Quotes about try
page 29

“It is important for Pollock that Muslims not be blamed for the decline of Sanskrit. He writes that any theory 'can be dismissed at once' if it 'traces the decline of Sanskrit culture to the coming of Muslim power'… Trying to prove the timing of Sanskrit's decline prior to the Turkish invasions enables him to absolve these invasions of any blame… I get the impression that Pollock does not want to dwell on whether Muslim invasions had debilitated the Hindu political and intellectual institutions in the first place… Throughout Pollock's analysis, hardly any Muslim ruler gets blamed for the destruction of Indian culture. He simply avoids discussing the issue of Muslim invasions and their destructive influence on Hindu institutions… The impact of various invasions in Kashmir was so enormous that it cannot be ignored in any historical analysis… The contradiction between his two accounts, published separately, is serious: Muslim invasions created a traumatic enough shockwave to cause Hindu kings to mobilize the 'cult of Rama' and therefore the Hindus funded the production of extensive Ramayana texts for this agenda. And yet, the death of Sanskrit taking place at the same time had little relation to the arrival of Muslims. When Hindus are to be blamed for their alleged hatred towards Muslims, the Muslims are shown to have an important presence; but when Muslims are to be protected from being assigned any responsibility for destruction, they are mysteriously made to disappear from the scene.”

Rajiv Malhotra book The Battle for Sanskrit

The Battle for Sanskrit (2016)

Death, Time

“Being an incomplete female, the male spends his life attempting to complete himself, become female. He attempts to do this by constantly seeking out, fraternizing with and trying to live through and fuse with the female and by claiming as his own all female characteristics - emotional strength and independence, forcefulness, dynamism, decisiveness, coolness, objectivity, assertiveness, courage, integrity, vitality, intensity, depth of character, grooviness, etc. - and projecting onto women all male traits - vanity, frivolity, triviality, weakness, etc. It should be said, though, that the male has one glaring area of superiority over the female - public relations. He has done a brilliant job of convincing millions of women that men are women and women are men.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 2 (hyphens (not en- or em-dashes) so in original).

Life, Women, Men, Courage

“There are mistakes, which governments have been doing when they were trying to face the economic crisis, since 2008. Slow choices, sometimes insufficient, sometimes wrong, never neutral. Political choices made by political governments which must assume their responsibility on them. In Italy we have adopted forward-looking choices, economically speaking, we have adopted austerity as leading value. Now it is time to work on development and growth, to create jobs and exit this crisis.”

Federica Mogherini (1973) Italian politician

As quoted in "Mogherini: Italy will play a major role" in eunews (12 January 2014).

Time

“Did you know there are people that scoff at the Bible? I deal with them on a regular basis. I attract 'em like a lightning rod. The scoffers out there - they hate me! I'm trying to be nice to 'em, Okay, but they just don't like me. They don't appreciate what a nice, wonderful guy I am. The scoffers, the Bible says, are going to be walking after their own lust. You know the reason people scoff at the Bible? It's not because of their science. They think it is; Okay, but no. They scoff at the Bible because of their lust. They don't want God telling them what to do. That's the bottom line, every single time.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

God, Hate, People, Guy

“Here's an interesting experiment: Empty your garage of every piece of metal, wood, paint, rubber, and plastic. Make sure nothing is there. Nothing. Then wait for ten years and see if a Mercedes evolves. Try it. If it doesn't appear, leave it for 20 years. If that doesn't work, try it for 100 years. Then try leaving it for 10,000 years.”

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

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Appearance, Waiting, Painting

“We are going to tickle some Aes Sedai under the chin, rescue a mule, and put a snip-nosed girl on the Lion Throne. Oh, yes. That's Aviendha. Don't look at her crosswise, or she'll try to cut your throat and probably slit her own by mistake.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Mat Cauthon
(15 October 1994)

Girl

“My serve used to be a weakness and I don't think it's a weakness anymore. I'm trying to come a lot more to the net and trying to be more offensive — not in terms of hitting the ball harder, which I think is quite hard for me to hit it any harder than I do — but in terms of building the point and coming to the net and being offensive at the net. A lot of the top girls barely do (come to net) except like Mauresmo or Henin does it a little bit, but a lot of girls don't do it.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Source: Tennis Week "The Tennis Week Interview: Sania Mirza"

Girl, Thinking

“They can say anything they want to say
Try to bring me down
But I won't face the ground”

Mariah Carey (1970) American singer-songwriter

"Can't Take That Away"(Mariah's theme)
Lyrics

“Time did a devastating hatchet job on Uri Geller (and others). Time selected those events and circumstances thoroughly discrediting Geller. Time also grouped such meticulous researchers as Charles Tart with highly suspect and careless showmen, tarring all with the same brush. Guilt by association is hardly objective journalism. Nevertheless most "nonordinary" phenomena are subjective and not amenable to cultural "prediction and control." This has been one issue of my book. Should Geller-type material become fully acceptable within such channels of the culture such as Time, we would know that the cultural force would have absorbed, and not destroyed, the Crack-sign value of such phenomena. When those working in the field of "nonordinary" phenomena stop trying to prove to the Establishment, they will make a great leap forward. Anonymity is the direction.”

Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926–2016) American writer

Source: Exploring the Crack In the Cosmic Egg (1974), p. 146

Books, Time

“Humanity will ever seek but never attain perfection. Let us at least survive and go on trying.”

Dora Russell (1894–1986) author, feminist, socialist campaigner

The Religion of the Machine Age (1983)

Perfection

“In this essay on econometrics in its conception and its use in economic planning for the betterment of man’s fate, I will try to cover a very broad field.
When talking about the methodology in the particular fields mentioned - about which I am supposed to have a little more than second hand knowledge - I have always found it utterly inadequate to focus attention only on these special fields without seeing them in a much broader perspective.
Therefore it was inevitable that I should have to include in the field of vision of this paper also some branches of science where I can only speak as a layman, hopefully as a somewhat informed layman. For whatever blunders I may have made in these fields I must ask for the reader’s forgiveness”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Source: 1970s and later, From Utopian Theory to Practical Applications, 1970, p. 9 : Lead paragraph

Fate, Forgiveness, Knowledge, Science

“A temporary evolution of ignorance, a period when our insistence on looking in certain directions leaves us unable to see what is right under our noses, may be the price of progress, an inevitable part of what happens when we try to make sense of the world's complexity.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Development, Geography, and Economic Theory (1995), Ch. 3. Models and Metaphors

World, Sense, Parting

“I think winning the batting championship again (he won the title in 1961) would be my biggest thrill. I put it above the Most Valuable Player award. After all, hundreds of players are trying for the title. If I win, that means I'm best. It also means the first championship I won was no fluke. A lot of people like to say it was. I believe I stand a good chance of winning this year if my weight holds up. Right now I think it will.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Change of Pace"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1963</big>

People, Thinking, Chance

“The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.”

Dwight Morrow (1873–1931) American politician

From a letter to his son, as quoted in Harold Nicolson, Dwight Morrow (1935), p. 52

People, World

“A writer must always try to have a philosophy and he should also have a psychology and a philology and many other things. Without a philosophy and a psychology and all these various other things he is not really worthy of being called a writer. I agree with Kant and Schopenhauer and Plato and Spinoza and that is quite enough to be called a philosophy. But then of course a philosophy is not the same thing as a style.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Quoted by Frederic Prokosch in Voices: A Memoir (1983)

“Always try to rub against money, for if you rub against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you.”

Damon Runyon (1880–1946) writer

A Very Honorable Guy

Money, Guy

“[A]nd between this top-quality programming are the most miserable adverts in the world – former Mancunian top cop John Stalker trying to sell you sun awnings; trying to get you to blot out every ray of light from the world for those in the grip of manic depression – 'Hello, I'm John Stalker. Are you, like me, tired of the pitiless glare of an English summer; maddened by the relentless gaze of cruel Helios; sick of lurking in your house all summer long, like a mad bloke in a siege situation - such as I would have dealt with in my high-flying career? Well, suffer no longer. Install Gloom Master sun awnings - summer bang to rights!' Terrible! Then it all gets worse with those terrible loan adverts. These awful, tragic, hollow-eyed wraiths come on, telling you these awful stories - 'I'm up to my eyes in debt, and, curiously, no reputable company would give me another loan! Then I discovered Dodgy Bastards. They've given me a million pounds, and all they want in return are my kidneys.' No, don't do it! And then - worse than that - the accident insurance adverts - 'Where there's blame, there's a claim”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

when people who've had these accidents come on like medieval beggars, and wave their stumps at you for money with these outlandish stories - 'I slipped on a banana skin and successfully sued the Dominican Republic...' (Wrap up Warm tour, May 2004)
Stand-up

Money, People, World, Light

“Whole poems are made out of many single poems we call words... I am trying to recover a part of the poet's work which has been lost. Our first poets were the namers, not the rhymers.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

undated quote about his own poetry; in ' Objects Are What We Aren't' https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/02/26/objects-are-what-we-arent/, by Andy Battaglia; The Parish Review, February 26, 2015

Parting

“You could try and read my lyrics off of this paper before I lay them. But, you won't take the sting out of these words before I say them.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Not Afraid"
2010s, Recovery (2010)

Reading

“One of the most interesting things about business to me is that I find so many business men who are willing to try experiments. I should like to tell you about two evenings I spent last winter and the contrast between them. I went one evening to a drawing-room meeting where economists and M. Ps. talked of current affairs, of our present difficulties. It all seemed a little vague to me, did not seem really to come to grips with our problem. The next evening it happened that I went to a dinner of twenty business men who were discussing the question of centralization and decentralization. Each one had something to add from his own experience of the relation of branch firms to the central office, and the other problems included in the subject. There I found L hope for the future. There men were not theorizing or dogmatizing; they were thinking of what they had actually done and they were willing to try new ways the next morning, so to speak. Business, because it gives us the opportunity of trying new roads, of blazing new trails, because, in short, it is pioneer work, pioneer work in the organized relations of human beings, seems to me to offer as thrilling an experience as going into a new country and building railroads over new mountains. For whatever problems we solve in business management may help towards the solution of world problems, since the principles of organization and administration which are discovered as best for business can be applied to government or international relations. Indeed, the solution of world problems must eventually be built up from all the little bits of experience wherever people are consciously trying to solve problems of relation. And this attempt is being made more consciously and deliberately in industry than anywhere else.”

