Quotes about try
page 37

“But American nationalism has been conditioned, to a large extent, by the "indoctrination" of the children of immigrants, inevitably coupled with a certain denigration of the Old World. Any German, or Italian, or American gentleman will naturally defend his country against patently unjust accusations—loyalty demands this; but he will not try to convince others that his nation has the highest qualities in the world, the most gifted inventors, the most profound philosophers, the best writers, the finest painters, the fastest trains, the most beautiful women. (This uncouth boasting is reserved for the traveling salesman after a third drink, or the likes of a National Socialist or a Russian Communist.)”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Leftism Revisited (1990), p. 199

Women, Children, World, Beauty

“I will try to explain what I mean by metamorphosis. For me no object can be tied down to any sort of reality. A stone may be part of a wall, a piece of sculpture, a lethal weapon, a pebble on a beach or anything else you like.... when you ask me whether a particular in one of my paintings depicts a woman's head, a fish, a vase, a bird, or all four at once, I can't give you a categorical answer, for this 'metamorphosic' confusion is fundamental to the poetry.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

1946 - 1963, interview with John Richardson' (1957)

Bird, Reality, Fish, Parting

“Showing poverty is such a large part of my work because another thing that I am finding is that for me personally, doing this work helps me in trying to come to grips with my own upbringing and all that occurred during that time. Basically, this work to me is a sort of time for reflection, a pseudo inventory of "this is your life," a way to try to accept the concept of what was so inevitable.”

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz (1968) American photographer

Buffalo Rising interview (2007)

Life, Way, Time, Help

“This is how Tam Dalyell is feeling -- about the Belgrano, about Westland, the miners' strike, Libya, GCHQ, Zircon, the Peter Wright affair… this book is really just a cry of rage: "I was right -- surely you can see -- look, here is the evidence -- let's go through it all carefully again -- how can anyone disagree..?" But the thrust of the book, and the detailed evidence assembled, are for the most part familiar. Writing it all up, again, and publishing it in this way, is just one more try at persuading somebody (I don't think Mr Dalyell is quite sure whom) to say: "Yes, Tam, you were right. Off with Maggie's head!" How he loathes Mrs Thatcher. She is variously called pig-headed, a fishwife, and a mass murderess as the story proceeds. This element of personal vendetta seriously weakens his case because -- for all that he rests it upon alleged facts -- his gravest charges rely upon his imputing to her the worst imaginable motives consistent with those facts. One has to say -- without denying that his allegations of facts need answering -- that there is a certain sleight-of-hand here.”

Tam Dalyell (1932–2017) Scottish politician

Matthew Parris (Review of 'MISRULE - How Mrs Thatcher has misled Parliament from the sinking of the Belgrano to the Wright affair' by Tam Dalyell, 1987)
About

Books, Way, Feeling, Imagination

“Trying to avoid clichés helps life become fresh again, helps us remember what life is about in the first place. -Fingerprint.”

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

Liner Notes

Life, Help

“Calcutta, for me, was a particular idea of the modern city, and I found it in many forms, works, and genres. … by ‘modernity’ I have in mind something that was never new. True modernity was born with the aura of inherited decay and life. … if you look at paintings and photographs, and see old films of the city, you notice that these walls and buildings were never new – that Calcutta was born to look more or less as I saw it as a child. I’m not referring here to an air of timelessness; the patina that gave to Calcutta’s alleys, doorways, and houses their continuity and disposition is very different from the eternity that defines mausoleums and monuments. It’s this quality I’m trying to get at when I speak of modernity. … modernity in the nineteenth century is indistinguishable from nature; perhaps it is nature – in some ways, the culvert, which has emerged from the rock, seems more of its place than the mountain itself.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

citation needed
On Modernity

Life, Way, Mountain, Idea

“War has given applied psychology a tremendous impulse. This will, on the whole, do good, for psychology, which is the largest and last of the sciences, must not try to be too pure.”

G. Stanley Hall (1846–1924) American psychologist

G. Stanley Hall (1919); Cited in O'Donnell, John M. " The crisis of experimentalism in the 1920s: EG Boring and his uses of history http://www.chronicstrangers.com/history%20documents/Boring,%20Values,%20and%20History.pdf." American Psychologist 34.4 (1979). p. 290

War, Science

“When external and internal forces hostile to the development of socialism try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist system, when a threat arises to the cause of socialism in that country … this is no longer merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Speech at the 5th Congress of the Polish United Workers Party (12 November 1968), quoted in The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy (2003) by Matthew J. Ouimet

Hostility, People, Problem, Country

“I'm trying to think of all the reasons that are appropriate for me to refuse to answer that question.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Response to a question from the House Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing to investigate interrogation techniques at Guantánamo Bay (July 2008)

Question, Thinking

“When your techniques are rough it means you are forcing against the principles; proof that you are still immature. You will not be able to stand up to a stronger opponent — you must try to follow the principles. Your character comes out in your techniques. So do the habits of your mind. By correcting the techniques, you can correct the bad habits of your mind. If you constantly collide with others in your practice, your mind will develop a habit of clashing with other people.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

49
Ki Sayings (2003)

People

“Well I'm not sure which ones you're talking about, but I can tell you the people who have looked at the charges that the Obama campaign comes out with, which is that somehow we outsourced jobs, they've said that those were false and misleading. That the ads are inaccurate. Some have given it multiple Pinocchios. The president keeps on trying to divert any attention he can from his failure to turn around the American economy, and that's what this campaign's about. But the president keeps on trying to find something about Bain which is simply not true. And I left Bain in February of 1999. People can point out how - I was in Salt Lake City for three straight years. I don't recall even coming back once to go to a Bain or management meeting. We were, I was out there running the Olympics and it was a full time job, I can tell you that.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-07-13
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57472298/romney-interview-with-cbs-news-full-transcript/
Romney interview with CBS News: Full transcript
CBS News
2012

People, Failure, Time, Falseness

“If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to the editor of The Reporter about the situation of scientists in America (13 October 1954)
1950s

Hope, Teachers

“I think I made essentially a mistake in staying in movies but it’s a mistake I can’t regret because it’s like saying I shouldn't have stayed married to that woman but I did because I love her. I would have been more successful if I hadn't been married to her, you know. I would have been more successful if I'd left movies immediately, stayed in the theatre, gone into politics, written, anything. I've wasted a greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paintbox which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. I'ts about two percent movie-making and ninety-eight percent hustling. It's no way to spend a life.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Interview with Leslie Megahey for The Orson Welles Story (1982); transcribed in Mark Estrin's Orson Welles: Interviews. Jackson. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2002, page 209.

