Quotes about try
page 63

“A play is like a free-flowing poem in some ways. The play, as you write, will tell you what the structure will be. But, sometimes you forget to ask those questions as you write and you end up spending a lot of time trying to find the essence of the play…”

Mando Alvarado actor

On how playwriting differs from television writing in “SIN MUROS: INTERVIEW WITH “LIVING SCULPTURE” PLAYWRIGHT MANDO ALVARADO” https://thetheatretimes.com/sin-muros-interview-living-sculpture-playwright-mando-alvarado/ in The Theatre Times

Way, Question, Time, Forgetting

“Another problem with our media, intellectuals, elites and posh class is that they are always negative. Desperate. Insecure. All signs of a weak institution. They are scared that if the hungry masses get empowered, they will destroy their empires built on the blood and sweat of the same people. That’s why they constantly try to keep the masses deprived, and their very existence in fear. They never let the masses forget who is Superior and who is Inferior.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

People, Fear, Problem, Forgetting

“The intellectual hierarchy has been demolished. It’s a sad commentary that in the world’s largest democracy, writers’ protest has become a subject of jokes. The power-hungry artists, writers, academics, and media-persons in India waste a huge amount of time making political statements to hide behind their lack of intellectual stands. Michel Houellebecq wrote Submission, a strong political statement; he didn’t get press coverage for returning some award. The lustre is gone from our intellectual discourse. Secularism has lost its ideological currency. Artists, writers, activists are all suspect. Media czars have lost their access to the corridors of power and to people’s hearts. It’s the overclass’ space that has been taken over by the underclass. Their discomfort is with the new order where the others are also heard. Hence, the feeling of shrinking space. They are intolerant of this new phenomenon – the emergence of the underclass. They try to devalue this new, empowered underclass by associating it with Modi and, therefore, Hindutva, and that’s a grave mistake. The universe that was full of their voice has expanded to accommodate this new voice. This is what they call an attack on FoE and growing intolerance.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

People, World, Sadness, Making love

“Religion ~The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. Fundamentally he may be faithful to his own religion. But he will not be satisfied with the official doctrines of his Church, and will try to penetrate deeper into god’s workshop. And such is the purpose of our initiation. According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 26

God, Bad luck, Faith, Religion

“We keep acting without thinking and you think the solution is to do it one more time. You have allied yourself with stupid, violent men, and you are trying to convince yourself that being stupid and violent will work. That makes you stupid too. I will never help you. I’ll fight you now.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Abaddon's Gate (2013), Chapter 39 (p. 404)

Men, Stupidity, Making love, Thinking

“During a lecture the Oxford linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin made the claim that although a double negative in English implies a positive meaning, there is no language in which a double positive implies a negative. To which he decided to just go ahead and keep striving to figure it out HE MY FRIENDS WAS A DETERMINED HONEST SUPERIOR WEALTHY TRY HARDISH SWEATY PERSON WHO NEEDS TO DO I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT!”

Sidney Morgenbesser (1921–2004) American philosopher

Personality

“Expectations on the performance of race and gender are simultaneously high and low, depending on who is looking or asking. I prefer to keep all the options in the air, to try and better understand the conundrum that inequality creates---not just in culture, but internally.”

Kara Walker (1969) African American artist

On the expectations for an African American artist in “Art Talk with Kara Walker” https://www.arts.gov/art-works/2012/art-talk-kara-walker (National Endowment of the Arts; 2012 Feb 1)

Understanding, Dependency

“Hindu society is guilty of trying to manage its own affairs at its own sacred site, so it deserves to be punished with administrative restrictions on its access to the Rama-Janmabhoomi, and perhaps with further judicial restrictions later. The judges simply confirm what is explicitly laid down in article 30 of the Constitution: minorities enjoy privileges which are denied to Hindus, including the non-interference by the government in the affairs of their places of worship. Hindus have no right to complain when the government takes over Hindu temples, nor when it works hand-in-glove with Islamic activists trying to take over a Hindu sacred site. They should be satisfied with the status of second-class citizens, to which they have been so well accustomed by centuries of colonial rule, Islamic as well as Christian.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