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) American academic

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xxi-xxii

Men, People, World, Hope

“Here I am, because of the People of Paris [ Paris Commune ], up to my neck in politics. President of the Federation of Artists, member of the Commune committee, city council delegate and delegate for Public Education: the four most important posts in Paris. I get up, I have breakfast, and I preside and sit on committees twelve hours a day. Now my head is starting to spin. But in spite of all this worry and trying to understand unfamiliar things, I am really happy..”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from a letter to his parents (30th April 1870); as cited in 'Courbet Speaks', 'Courbet-dossier', Musée-dOrsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html 1870s

Happiness, People, Education, Communication

“I was just trying to show you,” he went on, “just how insubstantial a ‘common sense’ idea can be when you pin it down. Neither ‘common sense’ nor ‘logic’ can prove anything. Proof comes from experiment, or to put it another way, from experience, and from nothing else.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Rocket Ship Galileo

Source: Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), Chapter 10, “The Method of Science”, p. 105

Way, Idea, Sense

“Look for every seed of enthusiasm, and try to build pockets of success.”

Gareth Morgan (1943) Organizational theorist

Source: Imaginization (1993), p. 47

Success

“Like a Long Magnolia Blossom Bending to the Wind. Under heavy silence. Of a house in mourning. Only the cry of cicadas. Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. Seem to long for you who is now gone. Under the August sun. The Indian Lilacs turn crimson. As if trying to heal the wounds of the mind. My wife has departed alone. Only I am left. Like a lone magnolia blossom bending to the wind. Where can I appeal. The sadness of a broken heart.”

Park Chung-hee (1917–1979) Korean Army general and the leader of South Korea from 1961 to 1979

Poem (August 1974), as quoted in Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781846680670 (2013), by Sheila Miyoshi Jager, London: Profile Books, p. 414. 1970s

Sadness, Silence, Sun, Heart

“As the hook-handed man circled the brig, it was as if the Baudelaires were picking through a chef's salad consisting mostly of dreadful- and perhaps even poisonous- ingredients, trying desperately to find the one noble crouton that might save their sister….”

Daniel Handler book The Grim Grotto

Lemony Snicket
The Grim Grotto (2004)

Sister

“If minorities prefer Sharia Law, then we advise them to go to those places where that’s the state law… We will not grant them special privileges, or try to change our laws to fit their desires, no matter how loud they yell ‘discrimination.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Huffington Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/arnold-steinberg/the-un-speech-president-o_b_8216286.html (30 September 2016) 2016 - 2018

Law, Change

“Steve was a genius and a visionary, and I've never viewed that my role was to replace him," said Cook. "Steve was an original. I've never really felt the weight of trying to be Steve. It's not my goal in life. I am who I am. I am focused on that. On being a great CEO of Apple.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

cnet.com http://www.cnet.com/news/tim-cook-ive-never-really-felt-the-weight-of-trying-to-be-steve/

Life, Cooking

“As the Genesis story teaches, knowledge cannot save us from ourselves. If we know more than before, it means only that we have greater scope to enact our fantasies. But – as the Genesis myth also teaches – there is no way we can rid ourselves of what we know. If we try to regain a state of innocence, the result can only be a worse madness. The message of Genesis is that in the most vital areas of human life there can be no progress, only an unending struggle with our own nature.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

An Old Chaos: Humanism and Flying Saucers (pp. 79-80)
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths (2013)

Life, Way, Nature, Knowledge

“The poet's need to try to find his own voice, a recognizable individual voice that carries the signature of his voice in almost every line... the unique tone being the consequence of the poet's rigorous search for truth ( his truth(, his absolute fidelity to the nature of the experience he was exploring.”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

A Proper Gentleman, 1977

Truth, Search, Nature

“I haven't the arrogance to say I can carry the mighty load of His Cross, but I do try to walk in its shadow. He wants to carve your life like a crucifix. Every calamity is a crucifixion, crucifying your ambition, your lust. Each is a tiny lesson, and then the imprint of the crucifixion is on your life. What is your plan of sacrifice today? You and I, petty souls, sacrifice for our children. Christ sacrificed for tomorrow's whole world. Whenever I see slum-dwellers, with their hunger and poverty, that obscene poverty, I feel He is crucified like that. When I come across a person suffering from leprosy, foul smelling, ulcerous, I can see the imprint of His lips, His kiss. What did they not do to sufferers of leprosy in His time, yet the carpenter's son cared for them and touched them. That hand is an emblem for me, that hand which cared for the loneliest and the lost. The Christian is … he who not only lights the darkest corner in the world but also the darkest corner in his own heart.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

On Christ
Baba Amte's Words of Wisdom

Life, Hunger, Children, World

“Perfection is always infinite. We are the Infinite already. You and I, and all beings, are trying to manifest that infinity.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Perfection

“There are cynics who deny the existence of human gratitude. But it seems that I am no cynic. So convinced am I of the existence of gratitude that I see in it one of our strongest oppositions. There are millions of persons who receive favors that they forget: but gratitude does exist, and they've got to express it somewhere. They take it out by being grateful to science for all that science has done for them, a gratitude, which, according to their dull perceptions won't cost them anything. So there is economic indignation against anybody who is disagreeable to science. He is trying to rob the people of a cheap gratitude.
I like a bargain as well as does anybody else, but I can't save expenses by being grateful to Science, if for every scientist who has perhaps been of benefit to me, there have been many other scientists who have tried to strangle that possible benefit.”