Love, Life, Money, Way

“Roger: No, not anyone in the band. No, not really. We don't get that. There was one time where we played a show and we were playing at Sunlight Convention Center or something and they just had no idea what they were doing security wise. Kids were dancing and stuff and kicking stuff on the stage and this security guy had no idea on what to do so he just pushes this kid right off the stage and he just falls and breaks his leg in like a second! There's been some stories like that. Faulty employees, I called it. (laughs) You have no idea what to expect. Sometimes we'll play a college show and we'll just show up and start doing our thing and security's like stop, no moshing, no crowd surfing, no circle pits or whatever. Well, why did you have us play here? Don't you know that's what we do? Haven't you ever heard of us before? That's what we do! We get people excited, get them running around! They're going to jump around! That's what we're trying to do!! (laughs) Get some energy flowing between us.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

People, Guy, Idea, Time

“When you see someone trying to manoeuvre it round the school gates you have to think, you are a complete idiot.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Criticising Londoners who drive 4x4s in an interview with GMTV (broadcast 23 May 2004), as quoted in "Drivers of 4X4s in London are idiots, says Livingstone" by Ross Lydall in Evening Standard (21 May 2004)

School, Thinking

“It is a special privilege for me on this occasion to have my name associated with that of Professor Bertil Ohlin. By the younger generation of economists we are no doubt both regarded as what in my country are now known as 'senior citizens'; but I am just that much younger than Professor Ohlin to have regarded him as one of the already established figures when I was first trying to understand international economics. His great work on International and Interregional Trade opened up new insights into the complex of relationships between factor supplies, costs of movement of products and factors, price relationships, and the actual international trade in products, migration of persons, and flows of capital. Of the two volumes which I later wrote on International Economic Policy - namely, The Balance of Payments and Trade and Welfare”

James Meade (1907–1995) British economist

it is in the latter that the influence of this work by Professor Ohlin is most clearly marked.
The Meaning of "Internal Balance", (1977)

Understanding, Personality, Country

“I'm trying to feel more well adjusted than I really am, which is, I guess, the human condition.”

Douglas Coupland Microserfs

Microserfs (1995)

Feeling

“I would try out the [C++] language [at AT&T] as it was being developed and make comments on it. It was part of the work atmosphere there. And you'd write something and then the next day it wouldn't work because the language changed. It was very unstable for a very long period of time. At some point, I said, no, no more. In an interview I said exactly that, that I didn't use it because it wouldn't stay still for two days in a row. When Stroustrup read the interview he came screaming into my room about how I was undermining him and what I said mattered and I said it was a bad language.”

Ken Thompson (1943) American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system

Ken Thompson; cited in [Seibel, Peter, Coders At Work, 2009, 475]
"Coders At Work", 2009

Change, Time, Reading, Parting

“I know we can go too far and try to whitewash what is plain sin; to seek to excuse really bad behavior and to account for it in terms of infantile environment, traumatic experiences, psychological complexes and the like. But I regard it as a sign of progress that we are at last doubting the value of the cane and tawse in the schoolroom and the birch and the hangman’s rope in the jails.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.246

Behavior

“Better try to stay wide awake, or you might end up found dead by the lake.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Stay Wide Awake".
2000s, Relapse (2009)

Dead

“No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed… Racists now call themselves "racialists." White supremacists now call themselves "white nationalists." The paranoid fringe now calls itself "alt-right." But the hate burns just as bright. And now Trump is trying to rebrand himself as well. Don’t be fooled.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

Hate, Fools, Change

“Knowledge or no knowledge, the intelligence community is obliged to furnish estimates to military planners, even if they’re worthless and very possibly misleading. If you are one of those strange ducks trying to understand what this nuclear business is all about and read the “respectable” journals the CIA leaks information to, please don’t get the idea this makes you a more respectable arm chair analyst than anyone else.”

Samuel T. Cohen (1921–2010) American physicist

F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

Intelligence, Communication, Idea, Understanding

“Most introverts aren’t aware of how they are constantly spending their time in ways that they would prefer not to be. They’ve been doing it all their lives, so it just becomes second nature. I’m trying to give people entitlement inside their own minds to be who they are.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Bielski, Zosia (interviewer), "Giving introverts permission to be themselves," The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2012.

People, Way, Nature, Time

“This is very simple in the world of chicks: some are hoochies, some are not, and some should never try to be. It's no different from the idea of sports. Now, I can go on my little rowing machine for four times a week, twenty-two minutes a time, and I can feel as if I flirt with the sporting world. Similar to the idea that a woman can put on something cuter for her man, for those moments, and flirt with garments that a hoochie woman might be pushing. But never for one moment should you get confused. My little rowing machine and I cannot consider ourselves athletes. Wearing the same garment does not a hoochie woman make. So if you are a true hoochie woman, may garments below the navel always be in your future. If you are not, then please don't throw away your cotton zippy jacket.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

From her book Piece by Piece.

