Quotes about try
page 48

Jair Bolsonaro photo
Ward Cunningham photo
Albert Jay Nock photo
Johnny Cash photo
Harry Chapin photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“And my intention is to try to form a collection of many such things, which would not be quite unworthy of the title 'heads of the people.' By working hard, boy, I hope to succeed in making something good. It isn't there yet, but I aim at it, and struggle for it. I want something serious, - some thing fresh - something with soul in it! Forward - forward”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands, 3 Jan. 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 257), pp. 20-21
1880s, 1883

Immortal Technique photo
Andrew Sega photo
Kate Bush photo

“Give me a break!
Ooh, let me try!
Give me something to show
For my miserable life!
Give me something to take!
Would you break even my wings,
Just like a swallow?”

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

Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

Ai Weiwei photo

“Myself, I try to search for the new way, always trying to set up a new possibility and to find the new tools to express myself. To reach a broader audience.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei, interview by Christiane Amanpour, 2010

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought;
what is necessary is only to try to think them again.”

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

Alles Gescheite ist schon gedacht worden.
Man muss nur versuchen, es noch einmal zu denken.
Bk. II, Observations in the Mindset of the Wanderer: Art, Ethics, Nature
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)
Variant: All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.

David Graeber photo
Michael Moore photo

“You've got the Bush Administration using that event in such a disrespectful and immoral way — using the deaths of those people to try and shred our civil liberties, change our Constitution, round people up. That's not how you honor them, by using them to change our way of life as a free country.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

On the use of the September 11th attacks to expand governmental powers and diminish civil liberties, through "The Patriot Act". — CBS interview (June 2004) http://news4colorado.com/topstories/topstories_story_179195105.html
2004, Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Bob Dylan photo

“Fools glorify themselves, trying to manipulate Satan.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), Slow Train

Ignatius Sancho photo
Bob Beatty photo
Ross Mintzer photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Margaret Drabble photo
Alan Grayson photo
Patrick White photo

“The further institutional designers try to move along the continuum toward explicit proactive systems that force integration in exclusionary and racist societies, the more they will learn about how much redesign of ethnic antipathy is feasible in them.”

Ian Shapiro (1956) American political theorist

"The State of Democratic Theory" in The Democracy Sourcebook (2003) edited by Robert Dahl, Ian Shapiro, and José Antonio Cheibub.

Eoin Colfer photo
Franka Potente photo
Phil Brown (footballer) photo

“I've got to try and educate not only the players but the Derby fans and the board of directors that…”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

29-Jun-2005, Radio 5
I'll learn 'em.

Jeff Foxworthy photo
P. W. Botha photo

“The United States needs a man at the helm who knows some psychology, who would know that you can't try to dictate to a people from abroad without stiffening their resistance.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

As Minister of Defence, interviewed in the New York Times, 28 October 1977

Herman Cain photo
Poul Anderson photo

“What I’m trying to make you know, not in your forebrain but in your marrow, is that reality never conforms very well to the textbooks, and sometimes it doesn’t conform at all.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

