Quotes about try (6735 quotes, page 43)

“As water flows from high to low, knowledge has always flowed from where there is more to where there is less. Those countries that are better at absorbing the knowledge inflow have been more successful in catching up with the more economically advanced nations. On the other side of the fence, those advanced nations that are good at controlling the outflow of core technologies have retained their technological leadership for longer. The technological 'arms race', between backward countries trying to acquire advanced foreign knowledge and the advanced countries trying to prevent its outflow has always been at the heart of the game of economic development.”

Ha-Joon Chang book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6: 'Windows 98 in 1997; Is it wrong to 'borrow' ideas?', John Law and the first technological arms race, p. 127

Game , Knowledge , Water , Success

“If you can repair your future child's myopia with preemptive genetic tinkering, you might also want to increase her I. Q. by a few dozen points. Will it lead to a world as utopian as Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average? Of course not. It will just add genetic manipulation of embryos and child cloning to the means by which affluent, fussy people try to distance themselves from bad luck, disappointment, menial work, death, and poor people.”

David Quammen (1948) American science author

"Clone Your Troubles Away: Dreaming at the Frontiers of Animal Husbandry" http://www.genetics-and-society.org/resources/items/200502_harpers_quammen.html, Harper's Magazine (February 2005)

Death , Bad luck , Children , People

“Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

The actual author of this quote is Roger J. Corless, from his book "The Vision of Buddhism: the Space Under the Tree". The original quote is, "We make ourselves miserable by first closing ourselves off from reality and then collecting this and that in an attempt to make ourselves happy by possessing happiness. But happiness is not something I have, it is something I myself want to be. Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over my body." ( [Corless, Robert J., Vision of Buddhism: The Space Under the Tree, http://books.google.com/books?hl=de&id=KecGAAAAYAAJ&q=sandwiches#search_anchor, 2013-03-07, 1998, Paragon House, 1557782008, 20, 362] )
Misattributed

Funny , Hunger , Happiness

“And now I know it's hard when you don't know what to think

And every single smile is a foil and you're waking up

You might try but you won't get by until you're crucified for all the things you try to do

Well I don't care if you sink or swim

And I don't care how you hold it in

As long as you don't bother me with all the things I don't bother you with

And 9 times out of 10 you might be right

But what about that time you know you're wrong?

You sing that same song

And everybody smiles but they'll never get along”

Tomas Kalnoky (1980) American musician

"We Are The Few" from "Everything Goes Numb" (2003) http://risc.perix.co.uk/lyrics/sm/egn/06/

Smile , Thinking , Singing , Time

“A fourth enduring strand of policy has been to help improve the life of man. From the Marshall Plan to this very moment tonight, that policy has rested on the claims of compassion, and the certain knowledge that only a people advancing in expectation will build secure and peaceful lands. This year I propose major new directions in our program of foreign assistance to help those countries who will help themselves. We will conduct a worldwide attack on the problems of hunger and disease and ignorance. We will place the matchless skill and the resources of our own great America, in farming and in fertilizers, at the service of those countries committed to develop a modern agriculture. We will aid those who educate the young in other lands, and we will give children in other continents the same head start that we are trying to give our own children. To advance these ends I will propose the International Education Act of 1966. I will also propose the International Health Act of 1966 to strike at disease by a new effort to bring modern skills and knowledge to the uncared—for, those suffering in the world, and by trying to wipe out smallpox and malaria and control yellow fever over most of the world during this next decade; to help countries trying to control population growth, by increasing our research—and we will earmark funds to help their efforts. In the next year, from our foreign aid sources, we propose to dedicate $1 billion to these efforts, and we call on all who have the means to join us in this work in the world.”

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

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life , Hunger , Children , People

“These people are trying to bring back the regime of the late Shah or another regime. I will strike with my fists at the mouths of this government. From now on it is I who will name the government.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Foreign policy

People

“I constantly try to reinvent my sensibilities and my ideas. I enjoy some of the satisfaction that I get when I feel good about what I've done. But the process is quite lonely and quite painful.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Pain , Feeling , Idea

“He don't love you like I love you
If he did, he wouldn't break your heart
He don't love you like I love you
He's try-in' to tear us apart.”

Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999) American singer, songwriter, and record producer

He Will Break Your Heart, written with Jerry Butler and Calvin Carter, originally performed by Jerry Butler (1960).
Song lyrics

Love , Tear , Heart

“This thing here, which looks like a wooden club, is actually several pieces of particular wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that the whole thing is sprung, like a dance floor. It's for hitting cricket balls with. If you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you've done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly. What we're trying to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might…travel.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Henry, Act II, scene V
The Real Thing (1982)

Way , Travel , Idea , Dance

“I haven't found it difficult because I find this very enjoyable. It's really challenging. And I'm really proud of the record because it's a really good record. There's nothing harder than to write a pop record with meaning. I think it's much easier to be alternative. It's much easier to be different and take a different path outside of a commercial context. To try and write a pop song that is not cliché, to try and write a pop song that has meaning and fits in under three minutes and five seconds and has a hook that people want to listen to is the most difficult thing in the world to do. So in lieu of that you have to write what you know and what you like, what you're feeling. That's all I can basically do. I don't begrudge the other people that don't write their songs. And I don't judge them. I'd like to see more people writing their own songs, because that's just personally what I like. Just for me, as an artist, so many people only care about being popular right now. Whatever happened to trying to write a song that means something? When I was growing up, artists meant something. They had opinions, they looked different than the person working at the store on your street. They opened your eyes and taught you something about life. And I would like to aspire to be that kind of artist.”

Colleen Fitzpatrick (1972) American singer and actress

When asked about writing her own music
Attributed

Life , People , World , Feeling

“Keith Olbermann is trying to make a business out of destroying Bill O'Reilly. He's done certain things to Bill O'Reilly that I believe were way over the line. I think that's bad behavior. But it's okay for him to criticize Bill. And Bill shouldn't be so sensitive. He should ignore that.”