World, Feeling, Idea, Sport

“I think of myself as an American artist: I like it here... I feel I represent the U. S. in my art but I'm not a social critic. I just paint those things in my paintings because those things are the things I know best. I'm not trying to criticize the U. S. in any way, not trying to show up any ugliness at all. I'm just a pure artist, I guess. But I can't say if I take myself seriously as an artist. I just hadn't thought about it. I don't know how they consider me in print, though.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Quote of Warhol in Andy, My true Story 3, Gretchen Berg, Los Angeles Free Press (17 March 1967); as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467
1963 - 1967

Art, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“I know that any discussion of the relation of this poem to its historical materials is, in one perspective, irrelevant to its value; and it could be totally accurate as history and still not worth a dime as a poem. I am trying to write a poem, not a history, and therefore have no compunction about tampering with non-essential facts. But poetry is more than fantasy and is committed to the obligation of trying to say something, however obliquely, about the human condition. Therefore, a poem dealing with history is no more at liberty to violate what the writer takes to be the spirit of his history than it is at liberty to violate what he takes to be the nature of the human heart. What he takes those things to be is, of course, his ultimate gamble.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

Foreword, Brother to Dragons: A Tale in Verse and Voices — A New Version (1979)

History, Nature, Heart

“If people really want to go, and really try all their lives, I think they will get in; for I don’t believe there are any locks on that door, or any guards at the gate. I always imagine it is as it is in the picture, where the shining ones stretch out their hands to welcome poor Christian as he comes up from the river.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Beth's views on the Celestial City, in Ch. 13 : Castles In The Air
Little Women (1868)

People, Imagination, Thinking

“(…) I live on courage. Courage is my essence, which is love of life. I am free of memories and anticipations, unconcerned with what I am and what I am not. (…) I have the courage to be as nothing and to see the world as it is: nothing. It sounds simply, just try it!”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Courage
Source: "I am That." P.105.

Love, Life, World, Courage

“When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Margaret Chase Smith, quoted in More Than Petticoats : Remarkable Maine Women (2005) by Kate Kennedy
Misattributed

People

“I don't mind if someone thinks I'm a sell out. I go to bed happy knowing I do what I do and I'm not doing anything for reasons of money, and if I were trying to pick up chicks, I'm doing a horrible job. And if I wanted to drive awesome cars, I'm doing a really bad job there too.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

AbsolutePunk.net, Patrick Stump, Part 1 - 10.06.08

Money, Happiness, Cars, Thinking

“Everybody blames the Jews for killing Christ, and then the Jews try to pass it off on the Romans. I'm one of the few people that believe it was the blacks.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

The New Yorker (24 October 2005)

People, Christ

“Often we'll verge on embarrassing territory, a certain over-the-topness. But maybe that's just trying to unveil something that's inside all of us.”

Matthew Bellamy (1978) English singer-songwriter

[2001-10-11, http://museandamuse3.free.fr/press/articles_nme2.html, Vengence is ours (History of the band), NME, museandamuse3.free.fr, 2018-06-08, https://archive.li/J2FiB, no, 2018-06-08]

“Samuel smiled at me. "Freedom and fairness are very important to you, aren't they?"
I nodded, and frowned. "They're important to everybody."
He laughed. "Oh, no, Anita, you would be amazed at the number of people who try to give away their freedom at every opportunity. They much prefer that someone else make their decisions."”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Source: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Danse Macabre (2006), Chapter 17, p. 151

People, Smile, Decision, Freedom

“Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape—the world or the end of it?”

John Green book Looking for Alaska

Alaska Young, p. 19
Looking for Alaska (2005)

World

“To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.”

Umberto Eco book Six Walks in the Fictional Woods

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (1994) Chapter Four: "Possible Woods"

People, World, Game, Sense

“I found it exhilarating to make the disparate and miscellaneous details presented in the investigation report something coherent, to organize them in accordance with the requirements of law as a musician organizes notes in accordance with the requirements of sonata form. Trying the case, I'd given shape to the chaos of reality, turned it into drama, with a plot, characters, dialogue, a climax, and a denouement, a cunning representation in the courtroom of the transaction outside the courtroom which constituted the subject matter of the case.”

Irving Younger (1932–1988) American lawyer

Some of My Life

Law, Reality

“.. the wall, the window or the door — and so many other images that parade in my canvases — are indeed there and I am far from trying to hide the fact. With this I mean that I do not think that images, in my works, should be considered as indifferent excuses to prop visual elements, as the 'subject-matters' were said to be for Impressionists and Fauves. From those 'subject-matters', it is further said, the ensuing abstractionists or Informalists liberated themselves. My walls, windows or doors — or at least my suggestions of them — do not avoid their responsibility and hold their full archetypal or symbolic weight.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

Thinking, Indifference

“The real alternative to co-EXistence is co-REsistance. Experts in the field have been saying for years that Communism does not have to be tolerated. It has no moral, economic or political excuse for existing. Furthermore, it is extremely vulnerable to many types of peaceful pressures which free men have not yet used. We will discuss these in a later section. At this point it is important simply to emphasize that Communism can be beaten - and it can be done without atomic war. Therefore the whole basis for arguing coexistence collapses. Coexistence is a contradiction of terms because it means trying to coexist with world conquest, which is impossible. One must resist or be conquered. It also means accepting the status quo of one-third of the human race in bondage as a permanent working arrangement. It means accepting Communism in spite of its deceit, subversion and broken covenants. It means tolerating Communism without resistance.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Men, War, World, Peace

“Reporter: The “Protocols” trial is on today. I’ve been assigned to report on it for my paper.
Reporter 2: What’s your hurry Carl? The Jewish community’s lawyer is trying to show the damage done by the “Protocols of Zion” book.
Lawyer: Your honor, we have demonstrated that the “Protocols” is ‘’’smut…’’’ I would conclude by exhibiting evidence of its influence on public opinion as a fraud.
Judge: You may proceed!
Lawyer: Since its first publication in Russia by Dr. Nilus in 1905, four printings have been distributed there!
In 1919, type script copies were distributed to delegated at the Versailles peace conference by white Russians.
In England Victor Marsden translated the “protocols” into English in 1922.
In 1920, the first polish language edition was brought into the United States and South America by Polish immigrants.
In 1921, the first Arabic and the first Italian copies appeared!
In 1921, “The Times” of London published its famous expose of this false document!
And because of his fame, Henry Ford’s work deserves recounting.
Lawyer: In 1920, Henry ford the American auto magnate, bought a small newspaper, the “Dearborn Independent.” He began a series, “The International Jew,” made up of borrowings from the “Protocols of the Elders on Zion.”
Later, in 1922, it was published in sxteen language for a world-wide distribution. It sold over a ‘’’half million’’’ copies in America alone!
Reporter: Actually, Ford recanted in 1926 when he was threatened with a libel suit.