Charles Fort book Lo!

Pt 1, Ch. 4
Lo! (1931)

People, Science, Personality, Forgetting

“My grandfather... was a commander in the Cuban army -- not just a Batista [General Fulgencio Batista y Zalduvar was Cuba's 19th president from October, 1938 until January, 1959)] -- but he was a career general there. And he had been through a few of the differenct presidents of Cuba... My father became a motorcycle officer. He was a good-looking guy, so he was chosen to be the first lady's [Mrs. Batista's] escort. So they were very close to the government when Batista came in power. And then immediately after [Castro seized power on January 1, 1959] [my father] joined the Bay of Pigs invasion to try to liberate Cuba... and he was a political prisoner for two years there”

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

in Cuba
BBC radio interview [December 13, 2006]
2007, 2008

Guy

“Harry Dresden: Santa is a much bigger and more powerful faery than Toot, and I don't know his true name anyway. You'd never see me trying to nab Saint Nick in a magic circle even if I did. I don't think anyone has stones that big.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Storm Front (2000), Chapter 6

Thinking

“Stewart: Well, that's great because we're all trying to do the same thing. Live well.”

Martha Stewart (1941) American businesswoman, writer, television personality, and former fashion model

On Charlie Rose, 15 September 1995

“I come to you tonight with a plea that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life we try to "accentuate the positive." I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment virtue and effort.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Be Not Afraid, Only Believe, CES Fireside for Young Adults, September 9, 2001.

Life, Effort

“Accept that you're a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace — and maybe even glory.”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

Way, Sense

“It's not to pretend you can do everything, but if people like you – in the sense of admiring or having respect for what you are trying to do – then they will understand the odd blemish. If people don't like you, and lack confidence in what you are trying to do, they won't forgive you anything.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

People, Confidence, Forgiveness, Understanding

“The human mind delights in finding pattern—so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make sense of a complex world not constructed for it.”

Stephen Jay Gould book The Flamingo's Smile

"The Rule of Five", p. 199
The Flamingo's Smile (1985)

World, Soul, Sense

“I have been a passionate animal activist for many years now. It's something I believe in and I feel strongly that people with a modicum of success should try and bring a voice to help bring more awareness to causes they believe in, and animals have no voice! So it's vitally important that we raise awareness for them. … I think most people love animals and if there was more awareness and less ignorance about what goes into making a fur coat, for example, people wouldn't even consider buying it.”

Charlotte Ross (1968) American actress

"Charlotte Ross Chats About New Role", interview with Female First (8 November 2012) http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/Charlotte+Ross+Interview-265421.html.

Love, People, Feeling, Thinking

“A system with greater organizational diversity has a higher probability of having in hand some form that does a reasonably satisfactory job of dealing with the changed environmental conditions. Adaptation in such a system means reallocating resources from one type of existing organization to another, either by command or by market mechanisms, rather than trying to identify and create appropriate organizational forms.”

Michael T. Hannan (1943) US-American sociologist of Stanford University

Source: Organizational ecology, 1989, p. 8

Change

“My hearers, this discourse has not wandered out into the world to look for conflict, it has not tried to get the better of anybody, it has not even tried to uphold anybody, as though there was battle without. It has spoken to you; not by way of explaining anything to you, but trying to speak secretly with you about your relationship to that secret wisdom mentioned in our text. Oh that nothing may upset you in respect to this, “neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor any other creature” (Romans 8:38) –not this discourse, which, though it may have profited you nothing, yet has striven for what after all is the first and the last, to help you have what the Scripture calls “faith in yourself before God” (Romans 14:22).”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Sermon Preached at Trinitatis Kirke, 1844, P. 173

Life, Death, Wisdom, God

“Shanne said, “You are quiet; are you sad?”
“In a way. Do you know why?”
She put her hand across his mouth. “Never speak of it. What must be, will be. What can never be—can never be.”
Ghyl turned to look at her, trying to divine every last scintilla of her meaning.
“But,” she added in a soft voice, “what can be—can be.””

Jack Vance book Emphyrio

Source: Emphyrio (1969), Chapter 12

Sadness, Way

“We would have to make clear to our German ally our disagreement on three points: treatment of the occupied countries, excesses towards the Jews, and relations with the Papacy. One ought to try to create a true European federation respectful of each nationality.”

