page 67)

“It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies. We need all the ingenuity we possess to avert the holocaust.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

"The One Un-American Act," Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award
Other speeches and writings

Fate

“Mathematics is an ancient discipline. For as long as we can reliably reach into the past, we find its development intimately connected with the development of the whole of our civilization. For as long as we have a record of man's curiosity and his quest for understanding, we find mathematics cultivated and cherished, practiced and taught. Throughout the ages it has stood as an ultimate in rational thought and as a monument to man's desire to probe the workings of his own mind.”

Mark Kac (1914–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Postscript, p. 150.
Enigmas Of Chance (1985)

Age , Mathematics , Understanding , Past

“I thought I was doing my duty for my country. I didn't know I was going to be treated like a convict. Did it make better soldiers of the callow youths we were then? I doubt it.”

Arnold Ridley (1896–1984) Playwright, actor

On his service during World War I
Biography on Spartacus

Youth , Country

“Everything was giant-sized, as if I were looking through binoculars. "I" was walking up giant stalks. At first I didn't know what they were or what I was, for that matter. The stalks were tall as redwood trees, and suddenly "I" realized that I was an insect of some kind. This was a grass blade. I thought I was a fly in a gigantic forest -- a giant fly, because everything was so large and super-real, and I'm used to thinking of flies as small. But I was an ordinary fly. I realized, and this was what the world looked like! Oddly enough, this made me feel better, I didn't care what I was; as long as I was something. So I felt myself go up the grass blade. It's impossible to verbalize the sensations I had, but I remember being aware of the weight of my wings. They seemed very sturdy and reassuring.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 62

World , Feeling , Thinking , Tree

“For a moment I thought I knew exactly how Christ must have felt as He called John.”

Susan Kay Phantom

Giovanni (p. 138)
Phantom (1990)

Christ

“And then we saw him bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray,
Like a shadow across instead of behind the flakes.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" The Runaway http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/runaway-the/" (1923)
1920s

“The Imperial Palace of Japan is like a breathtaking oasis snoozing in the midst of a concrete panorama. That the Tokyo Metropolitan Government painstakingly built their Capital City around the Imperial Palace is clearly reflective of the centrality of the monarchy’s unifying role in the life of Japanese society. It is a heart-warming thought and a valuable lesson to glean, in terms of its overall resilience to the challenges of modernization. As I see it, this feature of indigenous heritage is itself the most obvious common denominator between the Japanese and the Fijian peoples. The Japanese are being able to safeguard against an erosion of their respect, passion and regard for the Imperial Family in the face of external pressures. In the long run, this will, as a uniting stand, ensure their survival as a community of people. Now, that should certainly be a lesson for Fiji to learn from.”

Tevita Momoedonu (1946) Prime Minister of Fiji

Comments on Japan, 7 October 2002

Life , People , Family , Communication

“By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

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

Books , Art , Democracy , Imagination

“[In the past] women painted women: w:Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, [[w:Mary Cassatt|Mary Cassatt], and so forth... And I thought, men always painted the opposite sex, and I wanted to paint men as sex objects.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

In the exhibition's catalog book 'Elaine de Kooning Portraits' - Brandon Fortune quotes Elaine de Kooning, telling scholar Ann Gibson in 1987; - - read more http://newmexicomercury.com/blog/comments/elaine_de_kooning_paints_a_portrait#sthash.LLVWii3U.dpuf
1972 - 1989

Women , Men , Sex , Past

“The important thing is to end a conflict that has brought burdens to both our peoples, and above all to the people of South Viet-Nam. If you have any thoughts about the actions I propose, it would be most important that I receive them as soon as possible.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Letter to Ho Chi Minh (1967)

People

“In the Prime Minister, we have a man who has forfeited the right to be believed or to be trusted. In more than 20 years in politics, he has betrayed every cause he believed in, contradicted every statement he has made, broken every promise he has given and breached every agreement that he has entered into. In 1982, the Prime Minister said that we would negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC. In 1994, he said: "Under my leadership, I will never allow this country to be isolated." In 1996, he said that he had made it clear that if it is in Britain's interest to be isolated then we will be isolated. There is a lifetime of U-turns, errors and sell-outs. All those hon. Members who sit behind the Prime Minister and wonder whether they stand for anything any longer, or whether they defend any point of principle, know who has led them to that sorry state. In one of his frequent meetings with the former leader of the Liberal party, whom he so much preferred to meeting his own Cabinet, the Prime Minister told us as it is. He said that he had taken from his party everything they thought they believed in and had stripped them of their core beliefs and that what kept them together was power.”

William Hague (1961) British politician

6 December 2000, House of Commons, Prime Minister's Questions.

Error , Country

“They borrow words for thoughts they cannot feel”

Jones Very (1813–1880) American poet and essayist

From The Dead

Feeling

“He [ Johannes Warnardus Bilders ] painted – was living in Utrecht, [he] immediately attracted attention and had many ideas, got good prices for that time; and once he thought 'Is this really beautiful, as people say - but the people are crazy or I am - I came to the conclusion – the people are wrong - picked up my things and went to Oosterbeek' [Autumn of 1841, where he thoroughly started to study nature: branches, stems, plants. Etc.. ] (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek).”