Rupert Murdoch (1931) Australian-American media mogul

Asked about Bill O'Reilly's main on-air rival MSNBC host Keith Olbermann
Source: Rupert Murdoch Has Potential http://www.esquire.com/features/75-most-influential/rupert-murdoch-1008

Way , Behavior , Business , Thinking

“Our opponents like to try and make you believe that Conservatism is a privilege of the few. But Conservatism conserves all that is great and best in our national heritage.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

The Path To Power (1995)

“We were tired of writing music that sounded like everybody else, and we were stuck in this rut for so long of just trying to emulate our favorite bands. We're just going to write stuff that feels good, sounds good. And if other people don't like it, oh well. Then we remembered Bert from just playing shows with his band. So we gave him a call and he happened to not be in any bands. The timing was like perfect.”

Bert McCracken (1982) American musician

Branden Steineckert, former drummer for The Used, on recruiting McCracken to the band, reported in Alan Sculley (July 4, 2003) "Getting used to reality", The Columbian, p. F9.
About

People , Music , Feeling , Time

“We resolved to end our poison-enquiries by tasting the venomous liquor. According, having diluted a quantity of it, with a very little warm water, several of us ventured to put some of it upon the tip of our tongues. We all agreed, that it tasted very sharp and fiery, as if the tongue had been struck through with something scalding or burning. This sensation went off in two or three hours: and one gentleman, who would not be satisfied without trying a large drop undiluted, found his tongue swelled with a little inflammation and the soreness lasted two days. But neither his nor our boldness was attended with any ill consequence.”

Richard Mead (1673–1754) British physician

Source: A Mechanical Account of Poisons (1702), p. 22

Water

“So many people seem to spend their lives trying to appear normal, predictable and consistent to themselves and those that surround them. They just end up bored with themselves, bereft of any depth of inner resources, suffocated by the inhibitions that defend their own monolithic identities.”

Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist

Source: PsyberMagick (1995), p. 13

People , Appearance

“Obviously, based on the crisis and what happened and the effects that we're still feeling, it's now clear that maintaining financial stability is just as an important a responsibility as monetary and economic stability. And indeed, this is, you know, very much a return to the—where the Fed came from in the beginning. Remember the reason that Fed was created was to try to reduce the incidents of financial panics, so financial stability was the original goal of creation of the Fed. So now we sort of come full circle.”

Ben Bernanke (1953) American economist

Lecture 4: The Aftermath of the Crisis
The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis (2012)

Feeling

“"You try very hard to make up for something that was never your fault. […] You didn't choose this kind of life, and yet you have to work so hard to be good."
"I don't know that I'm making up for anything," he disagreed lightly. "Like everything in life, I just had to decide what to do with what I was given."”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Bella Swan and Carlisle Cullen, p. 35
Twilight series, New Moon (2006)

Life

“I would have to look, try to find a bridge that would make plausible what I knew but could scarcely prove. The standards of science are austere, unforgiving—and who would have it differently? I would have to hedge, to take one step back for each two forward, to compare and suggest and contrast, always sticking close to the data. And despite what I thought I knew now, the data would have to lead, they would have to show the way.”

Gregory Benford (1941) Science fiction author and astrophysicist

Exposures, p. 244
In Alien Flesh (1986)

Way , Science

“The management science approach to organizational decision making is the analog to the rational approach by individual managers. Management science came into being during World War II. At that time, mathematical and statistical techniques were applied to urgent, large-scale military problems that were beyond the ability of individual decision makers. Mathematicians, physicists, and operations researchers used systems analysis to develop artillery trajectories, antisubmarine strategies, and bombing strategies such as salvoing (discharging multiple shells simultaneously). Consider the problem of a battleship trying to sink an enemy ship several miles away. The calculation for aiming the battleship's guns should consider distance, wind speed, shell size, speed and direction of both ships, pitch and roll of the firing ship, and curvature of the earth. Methods for performing such calculations using trial and error and intuition are not accurate, take far too long, and may never achieve success.
This is where management science came in. Analysts were able to identify the relevant variables involved in aiming a ship's guns and could model them with the use of mathematical equations. Distance, speed, pitch, roll, shell size, and so on could be calculated and entered into the equations. The answer was immediate, and the guns could begin firing. Factors such as pitch and roll were soon measured mechanically and fed directly into the targeting mechanism. Today, the human element is completely removed from the targeting process. Radar picks up the target, and the entire sequence is computed automatically.”

Richard L. Daft (1964) American sociologist

Source: Organization Theory and Design, 2007-2010, p. 500

War , World , Error , Mathematics

“See those trees
Bend in the wind
I feel they've got a lot more sense than me
You see I try to resist…”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Feeling , Sense , Tree

“Of course, it goes without saying that every candidate must be progressive, fearless, vigorous, and liberal; invincible in victory and invisible in defeat, awake to the needs of the people whether they know what they know what they need or not. You should also come from a good family, because while breeding isn’t everything, it is said to be lots of fun. George Burns — that’s Mister Allen — was saying the other day that to be President of the United States you also have to have brains, integrity, ability and intelligence, but I think he was just trying to talk me into it.”

Gracie Allen (1902–1964) American actress and comedienne

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 2 : Others make good, why not you?

People , Family , Intelligence , Thinking

“I conclude that there is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases. And we should try again to say how convention in any important sense is involved in language; or, as I think, we should give up the attempt to illuminate how we communicate by appeal to conventions.”

Donald Davidson (philosopher) (1917–2003) scriitor amator

Davidson, Donald. " A nice derangement of epitaphs http://www.hf.uio.no/csmn/english/research/news-and-events/events/davidson_derangement.pdf." Philosophical grounds of rationality: Intentions, categories, ends 4 (1986): 157.