Ugo Cavallero (1880–1943) Italian general

To Alberto Pirelli. Quoted in "All Or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941-1943" - Page 67 - by Jonathan Steinberg - History - 2002

Country

“And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Remarks to Pat Robertson after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on The 700 Club (13 September 2001) (audio recording) https://home.comcast.net/~joe.grabko/falwell.mp3; more at "Falwell and Above" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/rumors/falwell.htm Falwell later told CNN: I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize. CNN (14 September 2001) Falwell: "If we decide to change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built we cannot expect the Lord to put his shield of protection around us as he has in the past." Amanpour: "So you still stand by that." Falwell: "I stand right by it." Interviewed by CNN's Christiana Amanpour about his current feelings regarding blame for the September 11th attacks, and whether or not he still feels as he did when he made the conversial statement cited above (8 May 2007) (video recording) http://www.americablog.com/2007/05/cnn-just-last-week-falwell-reiterated.html. This statement attesting that he still blamed so many was made one week before his death.

God, People, School, Way

“Fellow citizens:The hour to try your souls and to redeem your pledges has arrived.”

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891) Irish politician

"No Rent" Manifesto (1881)

Soul

“All I've done since I've been in Washington has been to sit around and try to look wise, and that's what any man has to do who isn't willing to barter his convictions for political expediency. … No man who wants to be intellectually honest has any business in Congress.”

John J. Whitacre (1860–1938) American politician

December 30, 1913 http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1913/12/30/page/7/article/utilities-board-complete-today in Chicago Daily Tribune and other newspapers.

Business

“I told him I just want to write some more songs and put them on tape. I figure the content of the songs and how I choose to answer for myself is my business. He says he is sorry, even cut to the heart, but he cannot and will not sign me, as, alas, I cannot say the things he wanted to hear. I say I am sorry he cannot hear the things I'm trying to say.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary

Business, Heart

“Knowing that the life that remained to him could not be of great length, he said, “I try to increase it in weight, I try to arrest the speed of its flight by the speed with which I grasp it. … The shorter my possession of life, the deeper and fuller I must make it.””

Sarah Bakewell book How to Live

Source: How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in one Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (2010), pp. 37-38.

Life, Speed

“Acosta: This whole notion of they have to learn English before they get to the United States, are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?
Miller: I am shocked at your statement, that you think only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It actually reveals your cosmopolitan, er, bias, to a shocking degree, that in your mind… No, this an amazing moment…
Acosta: It sounds like you're trying to engineer the racial and ethnic flow of people into this country through this policy.
Miller: Jim, that is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant and foolish things you've ever said, and for you that's still a really… The notion that you think that this is a racist bill is so wrong and so insulting.”

Stephen Miller (1985) political advisor for policy

Exchanges with CNN's Jim Acosta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0izucPBY4k during a briefing on legislation that would seek to curtail legal immigration and create a new points-based green card system (2 August 2017) 2010s

People, Thinking, Learning, Country

“My retainers keep me on ice. Dry ice. It slows my metabolism, takes the edge off my appetite, slightly. I lie, bound with heavy chains, between two great slabs of it, naked and sweating, trying to sleep through the torment of a summer's day.

They've given me the local fall-out shelter, the very deepest room they could find, as I requested. Yet my senses move easily through the earth and to the surface, out across the lazy, warm suburbs, restless emissaries skimming the sun-soaked streets. If I could rein them in I would, but the instinct that drives them is a force unto itself, a necessary consequence of what I am and the reason I was brought into being.

Being, I have discovered, has certain disadvantages. I intend seeking compensation, just as soon as the time is right.”

Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer

Neighbourhood Watch http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/HORROR/NEIGHBOUR/Neighbour.html Fiction

Lie, Sense, Sleep, Time

“We grow up thinking that the beautiful and the talented have been born that way, because they are born rich. The boys in the college gym with fine, muscular bodies—I thought they were athletes because of their bodies, not that their bodies were muscular because they were athletes. I thought I was the only one in the world who had to try so hard to become.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

World, Beauty, Way, Boy

“Is anyone here prepared to say / Just what they mean or is it too late / For anyone here to try to do / Just what it takes to get through to you
Let's all make believe / That we're still friends and we like each other
Let's all make believe / That in the end we're gonna need each other
Strangle my hope and make me pray / To a God I've never seen but who I betray”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Let's All Make Believe, 7 February 2000
B-sides released by Oasis

God, Hope

“I try to be a truthful artist and I try to show a level of courage. I enjoy that. I’m a messenger.”

Jeff Koons (1955) American artist

Jeff Koons in: Ottman, K. (1988) "Jeff Koons," Journal of Contemporary Art–Online 1(1): 18–23; cited in: Galman, Sally AC. "The truthful messenger: visual methods and representation in qualitative research in education." qualitative research 9.2 (2009): 197-217.
1980s

Truth, Courage

“I went north — I did not try to hide myself. When a god or a demon saw me, then I would die, but meanwhile I was no longer afraid. My hunger for knowledge burned in me — there was so much that I could not understand.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book By the Waters of Babylon

Source: By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

Hunger, God, Understanding, Knowledge

“Ask yourself this question: if you were one of America's Founders, and you'd just surprised the world (and yourself) by winning a war of secession against the most powerful and heavy-handed government on the planet, and the last thing in the world you wanted for yourself, for your children, or for your grandchildren was to fall beneath the heels of its jackboots again, what would you want the Bill of Rights to mean?
And if the first act, under martial law, of that powerful, heavy-handed government had been to try to take your guns away at Lexington and Concord, would you have written a Second Amendment to guarantee its 'right' to own and carry weapons? Would you have written a Second Amendment that was subject to whatever government claims is 'reasonable regulation?”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Or would you have written the Second Amendment to forbid government from having anything to do with your guns? Anything whatever. "Police Reform," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle501-20090111-02.html 11 January 2009.