Marie Bilders-van Bosse (1837–1900) painter from the Netherlands

version in original Dutch (citaat uit een brief van MarieBilders-van Bosse, in het Nederlands:) Hij schilderde – woonde te Utrecht, [hij] trok aanstonds de aandacht en had veel ideeën, kreeg voor den tijd goede prijzen; en dacht op eenmaal 'Moet dat nu mooi heeten – maar de menschen zijn gek of ik – Ik kwam tot de conclusie – de menschen slaan de bal mis – pakte mijn rommeltje en ging naar ' [herfst van 1841, waar Bilders grondig studie van de natuur begint te maken: takken, stammen, planten. Etc..]
In a letter of Marie Bilders-van Bosse to A. C. Loffelt, c. 1891; as cited in Van Oosterbeek naar Haagsche School, E. Maas; kunsthandel Kupperman, Amsterdam, 1994, p. 57
Marie Bosse-Bilders was first a pupil of the older Bilders; later they married

People , Beauty , Idea , Autumn

“I thought inside "I must really be crazy, now — because craziness is where everybody agrees about something — except you!" And yet I felt saner than I had ever felt, so I knew this was a new kind of craziness or perhaps a new kind of saneness.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

“Philosophy must be of some use and we must take it seriously; it must clear our thoughts and so our actions. Or else it is a disposition that we have to check, and an inquiry to see that this is so; i. e. the chief proposition of philosophy is that philosophy is nonsense. And again we must then take seriously that it is nonsense, and not pretend, as Wittgenstein does, that it is important nonsense!”

Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930) British mathematician, philosopher

"Philosophy" (1929) as quoted by Nils-Eric Sahlin, The Philosophy of F. P. Ramsey (1990)

“I thought it was normal, that’s the thing. When you’re little you think everything is normal. If your mother had a pointed head and green ears you’d think it’s normal. Only when you grow up do you realise that not everybody is like that. Gradually you can even come to learn that the time you are living in is strange too, that it hasn’t always been like this. The more you feel uncomfortable and unconfident and want to find a way to be like everyone else and fit in, the more normality runs away from you because there isn’t any such thing. Or if there is, you have to find someone else who’ll agree with you what it is. Which I seem singularly unable to do.”

Jane Rogers book The Testament of Jessie Lamb

Source: The Testament of Jessie Lamb (2011), Chapter 1 (pp. 6-7)

Way , Feeling , Thinking , Learning

“Now a willpower that I have polished with an artist's delight will sustain some shaky legs and some weary lungs. I will do it. Give a thought once in awhile to this little soldier of fortune of the twentieth century.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Last Letter to his Parents (1965)

“I once asked Bell whether during the years he was studying the quantum theory it ever occurred to him that the theory might simply be wrong. He thought a moment and answered, “I hesitated to think it might be wrong, but I knew that it was rotten.” Bell pronounced the word “rotten” with a good deal of relish and then added, “That is to say, one has to find some decent way of expressing whatever truth there is in it.” The attitude that even if there is not something actually wrong with the theory, there is something deeply unsettling—“rotten”—about it, was common to most of the creators of the quantum theory. Niels Bohr was reported to have remarked, “Well, I think that if a man says it is completely clear to him these days, then he has not really understood the subject.” He later added, “If you do not getschwindlig [dizzy] sometimes when you think about these things then you have not really understood it.” My teacher Philipp Frank used to tell about the time he visited Einstein in Prague in 1911. Einstein had an office at the university that over looked a park. People were milling around in the park, some engaged in vehement gesture-filled discussions. When Professor Frank asked Einstein what was going on, Einstein replied that it was the grounds of a lunatic asylum, adding, “Those are the madmen who do not occupy themselves with the quantum theory.””

Jeremy Bernstein (1929) American physicist

Quantum Profiles (1991), John Stewart Bell: Quantum Engineer

People , Truth , Way , Thinking

“This shifted the centre of a truly Hellenic civilization to the east, to the Aegean, the Ionian littoral of Asia Minor and to Constantinople. It also meant that modem Greeks could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.’ There is a sense in which the preceding discussion is both relevant to a sense of Greek identity, now and earlier, and irrelevant. It is relevant in so far as Greeks, now and earlier, felt that their ‘Greekness’ was a product of their descent from the ancient Greeks (or Byzantine Greeks), and that such filiations made them feel themselves to be members of one great ‘super-family’ of Greeks, shared sentiments of continuity and membership being essential to a lively sense of identity. It is irrelevant in that ethnies arc constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i. e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in distinctive myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population. In that sense much has been retained, and revived, from the extant heritage of ancient Greece. For, even at the time of Slavic migrations, in Ionia and especially in Constantinople, there was a growing emphasis on the Greek language, on Greek philosophy and literature, and on classical models of thought and scholarship. Such a ‘Greek revival’ was to surface again in the tenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as subsequently, providing a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage.”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

Source: National Identity (1991), p. 29: About Ethnic Change, Dissolution and Survival

Family , Feeling , Literature , Sense

“It is not mandatory, I thought, that a society must have people who are vile and who rear filthiness instead of grit and ambition.”

Neamat Imam book The Black Coat

The Black Coat (2013)

People

“I was walking down the road the other day, and I couldn't help but notice how beautiful the world is. And I thought to myself "Why would anyone in their right mind bother to take drugs?". Then I remembered I was on drugs, and that was the reason.”