Communication , Idea , Thinking , Sense

“I must honor those who fight of their own free willl, he said to himself. And I must try to imitate their courage by following my path as a pacifist, wherever it takes me.”

Christopher Isherwood book Christopher and His Kind

Source: Christopher and His Kind (1976), p. 336

Courage , Fight

“I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft.”

Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

[17 January 2000, https://web.archive.org/web/20021220014429/http://www.microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate/newsletter/finnews_011700.asp, "DOJ Case: Your Voice Counts!", Freedom to Innovate Network, Microsoft, 2018-01-03]
2000s

Thinking

“I’ve been lucky - I’ve dealt with, and studied with, VERY successful people, and it seems to me the more successful the performer, the less they have to hide, and the less they feel it necessary to make you feel bad about yourself or what you do. That’s true in many arenas, though – the more comfortable someone is in his or her own skin, the more they have to offer, and the more comfortable YOU feel while around them – you can actually connect and share as human beings. The pressure of trying to impress one another evaporates, because a mutual respect already exists.”

Misty Lee (1976) Magician, voice actress, comedian

A Conversation With The Magical Misty Lee" https://web.archive.org/web/20080704115229/http://www.popcultureaddict.com/close/mistylee.htm (January 28, 2008)

People , Feeling , Study , Success

“For three years I studied very assiduously an Arabic dialect spoken by the Bedouins of the Sahara, and I began by writing this language phonetically in Latin characters; the very strange appearance of the grammatical forms which resulted from it caused me to see that our spoken language is as remote from written language as this Saharan dialect can be from literary Arabic, and that our language written phonetically by a foreigner in the same way as I wrote the spoken language in El Golea, presented grammatical forms as strange (and as fascinating) as my Arabic jargon. It is then that the idea came to me to try to draft a small text written phonetically. I had the feeling that by becoming”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) sculptor from France

Jean Dubuffet, letter to Raymond Queneau, 30 October 1950; as cited in Prospectus Vol. I, Jean Dubuffet; Gallimard, Paris, 1967, pp. 481-483
1950's

Way , Feeling , Idea , Study

“I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination. … Government should not break up a neighborhood on a numerical basis. As soon as the Government does, the white folks flee.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Widely criticized remarks intended as support of open-housing laws, but specifying opposition to government efforts to "inject black families into a white neighborhood just to create some sort of integration" (April 1976), quoted in "THE CAMPAIGN: Candidate Carter: I Apologize" in TIME Magazine (19 April 1976) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914056,00.html
Pre-Presidency

People , Communication , Nature

“To me, the zombies have always just been zombies. They’ve always been a cigar. When I first made Night of the Living Dead, it got analyzed and overanalyzed way out of proportion. The zombies were written about as if they represented Nixon’s Silent Majority or whatever. But I never thought about it that way. My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I’m pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.”

George A. Romero (1940–2017) American-Canadian film director, film producer, screenwriter and editor

As quoted in George A. Romero: "Who Says Zombies Eat Brains?", Vanity Fair (27 May 2010) http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2010/05/george-romero

Way , Night , Dead

“To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.”

Helen Rowland (1875–1950) American journalist

Fourth Interlude http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30630/30630-h/30630-h.htm#Page_93
A Guide to Men (1922)

Love , Understanding , Happiness

“You must not take out your sword because if you try to kill someone, you must die for it yourself. What you must do instead is kill yourself, kill your own mind.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

As quoted in A Galaxy Not So Far Away : Writers and Artists on Twenty-five Years of Star Wars (2002) by Glenn Kenny, p. 99

“However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three

Personality

“Total strangers trying to kill me make me feel right at home.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

Feeling , Home

“John Hagee: In the case of New Orleans, their plan to have that homosexual rally was sin. But it never happened. The rally never happened.
Dennis Prager: No, I understand.
John Hagee: It was scheduled that Monday.
Dennis Prager: No, I’m only trying to understand that in the case of New Orleans, you do feel that God's hand was in it because of a sinful city?
John Hagee: That it was a city that was planning a sinful conduct, yes.”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

The Dennis Prager Show, 2008-04-22, quoted in * Hagee Says Hurricane Katrina Struck New Orleans Because It Was ‘Planning A Sinful’ ‘Homosexual Rally’
Think Progress
Matt
Corley
2008-04-23
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/04/23/22152/hagee-katrina-mccain/
2011-08-06

God , Feeling , Understanding

“On Wednesday, June 2, 1976, I graduated and my father commissioned me as a second lieutenant. Our graduation ceremony was where we'd begun our cadet experience, at Michie Stadium. As I sat with 834 other members of my class, out of an original 1,378, waiting to receive our diplomas, I realized I was very different from the seventeen-year-old boy whose friend had dropped him off a few years earlier. I wondered if I could, or would, be the kind of military leader I admired, and I was eager to try. When the ceremony ended, in accordance with tradition, we launched our hats into the air and congratulated one another. I rapidly looked for Annie- and the exit. As quickly as possible, I threw everything I owned into the used Chevy Vega I'd bought and set course with Annie down the hill away from campus. As we neared the last bend before the academy gates, I turned to her. "Hey, look back at West Point." "Why?"”

Stanley A. McChrystal (1954) American general

she asked, twisting in her seat to look at the tips of the parapets getting smaller behind the hills. "Because that's the last time we'll ever see it."
Source: My Share Of The Task (2013), p. 22

Boy , Time , Waiting

“In writing this book, I hope I have offered some guidance to those—the young especially—trying to articulate their objections to our way of life. However, this is not enough. As citizens of a free society, we have a duty to look critically at our world. But if we think we know what is wrong, we must act upon that knowledge. Philosophers, it was famously observed, have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Conclusion: What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?