Reporter 2: Really?
Reporter 3: What did he say?
Reporter: He said in part, “…To my great regret I learn that in the ‘Dearborn Independent’ there appeared articles which induced the Jews to regard me as their enemy promoting anti-Semitism!”
HE WENT ON TO SAY, “…I am…mortified that this Journal…is giving currency to ‘The Protocols of the wise men of Zion,’ which I learn to be gross forgeries…I deem it my duty…to make amends for the wrong done to the Jews as fellow men and brothers by asking their forgiveness.
HE GOES ON BY RECITING SOME OF THE MORE “evil ingredients” in the “Protocols” AND HE REFERS TO IT AS AN “infamous forgery.”
Reporter 3: DID HIS APOLOGY CHANGE ANYTHING?? HENRY FORD WAS FAMOUS the world over…his apology must have had influence!
Reporter: Not very much. In fact publication increased all over the globe.
Reporter 3: Look! Here I have two French translations of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” that were published in ‘’’France,’’’ dated 1934. Later they had many printings!
Judge: …I hope to see the day when nobody will be able to understand why otherwise sane and reasonable men should torment their brains for fourteen days over the authenticity or fabrication of the “Protocols of Zion”’’’…I regard the “protocols” as ridiculous nonsense!
Reporter: Good news! …judge Meyer found against the Nazis and imposed a fine on them…

Publisher: We will publish the judge’s decision!
Reporter: This should put an end to the “Protocols” at last!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 102-107

Men, Books, World, Peace

“I don’t like their system, and they know it. That’s why I’m sitting in this cell instead of in my cabin, or on the engineering deck. But—” He shrugged. “Their social system is one thing, but people are people everywhere you go, just trying to get along in this crazy universe. I don’t like them as individuals, but that’s not the same as wanting them dead. They’re not monsters, and they don’t deserve what’s coming to them, and life isn’t fair, is it?”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 8, “Confessions” (p. 183)

Life, People, Universe, Dead

“It is not a recognisable scene [his two paintings 'Dances at the spring', 1912 - Picabia painted the motion and the excitement of a peasant dance while he was on his honeymoon in the countryside of Italy; one version is lost]. There is no dancer, no spring, no light, no perspective, nothing other than the visible clue of the sentiments I am trying to express... I would draw your attention to a song of colours, which will bring out for others the joyful sensations and feelings inspired in me on those summer days when I found myself somewhere in the country near the Italian border, where there was a spring in a wonderful garden. A photograph of that spring and that garden would in now way look like my painting 'Dance at a spring' I was shown for the first time at the w:Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1912.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 200
1920's

Way, Feeling, Spring, Light

“We created something a little closer to perfection than ourselves; maybe that’s the only way to progress. Let them try to do the same. I doubt they can, so they will always be less as well as more than us. It’s all just a sum, a whispered piece of figuring lost in the empty blizzards of white noise howling through the universe, a brief oasis in an infinite desert, a freak bit of working out in which we have transcended ourselves, and they are only the remainder.”

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

“Descendant” (pp. 47-48)
Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991)

Way, Universe, Perfection

“Hey there, Georgy girl
Why do all the boys just pass you by?
Could it be you just don't try or is it the clothes you wear?

You're always window shopping but never stopping to buy
So shed those dowdy feathers and fly - a little bit”

Tom Springfield (1934) English musician, songwriter and record producer

Song Georgy Girl.

Girl, Boy, Flying, Clothes

“It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to "try" more than if you are a pessimist.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 3, Travels Abroad, p. 55

Science

“Would you be impressed if I said that the dead would help us counting

Every single moment that we waste our time?

All the time we're spending vaccinating this disease

I just get dizzy when I think of all the ways we try to hide our maladies

We wine (We wine!), we dine (We dine!), and everything is fine

Because it's not my fault

Now you're upset because you finally got the notion

That everything you had is spinning down the drain

Oh! Do you mean it when you beg and pray and plead?

Your "Giveittomegiveittomegiveittomegiveittome all those things we need"

And what, pray tell, will you whimper when your number will be called

You'll say "It's not my fault"

I had a dream last night where everyone was trying

Subconsciously I knew it was a lie

And when I woke I knew that it was time to pray

To make amends before the end, before my judgement day

I looked around, I stood alone, I knew what I had to say

I said "It's all my fault"”

Tomas Kalnoky (1980) American musician

"Would You Be Impressed?" from "Somewhere in the Between" (2007) http://risc.perix.co.uk/lyrics/sm/sitb/03/

Lie, Disease, Dreams, Way

“Trying to understand the brain's abilities leads to philosophical difliculties. Penrose (1994) argues that the task is sterile and that science, including neural networks, has not yet advanced to the stage where it can explain conscious thought. At the other extreme there are philosophers such as Fodor (1975) who believed that thought has language-like properties and can be analysed in the same logical way as one can anlayse the structure of language.”

Igor Aleksander (1937) scientist

Source: An introduction to neural computing (1990), p. 242

Way, Understanding, Science

“Labour will try to convince you that it is sympathetic to business. Don’t believe such stories. The truth is that the party has a classic left-wing suspicion of business and the profit motive.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Address to the annual conference of the Fiji Employers Federation, 2 September 2005

Truth, Motivation, Business

“There are all kinds of myths that a people has about itself, some positive, some negative, some healthy and some not healthy. I think that one job of the historian is to try to cut through some of those myths and get closer to some kind of reality. So that people can face their current situation realistically, rather than mythically. I guess that's my sense of what a historian ought to do.”