Simon Munnery (1967) British comedian

Attention Scum! (2001), How To Live (2005)

World , Beauty , Help

“Fellow citizens. For eight years, it has been my honor to serve as your President. The first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence. A time set apart. Tonight, with a thankful heart, I have asked for a final opportunity to share some thoughts on the journey we have traveled together and the future of our nation.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)

Travel , Time , Future , Heart

“Ornate rhetoric thought out of the rule of Plato… To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Tractate of Education (1644)

Passion

“The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Heretics and Heresies (1874)

Light , Suffering

“That axiom of Metaphysicians which is termed the principle of contradiction and which affirms that it is impossible for anything to possess a quality, and in the same time not to possess it, is a consequence of the fundamental law of thought, whose expression is x²=x.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

Source: 1850s, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), p. 49: as cited in: " Professor Boole's Mathematical theory http://books.google.com/books?id=tBNLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA62" in: Henry Longueville Manse, Philosophical pamphlets, (1853), p. 6

Law , Time

“The artistic triumph of American Jewry lay, he thought, not in the novels of the 1950s but in the movies of the 1930s, those gargantuan, crass contraptions whereby Jewish brains projected Gentile stars upon a Gentile nation and out of their own immigrant joy gave a formless land dreams and even a kind of conscience.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Bech, A Book (1970)

Dreams , Star , Joy

“I have two thoughts [on the question of interviewer Joseph S. Trovato: 'Were the projects a good thing for American art?']. That practically all of the best painters of my generation developed on the projects such as Pollock, de Kooning, Brooks, Hague (sculptor), B. Greene, and Baziotes. I could go on and on. My second thought is that the reason it was good is that it had a broad base due to the economic situation we were in - the depression - and all kinds of art and styles, plus all degrees of talent were employed. Everybody was given an opportunity to prove himself. The many painters I mentioned above who have come such a long way is proof of this.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

n.p.
1961 - 1980, Oral history interview with Philip Guston, 1965 January 29

Art , Way , Question

“Okay bear with me this'll be a little tough. You should know this isn't the first time I thought about leaving. I thought about it some twenty years ago when a check that would soon become a part of Cincinnati folklore, made me see life from the bottom. To be honest, a thought about ending it all crossed my mind, but a more reasonable alternative seemed to be 'hey how about just leaving town? Running away? Starting life over, some place else?' You see, in political terms as well as human, here in Cincinnati, I was dead. But then in the, probably, the luckiest decision I ever made, I decided 'No! I'm staying put!' I would withstand all the jokes, all the ridicule. I'd pretend it didn't hurt, and I would give every ounce of my being to Cincinnati. 'Why in time,' I was thinking, 'you'd have to like me. Or if not like me, at least respect me.' And I'd run for council even unendorsed. And I'd prove to you I could be the best public servant you ever had, or I'd die trying. Be it as a mayor, an anchor, or a commentator, whatever it took, I was determined to have you know that I was more than a check and a hooker on a one night stand. But something happened along the way. Maybe it's God's way of teaching us. I don't know, but you see? In trying to prove something to you, I learned something about me. I learned that I had fallen in love with you. With Cincinnati. With you who taught me more about life, and caring, and forgiving, and also most importantly, giving. Giving something back. Which is part of the reason… I have been… Excuse me. So sad this week. why… Why it's so hard to say goodbye. God bless you, and goodbye.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

his final commentary at NBC's WLWT in Ohio, January 1993
This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Love , Life , God , Sadness

“I have therefore thought that it would be a worthy and very useful thing to reduce the whole of this great art to a complete and orderly form of presentation, and then in different books to lay down and explain the required characteristics of different departments.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Introduction, Sec. 1
De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book IV

Books , Art

“Write and bulletin your thoughts on paper so it would be like bulletins in your brain too.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

The Great Master of Thought (Amen- Vol.3), Observing management

“Many of the Bible characters fell just in the things in which they were thought to be strongest. Moses failed in his humility, Abraham in his faith, Elijah in his courage, for one woman scared him away to that juniper-tree; and Peter, whose strong point was boldness, was so frightened by a maid, as to deny his Lord.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 532.

Faith , Courage , Tree , Strong

“This is an ever-changing world. Seven years ago, who would have thought that the iPhone would change the world? A year ago, who would have thought that I would become the mayor of Taipei? Just a month ago, who would have thought that I would be standing here in front of you today? However, one thing remains unchanged, and that is the long-lasting friendship that Taipei and Shanghai have established.”

Ko Wen-je (1959) Taiwanese politician and physician

Ko Wen-je (2015) cited in " Two sides of Strait are one family: Ko http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2015/08/19/2003625685" on The Taipei Times, 19 August 2015.

Friendship , World , Change

“Do you know what I think of history? … For a while I thought history was something that bitter old men wrote. But Jack loved history so… No one'll ever know everything about Jack. But … history made Jack what he was … this lonely, little sick boy … scarlet fever … this little boy sick so much of the time, reading in bed, reading history … reading the Knights of the Round Table … and he just liked that last song.
Then I thought, for Jack history was full of heroes. And if it made him this way, if it made him see the heroes, maybe other little boys will see. Men are such a combination of good and bad … He was such a simple man. But he was so complex, too. Jack had this hero idea of history, the idealistic view, but then he had that other side, the pragmatic side… his friends were all his old friends; he loved his Irish Mafia.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

The "Camelot" interview (29 November 1963)

