Quotes about try
page 44

“So if you're black or brown, you can make money in America, you can get rich in America … but whatever you decide to do, it better be positive, 'cause if one person is harmed, you will be destroyed. You see Oprah, she just be giving away money. She's trying keep the Feds off her back.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Never Scared (HBO, 2004)

Money, Personality

“We find that in research a certain amount of intelligent ignorance is essential to progress; for, if you know too much, you won't try the thing.”

Charles Kettering (1876–1958) American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 140 patents

quoted in Professional Amateur: The Biography Of Charles Franklin Kettering, Thomas Alvin Boyd, 1957 page 106 ( Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/professionalamat013190mbp)

Intelligence

“When the Superior Man (Junzi) eats he does not try to stuff himself; at rest he does not seek perfect comfort; he is diligent in his work and careful in speech. He avails himself to people of the Tao and thereby corrects himself. This is the kind of person of whom you can say, "he loves learning."”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, Chapter I

Love, People, Learning, Personality

“There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it; and the judgments of the Almighty will come, sooner or later, and every man and woman will have to atone for breaking their covenants. To what degree? Will they have to go to hell? They are in hell enough now. I do not wish them in a greater hell, when their consciences condemn them all the time. Let compassion reign in our bosoms. Try to comprehend how weak we are, how we are organized, how the spirit and the flesh are continually at war.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 3:247 (March 16, 1856)
1850s

God, War, Hell, Time

“It is much more trying to be continually tormented by evil men than by devils.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.

Men, Evil

“"Trying to stop Robinho is a physical fatigue. Trying to stop Romário is an emotional fatigue."”

Romário (1966) Brazilian association football player

Marcar o Robinho é desgaste físico. Marcar o Romário é desgaste emocional
About
Source: ISTO É Magazine, Edition. 1788.
Context: Santos FC player Narciso.

“But trying to be a painter did teach me to look at the world in a very particular way—looking very closely at things, at colors, at how things form themselves in space — and I've always been grateful for that. You have all this space, and you have a figure: what do you do with it? And in a way that’s what all art is. How do we find a place for our creatures, or inventions, in this incoherent space into which we’re thrown?”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville, The Art of Fiction No. 200 (2009)

World, Art, Color, Way

“I was so conflicted and disillusioned about organized religion that I couldn't write. … I think my writings will go on being the writings of a believer in Christ. I think I'll be less frustrated and freer to write about the full dimension of what that means. But I write metaphysical thrillers, and how this works out in fiction is always mysterious: characters confront dilemmas. The worldview of the novel is certainly optimistic and that of a believer. What character will say what, I don't know until I start writing. …. Because I had written Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, I had become a public Christian. I wanted my readers to know that I was stepping aside from organized religion and the names Christian and Christianity because I wanted to exonerate myself from the things organized religion was doing in the name of Jesus. Christians have lost credibility in America as people who know how to love. They have become associated with hatred, persecution, attempting to abolish the separation of church and state, and trying to pressure people to vote certain ways in elections. I wanted to make it clear that I did not in any way remain complicit with those things.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

"Q & A: Anne Rice on Following Christ Without Christianity" interview by Sarah Pulliam Bailey in Christianity Today (17 Augutst 2010) http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=89167

Love, People, Religion, Way

“I try not to take my life for granted. I have friends who have tendinitis. That would kill me. A short break from the violin is fine, but if I don't touch it for three or four days, my fingers start to feel funny.”

Sarah Chang (1980) violinist

NEWSWEEK 1999 http://www.jeremycaplan.com/SarahChangInterview.htm

Life, Feeling

“The eating of meat without doubt focuses the physical mechanism closely to the physical system. There is nothing wrong with this. If you are trying to develop inner abilities however, and if you wish to allow yourself a mobility of focus, then moderation in this respect must be used.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 185, Page 247
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 4

“If tomorrow never comes,
Will she know how much I loved her?
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one?
And if my time on earth were through,
And she must face the world without me,
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last?
If tomorrow never comes.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

If Tomorrow Never Comes, written by G. Brooks and Kent Blazy.
Song lyrics, Garth Brooks (1989)

Love, World, Way, Time

“Since it seems to be the nature of man that he wants to go to hell as quickly as possible, it is not surprising that effective base rhetoricians can greatly accelerate this process for millions. … Many individuals try to drive men into slavery, as if they were cattle, but only a few succeed. These we hail as “great historical figures.” I submit that we cannot judge the noble rhetorician by this standard. Since he urges men to be better than they are, the noble rhetorician cannot possibly succeed in changing those who prefer to remain as they are or become evil. Indeed, because his task is to bring men to themselves, not to him, the noble rhetorician ought not to be judged by his manifest effect on others at all. Rather, he ought to be judged by the clarity and steadfastness with which he proclaims his counsel. Should not a single person heed his advice, the noble rhetorician would still have to be judged successful in proportion as he succeeds in perfecting his own language. … In the final analysis, what Karl Kraus sought was to purify himself by purifying his own language. He achieved his goal. He dies a semantic saint in a semantically satanic society.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: Anti-Freud (1990), pp. 56-57.

Men, Hell, Nature, Evil

“These left me in no doubt that something was trying to communicate with us, but that direct communication would be counterproductive. It seemed to be an important part of the scheme to create a sense of mystery.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Alien Dawn (1998), p. 352

Communication, Sense, Parting

“[Since college, being a vegetarian] I physically felt cleaner and lighter. […] Later on, literally I saw somebody eating a chicken wing, and it grossed me out. … My body was, like, ‘No more. I don’t want it anymore.’ I’ve seen grocery stores change to be more welcoming to a vegetarian’s diet and it’s not as hard as it used to be going to your local supermarket trying to find a substitute. You now have sections in grocery markets that are dedicated to people who are vegetarian.”

Rocsi Diaz (1983) Television and radio personality

Interview with PETA; as quoted in "Rocsi Diaz Dons Brussel Sprouts For PETA Ad" https://www.vibe.com/2013/12/rocsi-diaz-dons-brussel-sprouts-peta-ad/, Vibe (7 December 2013).