War, Children, World, Law

“Rufus because my diaphragm gets a workout while trying to utilize the 18 vocal sounds a mole makes. Chuckie because […] he's an asthmatic with five personalities rolled into one—plus I have to do the voice the way [Christine Cavanaugh] did it for 10 years.”

Nancy Cartwright (1957) American actress

Quoted in [Voice behind Bart Simpson also lends her animated talents to other TV shows, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Knutzen, Eirik, (2002-08-18)]
In reference to voicing characters in Rugrats, whom she considers the most difficult.

Way, Personality

“They teach you how to resist the enemy, how to protect your mind and spirit. They don’t teach you how to resist your own people, especially people who think they’re trying to “help” you see “the truth.””

Max Brooks book World War Z

World War Z

People, Truth, Thinking, Help

“But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time — it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco. Decorators. They got to do something. But we don't have to glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the goddamned designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they're trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.”

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

Tapes from 1971 as presented in "All the Philosopher King's Men" by James Warren in Harper's Magazine (February 2000)
1970s, Tape transcripts (1971)

Women, Hate, Way, Imagination

“I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,
Sniff them and think and sniff again and try
Once more to think what it is I am remembering,
Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,
Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,
With no meaning, than this bitter one.”

Edward Thomas (1878–1917) Poet and journalist

Poem Old Man http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-man/

Thinking

“Our work is not so much to treat or to cure feelings, as to accept and celebrate them. This is a critical difference.
Fundamentalists figure things out and anticipate change. Trend followers join the trend of the moment. Fundamentalists try to solve their feelings. Trend followers join their feelings and observe them evolve and dis-solve.
The feelings we accept and enjoy rarely interfere with trading.
Trying to treat or cure feelings adds mass.”

Ed Seykota (1946) American commodities trader

Source: FAQ http://www.seykota.com/tribe/pages/2003_Mar/Mar_09-15/index.htm

Feeling, Change

“That’s the thing about terrorism – it works. Especially for the terrorists – they might not get what they want but it feels damn good trying.”

Craig Ferguson book Between the Bridge and the River

Between the Bridge and the River (2006)

Feeling

“I think you just have to space out selfies with not too many professional photos. Followers want to see you and get to know you. Posting consistently is important, and with captions I try to talk about what I’m doing. I use quotes, but only if they aren’t cliché. I do less group pictures, because followers want to see what you’re doing and not what other people are doing. So not too many group photos. You have to cater to your audience, remember why they followed you.”

Antje Utgaard (1994) American actress

Antje Utgaard Spills The Top Mistakes You're Making On Instagram https://galoremag.com/antje-utgaard-spills-the-top-mistakes-youre-making-on-instagram/ (November 3, 2016)

People, Quotes, Photo, Thinking

“The seriousness of my situation started to sink in, and again I fought panic. I pushed it down, but it was harder this time, like my insides were an open can of shaken soda and I was trying to keep it from bubbling up out of the top.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 158

Time

“Every moment marked
With apparitions of your soul.
I'm ever swiftly moving
Trying to escape this desire.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Do What You Have to Do
Song lyrics, Surfacing (1997)

Soul

“Hannan and Freeman examine the ecology of organizations by exploring the competition for resources and by trying to account for rates of entry and exit and for the diversity of organizational forms. They show that the destinies of organizations are determined more by impersonal forces than by the intervention of individuals by the intervention of individuals.”

John H. Freeman (1944–2008) (1944-2008) US-American sociologist and organizational theorist

Michael T. Hannan and John Freeman. Organizational ecology. Harvard University Press, 1993; Abstract.

“Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So you should not be extremists, but try to be near to perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sunni Hadith

Religion, Way, Perfection

“It’s not just how they feel about it, but what it feels like to wear. It’s not a comfortable process to go through, on a daily basis, and actors will often complain about how I torture them and stuff. I don’t want to torture them - though in some cases I do [laughs] - but I also want to know if they’re just being a baby or if they’re being realistic about it. So I’ll try it on to see which is the most uncomfortable, or what might become annoying after a number of days. So at least I know what it’s like on the other side, so I can sympathise with them, or tell them they’re full of crap, or whatever. Because I’ve worn it, and I know it’s not that bad.”

Rick Baker (1950) American special makeup effects artist

Rick Baker interview: Men In Black 3, werewolves and Videodrome http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/23258/rick-baker-interview-men-in-black-3-werewolves-and-videodrome (November 5, 2012)

Feeling, Baby

““William will marry eventually,” he said in a quieter tone. He’ll try to have children—he doesn’t believe any of this.”
“Not even in God,” said Maria sadly, shaking her head, “who is our only hope.”
“And an unhelpfully remote and theoretical hope, at that,” Gabriel snapped.”