James M. McPherson (1936) American historian

1990s, An Exchange With a Civil War Historian (June 1995)

People, Thinking, Reality, Sense

“As the war rages on in Afghanistan and—despite spin to the contrary—in Iraq as well, or journalistic scrutiny. The actions and consequences of these wars is seldom discussed in public or investigated by the Congress. The current US strategy can be summed up as follows: We are trying to kill our way to peace. And the killing fields are growing in number.”

Jeremy Scahill (1974) American journalist

War, Peace, Way, Rage

“I wish to make this statement in view of the mass of prejudice which has gathered about me owning to false statements, calumnies and innuendos which have been made about me in the press and elsewhere for a year past and to most of which I have been unable to reply. I am making no appeal. Let that be clear. Whatever befalls me I shall suffer gladly and happily, but I think it is due to me and the cause I represent, which has been traduced and slandered through the agency of attacks on me, to make some refutation to these attacks. I have been constantly called an Englishman, who, having betrayed his own country, came to Ireland to betray and destroy Ireland––a double traitor. In the alternative, I have suffered the vile charge of innuendo; instead of betraying England I have been acting as a spy or agent provocateur of Englishmen, trying to destroy Ireland in England's interest.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

His own words from his last military trial on 17 November 1922.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918), Last Years: Ireland (1919-1922)

Thinking, Suffering, Past, Falseness

“The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh--gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into our thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and body, don't try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don't let the mind start in with judgments, calling it 'good' or 'bad.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
V, 26
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

Way, Feeling, Soul, Nature

“In the race of life, always back self-interest; at least you know it's trying.”

Jack Lang

Fickle fate: Labor keeping an eye out for goddess Fortuna http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/fickle-fate-labor-keeping-an-eye-out-for-goddess-fortuna-20130609-2ny82.html, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2013

Life

“For all whom the Lord has chosen and received into the society of his saints ought to prepare themselves for a life that is hard, difficult, laborious, and full of countless griefs. It is the will of their heavenly Father to try them in this manner that he may test them.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 48.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Life

“A veritable brain washing of the nation is under way trying to turn history upside down and write off the persecution of Hindus through various subterfuges.”

Harsh Narain (1921–1995) Indian writer

The Ayodhya temple-mosque dispute: Focus on Muslim sources (1993)

Way, History

“I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 84
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

People

“When you’re young you try to be methodical and philosophical, but reality keeps breaking in.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Reflections on Wallace Stevens”, p. 129
Poetry and the Age (1953)

Reality

“I am tired of playing in a shadow Everything I do they compare to Paul Waner. I am not Paul Waner's shadow. I try not to let it bother me, but I get tired of the things some people say. They call me a showboat because I make basket catches. They don't call Willie Mays a showboat, do they? They say I'm a hypochondriac, too. When I have trouble with my back, they say it's in my mind. In Houston last year, right before the end of the season, I was still in the race for the batting title and Murtaugh told me to do everything possible to win it. One time I was being intentionally walked and I swung at one of the pitches. Then I wasn't a team player any more. People said I was out for myself.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Roberto's Not Happy; Clemente in Waner's Shadow" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/15674492/ by Sandy Padwe (NEA), in The Indiana Gazette (July 2, 1964), p. 16 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1964</big>

People, Time, Season

“Mussolini…hoped Herr Hitler would see his way to postpone action [against Czechoslovakia] which the Chancellor had told Sir Horace Wilson was to be taken at 2 p. m. to-day for at least 24 hours so as to allow Signor Mussolini time to re-examine the situation and endeavour to find a peaceful settlement. In response, Herr Hitler has agreed to postpone mobilisation for 24 hours. Whatever views hon. Members may have had about Signor Mussolini in the past, I believe that everyone will welcome his gesture of being willing to work with us for peace in Europe. That is not all. I have something further to say to the House yet. I have now been informed by Herr Hitler that he invites me to meet him at Munich to-morrow morning. He has also invited Signor Mussolini and M. Daladier. Signor Mussolini has accepted and I have no doubt M. Daladier will also accept. I need not say what my answer will be. [An HON. MEMBER: "Thank God for the Prime Minister!"] We are all patriots, and there can be no hon. Member of this House who did not feel his heart leap that the crisis has been once more postponed to give us once more an opportunity to try what reason and good will and discussion will do to settle a problem which is already within sight of settlement. Mr. Speaker, I cannot say any more. I am sure that the House will be ready to release me now to go and see what I can make of this last effort. Perhaps they may think it will be well, in view of this new development, that this Debate shall stand adjourned for a few days, when perhaps we may meet in happier circumstances.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1938/sep/28/prime-ministers-statement in the House of Commons (28 September 1938). Chamberlain received Hitler's invitation to Munich as he was ending his speech. Prime Minister

God, Peace, Hope, Way

“Here he [Abbott] is, trying to fudge one way and fudge the other; This morning he went out and accused me of a crime. Back it up or shut up.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

In Question Time, 29 November 2012

Way

“I went to our Theological College lately, Westcott House, and we had a sort of chat. He told me that without him it was impossible to understand the universe, and I came away having forgotten to reply that it did not occur to me to try to understand the universe. I must not run on like this so. Or rather what I mean is I have just finished the biography of my great aunt. Understanding, or partially understanding, her has been quite a large enough job.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Letter 411, to Lionel Trilling, 1 August 1955
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

Understanding, Universe, Housing

“It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

What America Means to Me (1943)

Religion, Dead

“I'm trying to move towards making objects which are honest, objects for non-consumers, for "modern rebels". Look, there are already millions of excellent chairs which are very comfortable, lamps which provide light, and so on. Is it necessary to create any more? The only question is: what will it bring to the human being who is going to use it? The urgent thing today is not to create a car or a chair which is more beautiful than another; what is urgent is for us all to fight with every means at our disposal against the fact that something is becoming extinct: love.”