People, Change

“I suppose he had the good luck to be executed, no? I had an hour's chat with him in Buenos Aires. He struck me as a kind of play actor, no? Living up to a certain role. I mean, being a professional Andalusian… But in the case of Lorca, it was very strange because I lived in Andalusia and the Andalusians aren't a bit like that. His were stage Andalusians. Maybe he thought that in Buenos Aires he had to live up to that character, but in Andalusia, people are not like that. In fact, if you are in Andalusia, if you are talking to a man of letters and you speak to him about bullfights, he'll say, 'Oh well, that sort of this pleases people, I suppose, but really the torero works in no danger whatsoever. Because they are bored by these things, because every writer is bored by the local color in his own country. Well, when I met Lorca, he was being a professional Andalusian… Besides, Lorca wanted to astonish us. He said to me that he was very troubled about a very important figure in the contemporary world. A character in whom he could see all the tragedy of American life. And then he went on in this way until I asked him who was this character and it turned out this character was Mickey Mouse. I suppose he was trying to be clever. And I thought, 'That's the kind of thing you say when you are very, very young and you want to astonish somebody.' But after all, he was a grown man, he had no need, he could have talked in a different way. But when he started in about Mickey Mouse being a symbol of America, there was a friend of mine there and he looked at me and I looked at him and we both walked away because we were too old for that kind of game, no? Even at that time.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Richard Burgin, Conversation with Jorge Luis Borges, pages 92-93.
Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges (1968)

Life, People, World, Color

“I try to dress classy and dance cheesy.”

Psy (1977) South Korean singer

Ibid.
Variant: The mindset of this dance is 'dress classy and dance cheesy'.

Dance

“I think that what drives the American public, which is like a huge, lumbering beast, is anger; and the other thing that drives it is self–interest. What I'm trying to do in my books is different from other people writing about child abuse. I'm not trying to engender sympathy so much as to say to the public, 'Today's victim is tomorrow's predator.' The things that you fear have a genesis, and the price of being safe in this world is early intervention. It costs you something to look away, not just in moral terms, but in practical terms.”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Crime Times, Nov./Dec. 1988

People, Books, World, Fear

“Round off the edges
Talk us down from the ledges
Give us strength to try once more
Baby, that's what love is for
That's what love is for”

Amy Grant (1960) American musician

"That's What Love Is For", co-written with Michael Omartian and Mark Mueller
Song lyrics, Heart in Motion (1991)

Love, Baby

“Try some Symbolic Logic on your little Couch Potato when you go home, and see what happens.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Lewis Carroll in the Theatre (1994)

Home

“One way in which feminists try to remedy the disparity is to legally mandate paid leave for female employees who give birth, even if a company is struggling to stay afloat. Such laws provide powerful incentives for bosses-male or female-not to hire women to begin with. Of course, it's easy to support such legislation until you end up getting laid off because your boss was losing too much money by paying absent employees.”

Stephen Miller (1985) political advisor for policy

Opinion column entitled Sorry feminists http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2005/11/sorry-feminists (22 November 2005) 2000s

Women, Money, Law, Way

“personally i prefer the MX RR and a stylized name, but i was trying to solve the problem rather than create an industry.”

Paul Vixie (1963) American internet pioneer

NANOG mailing list http://www.mail-archive.com/nanog@merit.edu/msg24986.html (2004) Notes: about Sender Policy Framework

Problem, Personality

“As far as party primaries are concerned, both Republican and Democratic Party primaries are dominated by the most zealous voters, whose views may not reflect the views of most members of their own respective parties, much less the views of those who are going to vote in the November general election.
In recent times, each election year has seen each party's nominee selected - or at least subject to veto - by its most extreme wing and then forced to try to move back to the center before the general election.
This can only undermine the public's confidence in the integrity of the candidates of both parties.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

"Bipartisan Primary Blues" http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmJhYWM0ZWIxZGZmYWU5YmVmZWQ3ZTUzYzFmMzQ4ZTM=, National Review (25 March 2008). 2000s

Confidence, Time

“In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.”

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader

Statement to Nat Hentoff, as quoted in California Rock, California Sound : The Music of Los Angeles and Southern California (1979) by Anthony Fawcett, p. 56; also in “Jazz : Beyond Time and Nations” in The Nat Hentoff Reader (2001), Part 2 : The Passion of Creation, p. 99

Truth, Music, Change, Time

“America is preeminently a country of, if not sexual licenses… a country of sexual tolerance, a country of sexual, I… would settle for pluralism, for now. Well, the Holy Mother Church doesn't settle for that. The Holy Mother Church makes rather strict demands. The Holy Mother Church prohibits, by various edicts,… statutes, and pronouncements, all forms of sex that are not specifically devoted to the outcome of procreating further Catholics, and it enforces this with a celibate hierarchy. Now, that's fine, and it is your choice, and… as Mr. Donohue did say, no one has to join that church, but that church, where it can, does try and impose those standards on non-believers and non-members. And there will always seem, to some people, I think, something absurd in the enforcement of such statutes, especially since we know most Catholics don't observe them, by a celibate oligarchy and hierarchy.”

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

2000s, 2000, "Hostility Of America to Religion" (2000)

People, Sex, Thinking, Country

“I took a bottle of pills. I'd been in Europe and I had a lot of absinthe and I was just drinking and drinking, trying to, you know, just shut my body down.”

Jack Osbourne (1985) Son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne

MTV.com Jack Talks About His Addiction and Recovery

Drink

“We are trying to persuade all the Iraqi opposition to come breathe freedom in Iraq and use liberated Kurdistan as a base for our common struggle.”

Jalal Talabani (1933–2017) Iraqi politician

On an attempt to build an opposition force to overthrow Saddam Hussein — reported in Ethan Bronner (October 25, 1992) "Kurds Organizing Anti-Hussein Forces - Sidebar For a Quiet Colonel, A Moving Role as Santa Claus", Boston Globe, p. 1.

Freedom

“Dear reader dearest inscrutable listener inscrutably harking or regrettably more likely not harking except in that chamber in me that posits you with me every moment I’m speaking or trying to speak
Dear reader who may or may not be with me I still remember how once you weren’t here at all so I’d make up a mythical listener and there were good sides to that because I myself could choose
the degree of your presence the level of your attention from zero to fifty but then before I knew it you were somehow actually with me though it’s still a mystery as to why you decided to join me.”

C.K. Williams (1936–2015) American poet and critic

"Dear Reader," New York Review of Books, May 21, 2015 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/05/21/dear-reader

“Nigel Farage is still trying to whip up fear and hatred towards refugees who are fleeing from conflict. It was extremely ill-judged of him to describe himself as a victim.”