Life , Books , World , Hope

“id is both a technology and an art company, so we try to push the art and the technology to its edge on each game, and when you're into high-tech you want to make sure your game can run on several platforms, and you have some room to experiment with several architectures. We don't want to have a basic product, get it out the door, sell as many copies as we can, and then just do the next one. Everyone's putting a lot of soul into the games, and id has got enough money overhead to decide that they can afford to have game ports to show that technology is good on Linux and on Apple hardware.”

Timothee Besset French software programmer

Quoted in Dustin Reyes, "Interview with id Software's Timothee Besset" http://web.archive.org/web/20040924113843/http://www.linuxgames.com/?dataloc=articles/ttimo/ LinuxGames (2004-08-22).

Money , Art , Soul , Game

“I have failed at times, but I never stopped trying.”

Rahul Dravid (1973) Indian cricketer

In press conference announcing retirement from Test cricket, quoted in " After 16 yrs, Rahul Wall Dravid retires from intl cricket" in Indian Express (Indianexpress.com) http://www.indianexpress.com/news/after-16-yrs-rahul-wall-dravid-retires-from-intl-cricket/921750/0

Time

“Why doesn't Senator Kerry, rather than saying, I meant to put in the word, "us" — and you try to put in "us" here, left out the word "us" — and if you don't — if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. Where does "us" fit in? You don't "us" get stuck? I don't understand. It just — it doesn't scan here.”

Tony Snow (1955–2008) American White House Press Secretary

White House Press Briefing, on Kerry's claim to have meant "you get <u>us</u> stuck in Iraq." http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061101-3.html (2006-11-01).

Understanding

“"The subject," I say, suddenly unable to hold myself back any more, "is the SDS leadership's alienation from its followers. Not just here! Not just you!" Suddenly, horribly, I begin to sob. You could have heard a pin drop as people waited for me to continue. "I didn't want to be an SDS leader! And I don't think I've been a good one. But there's some things I'm proud of –." Finally I manage to turn and look at Jean. "Why are you all so intolerant? Why are you all so vindictive? Why is it getting so that you only listen to people if they can quote from Father Karl or… or Father Leon?… Why are we giving up on trying to develop an analysis of our own? And for ourselves not just for others? Why? Why?"”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Page 185. Satin had become president of SDS at SUNY Binghamton during the summer 1966 trimester. "Jean" is one of the far-left SDS leaders Satin had deposed. She is also the "girl" referred to n the previous quote.
Confessions of a Young Exile (1976)

People , Quotes , Thinking , Waiting

“For a viewer to think the custodian was trying to break free is the exact opposite of what the scene was supposed to convey. There is nothing gained from that kind of ambiguity. Ambiguity is not desirable or meaningful if it confuses an issue that is meant to be clear. This is the challenge of making a film that communicates but doesn't talk down: a lot of viewers and studio execs (and directors) hold that ANY ambiguity is the result of the filmmaker's failure. I disagree, but I also hold that, in order for ambiguity to be effective, certain things NEED to be unambiguous. For example, if it wasn't clear that Judy on the stage is the same character as Judy who'd invited Aeon to the Hostess' lair, then that's just bad execution. If the episode had been finished and seen in a version say, where we don't see her face drawn correctly, and viewers weren't sure it was the same character, they may wonder about things irrelevant to the story's themes, such as "do the custodians alter the appearance of their hosts", or "Trevor is masquerading a different person who is playing the role of Judy on the stage", etc, all of which does not help the story. Thinking that the custodian had a will of its own and wanted to break free is the same type of undesired speculation.”

Peter Chung (1961) Korean-American animator

Re: Utopia or Deuteranopia? http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=6622756

Communication , Failure , Thinking , Appearance

“Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try again.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

The Artist's Way (1992)

Parting

“O my dearest and most lovable thought, why should I try further to legitimize your birth?”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

“Characters,” p. 310
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)

Birth

“A man who is convinced of the truth of his religion is indeed never tolerant. At the least, he is to feel pity for the adherent of another religion but usually it does not stop there. The faithful adherent of a religion will try first of all to convince those that believe in another religion and usually he goes on to hatred if he is not successful. However, hatred then leads to persecution when the might of the majority is behind it.
In the case of a Christian clergyman, the tragic-comical is found in this: that the Christian religion demands love from the faithful, even love for the enemy. This demand, because it is indeed superhuman, he is unable to fulfill. Thus intolerance and hatred ring through the oily words of the clergyman. The love, which on the Christian side is the basis for the conciliatory attempt towards Judaism is the same as the love of a child for a cake. That means that it contains the hope that the object of the love will be eaten up…”

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

Letter to Rabbi Solomon Goldman of Chicago's Anshe Emet Congregation, p. 51
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein's God (1997)

Love , Truth , Faith , Religion

““Try to be a man about whom nothing is known,” our father said, when we were young. Our father said several other interesting things, but we have forgotten what they were. “Keep quiet,” he said. That we remember. He wished more quiet. One tends to want that, in a National Park. Our father was a man about whom nothing was known. Nothing is known about him still. He gave us the recipes. He was not very interesting. A tree is more interesting. A suitcase is more interesting. A canned good is more interesting. When we sing the father hymn, we notice that he was not very interesting. The words of the hymn notice it. It is explictly commented upon, in the text.”

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

Source: Snow White (1967), pp.18–19.