Love , Men , Way , History

“Fraudulent evangelical charlatans often say that creationism is scientific, but there’s utterly no verifiably accurate evidence behind any of their assertions, and no way to construct any hypotheses to explain any of their claims because no experiments could possibly support them, and faith prohibits believers from ever admitting when their notions would be falsified. Creationists are therefore unable to add to the sum of knowledge and instead only offer excuses trying to actually reduce what we already know. They’ve no way to recognize their own flaws and won’t correct them, so they can neither confirm nor improve their accuracy. But that’s all real science is or does. Consequently, since the dawn of rational thought, the advancement of science has been retarded by the minions of mysticism, and profound revelations have often been opposed or suppressed by the greater part of the dominant religion, because dogmatic faith is not based on reason and zealots will not be reasoned with.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Faith , Religion , Way , Support

“I wrote A Wrinkle in Time when we were living in a small dairy farm village in New England. I had three small children to raise, and life was not easy. We lost four of our closest friends within two years by death — that's a lot of death statistically. And I really wasn't finding the answers to my big questions in the logical places. So, at the time I discovered the world of particle physics. I discovered Einstein and relativity. I read a book of Einstein's, in which he said that anyone who's not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe is as good as a burnt-out candle. And I thought, "Oh, I've found my theologian, what a wonderful thing."”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Penguins and Golden Calves (2003)

Life , Death , Children , Books

“Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first words which arouse within him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of his prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life. The entire man, so to speak, comes fully formed in the wrappings of his cradle.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter I-V, Chapter II.

Life , World , Understanding , Study

“When I saw The Passion of the Christ it made me feel better about what I was doing. And I thought, No way is that fucker going to outdo me! I demanded more blood.”

John Roecker (1966) American film director

[Freaky deaky: gay music video director John Roecker takes stop-motion animation to bizarre places in his debut feature Live Freaky! Die Freaky!, The Advocate, February 14, 2006, Kurt B., Reighley]

Way , Feeling , Passion , Christ

“My thoughts have been shaped by the conviction that feminism must become a mass based, transformative impact on society.”

Bell Hooks book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

p. xiii https://books.google.com/books?id=L1WvBAAAQBAJ&pg=PR18.
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Preface

“I thought I would try my hand at sailing. It was too small and kept sinking, so I decided to try a boat instead.”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Ishmael
Moby (No Last Name Given) (2014)

“Ridiculous to trust your life to these senseless AI things, he thought as he uploaded it to the net; but nowadays it was the only way you could find out anything, search through the massive information overload on the net and everywhere else.”

Jamil Nasir (1955) American writer

Source: Tower of Dreams (1999), Chapter 5 (p. 59)

Life , Way , Search

“I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Goethes Gespraeche (December 13, 1813)

Pain , People , Way , Feeling

“Communities now find themselves in possession of improvements [resulting from the WPA] which even in 1929 they would have thought themselves presumptuous to dream of… [but] everywhere there had been an overhauling of the word presumptuous. We are beginning to wonder if it is not presumptuous to take for granted that some people should have much, and some should have nothing; that some people are less important than others and should die earlier; that the children of the comfortable should be taller and fatter, as a matter of right, than the other children of the poor.”

Harry Hopkins (1890–1946) American politician, 8th United States Secretary of Commerce, assistant to President Franklin Delano Roosev…

Spending to Save: The Complete Story of Relief (1936), p. 184

Children , People , Dreams , Communication

“The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.

And even the books that do not last long, penetrate their own times at least, sailing farther than Ulysses even dreamed of, like ships on the seas. It is the author’s part to call into being their cargoes and passengers,—living thoughts and rich bales of study and jeweled ideas. And as for the publishers, it is they who build the fleet, plan the voyage, and sail on, facing wreck, till they find every possible harbor that will value their burden.”

Clarence Day (1874–1935) American writer

The Story of the Yale University Press Told by a Friend (1920), pp. 7–8.

Men , Books , World , Dreams

“The health of the soul is to have its faculties, reason, high spirit and desire happily tempered, with the reason in command and reining in the other two, like restive horses. The special name of this health is temperance, that is σωφροσύνη or “thought-preserving,” for it creates a preservation of one of our powers, namely that of wise-thinking.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

171.
On the Virtues

Health , Soul , Thinking , Horse

“One day when Pooh was thinking, he thought he would go and see Eeyore, because he hadn't seen him since yesterday.”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

Source: The House at Pooh Corner (1928), Chapter Four.

Thinking

““Myth, Symbol, and Tradition” was the phrase I originally wrote at the top of the page, for editors like large, cloudy titles. Then I looked at what I had written and, wordlessly, the words reproached me. I hope I had the grace to blush at my own presumption and their portentousness. How could I, if I lived for a thousand years, attempt to cover more than a hectare of that enormous landscape?
So, I let out the air, in a manner of speaking, dwindled to my appropriate size, and gave myself over to that process which, for lack of a more erudite term, I have coined the phrase “Thinking is linking.” I thought of Kerenyi — “Mythology occupies a higher position in the bios, the Existence, of a people in which it is still alive than poetry, storytelling or any other art.” And of Malinowski — “Myth is not merely a story told, but a reality lived.” And, along with those, the word “Pollen,” the most pervasive substance in the world, kept knocking at my ear. Or rather, not knocking, but humming. What hums? What buzzes? What travels the world? Suddenly I found what I sought. “What the bee knows,” I told myself. “That is what I’m after.”
But even as I patted my back, I found myself cursing, and not for the first time, the artful trickiness of words, their capriciousness, their lack of conscience. Betray them and they will betray you. Be true to them and, without compunction, they will also betray you, foxily turning all the tables, thumbing syntactical noses. For — note bene! — if you speak or write about What The Bee Knows, what the listener, or the reader, will get — indeed, cannot help but get — is Myth, Symbol, and Tradition! You see the paradox? The words, by their very perfidy — which is also their honorable intention — have brought us to where we need to be. For, to stand in the presence of paradox, to be spiked on the horns of dilemma, between what is small and what is great, microcosm and macrocosm, or, if you like, the two ends of the stick, is the only posture we can assume in front of this ancient knowledge — one could even say everlasting knowledge.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

"What the Bee Knows" in Parabola : The Magazine of Myth and Tradition, Vol. VI, No. 1 (February 1981); later published in What the Bee Knows : Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story (1989)

People , World , Hope , Art

“Know, dear little one! our Father
Will no gentle deed disdain:
Love on the cold earth beginning
Lives divine in Heaven again,
While the angel hearts that beat there
Still all tender thoughts retain.”