Tim Powers (1952) American writer

Part 1, Chapter 4 (p. 80)
Hide Me Among the Graves (2012)

God, Children, Hope

“I can't paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too.
Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can't do it. I just can't do it! And that is why I am just a little crazy.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

As quoted in R.v.R. : Being an Account of the Last Years and the Death of One Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn (1930) by Hendrik Willem van Loon
undated quotes

Secret, Way, Painting

“Something is beautiful if it is honest. If you do an engaged piece of work, which is sincere, the concept of beauty meets the concept of truth. So no illusive harmony. I try to reach people who strive for truth, for identity. Although these conceptions are incredibly warn out, one must try to find the way back to these simple conceptions.”

Jörg Immendorff (1945–2007) German artist

Heidrun Reshöft & Joachim Pente (Transl.) " Art : Interview; Jörg Immendorff http://bombmagazine.org/article/322/j-rg-immendorff" at BOMB Magazine, (7) Fall 1983.

People, Truth, Beauty, Way

“If you could stop thinking, letting go of trying control your world w/your mind, where would your attention go?”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

3 December 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/10514000022343680 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

World, Thinking

“(On Standards & Practices): “Where are your standards?…. Stupid to retarded, is that the level of standards you’re trying to put out to America?””

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

Stupidity

“Well, it’s not like this is anything we are trying to hide. About three times in our 21-year history we have thought it was a good idea — and still do — to defend some very good activists who have done some decent things for animals and who have happened to get into trouble. One of those people is Rodney Coronado, who is a very committed Native American animal rights activist and a decent person. He did something [firebombed a research facility at Michigan State University] that put him in prison for three-and-a-half years and I think that if we hadn’t provided him with a good legal defence he wouldn’t be back out doing productive things in the community again — like the good person that he is. We are very happy to have done that.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

Montreal Mirror http://web.archive.org/20020703023107/www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2002/032102/news3.html. On animal research and activism against it

Happiness, People, History, Communication

“I neither approve nor disapprove. I merely try to understand. Sexual freedom is as natural to newly tribalized youth as drugs.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, Playboy Interview (1969)

Youth, Understanding, Nature, Freedom

“The man who labors to please his neighbor for his good to edification has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. Even a feeble, but kind and tender man, will effect more than a genius, who is rough and artificial.”

Richard Cecil (clergyman) (1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 128.

Help, Christ

“a) The definition of history? Every historian would agree, I think, that history is a kind of research or inquiry. What kind of inquiry it is I do not yet ask. The point is that generically it belongs to what we call the sciences: that is, the forms of thought whereby we ask questions and try to answer them. Science in general, it is important to realize, does not consist in collecting what we already know and arranging it in this or that kind of pattern. It consists in fastening upon something we do not know, and trying to discover it. Playing patience with things we already know may be a useful means towards this end, but it is not the end itself. It is at best only the means. It is scientifically valuable only in so far as the new arrangement gives us the answer to a question we have already decided to ask. That is why all science begins from the knowledge of our own ignorance: not our ignorance of everything, but our ignorance of some definite thing-the origin of parliament, the cause of cancer, the chemical composition of the sun, the way to make a pump work without muscular exertion on the part of a man or a horse or some other docile animal. Science is finding things out: and in that sense history is a science.”

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) British historian and philosopher

Source: The Idea of History (1946), p. 9

Way, History, Question, Knowledge

“Outside the wind of Jehovah still beat on the door, trying to enter. There was no other sound. Not a jackal on the earth, nor a crow in the air. Every living thing cowered in fear, waiting for the Lord's anger to pass.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Last Temptation of Christ

Source: The Last Temptation of Christ (1951), Ch. 10

Fear, Waiting, Anger

“I've come to see through the course of my life that people understand what I've tried to do, however inadequately I do it. I've just found people have come to understand me and be glad that I tried to do what I tried to do. And I do feel very inadequate about it, but I feel I must try... I think that any citizen can understand that you must raise your voice and do the best you can to speak out. [http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/18/lkl.01.html] CNN Larry King Live”

Vanessa Redgrave (1937) English actress

June 18, 2005

Life, People, Feeling, Understanding

“I do like girls as friends, but definitely not as girlfriends. Bleurgh! Lots of girls try to hug me and tell me I'm cute, which is really embarrassing.”

Joseph McManners (1992) British singer, actor

Interview with British Newspaper The Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk:

Girl

“When we try in good faith to believe in materialism, in the exclusive reality of the physical, we are asking our selves to step aside; we are disavowing the very realm where we exist and where all things precious are kept — the realm of emotion and conscience, of memory and intention and sensation.”

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

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

Faith, Reality, Memory

“.. Africa: it's a magic word that lends itselfs to suppositions and sets amateur explorers to dreaming. I want to try to be 'at home' on this bit of foreign [Arab] soil.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

as quoted by Sarah Anderson, in Between Sea and Sahara: An Orientalist Adventure, Eugène Fromentin, (1859) - in 'Preface'; transl. Blake Robinson; publisher I.B. Tauris 2004, p. 4

Dreams, Home

“Getting up any cliff is like a physics problem -- you just got to hold on, try everything, and stick with it.”