Tree , Singing

“No one in the history of the written word, not even William MacGonagall, or Spike Milligan or D. H. Lawrence, is so wide open to damaging quotation. Try this, more or less at random: 'A murderer in the moment of his murder could feel a sense of beauty and perfection as complete as the transport of a saint.' Or this: Film is a phenomenon whose resemblance to death has been ignored for too long. His italics.
On every page Mailer will come up with a formulation both grandiose and crass. This is expected of him. It is also expected of the reviewer to introduce a lingering 'yet' or 'however' at some point, and say that 'somehow' Mailer's 'fearless honesty' redeems his notorious excesses. He isn't frightened of sounding outrageous; he isn't frightened of making a fool of himself; and, above all, he isn't frightened of being boring. Well, fear has its uses. Perhaps he ought to be a little less frightened of being frightened.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

Review of The Essential Mailer by Norman Mailer, p. 267
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001)

Death , Fear , Beauty , Fools

“On the whole, we will repeat that this Religion of Mahomet's is a kind of Christianity; has a genuine element of what is spiritually highest looking through it, not to be hidden by all its imperfections. The Scandinavian God Wish, the god of all rude men, — this has been enlarged into a Heaven by Mahomet; but a Heaven symbolical of sacred Duty, and to be earned by faith and well-doing, by valiant action, and a divine patience which is still more valiant. It is Scandinavian Paganism, and a truly celestial element superadded to that. Call it not false; look not at the falsehood of it, look at the truth of it. For these twelve centuries, it has been the religion and life-guidance of the fifth part of the whole kindred of Mankind. Above all things, it has been a religion heartily believed. These Arabs believe their religion, and try to live by it! No Christians, since the early ages, or only perhaps the English Puritans in modern times, have ever stood by their Faith as the Moslem do by theirs, — believing it wholly, fronting Time with it, and Eternity with it.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Life , Men , God , Truth

“I want to try to live my own values as consciously and purposefully as I can. Being vegan for me is a cleaner way of not participating in practices that don’t align with my values. … As soon as I said publicly that I was trying this experiment, so many vegans out there, hundreds and hundreds of people, have been reaching out to me with incredible support and encouragement as well as practical tips of how to do this without having to sacrifice that much in terms of the food and what I like. I've discovered some really delicious things—recipes, stores, and restaurants—that have made this transition far easier. … There's too much judgment out there. Really what we need to be doing is just all of us finding our own paths towards living the best lives we can live as clearly and boldly in accordance with our own personal values.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

" Talking Tofurky With Newly Vegan Cory Booker http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/26/talking-tofurky-with-newly-vegan-cory-booker.html", interview with Vlad Chituc, in The Daily Beast (26 November 2014)
2014

People , Food , Way , Support

“Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas; he must burst it open, and that in his youth, and so try to test his ideas on reality.”

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

Miscellaneous http://books.google.com/books?id=cvlOAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Everyone+sits+in+the+prison+of+his+own+ideas+he+must+burst+it+open+and+that+in+his+youth+and+so+try+to+test+his+ideas+on+reality%22&pg=PA104#v=onepage, Cosmic Religion, p. 104 (1931)
1930s

Youth , Idea , Reality

“Seeing John Major govern the country is like watching Edward Scissorhands try to make balloon animals.”

Simon Hoggart (1946–2014) English journalist and broadcaster

Simon Hoggart, Hoggart's Guardian column 11 Sep 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/sep/11/politics.guardiancolumnists

Animals , Country

“I gave myself until I turned 25 to make it. And if it didn't happen, I thought I'd just try to find a nice husband.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

Cosmopolitan magazine (2009)

“I feel it is through prayer, meditation, and dedicated service that world peace can take place. Each individual has to try to make others happy, for it is only through happiness that we can have peace.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

The Wings of Joy (1997)

World , Peace , Feeling , Happiness

“Success: Pessimism and giving up are greatest weaknesses. Our failures are essential stepping stones to success. Motivate yourself and develop the will to win. Never quit halfway. The only way to excellent achievement is to try again and again with hope and confidence.”

Thich Nhat Tu (1969) Vietnamese philosopher

Engaged Buddhism, Social Change and World Peace (2014)

Hope , Way , Confidence , Motivation

“In order to try to remove what we are going to say from what risks happening, if we judge by the many signs, to Marx's work today, which is to say also to his injunction. What risks happening is that one will try to play Marx off against Marxism so as to neutralize, or at any rate muffle the political imperative in the untroubled exegesis of a classified work. One can sense a coming fashion or stylishness in this regard in the culture and more precisely in the university. And what is there to worry about here? Why fear what may also become a cushioning operation? This recent stereotype would be destined, whether one wishes it or not, to depoliticize profoundly the Marxist reference, to do its best, by putting on a tolerant face, to neutralize a potential force, first of all by enervating a corpus, by silencing in it the revolt [the return is acceptable provided that the revolt, which initially inspired uprising, indignation, insurrection, revolutionary momentum, does not come back]. People would be ready to accept the return of Marx or the return to Marx, on the condition that a silence is maintained about Marx's injunction not just to decipher but to act and to make the deciphering [the interpretation] into a transformation that "changes the world. In the name of an old concept of reading, such an ongoing neutralization would attempt to conjure away a danger: now that Marx is dead, and especially now that Marxism seems to be in rapid decomposition, some people seem to say, we are going to be able to concern ourselves with Marx without being bothered-by the Marxists and, why not, by Marx himself, that is, by a ghost that goes on speaking. We'll treat him calmly, objectively, without bias: according to the academic rules, in the University, in the library, in colloquia! We'll do it systematically, by respecting the norms of hermeneutical, philological, philosophical exegesis. If one listens closely, one already hears whispered: "Marx, you see, was despite everything a philosopher like any other; what is more [and one can say this now that so many Marxists have fallen silent], he was a great-philosopher who deserves to figure on the list of those works we assign for study and from which he has been banned for too long.29 He doesn't belong to the communists, to the Marxists, to the parties-, he ought to figure within our great canon of Western political philosophy. Return to Marx, let's finally read him as a great philosopher."”