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864) English poet and songwriter

"The Angel's Story".
Legends and Lyrics: A Book of Verses (1858)

Love , Angels , Heart

“An alert copyreader on a newspaper couldn’t believe it when he read a reporter’s account of the theft of 2025 pigs. That’s a lot of pigs, he thought, and called the farmer to check the copy. “Is it true that you lost 2025 pigs?” he asked. “Yeth,” lisped the farmer. “Thanks,” returned the copyreader, and corrected the story to read “two sows and 25 pigs.””

Evan Esar (1899–1995) American writer

Humorous English (1961), p213

Reading

“I suddenly stopped and looked out at the sea and thought, my God, how beautiful this is … for 26 years I had never really looked at it before.”

Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989) English philosopher

On his greater appreciation of the scenery of the world, after his near-death experience, as quoted in "Did atheist philosopher see God when he 'died'?" by William Cash, in National Post (3 March 2001).

God , Beauty , Sea

“She was one of the victims of the French Revolution, a thing thought up by some philosophers who wished to make the world a better place to live in. They wanted all the French to be free and equal and happy, and they tried to bring this about by decapitating as many of them as possible.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Madame du Barry

World , Happiness

“Second thoughts, they say, are best.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Act II, scene 2.
The Spanish Friar (1681)

“Monckton Milnes was a social power in London, and of course he himself affected social eccentricity, challenging ridicule with the indifference of one who knew himself to be the first wit in London, and a maker of men — of a great many men. A word from him went far. An invitation to his breakfast-table went farther. Behind his almost Falstaffian mask and laugh of Silenus, he carried a fine, broad, and high intelligence which no one questioned. As a young man he had written verses, which some readers thought poetry, and which were certainly not altogether prose. Later, in Parliament he made speeches, chiefly criticised as too good for the place and too high for the audience. Socially, he was one of two or three men who went everywhere, knew everybody, talked of everything.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Men , Intelligence , Question , Indifference

“Italy, we know, has been tied since 1949 to the United States in the Atlantic Alliance; and since 1949, there has been some strong resistance inside the Christian Democracy toward such a decisive, entangling, and suffocating involvement of our country with the United States. The most significant resistance to the Atlantic Alliance was perhaps not that of the great parliamentary protest mounted by the Communist and Socialist parties, but the subtler, more decisive, more pregnant, and more enduring resistance of certain sectors of the Christian Democracy who did not want to hitch Italy to the chariot of an unequal alliance, in which the scepter of com¬mand remained in the hands of the United States, but rather thought about the possibility of a neutralist policy for Italy”

Nico Perrone (1935) Italian historian and writer

Source: The Strategic Stakes in Mattei's Flight, p. 23

Democracy , Decision , Strong , Country

“This merely formal conceiving of the facts of one's own wretchedness is at the same time a departure from them--placing them in the object. It is not idle, therefore, to observe reflexively that in that very Thought, one has separated himself from them, and is no longer that which empirically he still sees himself to be.”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XIV : The Need of an Absolute, p. 198.

Departure , Time

“Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot
My twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts
I never really dreamed of heaven much
Until we put him in the ground.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (2005)

Dreams

“On the Lüneberg Heath, it was near where Bergen-Belsen had been, and everything round there smelled of garlic and it was all Jews, because who was buying anything at that time? Only the Jews, and then I said to myself, I, I who was bargaining with Jews over wood and eggs, I was amazed and astounded, and I thought you see - goddammit! They all should have been killed, and there those fellas are, doing deals with me, you know?”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Time

“There is a fundamental similarity between the persecution of individuals who engage in consenting homosexual activity in private, or who ingest, inject, or smoke various substances that alter their feelings and thoughts—and the traditional persecution of men for their religion. … What all of these persecutions have in common is that the victims are harassed by the majority not because they engage in overtly aggressive or destructive acts, … but because their conduct or appearance offends a group intolerant to and threatened by human differences.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), pp. 208-209.

Men , Religion , Feeling , Appearance

“Generally, it is a question of the people. Particularly, in the present case, it is the question of the Konkani people—at home and abroad. The Konkani people just cannot afford to sit tight while communities all around strive with zeal for progress and honourable recognition; while Maharashtra on one side and Karnataka on the other side make their presence felt and their demands expressive. Emphatically, the Konkani people have a need to unite for uplifting the Konkan. These are the aspirations of all the Konkani speaking Indians. It is with these thoughts in mind, the Konkani people will be proud to hail the Konkani way of life. If the Konkani people give their support and cooperation in the way it is essential, there is no doubt that the Konkani way of life will strive to live up to the sterling idea it has set forth.
VJP Saldanha's quote from one of his editorials in Poinnari, a Konkani weekly. Undated. Translated from it's original text in Konkani and quoted by Edwin J. F. D'Souza in his biography of Saldanha, Makers of Indian Literature: VJP Saldanha, p. 20.”