The Sorrow of Odin the Goth (p. 387)
Time Patrol

Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: I can't help but feel a little resp… hell, who am I kidding? I feel like I started this whole thing. This is all my fault. I've been at the epicenter of everything controversial ever since you took over—actually, since before that, I'm sure you remember, John-Boy.
Cena: I was there.
Punk: You were there. I'm the guy that made walking out look cool. The thing about is I think everybody in the parking lot having a picnic right now have completely misunderstood what I was trying to do. See, I didn't break my contract, I didn't break my word. My contract expired, and I was trying to prove a point to an entire company, not just one man. If anybody has any reason to walk out of the WWE, well you can probably put me at the top of that list. I mean, my microphone constantly cuts out, your friend Kevin Nash runs through the… well, slowly, briskly runs through the crowd, jumps me and screws me not once, but twice. Somebody here doesn't want me to be the WWE Champion. The thing about it is this entire industry is based on men solving their problems in between these ropes. This is the company that gives you Hell in a Cell, this is the company that gives you the Elimination Chamber. I don't wanna sound like a broken record, but "unsafe working environment"? I thrive on that! Hell, this is professional wrestling, this ain't ballet! If you believe in something, you stand and you fight, and you fight on the front line; you don't have a hippie sit-in and grill tofu dogs in the parking lot like a bunch of hippies. [To Triple H] When I had a problem with you and your authority, I dealt with you personally. [To Cena] And you, you big boy scout, when I had a problem with you being the poster boy for this company, I dealt with you personally. Shea-Mo, I'm sure sooner or later, you're gonna step on my toes, I will deal with you personally. Now, I know you three smiley good guys look across the ring from me, and I'm the last guy you expect to see here, [to Triple H] and I know I'm the last guy you expect to see in the foxhole with you. But you know what? Here I am. So… so I got a question—what do we do now?
Triple H: "What do we do now?" That's a big question, "what do we do now?" I say we do what we do on Monday Night Raw—we shut up and fight! How about this? As long as you guys are in agreement, Sheamus, you got yourself a match, fella. Tonight, right here, right now, you will go one-on-one with… [Punk raises his hand] one John Cena. And since I'm the only guy kinda wearing stripes out here, I'll referee. And, foxhole buddy, I got a whole table over there lined up with headphones and pipe bombs just waiting for you with your name on it. And if you want, you can go over there and say anything you feel like.
Punk: You want me to do commentary?!
Triple H: I want you to do commentary.
Punk: Can I wear your blazer?!
Triple H: You can even wear my blazer!
Punk: I'm in!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

October 10, 2011
WWE Raw

Albert Lutuli photo
Cesare Pavese photo
Fritjof Capra photo
Mohammad bin Salman photo
James Morrison photo

“Oh it tears me up
I try to hold on but it hurts too much
I try to forgive, but it's not enough to make it all okay.”

James Morrison (1984) English singer-songwriter and guitarist

Broken Strings
Song lyrics, Undiscovered (James Morrison album) (2006)

Glenn Beck photo

“It is difficult to deny at this point, isn't it? Isn't it? Is it a little hard to deny that radicals, Islamicists, Communists, socialists will work together against Israel, against capitalism, and they'll try to work together to overturn stability? Who in the media is telling you this? Who? NAME THEM! Where are they? How can they possibly deny it at this point? And why wouldn't they tell you these things? Why?”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2011-02-22
Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
2011-02-24
Jon Bershad
Beck To The Media: How Can You Possibly Deny What I'm Saying At This Point?
Mediaite
2011-02-22
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/glenn-beck-to-the-media-how-can-you-possibly-deny-what-im-saying-at-this-point/
2011-02-24
Beck Blows His Stack: "How Can They Possibly Deny" That I Was Right About The Coming Islamo-Commie Global Takeover?
2011-02-22
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201102220044
2011-02-24
2010s, 2011