Jacques Derrida book Specters of Marx

We have heard this and we will hear it again.
Injunctions of Marx
Specters of Marx (1993)

People , World , Fear , Fashion

“The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

" "We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore" In These Times (26 August 2004) http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/979/

People , Faith , Boy , Evil

“There's the moon trying to look romantic
Moon's too old that's her trouble
Aren't we all?”

Roger McGough (1937) British writer and poet

"Aren't We All", from The Mersey Sound (1967)

“My foundation trys to help people that fall through the cracks, [people] that can't get help from big organizations.... We try to fill in where [other] people don't help out.”

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

Source: CNN's Showbiz Tonight (October 27, 2005)

People , Help

“If we have system in which government is in a position to give large favor - it's human nature to try to get this favor - whether those people are large enterprises, or whether they're small businesses like farmers, or whether they're representatives of any other special group. The only way to prevent that is to force them to engage in competition one with the other.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Milton Friedman - Big Business, Big Government http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_T0WF-uCWg

People , Way , Business , Nature

“He has called on the best that was in us. There was no such thing as half-trying. Whether it was running a race or catching a football, competing in school—we were to try. And we were to try harder than anyone else. We might not be the best, and none of us were, but we were to make the effort to be the best. "After you have done the best you can", he used to say, "the hell with it."”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Tribute to his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, read at Joseph Kennedy's funeral by Senator Ted Kennedy, November 20, 1969. Reported in Congressional Record (25 November 1969), vol. 115, p. 35877

School , Hell , Effort , Football

“The barrier was only in my mind — which is true of this barrier as well. The more firmly I try to cross the barrier, the more firmly I'm rejected. Well, maybe it's the intention to cross the boundary that pushes me away.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

“I now began to collect pubic hair, which I figured was a much safer way to go. I’d look for pubic hair in every bathroom after the girls showered, and in my mind’s eye, I’d try to match up each hair with each girl, all the while imaging her beautiful, luscious, wet, hairy, good-feeling bush. I mean, this was the summer that our pool area just seemed to be full of girls all the time. I was quickly becoming a pubic hair expert”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Beauty , Way , Feeling , Girl

“The first of the two cases which we are about to discuss concerns a large-scale Parisian administrative organization which may be described as rigid, standardized, and impersonal, and which seems unable to cope with the human and technical problems engendered by its recently accelerated growth. Its hierarchical structure, its promotional system, and its principles of organization are extremely simple. The behavior of its different categories of personnel, as actors within its social system, is therefore much easier to analyze. The actors appear to be both extremely rational and extremely predictable, as if they were playing a game that followed an experimental model. We shall use the opportunity afforded by such a situation to try to understand better one of the most fundamental problems usually associated with the concept of bureaucracy, the problem of routine.”

Michel Crozier (1922–2013) French sociologist

Source: The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, 1954, p. 12; Lead paragraph chapter 1

Behavior , Game , Understanding , Problem

“It is not at all an idle matter trying to define what a human being is.”

Primo Levi book Other People's Trades

Other People's Trades (1985)

“Art belongs to the domain of the unreal and it is only when people try to make a reality of it that it falls apart.”

Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) French painter

Cubism was born

People , Art , Reality

“I staged the coup because uh…the leaders in Saigon at that time did not keep their word. Uh, you know, by example, not killing Diem. Uh, they killed Diem. Uh… secondly, by example… to try to do something better in the fight, in fighting the Communists. But, you remember, I mean uh, at that time, everybody remember that they are a good time in Saigon, you know uh…uh, just enjoy the victory over Diem. And also, the main thing is leader at that time, we feel, was for the French solution of Indochina, for DeGaulle at that time, you know, he want to neutralize South Vietnam and to impose a French solution for the whole Indochina. And leaders at that time were in Saigon, we feel, it was true later on, like by example, Duong Van Minh, you know, who surrender to the Communists at '75 and we know that now we tory we know that Minh was one of the men of the policemen in Saigon who took, took over. So, I think we were ah, ah right, we were right at that time to change the leadership in Saigon.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

Nguyen Khanh stages the 1946 coup: On the 1964 South Vietnamese coup
1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

Men , Feeling , Thinking , Change

“Cinderella man,
Doing what you can,
They can't understand what it means
Cinderella man,
Hang on to your plans,
Try as they might, they cannot steal your dreams”

Geddy Lee (1953) vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush

"Cinderella Man"

Dreams , Understanding

“I think you're right about the difference between the Trojan mind and the Greek mind: the Greeks live in their imaginations while the Trojans always try to see things as they really are. And with some things they do get hold of the truth, and with some things they don't. But, where they don't, they won't have substitutes. That's why their world-outlook is so much smaller than ours. It's concentrated in a few certainties which are far ahead of anything we'll arrive at, but when you have these you feel that the rest is a blank and long to be back in the bigger world again, where there's space and variety and perplexity.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

Helen in A Trojan Ending (London: Constable, 1937)

Truth , World , Feeling , Imagination

“Nobody’s going to go home for a year and come back. Nobody could ever enforce that. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to do it.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.gothamist.com/2007/05/29/bloombergs_memo.php
Illegal Immigration

Home

“What I have been trying to do in this book is not so much to propose a vision of what, precisely, the next age will be like, but to throw open perspectives, enlarge our sense of possibilities; to begin to ask what it would mean to start thinking on a breadth and with a grandeur appropriate to the times.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Twelve, "1971–The Beginning…", p. 383

Books , Age , Thinking , Sense

“I think that a lot of women unfortunately have heard those types of words and historically they've always been used to try to silence women, especially women who are speaking out about their reproductive health and reproductive needs.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