V.J.P. Saldanha

Poinnari, On the need for a Konkani reawakening

Life , People , Way , Quotes

“I thought that was going to be a good song, too, and then they went and rhymed “time” and “Rhine,” and spoiled everything. p. 24”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 1: 1918

Time

““Can I drive you down to your house?”
The man flicked an expressive glance along the car’s length and shook his head. “Thanks. I’ll walk. There’s still a law of averages.”
And you can take that phrase and carve it on Humanity’s headstone, Fay thought bitterly, but did not reply.”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The End of Summer, p. 14 (originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, November 1954)
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

Law , Cars , Housing

“I thought of the brutal truths so often borne on predawn light. I'd had a few in my time, and they'd all led to this. I was a stranger to myself. I'd gone to law school for my father, married for my father; and for that same man, and for the vile woman who shared my bed, I'd surrendered my dreams of family — my very soul. Now he was dead and all I had was this truth: My life was not my own. It belonged to an empty shell that wore my face, Yet I refused to pity myself.”

John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 10.

Life , Truth , School , Family

“Oh, there are evil moments in our life,
When but a thought, a word, a look, has power
To dash the cup of happiness aside,
And stamp us wretched!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Life , Evil , Happiness

“If you are a woman, dress modestly. If the average girl knew how the average guy thought, she would dress with a little more discretion. The length of some Christian girls' dresses reveals their naivete. Girls, get this straight - there are only two sorts of men: depraved and depraved who are forgiven. Show me a normal man (outside of Jesus Christ) who says he has never lusted, and I will show you a liar.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Men , Guy , Girl , Christ

“Thought is just not something objective in our heads. Thought is power – real, objective power. Moreover, the thoughts we create have a life of their own. They have a kind of material reality that affects other people for good or ill – hence our responsibility to chose.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

The Power of Thought: A Twenty-First Century Adaptation of Annie Besant's http://books.google.co.in/books?id=SVKqq0dTdSMC&printsec=frontcover, p. backcover

Life , People , Reality

“Bright youth passes swiftly as a thought.”

Theognis of Megara (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC

Source: Elegies, Line 985.

Youth

“How depressing, the Sleeper Service thought. That it should all come down to this; the person with the biggest stick prevails.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Excession (1996), Chapter 11 “Regarding Gravious” section X (p. 372).

Personality

“How often our bosom swells and our temples throb to a thought which proves itself not to be worth anything but for the exaltation we feel while the swelling and throbbing are going on, which after all is something.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 139

Feeling

“One day when I'm walking and I see -- at first I thought maybe he was resting -- but I saw a big dead seal on the beach, which was really sad. However, the thing that I thought was puzzling was there was a couple, a young guy and a girl on a beach towel not 15 feet from this big, dead mammal, and I look up and they're waving at me, like, 'Isn't it a pretty day?' And I'm like, 'There's a big dead seal right there.' They're putting on lotion. It was just bizarre. And, curtain. I just didn't want to be at the beach anymore.”

Megan Mullally (1958) American actress

Attributed

Sadness , Guy , Girl , Dead

“The adaptation observed in men, animals and plants… one part of this adaptation is explained from a thought-process in the interior of these bodies… another part, however, the adaptation of the organism, by a thought-process in a greater whole.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Men , Animals , Parting

“Mosul is the site of a very famous old Iraqi university. The American forces were refurbishing the place. They were going to tear down some of the outer walls, give this palace to the university. They'd also connected the university to the Internet and to the Web. Helped people contact scholars on the outside world. That was all the job of these very good- humored, very thoughtful officers who were really helping to rebuild the place… I felt a sense of annoyance that I had to go there myself to find any of that out.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Interview with Gibson https://web.archive.org/web/20030810014618/http://michaeltotten.com/ (July 2003), Vanity Fair.
2000s, 2003

People , World , Sense , Tear

“Ordinarily, when he thought back upon those days, let alone upon his student years and the Bamboo Grove, it had always been as if he were gazing from a cool, dull room out into broad, brightly sunlit landscapes, into the irrevocable past, the paradise of memory. Such recollections had always been, even when they were free of sadness, a vision of things remote and different, separated from the prosaic present by a mysterious festiveness.”

Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Sadness , Memory , Past

“Happiness is often presented as being very dull but, he thought, lying awake, that is because dull people are sometimes very happy and intelligent people can and do go around making themselves and everyone else miserable.”

Ernest Hemingway book Islands in the Stream

Pt. 1: Bimini, Section 8
Islands in the Stream (1970)

People , Intelligence , Lying , Happiness

“Many Jews in the Communist conspiracy. Chambers and Hiss were the only non-Jews. Many thought that Hiss was. He could have been a half. Every other one was a Jew — and it raised hell for us. But in this case, I hope to God he's not a Jew.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Nixon, Haldeman, and Ronald Ziegler, 2:42-3:33 P.M. Oval Office Conversation #524-7; cassette #775 (17 June 1971)
1970s

God , Hope , Hell

“If you drive a nation to adopt procedures which run counter to its instincts, you weaken and may destroy the motive force of its action…You will realise that I am speaking of the frequent suggestion that the United Kingdom should join a federation on the continent of Europe. This is something which we know, in our bones, we cannot do…For Britain's story and her interests lie far beyond the continent of Europe. Our thoughts move across the seas to the many communities in which our people play their part, in every corner of the world. These are our family ties. That is our life: without it we should be no more than some millions of people living in an island off the coast of Europe, in which nobody wants to take any particular interest.”