John Major photo

“John Major: What I don't understand, Michael, is why such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything.
Michael Brunson: You've said it, you said precisely that.
Major: I suppose Gus will tell me off for saying that, won't you Gus?
Brunson: No, no, no … it's a fair point. The trouble is that people are not perceiving you as winning.
Major: Oh, I know … why not? Because…
Brunson: Because rotten sods like me, I suppose, don't get the message clear [laughs].
Major: No, no, no. I wasn't going to say that - well partly that, yes, partly because of S-H-one-Ts like you, yes, that's perfectly right. But also because those people who are opposing our European policy have said the way to oppose the Government on the European policy is to attack me personally. The Labour Party started before the last election. It has been picked up and it is just one of these fashionable things that slips into the Parliamentary system and it is an easy way to proceed.
Brunson: But I mean you … has been overshadowed … my point is there, not just the fact that you have been overshadowed by Maastricht and people don't…
Major: The real problem is this…
Brunson: But you've also had all the other problems on top - the Mellors, the Mates … and it's like a blanket - you use the phrase 'masking tape' but I mean that's it, isn't it?
Major: Even, even, even, as an ex-whip I can't stop people sleeping with other people if they ought not, and various things like that. But the real problem is…
Brunson: I've heard other people in the Cabinet say 'Why the hell didn't he get rid of Mates on Day One?' Mates was a fly, you could have swatted him away.
Major: Yeah, well, they did not say that at the time, I have to tell you. And I can tell you what they would have said if I had. They'd have said 'This man was being set up. He was trying to do his job for his constituent. He had done nothing improper, as the Cabinet Secretary told me. It was an act of gross injustice to have got rid of him'. Nobody knew what I knew at the time. But the real problem is that one has a tiny majority. Don't overlook that. I could have all these clever and decisive things that people wanted me to do and I would have split the Conservative Party into smithereens. And you would have said, Aren't you a ham-fisted leader? You've broken up the Conservative Party.
Brunson: No, well would you? If people come along and…
Major: Most people in the Cabinet, if you ask them sensibly, would tell you that, yes. Don't underestimate the bitterness of European policy until it is settled - It is settled now.
Brunson: Three of them - perhaps we had better not mention open names in this room - perhaps the three of them would have - if you'd done certain things, they would have come along and said, 'Prime Minister, we resign'. So you say 'Fine, you resign'.
Major: We all know which three that is. Now think that through. Think it through from my perspective. You are Prime Minister. You have got a majority of 18. You have got a party still harking back to a golden age that never was but is now invented. And you have three rightwing members of the Cabinet actually resigned. What happens in the parliamentary party?
Brunson: They create a lot of fuss but you have probably got three damn good ministers in the Cabinet to replace them.
Major: Oh, I can bring in other people into the Cabinet, that is right, but where do you think most of this poison has come from? It is coming from the dispossessed and the never-possessed. You and I can both think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble. Would you like three more of the bastards out there? What's the Lyndon Johnson, er, maxim?
Brunson: If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.
Major: No, that's not what I had in mind, though it's pretty good.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Andrew Culf, "What the `wimp' really said to the S-H-one-T", The Guardian, 26 July 1993.
'Off-the-record' exchange with ITN reporter Michael Brunson following videotaped interview, 23 July 1993. Neither Major nor Brunson realised their microphones were still live and being recorded by BBC staff preparing for a subsequent interview; the tape was swiftly leaked to the Daily Mirror.

Anish Kapoor photo

“It is precisely in those moments when I don’t know what to do, boredom drives one to try …a host of possibilities… [to] either get somewhere or not get anywhere.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

[Grant, Jennifer, MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy Art of Raising a Family, http://books.google.com/books?id=8Iu1QtZR_X8C&pg=PT184, 1 May 2012, Worthy Publishing, 978-1-61795-099-5, 184–]

“Are you trying to tell me that there was a time before celebrities?”

Radio From Hell (September 6, 2005)

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Try not to have Emily exposed to hours and hours of TV. It is a vile drug which permeates the nervous system, especially in the young.”

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

Letter to son Eric McLuhan, regarding one of Eric's daughters, 1976
1970s

Paul Tillich photo
Karl Dönitz photo
Constantine P. Cavafy photo
Linus Torvalds photo

“[GPL] version 3 was not a good "here we give you version 2" and then we try to sneak in this new rules and try force everyone to upgrade; that was the part I disliked. The FSF did really sneaky stuff, downright immoral in my opinion.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=49m37s
DebConf 14: Q&A with Linus Torvalds
DebConf 2014 Portland
Youtube/Google
49min37
2014
Daniel Gillmore, Ana Guerrerero López.
2010s, 2014

Ezra Miller photo
Britney Spears photo
Billy Corgan photo
Anna Bartlett Warner photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Mr. T photo
Dave Sim photo
Tim Powers photo
Marvin Minsky photo

“Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes.”

Jamie Zawinski (1968) American programmer

Quoted in the UNIX-HATERS Handbook, chapter 7: " The X-Windows Disaster http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/unix-haters/x-windows/disaster.html"