CBS News. March 2, 2012.
Media interviews

Women , Health , Thinking , Silence

“The young tend to be more curious and critical as they seek to understand life and make sense of their experiences. But as they grow older they start questioning less and try to conform. The young people tend to hold liberal positions on issues such as abortion or gay sex because they are not in positions of authority and not necessarily interested in the maintenance of law and order. The youths are not interested in things or in issues as established, but in issues as they think. So, they can afford to challenge existing norms. However, as they grow older and get into positions of authority, the maintenance of law and order becomes paramount — and they become more conservative.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement (2017)

Life , People , Youth , Law

“Gravitation is not only similar to inertia in its generality, it is also measured by the same number… the mass. The inertial mass is what Newton calls the "quantity of matter": it is a measure for the resistance offered by a body to a force trying to alter its state of motion. It might be called the "passive mass." The gravitational mass, on the other hand, is a measure of the force exerted by the body in attracting other bodies. We might call it the "active" mass. The equality of active and passive, or gravitational and inertial, mass was in Newton's system a most remarkable accidental co-incidence, something like a miracle. Newton himself decidedly felt it as such, and made experiments to verify it, by swinging a pendulum with a hollow bob which could be filled with different materials. The force acting on the pendulum is proportional to its gravitational mass, the inertia to its inertial mass: the period of its swing thus depends on the ratio between these two masses. The fact that the period is always the same therefore proves that the gravitational and inertial masses are equal.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

Dependency

“Your hand on his arm, the hay stack charm around your neck, strung out and thin, calling some friend trying to cash some check, he's acting dumb, that's what you've come to expect. * I can't beat myselfI can't beat myselfAnd I don't want to talk.I'm taking the cure so I can be quietWhenever I want.So leave me aloneYou ought to be proud that I'm getting good marks.”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

Needle in the Hay.
Lyrics, Elliott Smith (1995)

“Say whatever you want, but try to be productive and positive and friendly. It's nice to be friendly. I was friendly once. It felt real good”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

“[On handling stress] When you start projecting on the future—"Oh my God, I gotta do this and I’m not there yet"—well, of course you’re not there yet because you’re here now. That time will come…I try to stay in the moment as much as I can and find whatever joy I can in that moment, no matter what it is. Then it doesn’t feel as stressful.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview in First for Women (8 February 2010, p. 46) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/press/first.html.

God , Feeling , Time , Future

“There is a Polish countess here, who likes me much. She has been very handsome, still is, in the style of the full-blown rose. She is a widow, very rich, one of the emancipated women, naturally vivacious, and with talent. This woman envies me; she says, "How happy you are; so free, so serene, so attractive, so self-possessed!" I say not a word, but I do not look on myself as particularly enviable. A little money would have made me much more so; a little money would have enabled me to come here long ago, and find those that belong to me, or at least try my experiments; then my health would never have sunk, nor the best years of my life been wasted in useless friction. Had I money now, — could I only remain, take a faithful servant, and live alone, and still see those I love when it is best, that would suit me. It seems to me, very soon I shall be calmed, and begin to enjoy.”

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

Letter (17 November 1847).
Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852)

Love , Life , Women , Money

“As for the number of people reluctant to me, I guess I fall in the national average. Maybe it's about talking openly what I think? For example, in 1980 an interview with several professors – including myself – was ran by the newspaper Dziennik Polski, very much against the then authorities. We've all been in favor of far-reaching changes, but each of us saw these changes differently. I am a nonbeliever. And there comes the „Solidarity” with holy masses and sprinkling corpses with holy water. I thought that policy of the University, beneficial to the „Solidarity”, was not always beneficial for the University itself. From time to time, friendly people try to affront me, even though I did not belong neither to the youth communist organization neither to the party, neither had I contacts with the communist Security Service. And generally I didn't have herd instincts.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Kobos, Andrzej (2009). Po drogach uczonych (in Polish). 4. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, pp. 383–398. ISBN 978-83-7676-021-6.

People , Youth , Thinking , Universe

“I was so thankful that my parents trusted me enough and had enough faith in my abilities to let me follow my passion and try to do something great, even if I might fail.”

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

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 93

Faith , Parent , Passion

“Inevitably the party trying to resolve a matter had to contend with the party most willing to exploit it.”

C. J. Cherryh book Invader

Invader (1995)

“The creation of the following paintings is to be imagined as follows: A person is sitting beside the sea. She is painting. A tune suddenly enters her mind. As she starts to hum it, she notices that the tune exactly matches what she is trying to commit to paper. A texts forms in her head, and she starts to sing the tune, with her own words, over and over again in a loud voice until the painting seems complete. Frequently, several texts take shape, and the result is a duet, or it..”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

Charlotte's 5th introduction page, related to image JHM no. 4155-5 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004155-e: 'The creation of the following..', p. 45
this quote is written in brush over the whole page of the painting, without any figure
Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Imagination , Singing , Painting , Personality

“To try to regulate the internal affairs of a family, the relations of love or friendship, or many other things of the same sort, by law or by the coercion of public opinion, is like trying to pull an eyelash out of a man’s eye with a pair of tongs. They may put out the eye, but they will never get hold of the eyelash”

James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894) Indian judge

Source: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873-1874), Ch. 4 : The Doctrine of Liberty in its Application to Morals

Love , Friendship , Family , Law

“They say that the truth will set you free
But then again, so will a lie…
It depends if you're trying to get to the promised land
Or if you're just trying to get by.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Promised Land
Song lyrics

Truth , Lie , Dependency

“Then I dreamed that one day there was nothing but milk for them and the jailer said as he put down the pipkin: ‘Our relations with the cow are not delicate-as you can easily see if you imagine eating any of her other secretions.’ … John said, ‘Thank heavens! Now at last I know that you are talking nonsense. You are trying to pretend that unlike things are like. You are trying to make us think that milk is the same sort of thing as sweat or dung.’ ‘And pray, what difference is there except by custom?’ ‘Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference between that which Nature casts out as refuse and that which she stores up as food?”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Pilgrim's Regress