“I was encouraged to look around me and to paint what I saw. I painted my story, and it had a lot of angles to it. I was trying to explain how I saw life as a black person living in America, and I put things together that were not acceptable. A lot of people did not want these kind of paintings representing America in any sense, but I wanted to tell my story and what I saw…”

Faith Ringgold (1930) American artist

On the Civil Rights Movement puncturing the image of the American Dream in https://www.theartnewspaper.com/interview/faith-ringgold-discusses-civil-rights-and-children-s-books-ahead-of-solo-serpentine-gallery-show in The Art Newspaper (2019 Jun 5)

Life, People, Sense, Painting

“Nature is interested in only two things—to survive and to reproduce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that, all the cultural input, is responsible for the boredom of man. So we have varieties of religious experience. You are not satisfied with your own religious teachings or games; so you bring in others from India, Asia or China. They become interesting because they are something new. You pick up a new language and try to speak it and use it to feel more important. But basically, it is the same thing.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Description: from U.G Krishnamurti
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Feeling, Game, Nature

“We are a part of this take-down culture where people are trying to twist your words.”

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

2019
Source: https://twitter.com/steinhauserNH1/status/1096852721800544256

People, Parting

“Looking back on the history of these 30 years, one can well ask whether Hindu-Muslim unity has been realized? Whether efforts have not been made for its realization? And whether any efforts remain to be made? The history of the last 30 years shows that Hindu-Muslim unity has not been realized. On the contrary, there now exists the greatest disunity between them: that efforts—sincere and persistent—have been made to achieve it, and that nothing now remains to be done to achieve it except surrender by one party to the other. If anyone who is not in the habit of cultivating optimism where there is no justification for it, said that the pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity is like a mirage and that the idea must now be given up, no one can have the courage to call him a pessimist or an impatient idealist. It is for the Hindus to say whether they will engage themselves in this vain pursuit in spite of the tragic end of all their past endeavours, or give up the pursuit of unity and try for a settlement on another basis.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

History, Idea, Courage, Optimism

“I always felt that, as a musician, we show up for one day for a cause and we really believe in what we’re talking about, but then the next day we have our own concerns. I want to try to have a more long-term relationship between artists and people who are really trying to affect change in the world.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

On his job as the curator of Global Citizen Festival. source http://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/chris-martin-will-curate-global-citizen-festival-for-next-15-years-164240/

People, World, Change

“Stop giving a s— what other people think of you. We make decisions too often based on that…When we start to live for ourselves, and be a little bit more selfish, I think we’ll lead more fulfilling lives. So I think what we need to do, is stare at ourselves in the mirror a little bit longer, and really own who we are and not try to be what we think others want us to be.”

Lena Waithe (1984) American actress, producer, and screenwriter

On how women should embrace their true selves in “Lena Waithe's Message to Women: 'Stop Giving a S--- What Other People Think'” https://variety.com/video/lena-waithe-message-to-women-variety-cover-shoot/ in Variety Magazine

People, Making love, Thinking, Decision

“The basic contradiction the great proletarian Cultural Revolution is trying to resolve is the one between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the proletarian and bourgeois roads. The main point of the movement is to struggle against the capitalist roaders in authority in the party.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Directives on the Cultural Revolution (1966-1972)

“Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Beloved (1987)

Love, Life, Making love, Way

“Despite his caricature as being indecisive, he was one of the most decisive leaders this nation has seen. On all crucial issues, he took decisions that have continued to shape India’s rise over the last two decades. Manmohan Singh may be touted as the father of Indian economic reforms; but as Singh has himself acknowledged, it was Rao who fathered the process. Singh was an economic technocrat with little understanding of political constraints. It was Rao who shielded Singh from the left wing of his own party, a flank that had left no stone unturned in opposing the economic liberalization programme. Rao made economic reforms politically tenable at a time when his own party was out to scuttle his most ambitious undertaking. How ironical, then, that today the same Congress-wallahs try to take credit for India’s economic success without acknowledging Rao’s role.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

Harsh V. Pant in: "Give Narasimha Rao his due".