Yvette Cooper (1969) British politician

Response on Farage's denial for being responsible for whipping up hate against immigrants - Nigel Farage says he is a victim of poltical hatred in response to Jo Cox question http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-jo-cox-dead-murdered-peston-brexit-eu-referendum-ukip-political-hatred-a7089996.html (19 June 2016)

Fear

“It takes time, see. You finish painting the painting and then you turn it to the wall. I mean, you say, does it have it or doesn't it have it? If it doesn't have it, you throw it away, but if you think it has it, you turn it to the wall. And then when you have made some more work, then you turn them all over. And you, again, try to see exactly what it does mean and just exactly how effectively you have rendered this meaning.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

1974
1970's, interview, K. Horsfield & L. Blumenthal

Thinking, Time, Painting

“The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to impose that on all thinking people.”

Gilbert Highet (1906–1978) British academic

Man's Unconquerable Mind (1954)

People, World, Thinking

“Things happen in NFL games. I don't try to dwell on it. I try to say, It happened. Let's move onto the next one.”

Devin Hester (1982) American football player, wide receiver, kick returner

About his fumbles Devin Hester's kick returns can inspire cheers or cringing http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/football/pro/dolphins/sfl-sphester16jan16,0,1250224.story?coll=sfla-dolphins-front

Game

“(Television) Our station is experiencing technical difficulties, so please try and amuse yourselves in whatever way you did before you became so emotionally dependent on us.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 154

Way, Dependency

“All the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave, for the Lion is everywhere thought to be the King of Beasts. I learned that if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way. Whenever I've met a man I've been awfully scared; but I just roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go. If the elephants and the tigers and the bears had ever tried to fight me, I should have run myself — I'm such a coward; but just as soon as they hear me roar they all try to get away from me, and of course I let them go.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

Way, Nature, Learning, Animals

“We must first of all, however, definitely understand, in reference to the end we have in view, that it is not the concern of philosophy to produce religion in any individual. Its existence is, on the contrary, presupposed as forming what is fundamental in every one. So far as man s essential nature is concerned, nothing new is to be introduced into him. To try to do this would be as absurd as to give a dog printed writings to chew, under the idea that in this way you could put mind into it. It may happen that religion is awakened in the heart by means of philosophical knowledge, but it is not necessarily so. It is not the purpose of philosophy to edify, and quite as little is it necessary for it to make good its claims by showing in any particular case that it must produce religious feeling in the individual.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

Lectures on the philosophy of religion, together with a work on the proofs of the existence of God. Translated from the 2d German ed. by E.B. Speirs, and J. Burdon Sanderson: the translation edited by E.B. Speirs. Published 1895 p. 4
Lectures on Philosophy of Religion, Volume 1 (1827)

Religion, Dogs, Way, Feeling

“Woman: Do come along quick, there's a house on fire.
Fire Chief: A house on fire? Just a moment, lady – what's the address?
Woman: Grimshaw Street.
Fire Chief: Grimshaw Street – Grimshaw … now wait a minute, I know it as well as can be, and I just can't place it.
Woman: Oh come along, it's only just round…
Fire Chief: No, no, no – don't tell me, let me try and think of it for myself. Grimshaw St–… oh, isn't that annoying, I could walk straight to it, and I can't think of it.”

Robb Wilton (1881–1957) comedian

The Fire Chief

Thinking, Waiting, Housing

“When I was a student in the 1950s, I read Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty. When you feel an overwhelming influence, you try to open a window. Paradoxically enough, Heidegger is not very difficult for a Frenchman to understand. When every word is an enigma, you are in a not-too-bad position to understand Heidegger. Being and Time is difficult, but the more recent works are clearer. Nietzsche was a revelation to me. I felt that there was someone quite different from what I had been taught. I read him with a great passion and broke with my life, left my job in the asylum, left France: I had the feeling I had been trapped. Through Nietzsche, I had become a stranger to all that.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Truth, Power, Self : An Interview with Michel Foucault (25 October 1982)

Life, Feeling, Understanding, Passion

“Four guys could get together and make their own movie, in a year, but nobody does it 'cause they got bills to pay. What I'm saying is, that's what I would do, if I was young. I wouldn't even get a job. I'd get a couple of computers and a bunch of guys, we'd eat crap for a year, millionaires the next year if we did a good film. It's so extraordinary. Instead of crying about getting a job at Disney or "things are falling apart", things the old animators were doing when I was a kid, "it's all crumbling!" It's not crumbling, you're crumbling! You got these computers that could do this stuff for nothing! What do you do with it? You try to get a job for some asshole studio. It's so dumb.”

Ralph Bakshi (1938) Animator, filmmaker

Guy, Animals, Cry

“The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play — characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein (Delacorte Press, 1988, ISBN 0-440-50004-4), p. 96

Women, Time

“The original Golden Dawn was not always as serious as it should have been. Mathers was a clown, and Yeats was just a romantic trying to deceive himself. Most of them were interested in personal power, and it ended up by destroying them. The aim of our group is the scientific exploration of the hidden powers of the human mind.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Schoolgirl Murder Case (1974), p. 113

Personality

“My late friend hated book-jackets, and ripped them all off immediately. I think he felt, somehow, that the book was still trying to sell him its contents after he had paid for it (or turn him in, if he had stolen it). Dejacketed, the book is anonymous and valueless. To translate something immediately into this state is an unequivocal act of proprietorship. You remove a book-jacket just as you make a lover naked: before their complete possession, they must be removed from the currency.”

Don Paterson (1963) Poet

Aphorisms in Poetry, vol. 187, n. 1, October 2005

Hate, Books, Lovers, Thinking

“If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for a while. But the fact that I an exceeding my limits will eventually have consequences. I will distort myself, the other, and our relationship—and may end up doing more damage than if I had never set out to do this particular “good.””

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), p. 47

“A rolling stone gathers no moss.'
Try as I might I could not remember the meaning. At last I hazarded, 'Well, it means a person who's always active and never pauses to reflect — ' No, that didn't sound right. I tried again. 'That means a man who is always active and keeps growing in mental and moral stature won't grow stale.' He was looking at me more intently, so I added by way of clarification, 'I mean, a man who's active and doesn't let grass grow under his feet, he'll get ahead in life.'
Doctor Nisea said, 'I see.' And I knew that I had revealed, for the purposes of legal diagnosis, a schizophrenic thinking disorder.
'What does it mean?' I asked. 'Did I get it backward?'
'Yes, I'm afraid so. The generally-accepted meaning of the proverb is the opposite of what you've given; it is generally taken to mean that a person who — '
'You don't have to tell me,' I broke in. 'I remember — I really knew it. A person who's unstable will never acquire anything of value.”