Pilgrim’s Regress 49
The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)

Secret , Food , Dreams , Fools

“As a matter of fact, these attributes are their fate, no longer separate objects they can carry.... part of their actual presence. I try to signify this by reorganizing the objective form of such a legendary figure so as to create an allegorical form that is complete in itself, no longer requiring an attribute that must be carried like the German businessman’s briefcase; the lyre becomes part of the poet's presence, its text written all over his body, as if tattooed on his skin.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

quote, c. 1960, in France
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, p. 153

Fate , Quotes , Tattoo , Parting

“I do have utopian fantasies. A lot of them are more - I wouldn't say spiritual, but they relate more to the imagination and the individual. But for me socialism is a way of trying to put far-fetched ideas into everyday use, trying to find a way to bridge the gap between that fantasy and reality, and reaching out across that gap to the people who can actually do something to make the change.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Definitions and objects

People , Way , Imagination , Idea

“I have always felt that humor was a wonderful vehicle to let us become connected with each other and ourselves… I try to portray the similarities and polarities in men and women, so that we can acknowledge and embrace our collective consciousness.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

As quoted in Variety magazine (2003)

Women , Men

“Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to take us back to Reagan-Bush.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

United States Senatorial debate, October 1994, quoted in * Geraghty
Jim
w:Jim Geraghty
So What Did Romney Mean When He Said, 'I Was an Independent During Reagan-Bush'?
National Review Online
2007
October 8, 2007
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/11745/so-what-did-romney-mean-when-he-said-i-was-independent-during-reagan-bush
2011-12-29
1994 United States Senate campaign

Time

“I believe that the world is totally connected: that is to say, that there are no events anywhere in the universe which are not tied to every other event in the universe. …It is… an essential part of the methodology of science to divide the world for any experiment into… relevant and… irrelevant. We make a cut. We put the experiment… into a box. …the moment we do that, we do violence to the connections …I get a set of answers which I try to decode in this context. …I am certainly not going to get the world right, because the basic assumption that I have made about the world is a lie. …it is bound to give me only an approximation to what goes inside the fence. Therefore, when we practice science (and this is true of all our experience) we are always decoding a part of nature which is not complete. We simply cannot get out of our own finiteness.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (1978)

Lie , World , Nature , Universe

“A religious phenomenon will only be recognized as such if it is grasped at its own level, that is to say, if it is studied as something religious. To try to grasp the essence of such phenomenon by means of physiology, psychology, sociology, economics, linguistics, art or any other study is false; it misses the one unique and irreducible element in it — the element of the sacred.”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Patterns in Comparative Religion (1963), as translated by Rosemary Sheed, p. xiii

Art , Study , Falseness

“We cannot point to a single definitive solution of any one of the problems that confront us — political, economic, social or moral, that is, having to do with the conduct of life. We are still beginners, and for that reason may hope to improve. To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind. There is no need to be dismayed by the fact that we cannot yet envisage a definitive solution of our problems, a resting-place beyond which we need not try to go.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Presidential Address, 1969

Life , Hope , Problem

“I like Houston. It's the last great 19th-century city. Houston has a spirit about it that is truly American, an optimism. People there aren't afraid to try something new.”

Philip Johnson (1906–2005) American architect

Financial Times, June 3, 1989

People , Optimism

“As you know I have been preaching along with El Duce and Sickie Wifebeater for many years against homosexuality in rock and it's time to take revenge on people that try to stop rock. The real rock, hetero rock. There for Bowie is going on trial within Rock Kourt.”

Steve Broy (1958) American musician

Mentors Heathen Scum Rock Kourt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWg1EuUPmrk by Dr. Heathen Scum at Dr. Heathen Scum's channel http://www.youtube.com/user/sbroy at YouTube

People , Revenge , Time

“Where do you go when hard times hit? Most of the time, our tendency is to enter our internal cave…we naturally shut down, withdraw from it all, and try to figure things out on our own, reemerging from life when we have some sense of centeredness.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

Life , Nature , Sense , Time

“If you have any doubt that time is relative, try stretching fifteen minutes' worth of input of over four hours cubicle-cell time with an ultra-slow internet connection and frequent visits from supervisors.”

Rob Payne (1973) Canadian writer

Source: Working Class Zero (2003), Chapter 4, p. 31

Time

“I was totally amazed. This little home made underground comix thing was turning into a business before my eyes. It went from us going around Haight Street trying to sell these things we had folded and stapled ourselves to suddenly being a business with distributors, lawyers, contracts, and money talk. … The whole thing began to take on a heaviness that I believe had a negative effect on my work. I was only twenty-five years old when all this happened. It was a case of "too much too soon," I think. I became acutely self-conscious about what I was doing. Was I now a "spokesman" for the hippies or what? I had no idea how to handle my new position in society! … Take Keep On Truckin'… for example. Keep on Truckin'… is the curse of my life. This stupid little cartoon caught on hugely. … I didn't want to turn into a greeting card artist for the counter-culture! I didn't want to do 'shtick'—the thing Lenny Bruce warned against. That's when I started to let out all my perverse sex fantasies. It was the only way out of being "America's Best Loved Hippie Cartoonist."”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005), p. 163

Love , Life , Money , Stupidity

“In my case, I find a blank canvas so beautiful that that to work immediately, in relation to how beautiful the canvas is as such, is inhibiting and, for me, demands 'too much to quickly'; so that my tendency is to get the canvas 'dirt', so to speak, in one way or another, and then, so to speak 'work in reverse', and try to bring it back to an equivalent of the original clarity and perfection of the canvas, that one began on…”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

as cited in Abstract Expressionism, Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York 1990, p. 111
1960s, Interview with David Sylvester', (1960)

Beauty , Way , Perfection