Understanding, Decision, Time, Success

“The threat to public schools arises from their defects, not their accomplishments. In small, closely knit communities where public schools, particularly elementary schools, are now reasonably satisfactory, not even the most comprehensive voucher plan would have much effect. The public schools would remain dominant, perhaps somewhat improved by the threat of potential competition. But elsewhere, and particularly in the urban slums where the public schools are doing such a poor job, most parents would undoubtedly try to send their children to nonpublic schools.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 6 “What’s Wrong with Our Schools”, p. 170

Children, School, Communication, Parent

“The essence of the problem is that once we begin to allow exceptions for special interests, we move from a system of private arrangements to a political system where everyone’s freedom is limited and government becomes a matter of trying to balance those interests. Nobody really wins under these terms.”

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

“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)

Problem, Freedom

“The basic honor code of the savage -bravery for men, chastity for women- is still recognizable beneath the surfaces of the popular culture that has done so much to efface it. If you doubt it, try calling a man a wimp or a woman a slut.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

pg 74
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

Women, Men

“After the elections, Dr Singh did try to be more assertive, taking a view on who would be in his Cabinet and who would not, and resisting the induction of the DMK’s A. Raja and T. R. Baalu, for their unsavoury reputations. Watching from the sidelines, I had hoped he would not buckle under pressure. Dr Singh stood his ground for a day, managed to keep Baalu out, but had to yield ground on Raja under pressure from his own party. To me, it was a reiteration of the message that the victory was not his but the Family’s.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

The Accidental Prime Minister (2014)

Family, Hope, Victory

“The idea was to have the accident and whatever explosion and fire was involved occur someplace isolated enough that no one else would see it, so that there would be as little an aspect of performance to the thing as I could manage and no temptation to spend my last few seconds trying to imagine what impressions the sight and sound of the impact might make on someone watching. I was partly concerned that it might be spectacular and dramatic and might look as if the driver was trying to go out in as dramatic a way as possible. This is the sort of shit we waste our lives thinking about.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

"Good Old Neon", Oblivion: Stories
Short stories

Making love, Way, Imagination, Idea

“This life takes a lot more courage than I ever gave it credit for. When I was growing up around here I was always fantasizing heroic shit without realizing that what was shaping up was going to be the greatest heroic adventure of them all: trying to live and be a decent human being. That shit takes more courage than I ever had.”

Junot Díaz (1968) Dominican-American writer

Profile in Playboy magazine (August 2013) http://www.playboy.com/articles/junot-diaz-brief-history

Life, Courage

“Whenever you work on something and try to solve one problem, and you end up helping or solving many other problems, it is a sign that what you are doing is good.”

Nathan Seiberg (1956) American physicist

as quoted by Sandhya Ramesh in: [Interview: 'There's No Conflict Between Lack of Evidence of String Theory and Work Being Done on It', The Wire, Bengaluru, 7 January 2018, https://thewire.in/science/theres-no-conflict-lack-evidence-string-theory-work-done]

Problem, Help

“We go in and try to be completely transparent with them: I am not a journalist, I’m a playwright, and I’m developing a piece that is creative and not going to be solely based on their lives but inspired by conversations that we have.”

Lynn Nottage (1964) American playwright

On how the interview process is different when writing a work of fiction in “An Interview with Lynn Nottage” https://www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2015/10/an-interview-with-lynn-nottage/ in The Interval (2015 Oct 14)

“In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

From an interview for Italian television (RAI) (10 March 1986) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106223 Second term as Prime Minister

People, Thinking, Personality

“To me there is only one way to judge a person, whatever his background, whatever his colour, whatever his religion, and that is what that person is, and not by his race or creed. That is what I believe in, that is what I will tell everyone and that is what I try to achieve everything.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Young Conservative Conference in Eastbourne (13 February 1977), quoted in The Times (14 February 1977), p. 3
Leader of the Opposition

Religion, Way, Personality

“There is less trouble and trauma involved in writing a new piece than in trying to salvage an unsatisfactory old one.”