Philip K. Dick book We Can Build You

Source: We Can Build You (1972), chapter 17, page 224.

Life, Way, Thinking, Grass

“Of what value is the study of management?
The study of management has been omitted from the student's training until comparatively recently, for a very different reason than was psychology. It was never doubted that a knowledge of management would be of great value to anyone and everyone, and many were the queer schemes for obtaining that knowledge after graduation. It was doubted that management could be studied otherwise than by observation and practice. Few teachers, if any, believed in the existence, or possibility, of a teaching science of management. Management was assumed by many to be an art, by even more it was thought to be a divinely bestowed gift or talent, rather than an acquired accomplishment. It was common belief that one could learn to manage only by going out on the work and watching other managers, or by trying to manage, and not by studying about management in a class room or in a text book; that watching a good manager might help one, but no one could hope really to succeed who had not " the knack born in him."”

Lillian Gilbreth (1878–1972) American psychologist and industrial engineer

Source: Psychology of management, 1914, p. 2-3

Books, Hope, Art, Knowledge

“I am supportive of people. I am supportive of the American Dream Trump is trying to destroy. I want them to understand. Regardless of your religion, you don’t get special privileges because you claim to believe something different from everybody else. You don’t get special privileges because you get to claim that you believe the same things as the majority.”

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

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

People, Religion, Dreams, Understanding

“Suppose we try to locate the cause of disorder, we shall find it lies in the want of mutual love.”

Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period

Book 4; Universal Love I
Mozi

Love

“Let me give you an example that encapsulates the whole difference between America and Singapore. America has a vicious drug problem. How does it solve it? It goes around the world helping other anti-narcotic agencies to try and stop the suppliers… Singapore does not have that option. What we can do is to pass a law which says that any customs officer or policeman who sees anybody in Singapore behaving suspiciously… can require that man to have his urine tested. If the sample is found to contain drugs, the man immediately goes for treatment. In America if you did that it would be an invasion of the individual's rights and you would be sued.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew, Interview with Fareed Zakaria of Foreign Policy, 1994 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1994-03-01/conversation-lee-kuan-yew 1990s

World, Law, Problem, Help

“If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them? Who's God trying to impress? Presumably himself, since he is judge and jury, as well as execution victim.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Part 2, 00:29:56
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

God, Forgiveness, Parting

“The competition between chunks of capital is getting fiercer, there is the same old same old desperate need to keep wages down, desperate need to substitute machines for labour (but that costs trillions of investment) and no matter how hard you exploit workers, you still need to sell stuff to them, and if their wages are low, they can't buy the stuff. You can force the poorly paid into borrowing money (credit cards, wonga etc) but there comes a point when that causes a credit crisis: someone somewhere says they want some dosh and a bank somewhere says they haven't got the dosh (Northern Rock, last time). Let's remember, none of this is caused by migrants or left social democrats. This is a crisis entirely born from a system that is locked into competition for markets. So, these fervid rows between squadrons of extremely unpleasant individuals are rows between people who deep down know that they can't control this system of running the making and distribution of the things we need. They are just coming up with fantasies on how to stay in power while the next phase veers from crisis to crisis. It is terrible for millions of people in awful insecure, low paid jobs and/or in insecure, lousy housing, or if they are disabled, or for millions trying to migrate their way out of poverty and despair. We should be alarmed when members of the ruling class start pleading with us to take sides with them against the 'elite': one section of the elite calling for us to oppose the elite.”

Michael Rosen (1946) British children's writer

'Neither Brussels or the City - for the many not the few'. http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/neither-brussels-or-city-for-many-not.html (6 July 2018)

Money, People, Way, Time

“The greatest threat to the war on terrorism isn't the Islamic insurgency — our military can handle the savages. It's traitorous liberals trying to lose the war at home.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"When Will NYT Reveal One of al Qaeda's Secret Programs?" http://humanevents.com/2006/06/28/when-will-nyt-reveal-one-of-al-qaedas-secret-programs/ (28 June 2006). 2006

War, Home

“If you want to know everything about the market, go to the beach. Push and pull your hands with the waves. Some are bigger waves, some are smaller. But if you try to push the wave out when it's coming in, it'll never happen. The market is always right.”

Ed Seykota (1946) American commodities trader

Source: Harris, Sunny J. Trading 102: Getting Down to Business, Wiley; 1 edition (September 1998), ISBN 0471181331 Read it here http://books.google.co.uk/books?vid=ISBN0471181331&id=lvq0DElVjRIC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=seykota&sig=SvwZDgQxbP1_aH9Pi06-xucp4P0

“His puritan, muscular, moor-tramping soul (superbly mirrored in Higgins's hymn to the intellect in Pygmalion) bred in him a loathing of all things, whether poems or gadgets, that were designed to comfort the human condition without actively trying to improve it.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

"Bernard Shaw," p. 103
Profiles (1990)

Soul

“I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

In a letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1 January 1867); quoted in The Life of Gen. James A. Garfield (1880) by Jonas Mills Bundy, p. 77
1860s

Fools

“Some think that we are approaching a critical moment in the history of Liberalism…We hear of a divergence of old Liberalism and new…The terrible new school, we hear, are for beginning operations by dethroning Gladstonian finance. They are for laying hands on the sacred ark. But did any one suppose that the fiscal structure which was reared in 1853 was to last for ever, incapable of improvement, and guaranteed to need no repair? We can all of us recall, at any rate, one very memorable admission that the great system of Gladstonian finance had not reached perfection. That admission was made by no other person than Mr. Gladstone himself in his famous manifesto of 1874, when he promised the most extraordinary reduction of which our taxation is capable. Surely there is as much room for improvement in taxation as in every other work of fallible man, provided that we always cherish the just and sacred principle of taxation that it is equality of private sacrifice for public good. Another heresy is imputed to this new school which fixes a deep gulf between the wicked new Liberals and the virtuous old. We are adjured to try freedom first before we try interference of the State. That is a captivating formula, but it puzzles me to find that the eminent statesman who urges us to lay this lesson to heart is strongly in favour of maintaining the control of the State over the Church? But is State interference an innovation? I thought that for 30 years past Liberals had been as much in favour as other people of this protective legislation. Are to we assume that it has all been wrong? Is my right hon. friend going to propose its repeal or the repeal of any of it; or has all past interference been wise, and we have now come to the exact point where not another step can be taken without mischief? …other countries have tried freedom and it is just because we have decided that freedom in such a case is only a fine name for neglect, and have tried State supervision, that we have saved our industrial population from the waste, destruction, destitution, and degradation that would otherwise have overtaken them…In short, gentlemen, I am not prepared to allow that the Liberty and the Property Defence League are the only people with a real grasp of Liberal principles, that Lord Bramwell and the Earl of Wemyss are the only Abdiels of the Liberal Party.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Annual presidential address to the Junior Liberal Association of Glasgow (10 February 1885), quoted in 'Mr. John Morley At Glasgow', The Times (11 February 1885), p. 10.