Philippe Starck (1949) French architect and industrial designer

Starck, 2000

Love, Beauty, Cars, Question

“Why to bring revolution? They are also human beings. Why don’t we treat ourselves as human beings? I speak Hindi and you speak your native language, but we are all human beings. Why do you treat them as foreigners? They also want to adapt to our tradition- some are visiting temples, they become vegetarians, some have given up spoons and eat using their hands, they try to become Sadhus. Why do you want to treat them as foreigners, they are human beings! If we get influenced by their tradition, it’s okay. If they get influenced by our tradition, it’s okay. Younger generation who try to emulate them will eventually come back to their native tradition!”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

On Western Culture and the so-called Revolution.
Melodies of Brindavan: Pandit Hariprasad Chourasia

“I really don't know what to say about this without sounding hypercritical. First of all, the style of playing is so tremendously behind the beat, it gets to the point that I feel he's in opposition to his rhythm section, and I can't get a nice swing out of the thing. The pianist is tremendously heavy-handed, which I think gets in the way of what he's trying to do, so I feel that in some spots he's stumbling, instead of having the feeling that the man is executing what he wants to play. The whole thing strikes me as a sort of comme-ci-comme-ca performance of a like tune. Two stars.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Reviewing Dodo Marmarosa's recording of "Mellow Mood," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xieUt3PqGJ0 from the album Dodo's Back!; as quoted in "Clare Fischer: Blindfold Test" http://www.mediafire.com/view/fix6ane8h54gx/Clare_Fischer#rjvay58eo774rhe

Way, Feeling, Star, Thinking

“I had a mitherable childhood. Nobody loved me. I think I have a right to try again, looking pwettier, don't you?”

Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) English children's fantasy writer

Source: Castle Series, House of Many Ways (2008), p. 306.

Love, Thinking, Childhood

“My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

"A Talk with Polaroid's Dr. Edwin Land" in Forbes Vol. 115, No. 7 (1 April 1975), p. 49

Life, People

“He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, ch. 9
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

Life, Age, Drawing

“Watch him. But don't try to imitate. Only VVS can play them.”

V. V. S. Laxman (1974) former Indian cricketer

Source: John Wright to young batsman on VVS Laxman. http://www.scrolldroll.com/quotes-about-vvs-laxman-that-show-he-is-truly-very-very-special/

“This world materialist, hedonist and exhibitionist it doesn't even thrill me; and, considering that he reads me, you/he/she should know him/it. But I would want to know the system that you have in mind, and don't have the courage or the ability to propose. A Franciscan world? Beautiful: but looked around you, and tell me if you see a saio. A revised and correct communism? It would make the end of the other, even if he/she won't succeed in repeating its disasters. Believe me G.: the only acceptable social and economic system today, in West, it is that based on the market: a checked capitalism and moderate, to intend us. It is desirable that it may also correct: and not this always happens, it is true. The trouble is that the capitalism is served as the capitalists - and those, must admit, they are often difficult to be digested. You don't try to confuse me the ideas, therefore. You won't succeed us. I probably have three times his/her years, and I have seen where they conduct these generic pulls against "the multinationals": sooner or later, someone will depose the bar and he/she will take the gun. I forgot: I sign my opinions, she throws the stone and it hides the hand. All brave ones so, you boys of Seattle?”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Corriere della Sera, 9 June 2001.
2000s - 2010s

World, Beauty, Boy, Communication

“"Most so-called liberated people that I know are full of it," remarked a caustic, albeit articulate, businessman attending a seminar I gave on emerging male/female relationships. "The feminist leadership is a good example. They have the worst qualities of both men and women. They have all the answers and nothing you can say ever changes their mind. Then, from what I read, one turns on and attacks the other—supposedly for ideological reasons, but it's just a variation on the old-fashioned male ritual of ego-tripping—'I'm for real, you're not—I'm the greatest, you're nothing.'"It's a real cast of characters, these feminist leaders," he continued. "There's the glamor queen one who's trying to be a movie star without copping to what she's doing. It's obvious, though. She's always being seen with celebrities and she's always dating the richest, most successful guys. Then there's the other one who's like a Jewish mother—complaining and telling everybody how to change, and how to live. I'm surprised she doesn't try and tell us what to eat."I looked through their magazine recently. It's full of the same kind of ads as the other women's magazines that Ms. supposedly abhors. You know, jewelry, deodorants, perfumes—and the articles are mainly old-fashioned victim variety stuff, an updated variation on the old "poor downtrodden women" theme."The 'liberated' guys they hold up as shining examples of what men should behave like are just as phony as the feminist women pretending to be so pure. They're workaholics, and they're the worst kind of arrogant—because God is on their side and unless you imitate them, you're a misguided pig. It feels like being at a church social when you watch them—at least as hypocritical, if not more so—because at least church types don't pretend to be open to discussing their beliefs. They're out front in thinking that they have all the answers."When what's-her-name ran for vice-president and lost, what did she do—she blamed the male establishment. God save us from female leadership! They can't stop blaming—even at that level. I thought of reminding her that this country has at least ten million more women than men and the odds were totally on her side and it was women who rejected her, and saw through her act; but I know better than to argue against that stuff with facts."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

Earth Mothers in Disguise, p. 149
The Inner Male (1987)

Women, Men, God, People

“I would like people to recognize in looking at my story that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you. It's not the environment, it's not the other people who were there trying to help you or trying to stop you. It's what you decide to do and how much effort you put behind it.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

"Interview: Dr. Benjamin Carson Talks Race, Politics and Life After Medicine" http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-dr-benjamin-carson-talks-race-politics-and-life-after-medicine-91474/, The Christian Post (March 8, 2013)

People, Effort, Help, Personality

““I think I know the real reason.”
“Which is?”
“Alcohol in the dust clouds. Goddamn stuff is everywhere. Any lousy species ever invents the telescope and the spectroscope and starts looking in between the stars, what do they find?” He knocked the glass on the table. “Loads of stuff, but much of it alcohol.” He drank from the glass. “Humanoids are the galaxy’s way of trying to get rid of all that alcohol.””