Isaac Asimov book In Memory Yet Green

In Memory Yet Green (1979), p. 200
General sources

“About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)

Wisdom, Men, Friendship, War

“The Other Place, the astral plane, the land of dreams—it’s not a real place like, say, Walsall. But it’s a metaphor for a mathematical abstraction, a manifold containing an n-dimensional space where everything is the product of geometrical transformations, including mass and energy and time. Leakage between dimensions occurs there: it’s how we summon demons from the vasty deep, communicate with aliens, and try to extract our tax codes from the Inland Revenue.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Apocalypse Codex (2012), Chapter 14, “Appointment in Samarra” (p. 283)

Dreams, Communication, Mathematics, Time

“There’s a certain point beyond which any sufficiently extreme Calvinist sect becomes semiotically indistinguishable from the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. But even though their eschatology is insane, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they’re trying to summon up the elder gods.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Apocalypse Codex (2012), Chapter 7, “Communion” (p. 126)

God

“I generally try to avoid funerals: they make me angry. I know the purpose of a funeral is to provide comfort and a sense of closure for the bereaved; and I agree, in principle, that this is generally a good thing. But the default package usually comes with a priest, and when they start driveling on about how Uncle Fred (who died aged sixty-two of a hideous brain tumor) is safe in the ever-loving arms of Jesus, the effect it has on me is not to make me love my creator: it’s to wish I could punch him in the face repeatedly.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Fuller Memorandum (2010), Chapter 8, “Club Zero” (pp. 133-134)

Love, Age, Making love, Sense

“Why are you trying to shoot that cat?”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

”Because—” I squeeze off another shot “—it’s possessed!”...
Mo turns and looks at me harshly. “That looked just like a perfectly ordinary cat to me. If you’ve—”
“It was possessed by the animation nexus behind JENNIFER MORGUE Two!” I gabble. “The clue—he saw a laser dot and dodged—”
Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 16, “Reflex Decision” (p. 329; ellipsis represents a half-page elision)

Cats

“PowerPoint is symptomatic of a certain type of bureaucratic environment: one typified by interminable presentations with lots of fussy little bullet-points and flashy dissolves and soundtracks masked into the background, to try to convince the audience that the goon behind the computer has something significant to say. It’s the tool of choice for pointy-headed idiots with expensive suits and skinny laptops who desperately want to look as if they’re in command of the job, with all the facts at their fiddling fingertips, even if Rome is burning in the background. Nothing stands for content-free corporate bullshit quite like PowerPoint. And that’s just scratching the surface…”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 2, “Going Down to Dunwich” (pp. 42-43)

“Why could the typical investor expect any better success in trying to buy at low levels and sell at high levels than in trying to forecast what the market is going to do? Because if he does the former he acts only after the market has moved down into buying levels or up into selling levels. His role is not that of a prophet but of a businessman seizing clearly evident investment opportunities. He is not trying to be smarter than his fellow investors but simply trying to be less irrational than the mass of speculators who insist on buying after the market advances and selling after it goes down. If the market persists in behaving foolishly, all he seems to need is ordinary common sense in order to exploit its foolishness.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing (1949), Chapter II, The Investor and Stock-Market Fluctuations, p. 31

Sense, Success

“I love that Camilla is trying to figure it out. We tell kids there are no stupid questions. But when you throw race in the mix, there are a lot of questions — some are painful to ask, some are painful to answer and we all say stupid things sometimes. I hope readers feel after reading Cammi’s story that it’s not about one moment or interaction, it’s about staying heart strong and moving forward. Like Maya Angelou used to say, when you know better, you do better.”