People, School, History, Thinking

“Syria these days reminds me of an orphan surrounded by real enemies and false friends, forming a club of cynics, and trying to seize control of its destiny.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: The Syrian Orphan and a Club of Cynics http://english.aawsat.com/2015/09/article55345155/opinion-the-syrian-orphan-and-a-club-of-cynics, Ashraq Al-Awsat (18 Sep, 2015).

Falseness

“I've missed you too! A lot of people have been wondering where I have been, and it's not very exciting news, and it's not very good news, it's just that I've been very ill. I've been very sick for a while and still trying to get better, slowly but surely…. Anyway, I was so overwhelmed —
Overwhelmed,
by all the
nice things you
folks said to me!
It was so nice to read everything that everyone was saying, and very, very sweet. I appreciate all the — oh, it made me cry, and — and it was just so nice, and I wanted to say a big 'Thank you!' to everyone for being so supportive and so nice to me…. I will be back in full swing, as much as I can, when I can, and in the mean time, I miss you all very, very much.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"Quick Update from Ysabella Brave" (6 May, 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCVdO__jDgw

People, Support, Time, Reading

“All it takes is one good selfie and then send it around to all of the sites that post hot girls and maybe you’ll get chosen and they’ll pick you up. I mean it’s the little things too, see what’s trending, always see what’s trending. I don’t like to post selfies back-to-back-to-back. I don’t like to post professional photos back-to-back, or when it comes to colors, or if it’s too close or too far away or just like the littlest things. Everything matters, it really does. It can make a huge difference. If you’re going for modeling, like brand your page. If you’re trying to go for specific — if you’re not going for something. Like let’s say for me I’m a model and an actress, so I wanted to lean more towards both of those, so pictures of my food wouldn’t work because I’m not a blogger, or pictures of just random stuff that doesn’t make sense. People follow me for a reason and I know why they follow me.”

Antje Utgaard (1994) American actress

Social Media Star Antje Utgaard On Her Modeling Career, Instagram Tips & Being Compared To Kate Upton https://uinterview.com/news/social-media-star-antje-utgaard-modeling-career-instagram-tips-compared-kate-upton-video-exclusive/ (October 7, 2016)

People, Food, Color, Photo

“Music is so personal to me. I can be myself, and say what I want to say. I feel I'm honest and don't try to hide things. But music enables people to learn about my personality, how I'm evolving. Even if I don't feel comfortable talking about something, I can feel comfortable expressing that same thing through my music.”

Hilary Duff (1987) American actress and singer

"Hilary Duff comes to Manchester on Jan. 27" http://www.seacoastonline.com/2004news/dover/12312004/arts/56606.htm. The Dover Community News. December 31 2004. Retrieved October 25 2006. On the recording of Hilary Duff (2004), her third album and second non-holiday album.

People, Music, Feeling, Learning

“I think I'm healthier than I've ever been. I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm more myself. I can't stress that enough," Ellen says. "I think kindness is the key to yourself and to other people. … I think I found out who I was, and I think I really try to be a better person every single day. And she [sc. Portia de Rossi, her wife] makes me better.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Ellen's interview on Oprah show, 9th of November 2009

People, Thinking, Personality

“In this allegory the seeker, trying to reach the One, is drawn by two horses, one white and noble and temperate, and the other surly, stubborn, passionate and black. The one is forever aiding him in his upward journey to the portals of heaven, the other is forever confounding him. The Chairman has not stated it yet, but he is at the point at which he must now announce that the white horse is temperate reason, the black horse is dark passion, emotion. He is at the point at which these must be described, but the false note suddenly becomes a chorus.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 30

Passion, Horse, Falseness

“Gary Ross is amazing. He’s just—he always has a billion ideas of what he wants, but has a very clear perspective also; he just makes it work. He really does. He’s trying different things and making everything look amazing.”

Liam Hemsworth (1990) Australian actor

November 1, 2012, Q&A: Liam Hemsworth on The Hunger Games and Losing Weight for His Role, Krista Smith, November 8, 2011, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/11/Liam-Hunger-Games-Post,

Idea

“This ruling has finally nailed down the coffin of what was from the beginning an ill-penned accord. This should make all those who authored and had a hand in writing the accord to get red in the face and immediately turn in their resignation from the government for trying to bungle our Constitution.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2008/1014_escudero1.asp 2008, Statement: on the MOA-AD Supreme Court Decision

“In the Autumn semester, 1955, I taught Principles of Economics, and found it a challenge to convey basic microeconomic theory to students. Why/how could any market approximate a competitive equilibrium? I resolved that on the first day of class the following semester, I would try running a market experiment that would give the students an opportunity to experience an actual market, and me the opportunity to observe one in which I knew, but they did not know what were the alleged driving conditions of supply and demand in that market”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Vernon L. Smith (2002) in: " Vernon L. Smith - Biographical http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/smith-bio.html". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 13 Jun 2014.