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Use of Weapons (1990), Chapter IX (p. 148).

Alcohol, Way, Star, Thinking

“If we are to be the last of the white men who conquered the world; if we are finally to be overwhelmed by a pack of rats, let us at least face the death of our race as our ancestors faced their death---like MEN. Let us not crawl down amongst the rats begging for mercy or trying to out-sneak them and pretend to be rats ourselves!”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

In Hoc Signo Vinces
1960, In Hoc Signo Vinces

Death, Men, World

“I was sitting in the barn, drawing a dead bird which I had put on a box. Then the barn door opened and Kees entered [an old iron-merchant, already retired].... He came down next to me.... After a short silence he said: 'Are you painting? '.... it looks somewhat like that bird'. I said: 'To me that means a compliment Kees, because I am trying to draw that bird.' Stunned, he looked at me and asked, "Why are you doing that?" What could I answer? I said: Actually, I don't know myself'. Then he hoisted himself to his feet and said, I'll bring you the stuff next Monday' and he went to the door..”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: ** Ik zat in de schuur en tekende een dode vogel, die ik op een kistje had neergelegd. Toen ging de schuurdeur open en kwam Kees binnen [een oud ijzerkoopman, al met pensioen].. ..Hij ging op zijn hurken naast me zitten.. ..Toen zei hij, na een korte stilte: 'Ben je aan het schilderen?'.. .. 'Het lijkt wel wat op die vogel'. Ik zei: 'Dat is voor mij een compliment, Kees, want die vogel probeer ik na te tekenen.' Stomverbaasd keek hij me aan en vroeg: 'Waarom doe je dat?' Wat moest ik daar nu op antwoorden? Ik zei: 'Ja, dat weet ik eigenlijk zelf ook niet'. Toen hees hij zichzelf overeind en zei 'Ik breng de rommel maandag wel bij je.' Hij liep naar de deur..
Source: Jopie de Verteller' (2010) - postumous, p. 27

Bird, Silence, Drawing, Painting

“I try to keep myself centered. I don't go to parties and all that. I don't think being seen or being in the right place is going to make me a better actress. I care about my work and try to do what's right in my heart.”

Sherilyn Fenn (1965) American actress

Sherilyn Fenn, quoted in "Fenn Fatale", by Martha Frankel. Exposure (USA). September 1990. p. 56-63.

Thinking, Heart

“I really wanted to retire and rest and spend more time with my children, my grandchildren and of course with my wife. But the problems are such that for anybody with a conscience who can use whatever influence he may have to try to bring about peace, it's difficult to say no.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

On why he continues to be active in social and political issues.
2000s, Newsweek interview (2002)

Children, Peace, Problem, Time

“I've been blogging — however irregularly — over at Amazon. com for a few years now, but I've always felt that arena was for the "official" JMD. It was as if I was standing in the aisle of a book store, greeting potential readers: sharing my thoughts, certainly — but also trying to get them interested in my wares. I'm hoping that this blog will be more like a living room: a little more casual and personal. A place where I can talk about, well, anything that comes to mind, from the trivial to the profound. And I hope to do it at least once a week.”

J.M. DeMatteis (1953) comics illustrator

I'll wait a moment for the laughter to die down. "Welcome (A Day Late)" (10 September 2009) http://www.jmdematteis.com/2009_09_01_archive.html. J.M. DeMatteis's CREATION POINT (2009 – present)

Books, Hope, Laughter, Waiting

“WTO (the World Trade Organization) is trying to impose equality of trade in an unequal world, but for developing countries like Fiji there is no level playing field, just a slippery slope.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Address to the 18th Australia-Fiji Business Forum, Shangri-La Fijian Resort, Sydney, Australia, 17 October 2005 (excerpts)

World, Country

“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Nelson Mandela on challenges, Letter to Winnie Mandela (1 February 1975), written on Robben Island. Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes 1970s

Men, Hope, Soul

“I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

" Galloway v the US Senate: transcript of statement http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1616578,00.html", The Times, May 18, 2005 Testimony before the US Senate on May 17, 2005.

War, Suffering, Time, Country

“In my end is my beginning — that's what people are always saying. But what does it mean? And just where does my story begin? I must try and think…”

Agatha Christie book Endless Night

Michael Rogers (the narrator)
Endless Night (1967)

People, Thinking

“No matter how many times people try to pick my lyrics apart … nobody will really understand what these songs truly mean to me because I would rather not get into it.”

Bert McCracken (1982) American musician

Jonathon Moran, Lawrie Masterson, Brett Debritz (May 13, 2007) "Inside Entertainment", Sunday Mail, News Limited, p. 2.

People, Understanding, Time

“The more snuff Frederick took, the more memoirs he wrote. He loved literature, but not enough to let it alone and stop trying to improve it.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Frederick the Great

Love, Literature

“We operate on a very narrow slice based on cultural conventions. So the important thing, if synergizing progress is the notion to be maximized (and I think it's the notion to be maximized), is to try and locate the blind spot in the culture -- the place where the culture isn't looking, because it dare not -- because if it were to look there, its previous values would dissolve, you see.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Understanding and Imagination in the Light of Nature http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/UILN.html Philosophical Research Society, Los Angeles (17 October 1987)

Thinking

“But no, the friend’s indictment was off target; he simply liked them tall, as long as they didn’t slump down in a forlorn effort to appear shorter. It seemed obvious to him that no woman looked good trying to be something she wasn’t.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 2, Chapter 1 (p. 42)
Artifact (1985)