Marlan Scully (1939) American physicist

as quoted by Robin Beaver in Making 'one great discovery after another' - Marlan Scully embraced science as fervently as his love for the state, Made in Wyoming http://www.madeinwyoming.net/profiles/scully.php (2006)

Problem

“Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal. You know, I only got to spend a short amount of time with her but, you know, it was been asked if I felt any presence when I was with John McCain or Barack Obama. You know, with Sarah Palin, I don't want to say I felt a presence but she definitely had energy and she definitely went to work for American people, and it disgusts me on how often they try to bash her just for her sincerity. It's just, you know, she really wants to work for America and I mean, I wish people would listen to her and let them, and let her work for us. You know, she wants to serve us. She's not looking for power.”

Joe the Plumber (1973) American conservative activist and commentator

"Glenn talks to Joe the Plumber" at GlennBeck.com (10 December 2008) http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/19055/.

People, Time, Sincerity

“People are trying to force me to redeem (myself) — certain women, certain mentors. Nobody's going to change me. I'm going to fight that. You can't change me; you can't tame me. When you say that, I'm going to bite you even harder. I'm more ferocious, more complicated. I'm not going to let anybody win a popularity contest off my conduct. You have to understand. It is a pervasive (belief) that I'm an animal — undomesticated as well. But regardless of the bizarre (stuff) I've done, I'm a very rational individual. But everybody still thinks I'm crazy and stupid because that's what they want to believe.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm
On himself

Women, People, Stupidity, Understanding

“Years back I didn't wear makeup or use a hairdresser. Then, about four years ago, I became very tired of the way men and the media were trying to present feminists - as drab, un-attractive, shrill and ugly. So I changed. Some feminists have criticized me for it, but there's a lot of compromise in this business.”

Helen Reddy (1941) Australian actress

On changing her image in 1975, as quoted in "Helen Reddy: The Feminist Symbol Whose Husband Manages Her Career", The Australian Women's Weekly (print), 16 May 1979, pg. 21 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47211838#

Men, Way, Business, Change

“The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Hic et Ille", p. 104
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Love

“Peace of mind is very essential in anything that you do--particularly in music. But in my case, it was just the opposite. What new things could I learn when I was constantly disturbed and unhappy? And I tell you, this whole concept of getting lost in music and forgetting the world around you, is a myth. In my case, I can openly say that my troubles and problems were not forgotten by just holding the tanpura in my hand. When I would sit down for riyaz, I would, on the contrary, break down and cry over the daily scene. Over the question of just surviving through the next day. And it wasn't for me that I was worried, but for the entire family that I supported. I personally never thought of becoming rich, of having a new car or house. Those ambitions never entered my mind. All I knew then was the money was not enough. There were many humiliations I had to face because of this. A certain lady musician in Pune invited me over to her house one day. Her mother asked how much I charged for a concert. I told her Rs 125. She suggested that I move over to Pune and accept all her daughter's rejected programmes. They knew I was very badly off. I was insulted by this suggestion and left their house immediately. But later I thought that maybe they were trying to be helpful.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

In "On Gangubai Hangal by Sabina Sehgal Computer Science & Engineering - University of Washington".

Money, World, Family, Peace

“To hope for [immortality],' said the Patriarch, 'would be like trying to fish the moon out of the water.'
'There you go again!' said Monkey. 'What pray do you mean by fishing the moon out of the water?'
'When the moon is in the sky,' said the Patriarch, 'it is reflected in the water. It looks just like a real thing, but if you try to catch hold of it, you find it is only an illusion.”

Arthur Waley (1889–1966) British academic

Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 2 (p. 22)

Hope, Fish, Water

“All of my advice comes from remembering what I did wrong and then telling people not to do it. … Don't wait to read the most recent research papers. … Wonder how you could do better. … Do your own research projects. Take the initiative. … Ask your own questions — try to answer them. … At some point you stop being a student and you start being a scientist. … And it's a completely different skill set …”

Sean Carroll (1966) American theoretical cosmologist

[Episode #124 - In Search of Reality: A Conversation with Sean Carroll, 21 April 2018, Waking Up Podcast with Sam Harris, https://samharris.org/podcasts/124-search-reality/] (1:21:12 of 1:58:24)

People, Question, Waiting, Reading

“.. I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Hard Laughter

Love, Life, Secret, Dependency

“If we wish to imitate the physical sciences, we must not imitate them in their contemporary, most developed form; we must imitate them in their historical youth, when their state of development was comparable to our own at the present time. Otherwise we should behave like boys who try to copy the imposing manners of full-grown men without understanding their raison d’être, also without seeing that in development one cannot jump over intermediate and preliminary phases.”

Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) German-American psychologist and phenomenologist

Source: Gestalt Psychology. 1930, p. 32

Men, Youth, Boy, Understanding

“All the great people and great things in life are failures. It is in doing what we cannot do but must try to do that humans rise to their exalted fulfillment. Maglie had tried to do with an old man’s arm and back what a young man might not have been able to do as well. Of such failures is greatness made.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

On Sal Maglie's departure from Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, from A Day in the Bleachers https://books.google.com/books?id=iJqHg1sitk0C&pg=PA114 (1955) by Hano, p. 114 Other Topics

Life, People, Failure