Autumn

“I began to get up at two or three in the morning and work for twelve to fifteen hours a day. I’d get so emotionally drained by the writing, that I’d feel sick at the end of the day. My family became worried about me and they invited a friend, who was a writer in Los Angeles, to see me. He told me that he’d heard how serious I was about my writing, so he was willing to take a little time off of his busy schedule to glance at my work. I gave him the latest version of my manuscript. He took it home and came back to see me the following week. His face was long. He told me that he was sorry to say this but, as a family friend, he had the obligation to be truthful, so he’d tell me straight out that I had no talent. The book was terrible. And also, I was trying to write way beyond my mental capabilities.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Truth, Books, Family, Angels

“The chief weakness in France’s anti-terrorism strategy is the inability of its leadership elite to agree on a workable definition of the threat the nation faces. Many still cling to the notion that Bouhelel and other terrorists are trying to take revenge against France for tis colonial past. Yet Tunisia, where Bouhelel’s family came from in the 1960s, has been independent for more than 60 years, double the life of the terrorist — who had not been there, even as a tourist. Some, like the Islamologist Gilles Kepel, blame French society for “the sense of exclusion” inflicted on immigrants of Muslim origin. However, leaving aside self-exclusion, there are few barriers that French citizens of Muslim faith can’t cross. Today, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Manuel Valls includes at least two Muslim ministers. Others still claim that France is being hit because of Muslim grievances over Palestine, although successive French governments have gone out of their way to sympathize with the “Arab cause.” France was the first nation to impose an arms embargo on Israel in 1967 and the first in the West to recognize the PLO. The blame-the-victim school also claims that France is attacked because of the “mess in the Middle East,” although the French took no part in toppling Saddam Hussein and have stayed largely on the sidelines in the conflict in Syria. Isn’t it possible that this new kind of terrorism, practiced by neo-Islam, is not related to any particular issue? Isn’t it possible that Bouhelel didn’t want anything specific because he wanted everything, starting with the right to kill people not because of what they did but because of who they were?”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"A cry from France: After Nice, can we finally face the truth about this war?" http://nypost.com/2016/07/15/a-cry-from-france-after-nice-can-we-finally-face-the-truth-about-this-war/ New York Post (July 15, 2016) New York Post

Life, People, School, Family

“I used to do Grade Exams, but my mum will tell you I didn't over-practise for them at all. I never practised, just played. I loved to play. I loved to play a lot* If one mistake is made with young children, it is trying to make them practise rather than just letting them play.' She played hymns at church ('My parents were very religious when we were young') and 'all the Top of the Pops number ones next morning at school. Things like David Bowie's "Life On Mars". That's got a very good piano part. And ever since I was six or seven years old, I always liked Bach - that's why I recorded the Anna Magdalene Notebook, little 16-bar preludes that Bach wrote for children.' I was amazed at how serious the other kids were about the whole thing, much more disciplined than I was, and with this attitude of "Ooh, I can't play sports because I might hurt my fingers" or "I can't listen to pop music because that's really terrible.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

Childhood

Love, Life, Children, School

“I’m trying to decide whether we can afford to be merciful. The Arbai were merciful, but when confronted with evil, mercy becomes an evil.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 358)

Evil

“Last year, initially The Scotsman newspaper — being Scottish and J. K. Rowling being Scottish — and because of the English tendency to try and tear down their idols, they kept trying to build stories which said J. K. Rowling ripped off Neil Gaiman. They kept getting in touch with me and I kept declining to play because I thought it was silly. And then The Daily Mirror in England ran an article about that mad woman who was trying to sue J. K. Rowling over having stolen muggles from her. And they finished off with a line saying [something like]: And Neil Gaiman has accused her of stealing.
Luckily I found this online and I found it the night it came out by pure coincidence and the reporter's e-mail address was at the bottom of the thing so I fired off an e-mail saying: "This is not true, I never said this. You are making this up." I got an apologetic e-mail back, but by the time I'd gotten the apologetic e-mail back it was already in The Daily Mail the following morning and it was very obvious that The Daily Mail‘s research [had] consisted of reading The Daily Mirror. And you're going: journalists are so lazy.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

On stories which implied that Harry Potter was merely a revised Timothy Hunter of Gaiman's The Books of Magic, in January magazine interview (2002) http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/gaiman.html

Tear, Time, Reading, Madness

“After a death, you eat and drink and remember the good things and try to laugh again. Grief profits no one, least of all the departed, who are quit of it for ever.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Niccoló Tolentino in Ch. 1
Masterclass (1988)

Death, Drink

“There are no U. S. flyers in our country. The bodies were handed over to the Americans. We have no other bodies of flyers or living flyers in the Soviet Union. If we had, why should we try to hide them?”

Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman

Traveling With Mikoyan Quote By Quote (1959)

Country

“The Roman Empire, like any other empire, was made up purely of bureaucrats, the army, the priests and everything else, and he systematically goes from one institution to the other, trying to provoke them and trying to get an action out of them, and this is why in our view the misconception is that Caligula was completely mad… Anyway, he tries to destroy the institutions. Of course, naturally, he never fails. I mean, he does fail, simply because it's impossible to destroy a bureaucracy, and I think that is a very relevant point for modern-day audiences.”

Malcolm McDowell (1943) English actor

As quoted in A Documentary on the Making of Gore Vidal's Caligula [documentary] (1981), Cinemedia West Corporation

Nature, Thinking, Madness

“After having my daughter, I made a conscious effort to regain control of my health and my body. But I didn't want to do a crash diet. I was a mom now. I needed to change my ways and set an example for my child. … A year later (around November 2013), my husband and I decided we wanted to try a completely plant-based diet … And so the journey began that helped me get into the best shape of my life. Little did I know the long-lasting effects it would have. I thought, like with most diets, I would feel deprived and hate food, that I would miss out on restaurants and celebrations, that I would get headaches and be irritable, etc. I was wrong about all of that. It took a few days to adjust, but what I discovered was increased energy, better sleep, weight loss, improved digestion, clarity, and an incredibly positive feeling for my actions and the effects it would have on those around me and the environment.”

Beyoncé (1981) American singer, songwriter and actress

Foreword https://books.google.it/books?id=KfeoBAAAQBAJ&pg=PP10 to Marco Borges's The 22-Day Revolution, New York: Penguin, 2015

Life, Hate, Health, Food

“The darker the subject, the more light you must try to shed on the matter. And vice versa.”

Alan Ayckbourn (1939) English playwright

The Crafty Art of Playwriting (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) p. 3.

Light

“Try not to use two actions. Like when kicking, Wing Chun doesn't like to lift the knee first and then kick because this is a two step action. Also the line of force is wrong because your kick will not have ground support. Instead, your kick will transmit back to your body to off-balance you. This is why Yip Man's kick in the second set looks a bit funny at first. We want to travel in a straight line from the ground to the target, not lift the knee first.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung Applied the Principle of a One-Step Action to Execute a Kick Kicking and Kneeing Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

Travel, Support

“It required a lot less energy, intelligence, and competence to run against government than to try to make government work.”