Effort, Appearance

“A human is a complicated organic/electrical system, which is immersed in a culture. Try raising a monkey like a human, it won't work, you need the human's certain brain characteristics (including self-reflection) in order to create a truly intelligent creature. The brain processes inputs and perception in very particular ways, and I think until we understand the underlying processes better, there is no way to really simulate it in software. Computers will continue to be good at simplistic analysis, and raw processing power, but the subtlety of emotions is something intrinsic to the human organism and culture.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

Way, Intelligence, Understanding, Thinking

“That is to say, within less than twenty years after the Constitution was formed, and in obedience to that general opinion of the time which condemned slavery as a sin in morals and a blunder in economy, eight of the States had abolished it by law — four of them having already done so when the instrument was framed; and Mr. Douglas might as justly quote the fact that there were slaves in New York up to 1827 as proof that the public opinion of the State sanctioned slavery, as to try to make an argument of the fact that there were slave laws upon the statute-books of the original States. He forgets that there was not in all the colonial legislation of America one single law which recognized the rightfulness of slavery in the abstract; that in 1774 Virginia stigmatized the slave-trade as 'wicked, cruel, and unnatural'; that in the same year Congress protested against it 'under the sacred ties of virtue, honor, and love of country'; that in 1775 the same Congress denied that God intended one man to own another as a slave; that the new Discipline of the Methodist Church, in 1784, and the Pastoral Letter of the Presbyterian Church, in 1788, denounced slavery; that abolition societies existed in slave States, and that it was hardly the interest even of the cotton-growing States, where it took a slave a day to clean a pound of cotton, to uphold the system. Mr. Douglas incessantly forgets to tell us that Jefferson, in his address to the Virginia Legislature of 1774, says that 'the abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state'; and while he constantly remembers to remind us that the Jeffersonian prohibition of slavery in the territories was lost in 1784, he forgets to add that it was lost, not by a majority of votes — for there were sixteen in its favor to seven against it — but because the sixteen votes did not represent two thirds of the States; and he also incessantly forgets to tell us that this Jeffersonian prohibition was restored by the Congress of 1785, and erected into the famous Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which was re-enacted by the first Congress of the United States and approved by the first President.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Love, God, Books, Law

“And women as a group, en masse, do show contempt for men, en masse… as a group, you hear a lot of contempt for men: "Oh look! Look at them, look! There they go! One of them's trying to DO something."”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

What It Is (2009)

Women, Men

“Rosa Luxemburg is an outstanding example of a type of mind that is often met with in the history of Marxism and appears to be specially attracted by the Marxist outlook. It is characterized by slavish submission to authority, together with a belief that in that submission the values of scientific thought can be preserved. No doctrine was so well suited as Marxism to satisfy both these attitudes, or to provide a mystification combining extreme dogmatism with the cult of "scientific" thinking, in which the disciple could find mental and spiritual peace. Marxism thus played the part of a religion for the intelligentsia, which did not prevent some of them, like Rosa Luxemburg herself, from trying to improve the deposit of faith by reverting to first principles, thus strengthening their own belief that they were independent of dogma.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age, pp. 94-5

Peace, Faith, Religion, History

“A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.”

Graham Greene (1904–1991) English writer, playwright and literary critic

Letter to critic Stephen Pile, Sunday Times (London) (January 18, 1981)

Truth

“The left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation — no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition. The proper word for that attitude is totalitarian. It declares certain controversies over and visits serious consequences — from social ostracism to vocational defenestration — upon those who refuse to be silenced.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2014, Thought Police on Patrol (2014)

Silence

“For the longest time, I didn't know the name of anyone in Led Zeppelin. I didn't care about what they looked like or ate. I wanted to listen, not read about them. I've always had that philosophy. I never started playing drums to get chicks or money or anything else. Long before I had concepts of those things, I wanted to be a drummer. That's the basic concept of what I do. I'm a drummer. I play drums. We are artists as drummers, and people should realize that. Not everyone can sit down and use all four of your limbs simultaneously to create something out of wood and plastic. We're creating something beautiful, and it may not sound pretty, but if you listen with the right ear, it sounds very pretty. If you try and listen to a song without drums, you haven't got anything.”

John Dolmayan (1973) Lebanese-born Armenian–American songwriter and drummer

[Artist Features: Steal This Article: John Dolmayan, Weiss, David, May 2003, http://drummagazine.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=241, 2007-01-08]

Money, People, Beauty, Time

“[…] Perhaps the easiest way to convince yourself is by scanning the literature of soft psychology over the last 30 years and noticing what happens to theories. Most of them suffer the fate that General MacArthur ascribed to old generals—They never die, they just slowly fade away. In the developed sciences, theories tend either to become widely accepted and built into the larger edifice of well-tested human knowledge or else they suffer destruction in the face of recalcitrant facts and are abandoned, perhaps regretfully as a “nice try.” But in fields like personology and social psychology, this seems not to happen. There is a period of enthusiasm about a new theory, a period of attempted application to several fact domains, a period of disillusionment as the negative data come in, a growing bafflement about inconsistent and unreplicable empirical results, multiple resort to ad hoc excuses, and then finally people just sort of lose interest in the thing and pursue other endeavors.”

Paul E. Meehl (1920–2003) American psychologist

Theoretical Risks and Tabular Asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the Slow Progress of Soft Psychology (1978)

Fate, People, Way, Literature

“Prodded by the implacable Foch, Clemenceau at first demanded that Germany's western border be fixed at the Rhine, with the French army standing guard on the left bank and the German population on that side formed into an autonomous state dominated by France. Lloyd George and Wilson would have none of it. "You're trying to create another Alsace-Lorraine," Wilson charged."”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

“If we fail, let us try again and again until we succeed.”

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

As a response to Prime Minister Gladstone's criticism of Chamberlain's "Radical Programme," from a Speech at Warrington, cited in "Great Issues in Western Civilization, Volume II" (Donald Kagan, 1992), pg. 419.
1880s