Veronica Chambers (1970) writer

On the character arc of Camilla in “Author Interview: Veronica Chambers questions Mexican immigrant stereotypes in ‘The Go-Between’” https://www.hypable.com/author-interview-veronica-chambers-the-go-between/ in Hypable (2017 May 9)

Love, Pain, Stupidity, Making love

“When we look back over the course of our nation’s history, what we see again and again almost like clockwork are these predictable efforts by the wealthy elite to use race as a wedge. To pit poor whites against poor people of color for the benefit of the ruling elite. Many people don’t realize that even slavery as an institution—the emergence of an all-Black system of slavery—was to a large extent the result of plantation owners deliberately trying to pit poor whites against poor Blacks. And ensure that poor whites would not join in any kind of resistance, movement, struggle, or revolt with poor Blacks…”

Michelle Alexander (1967) American lawyer, civil rights activist and writer

On the elite’s influence on the poor in in “The struggle for racial justice has a long way to go” https://isreview.org/issue/84/struggle-racial-justice-has-long-way-go in the International Socialist Review (May 2012)

People, Color, History, Effort

“Life, I sometimes think—like dreams, like stories, like plans, even like lies if you will—is to be pondered on, interpreted, interrogated: but you had best not try to change it too radically in the middle, or you risk never finding its secret.”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 10 (p. 109)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Life, Secret, Dreams, Thinking

“I didn’t want to write it in OED English…As I was writing more and more I was aware that I was having it filtered through to me from various languages, various religions, various countries, and so in a sense I wanted to present it from this Western, global perspective, to try and capture something multicultural.”

Daljit Nagra (1966) British poet, teacher and broadcaster

On the specific English that he chose for his writings in “Daljit Nagra interview: Yoda-speak and Yorkshire voices” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10402180/Daljit-Nagra-interview-Yoda-speak-and-Yorkshire-voices.html in The Telegraph (2013 Oct 24)

Religion, Sense, Country

“We need a real test. The capitalists are operating alongside us. They are operating like robbers; they make profit; but they know how to do things. But you - you are trying to do it in a new way: you make no profit, your principles are communist, your ideals are splendid; they are written out so beautifully that you seem to be saints, that you should go to heaven while you are still alive. But can you get things done? We need a test, a real test, not the kind the Central Control Commission makes when it censures somebody and the All-Russia Central Executive Committee imposes some penalty. Yes, we want a real test from the view point of the national economy.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
1920s

Making love, Penalty, Way

“We must now try to sum up, to draw together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter Seven

Change, Drawing

“The forces fomenting antisemitism are the forces arrayed against oppressed people around the world, including Palestinians; the struggle against antisemitism is also the struggle for Palestinian freedom. I stand in solidarity with my friends in Israel, in Palestine, and around the world who are trying to resolve conflict, diminish hatred, and promote dialogue, cooperation, and understanding.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

"How to Fight Antisemitism," https://jewishcurrents.org/how-to-fight-antisemitism/ in Jewish Currents. 2010s, 2019, November 2019

People, World, Understanding, Freedom

“The discovery that one cannot convince an opponent and that it is hopeless to go on trying involves a confession of subjectivity that deprives the world of meaning.”

Mary McCarthy book The Oasis

Source: The Oasis (1949), p. 253

World

“The inextricable way pleasure and pain are mixed up with each other in this world is a mournful fact to beings who are all the time striving for pleasure alone. In the ideal world there is no pain, no misery. There is nothing but happiness. But in our world pain seems to have been the original feeling, the first one to appear in the evolution of sentiency. Pleasure is a sort of after-thought, a secondary attribute of consciousness which developed later as an aid to pain in keeping living beings straight. Pain is a whip, a penalty. Pleasure is a reward or bribe. Pain is a curse. We are all the time trying to minimize and escape it. In an ideal world the inhabitants never have any impulses that drive them to improper acts. All their impulses are good. Every act is proper and right. Ideal beings need only to live and act in order to be happy. We are not ideal beings. Our world happens to be one affording almost unlimited opportunities for improvement.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), Contents of Ethics, pp. 52–53