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

Page 134
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Intelligence

“It was her own evil assumptions that had done her in. She hadn’t even considered the third possible explanation for his strange behavior—that he was a perfectly nice man, without an ounce of guile, just trying to be helpful. People helped people in California. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She’d only been in New York a few weeks, and already she was turning hard and suspicious.”

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 2, “An Unexpected Gift” (p. 33)

People, Behavior, Evil, Help

“I remember walking to the cricket ground with the team, sometimes trying to feel, and sometimes trying not to feel, that I was one of them; and the conviction I had, which comes so quickly to a boy, that nothing in the world mattered except that we should win.”

L. P. Hartley book The Go-Between

The Go-Between (1953)

World, Feeling, Boy

“One gets the impression that people come to Los Angeles in order to divorce themselves from the past, here to live or try to live in the rootless pleasure world of an adult child.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

People, Pleasure, World, Angels

“If slaves make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. But they won't make soldiers. As a class they are wanting in every qualification of a soldier. Better by far to yield to the demands of England and France and abolish slavery and thereby purchase their aid, than resort to this policy, which leads as certainly to ruin and subjugation as it is adopted; you want more soldiers, and hence the proposition to take negroes into the Army. Before resorting to it, at least try every reasonable mode of getting white soldiers. I do not entertain a doubt that you can, by the volunteering policy, get more men into the service than you can arm. I have more fears about arms than about men, For Heaven’s sake, try it before you fill with gloom and despondency the hearts of many of our truest and most devoted men, by resort to the suicidal policy of arming our slaves.”

Howell Cobb (1815–1868) American politician

Howell Cobb. "Letter to James A. Seddon", in: Encyclopædia Britannica] (1911), Hugh Chisholm, editor, 11th ed., Cambridge University Press.
Quote regarding suggestions that the Confederates turn their slaves into soldiers. Also quoted as 'You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong'.

Men, Fear, Suicide, Heart

“Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing. […] Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand. In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York.”

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

Source: Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938), Chapter 29, "While the Doctors Consult", p. 366.

Women, Children, Understanding, Sea

“Many pro football players run 100 yards with a ball while a bunch of HUGE guys try to stop them, hurt them, stomp on them etc. They do it because they get paid well! Do you REALLY believe God's promises about rewards for the martyrs? (Matthew 5:10; 24:13; 1 Thessalonians 3:4; 1 Timothy 2:12; 3:12, etc.) The 1st century Christians sure did! The Romans were amazed that they seemed so eager to die for their faith! Tens of thousands are dying yearly in Communist, Hindu and Muslim countries RIGHT NOW. Are we willing to suffer for the Lord? We will find out!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 157

God, Faith, Guy, Suffering

“I don’t mind people admiring me if they want to but I don’t think it’s very logical. It’s not like I was St. George knocking off some dumb dragon or anything like that. First of all, you’re talking about something I did a long, long time ago. Secondly, we were doing things that were not expected to last a lifetime. We figured they’d last about three years and then disappear forever. Remember there was no television back then and no place for the cartoons to go after they left the theaters. But I’m not trying to demean what we did. I always took the work very seriously and I’m proud to have been associated with the work we did. It’s just that adulation is impractical and makes me uncomfortable. Nobody noticed us back then. Nobody called us geniuses. And we didn’t feel like artists. We were just trying to make people laugh.”

Chuck Jones (1912–2002) American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films

Orange County Register, October 22, 1989

People, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“Just like an amnesiac, trying to get my senses back.
Oh where did they go.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"Laughing with a Mouth of Blood"
Actor (2009)

Sense

“The international press are trying to create some sort of hysteria around ABBA that doesn't exist. They are trying to make a myth out of us.”

Anni-Frid Lyngstad (1945) Swedish female singer

Ward, Daniel. "At The Crossroads." Agnetha Fältskog: The Girl With the Golden Hair. London: Fonthill Media, 2016. N. pag. Print.
Sveriges Magasin (1977)

“The Ego is the great veiled mystery of the world... I believe in it and in its eternal, immutable form. Its path is, in some strange and peculiar manner, our path. And for this reason I am immersed in the phenomenon of the Individual, the so-called whole Individual, and I try in every way to explain and present it. What are you? What am I? Those are the questions that constantly persecute and torment me and perhaps also play some part in my art.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

1930s, On my Painting (1938)

World, Art, Way, Question

“This is a message to all those out there who think that you need animal products to be fit and strong. Almost two years after becoming vegan I am stronger than ever before and I am still improving day by day. Don't listen to those self proclaimed nutrition gurus and the supplement-industry trying to tell you that you need meat, eggs and dairy to get enough protein. There are plenty plant-based protein-sources and your body is going to thank you for stopping to feed it with dead-food. Go vegan and feel the power!”

Patrik Baboumian (1979) German strength-athlete

Message attached to his YouTube video “555kg yoke-carry for 10m in the middle of Berlin” (1 September 2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vUQISAuFiI.

Food, Feeling, Thinking, Strong

“Well I'm afraid it simply does, um, [the Catholic Church] does condemn [homosexuality], yes, it calls it a - the official word is disorder, but it was refined by the current Pontiff, Ratzinger, who called it a 'moral evil'. But on the other hand we must remember, as the point that was made is that the church is very loose on moral evils because, although they try to accuse people like me who believe in the empiricism and the enlightenment of somehow what they call moral relativism, as if it's some appalling sin where what it actually means is thought, um, they um, they for example thought that slavery was perfectly fine… absolutely okay, and then they didn't, and what is the point of the Catholic Church if it says 'oh well we couldn't know better because nobody else did?”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

(To the affirmative team) Then what are you for?!
Answering a question during the Intelligence² debate: "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world", November 7th 2009
2000s

People, Evil

“I am not that person who walks in a room with my nose in the sky. I smile at people when I meet them, and I like photos of me when I'm smiling because they show my personality. I am always trying to have fun.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Interview by Kate Sullivan for Allure, April 2010

People, Smile, Photo, Personality

“When I went vegetarian at age eleven, it was a remarkably easy transition. A boy at my school was attempting to kill creatures in the pond. When I tried to stop him, he said, “You eat animals,” like that meant I had no right to try and save something that could end up on my plate later. The hypocrisy of my actions became crystal clear in that moment. I decided, no more meat. … When I first started working for two organizations supporting anti-factory farming, vegan outreach and humane education, my choice to go vegan became that much clearer. I realized veganism is the only diet that can change the world. … You can expect a healthier body, and the feeling of pride that goes hand-in-hand with living according to your values. That’s something that many people aspire to, but few people achieve.”