Anthony Eden (1897–1977) British Conservative politician, prime minister

Speech to the Columbia University, New York (January 1952), quoted in Anthony Eden, Full Circle (Cassell, 1960), pp. 36-7

Life , People , Lie , World

“"When I published my book "The Origins of the Bulgarians" in 1907, from which it came out that the Bulgarians were something better than what was being thought of for them, I was declared a patriot and, therefore, which is outside the law. Everyone who criticized me has criticized me not in content, not because the data I have stated is untrue, but because I was a patriot who reported facts that the Bulgarians were both valiant and cultural when, in the opinion of my opponents, it was obvious that the Bulgarians were created by nature as a fertilizer on foreign fields … My chauvinism, proving that Thrace and Macedonia were old Bulgarian lands, threatened on the one hand Russia, which aspired to South Thrace as a hinterland of the Dardanelles and on the other hand - Pannonian Slavs who aspired to Thessaloniki. The opinion of Paninese Slavs was also supported by Bulgarian scientists.”

Gancho Tsenov (1870–1949) Bulgarian historian

Books , Law , Support , Nature

“And you, my fine poet, who thought that the earth
To another such minstrel could never give birth,
Already your works are all thrown on the shelf,
And their author condemn'd as an ignorant elf.—
Yes; look thro' the world, and this truth you will find
That, once out of sight, you are soon out of mind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Fable (Imitated from the French of La Motte.)
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

Truth , World , Birth

“I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Interview in O : The Oprah Magazine (November 2000)

Hate , War , Business , Study

“I heard the hiss and felt the blessed numbness spreading. If there is a God, I thought, it’s a painkiller.”

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 34 (p. 350)

God

“Through words to the meaning of thoughts with no words.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Hidden Words,” p. 58
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Stone and a Word”

“The historical significance of the Proclamation is not so much that it enacted the emancipation of people of African descent; on the contrary, it was a military strategy. But if we examine the meaning of this historical moment we might better be able to grasp the failures as well as the successes of emancipation. I have thought that perhaps we were not asked to reflect on the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation because we might realize that we were never really emancipated. But anyway, at least we may be able to understand the dialectics of emancipation; because we still live the popular myth that Lincoln freed the slaves and that this continues to be perpetuated in popular culture, even by the film Lincoln. Lincoln did not free the slaves. We also live with the myth that the mid-twentieth century Civil Rights Movement freed the. Civil rights, of course, constitute an essential element of the freedom that was demanded at that time, but it was not the whole story.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)

People , Failure , Understanding , Freedom

“Civilizations and social orders have not been geared to the fulfillment of human potential (even now, for all of our liberal thought), but to the suppression of abilities that did not fit in with the basic assumptions about the nature of the self. We inhibited any such evidence from conscious awareness, developing a kind of one-line official consciousness. Opposing data did not disappear, but formed powerful undercurrents that composed the unofficial knowledge of the race.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 275

Nature , Knowledge

“Have any of these thoughts been my own? Look at me—my every move seems a desperate search for someone to blame, always someone else. I’ve made being a tool of a god an excuse, a justification for not thinking, for simply reacting. And others have died for it.”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999), Chapter 15 (p. 446)

God , Search , Thinking

“The human soul yearns for discovery. By unlocking the mysteries of the universe, we unlock truths within ourselves. That's true. Our journey into space will not only make us stronger and more prosperous, but will unite us behind grand ambitions and bring us all closer together. Wouldn't that be nice? Can you believe that space is going to do that? I thought politics would do that. (Laughter.) Well, we'll have to rely on space instead.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, June

Truth , Soul , Laughter , Universe

“If all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 3, p. 52
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Law , Knowledge , Learning

“As to Bonaparte, you know what my apprehensions always were, and I can not help thinking they are in a great degree verified. For though he may, and I hope he will, trounce the Austrians…yet it is impossible to deny that he has lost, or at least risqued the losing of an opportunity. Every man has his weak side, and I have always thought Bonaparte's was the thinking Austria more inclined to peace and more to be depended upon than She is. I hope to God he will not suffer from his errour.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to R. Fitzpatrick (10 September 1800), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 168.
1800s

God , Peace , Hope , Thinking

““…Ally Adil Shah, at the persuasions of his minister, carried his arms against Bunkapoor. This place was the principal residence of Velapa Ray, who had been originally a principal attendant of Ramraj; after whose death he assumed independence… “…Velapa Ray, despairing of relief, at length sent offers for surrendering the fort to the King, on condition of being allowed to march away with his family and effects, which Ally Adil Shah thought proper to grant, and the place was evacuated accordingly. The King ordered a superb temple within it to be destroyed, and he himself laid the first stone of a mosque, which was built on the foundation, offering up prayers for his victory. Moostufa Khan acquired great credit for his conduct, and was honoured with a royal dress, and had many towns and districts of the conquered country conferred upon him in jageer…245”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn ‘Alî ‘Ãdil Shãh I of Bijapur (AD 1557-1579) Bankapur (Karnataka)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Death , Family , Victory , Despair

“I was of a generation that didn't even realize that a vegetarian diet was healthy, but I wasn't going to have animals killed for me to eat. … I had little idea what vegetarians ate, but when my first husband was killed, I thought, "Well, I always felt that I didn't want to eat animals, and now I'm definitely not going to."”