André Breton photo
Daniel Dennett photo

“[I]f you want to reason about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason-responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of special consideration, I'm eager to [participate]. I certainly grant the existence of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for taking faith as a way of getting to the truth, and not, say, just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function that I do take seriously). But you must not expect me to go along with your defense of faith as a path to truth if at any point you appeal to the very dispensation you are supposedly trying to justify. Before you appeal to faith when reason has you backed into a corner, think about whether you really want to abandon reason when reason is on your side. You are sightseeing with a loved one in a foreign land, and your loved one is brutally murdered in front of your eyes. At the trial it turns out that in this land friends of the accused may be called as witnesses for the defense, testifying about their faith in his innocence. You watch the parade of his moist-eyed friends, obviously sincere, proudly proclaiming their undying faith in the innocence of the man you saw commit the terrible deed. The judge listens intently and respectfully, obviously more moved by this outpouring than by all the evidence presented by the prosecution. Is this not a nightmare? Would you be willing to live in such a land? Or would you be willing to be operated on by a surgeon you tells you that whenever a little voice in him tells him to disregard his medical training, he listens to the little voice? I know it passes in polite company to let people have it both ways, and under most circumstances I wholeheartedly cooperate with this benign agreement. But we're seriously trying to get at the truth here, and if you think that this common but unspoken understanding about faith is anything better than socially useful obfuscation to avoid mutual embarrassment and loss of face, you have either seen much more deeply into the issue that any philosopher ever has (for none has ever come up with a good defense of this) or you are kidding yourself.”

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Colin Wilson photo
Mark Hurd photo

“Leading is not just about managing people. To lead, you have to help people understand where we’re trying to take the company and what their role is in getting it there.”

Mark Hurd (1957–2019) American businessman, philanthropist and CEO of Oracle

Interview with Baylor Business Review: "Q & A with Mark Hurd" https://bbr.baylor.edu/mark-hurd-fa06/ (Fall 2006)

Begum Aga Khan photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo

“The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”

The Magician's Nephew (1955), Ch. 10: The First Joke and Other Matters
The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956)

John Travolta photo
James L. Brooks photo
Elton John photo

“You're the son of your father,
Try a little bit harder.
Do for me as he would do for you.
With blood and water bricks and mortar,
He built for you a home.
You're the son of your father,
So treat me as your own.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Son of Your Father
Song lyrics, Tumbleweed Connection (1970)

Sarah McLachlan photo
Trinny Woodall photo
Mark Kac photo

“I didn't even try to penetrate the comics, though many years later I came, somewhat grudgingly, to admire Pogo.”

Mark Kac (1914–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Source: Enigmas Of Chance (1985), Chapter 5, Cornell, p. 96.

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Maxime Bernier photo
Carl Sagan photo

“Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Emmett F. Fields, in "Atheism : An Affirmative View" (1980) http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/emmett_fields/affirmative_atheism.html
Misattributed

Amanda Palmer photo
Kent Hovind photo
Pierre Schaeffer photo

“People who try to create a musical revolution do not have a chance, but those who turn their back to music can sometimes find it.”

Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995) French musicologist

Electronic Musician magazine, December 1986
Interviews

Pierre de Coubertin photo

“I therefore think that I was right in trying from the outset of the Olympic revival to rekindle a religious awareness.”

Pierre de Coubertin (1863–1937) Founder of modern Olympic Games, pedagogue and historian

Stated in the year before he died, as quoted in "The Olympics, Sports and Religion — Is There a Conflict?", in Awake! magazine (8 September 2000)

Roger Ebert photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I'd hate to spend the rest of my life trying to outwit an eighteen-inch fish.”

Harold Geneen (1910–1997) American businessman

" Harold S. Geneen, 87, Dies; Nurtured AT&T http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/23/business/harold-s-geneen-87-dies-nurtured-itt.html?pagewanted=all" published 23 November 1997 in The New York Times.

Henry Moore photo
Harry Chapin photo
W. Edwards Deming photo
Eldridge Cleaver photo
Regina Spektor photo
Herbert Spencer photo
Matt Dillon photo
Susan Sontag photo
Ma Ying-jeou photo

“We have no reason to be pessimistic about the (cross-strait service trade) agreement or to be afraid of its impact. The government will try its best to minimize possible damage and maximize the business opportunities the agreement can create.”

Ma Ying-jeou (1950) Taiwanese politician, president of the Republic of China

Ma Ying-jeou (2013) cited in: " Trade pact failure would hurt our reputation: Ma http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/07/04/2003566313" in The Taipei Times, 4 July 2013.
Statement made in Taichung in commenting on the recently signed cross-strait service trade agreement between ARATS and SEF in Shanghai, 3 July 2013.
Other topics

Ralph Steadman photo
Nick Griffin photo