Alicia Silverstone (1976) American actress

"How to Transition from Vegetarianism to Veganism", in The Kind Life (9 April 2013) http://thekindlife.com/blog/2013/04/how-to-transition-from-vegetarian-to-vegan/

People, Age, World, Education

“Let us think of standards as a way to move from publication to innovation, to move from trying to increase a meaningless impact factor to actually having an impact and fostering new ideas that people can build upon.”

Stephen F Bush

Bush, Stephen F., Keynote Speech, First IEEE International Conference on Communications 2012 Workshop on Telecommunications: From Research to Standards July 18, 2012.

People, Way, Idea, Thinking

“I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Feeling, Bird, Reading, Housing

“After we have become familiar with the new idea, however, after it has become part of our general stock of theoretical concepts, our expectations are brought more into balance with its actual uses, and its excessive popularity is ended. A few zealots persist in the old key-to-the-universe view of it; but less driven thinkers settle down after a while to the problems the idea has really generated. They try to apply it and extend it where it applies and where it is capable of extension; and they desist where it does not apply or cannot be extended. It becomes, if it was, in truth, a seminal idea in the first place, a permanent and enduring part of our intellectual armory. But it no longer has the grandiose, all-promising scope, the infinite versatility of apparent application, it once had. The second law of thermodynamics, or the principle of natural selection, or the notion of unconscious motivation, or the organization of the means of production does not explain everything, not even everything human, but it still explains something; and our attention shifts to isolating just what that something is, to disentangling ourselves from a lot of pseudoscience to which, in the first flush of its celebrity, it has also given rise.”

Clifford Geertz book The Interpretation of Cultures

Source: The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), p. 3-4

Truth, Law, Motivation, Idea

“Kenley is alleged to have sexually assaulted her eleven-year-old stepson, then ditched out on bond. The FBI says Kenley has ties to Arkansas. Talk about trying to find a needle in a hay stack.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

“But she just stood there, scared that I might snap
I looked in her eyes and there were years of disappointment starin' right back
And I was scared too, scared of what she would say
But I was embarassed like I, like I sat through three Madea plays
Before she walked away, Misery stopped
And she said 'look at your music career, you're in the same spot'
'Nah,' I said, 'don't even try me
Because you used to stand beside me
But I moved so far ahead you're ninety feet behind me”

Danny! (1983) American rapper

"Misery"
Albums, And I Love H.E.R. (2008)

Music, Disappointment

“During the LA riots English people were trying to sympathize with me, "Oh Bill, crime is horrible. If it's any consolation, crime is awful here, too." Shut up. This is Hobbiton and I'm Bill-bo Hicks … You gotta see English crime. It's hilarious. You don't know if you're reading the front page or the comic section over there. I swear to God. I read an article front page of the paper one day, in England: "Yesterday, some hooligans knocked over a dustbin in Shaftesbury." … Wooooo. The hooligans are loose! The hooligans are loose! … What if they become ruffians? I would hate to be a dustbin in Shaftesbury tonight. [to the tune of "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who] "No one knows what it's like … to be a dustbin … in Shaftesbury … with hooligans …"”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Arizona Bay (1997)

God, Hate, People, Reading

“I was in a bar a few nights ago, moving from stool to stool, trying to get lucky… But there was no gum under any of them. And I hear giggling behind me. At first I don't mind, but the giggling continues… Finally, I thought "What's so amusing?" I turn around, and these two guys, for the last, oh, half hour or so, have been throwing darts into my head. It's a good thing I heard them! I said, "Look, you bums," 'cause I was angry now, "As soon as this game is over, hit the road!"”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

But as I left that bar, one thing stuck in my mind...
E=MO² (1985)

Guy, Game, Night

“I doubt myself every day. I think most writers do. It’s part of the process. It’s in part what keeps you trying to write better each day, each book. If you were ever completely satisfied, I think you might just move on to something else. So you persevere. My bandmate, Stephen King, says successful writing is 5% talent, 5% luck, and 90% perseverance. You hit walls, reviews, dead-ends, editors, trends, and you wake up in the morning and keep going. You write for the joy of writing. It’s the best job in the world. I never—never—take this opportunity for granted. I try to earn it every day I’m in the chair.”

Ridley Pearson (1953) American writer

Interview with Ridley Pearson http://blog.booksamillion.com/author-spotlight/author-interviews/2016/08/interview-ridley-pearson/ (August 22, 2016)

Books, World, Thinking, Success

“It wasn't about, 'Oh I want to make a film where I get to kiss a 10-year-old boy'. To me it was I wanted to make a film where you're trying to understand love.”

Nicole Kidman (1967) Australian-American actress and film producer

During a Press Conference at the Venice Film Festival 2004, on the polemic scene from her movie, "Birth"; quoted in Jamaica Gleaner http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040909/ent/ent2.html

Love, Boy, Understanding, Kiss

“Bright-minded young people think poorly of existing institutions and want to abolish them. Well, one doesn't need to be young to dislike institutions. But the dreary fact remains that, even in the darkest ages, it was institutions that made society work, and if civilisation is to survive society must somehow be made to work.At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 13: Heroic Materialism

Men, People, Age, History

“If I were to be asked what two of the root principles are which we should always keep in view in trying to decide on a political issue, in judging of legislation, in judging of political action, I think I should say common sense and the preservation of what always has been the most precious thing in this country—individual freedom. If you apply these tests, you will seldom go far wrong. There are many people to-day who think you can cure the ills of the world by legislation: but you must examine the legislation they propose to see whether it is adapted to the practical experience of daily life, whether the freedom of the individual is affected by it. And if you cannot be satisfied on those points, you may be quite sure that that legislation in the long run will do more harm than it will do good.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the thirtieth anniversary of the Junior Imperial League in Kingsway Hall (19 June 1926), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 18-19.
1926

Life, People, World, Thinking

“I like films that rest in the memory so I try and choose parts which have some kind of social or emotional force. For me, being an actress is not just a profession but a profession of faith.”

Isabelle Adjani (1955) French actress

Joyeux Anniversaire Isabelle Adjani http://www.city-connect.org/happy-birthday-isabelle-adjani/.

Faith, Memory, Parting

Quotes about try page 44

Quotes about try
page 44