Muriel Dowding, Baroness Dowding (1908–1993) British noble

Source: Interview by Rynn Berry, p. 140

Idea , Animals

“Modern man, seeking a middle position in the evaluation of sense impression and thought, can, following Plato, interpret the process of understanding nature as a correspondence, that is, a coming into congruence of pre-existing images of the human psyche with external objects and their behaviour. Modern man, of course, unlike Plato, looks on the pre-existent original images also as not invariable, but as relative to the development of a conscious point of view, so that the word "dialectic" which Plato is fond of using may be applied to the process of development of human knowledge.”

Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958) Austrian physicist, Nobel prize winner

Writings on Physics and Philosophy http://books.google.com/books?id=ueTd4g7pc5MC (1994) 16. "Science and Western Thought" p. 142

Understanding , Nature , Knowledge , Sense

“When I began singing 'Conga' athletes from all over the world busted out of formation to dance with me, [and] I thought: 'Wow, what a great choreography!.' I thought it was planned. But then the tower started shaking and I thought: 'Great, first the bus, then the boat, now the tower!”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment after the Olympic Closing Ceremonies in 1996
2007, 2008

World , Singing , Dance

“Marcel Duchamp, one of this century's pioneers, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with Impressionism into a field where language, thought and vision act upon one another. There it changed form through a complex interplay of new mental and physical materials, heralding many of the technical, mental and visual details to be found in more recent art... He declared that he wanted to kill art ('for myself') but his persistent attempts to destroy frames of reference altered our thinking, established new units of thought, a "new thought for that object."”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Jasper John's quote, from: Marcel Duchamps 1887 – 1968, in 'Artforum' 7 no. 3, November 1968, p. 6
1960s

Art , Thinking , Change

“I made him swear he'd always tell me nothing but the truth.
I promised him I never would resent it.
No matter how unbearable, how harsh, how cruel. How come
He thought I meant it?”

Judith Viorst (1931) American writer

"Nothing but the Truth" http://books.google.com/books?id=uW5bAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+made+him+swear+he%27d+always+tell+me+nothing+but+the+truth+I+promised+him+I+never+would+resent+it+No+matter+how+unbearable+how+harsh+how+cruel+How+come+He+thought+I+meant+it%22, How Did I Get to be Forty & Other Atrocities (1976)

Truth

“Many a head that down had lain,
Impatient with its twelve hours' pain,
And wishing that the bed it prest,
Were, as the grave's, a long last rest,
Has sprung again at morning's call,
Forgiving, or forgetting all;
Lighting the weary weight of thought
With colours from the day-break brought,
Reading new promise in the sky,
And hearing Hope, the lark on high.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Pain , Hope , Forgiveness , Light

“The art of a great writer is seen in the perfect fitness of his expressions. He knows how to blend vividness with vagueness, knows where images are needed, and where by their vivacity they would be obstacles to the rapid appreciation of his thought.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

Art , Perfection

“[Mahmud of Gahzni] released Jayapala in exchange for fifty elephants. He had had a taste of Hindu heroism, and beat a hasty retreat. On the other hand, Jayapala thought himself unworthy of the throne he occupied, and burnt himself on a funeral pyre to which he set fire with his own hands. This was a demonstration of the Hindu sense of honour, which no defeated Muslim marauder could ever match.”

Jayapala (964–1001) Ruler of the Kabal Shabi

S.R. Goel, (1994) Heroic Hindu resistance to Muslim invaders, 636 AD to 1206 AD. ISBN 9788185990187

Sense

“I began studying the political history of race in America. Having worked in Congress and at the White House, I have some familiarity with the nature of politics and how politicians think. I thought I could use this knowledge to illuminate this one aspect of the race problem in America in ways that might help us better deal with its long, sordid history. What quickly jumped out at me is a fact that seems obvious in retrospect, but which I had never really thought about. Virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat. Before the Civil War, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery. It was based largely in the south and almost all of its leaders were slave owners, including Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, considered by Democrats to be co-founders of their party.”

Bruce Bartlett (1951) American historian

Source: 2000s, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past (2008), p. viv

War , Way , History , Nature

“She has never harmed us, nor would she should we have fallen into her hands. It is only the men of her kind who war upon us, and I have ever thought that their attitude toward us is but the reflection of ours toward them. They live at peace with all their fellows, except when duty calls upon them to make war, while we are at peace with none; forever warring among our own kind as well as upon the red men, and even in our own communities the individuals fight amongst themselves. Oh, it is one continual, awful period of bloodshed from the time we break the shell until we gladly embrace the bosom of the river of mystery, the dark and ancient Iss which carries us to an unknown, but at least no more frightful and terrible existence! Fortunate indeed is he who meets his end in an early death. Say what you please to Tars Tarkas, he can mete out no worse fate to me than a continuation of the horrible existence we are forced to lead in this life.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book A Princess of Mars

Source: A Princess of Mars (1917), Chapter 9

Life , Death , Men , Fate

“I thought the script was very good, but something was missing. I wanted to come out with a cane, come down slowly, have it stick into one of the bricks, get up, fall over, roll around, and they all laugh and applaud. The director asked, ‘what do you want to do that for?’ I said from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

Gene Wilder (1933–2016) American actor

About Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Interview with IndieWire Gene Wilder Opens Up About Making of ‘Willy Wonka’ and ‘Young Frankenstein’ http://www.indiewire.com/2016/07/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-young-frankenstein-interview-watch-1201702561/

Truth , Lying , Time