Pain, Happiness, Pleasure, World

“Man is not advised to sit down and fold his hands and roll his eyes piously toward the traditional source of good, and allow himself to be eaten up by tigers and ticks. And no one who reads honestly what has gone before can come to any such conclusion. Anything can be misrepresented if the one who attempts it is ingenious and determined enough. It is recognised that this is not an ideal world, and that it is impossible for any being to act among the evil as he would be able to act among the good. It is simply insisted that man shall ignore the urgings of his lower nature and do the best he can in the circumstances. Men do not and cannot act ideally toward their fellow-men, but they think they act nobly when they do the best they can. And, oh, if man would only try to be just to his fellow-races, what a different world he could make of it! If one is disposed to be wayward, it is astonishing what an array of excuses even the simpleton can scrape up in defence of himself. But if one is resolved on that higher life, ever held up to us by the better elements of our nature, it is also surprising how successful one can be, even among adverse conditions.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, pp. 161–162

Life, Men, World, Making love

“Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.”

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

Variant transcription from "Death of a Genius" in Life Magazine: "Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives."
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 143

Life, People, Making love, Success

“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”

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

Response to atheist Alfred Kerr in the winter of 1927, who after deriding ideas of God and religion at a dinner party in the home of the publisher Samuel Fischer, had queried him "I hear that you are supposed to be deeply religious" as quoted in The Diary of a Cosmopolitan (1971) by H. G. Kessler
Source: 1920s, p. 157 London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson

Secret, Religion, Nature

“There is no doubt that right-hemisphere intuitive thinking may perceive patterns and connections too difficult for the left hemisphere; but it may also detect patterns where none exist. Skeptical and critical thinking is not a hallmark of the right hemisphere. And unalloyed right-hemisphere doctrines, particularly when they are invented during new and trying circumstances, may be erroneous or paranoid.”

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

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p. 189)

Thinking

“We live in an age where people are constantly trying to find remedies for pain, instead of learning how to sublimate it into divine music, the way Begum Akhtar did. For, the mercurial diva from Lucknow sang the poetry of Ghalib and many others in a manner that would make even pain seem desirable.”

Begum Akhtar (1914–1974) Indian musician

By Namita Devidayal in Pain gave the singer her song, 10 October 2009, 2 January 2014, Times of India http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-10-10/mumbai/28060204_1_begum-akhtar-music-lovers-divine-music,

Pain, People, Age, Making love

“Facebook, Google, et al. operate in an almost uniformly Left-Democratic culture, and they heard a great deal from both organized and semi-organized efforts from progressives and left-wing organizations whose sole purpose in life is trying to discredit conservative figures and exclude conservatives from public discourse.”

Kevin D. Williamson (1972) American writer

A Fairness Doctrine for the Internet? (2018)

Life, Effort

“Our native love of reality joins with this experience to teach us a little reserve, and to dissuade a too sudden surrender to the brilliant qualities of persons. Young people admire talents or particular excellences; as we grow older, we value total powers and effects, as, the impression, the quality, the spirit of men and things. The genius is all. The man, — it is his system: we do not try a solitary word or act, but his habit. The acts which you praise, I praise not, since they are departures from his faith, and are mere compliances. The magnetism which arranges tribes and races in one polarity, is alone to be respected; the men are steel-filings.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Love, Men, People, Making love

“The two main parties feared the SDP more than they feared each other. Their narrow dogmas had alienated more and more people and would never achieve a widening appeal across classes, regions and occupations. They had replied by trying to pretend that the SDP was all things to all men and women. It was not true. … It had no place for class warriors or for those who wanted to fight outdated ideological battles; no place for little Englanders; for those selfishly concerned with their own problems and not with those of their neighbours and the nation as a whole. The Labour Party went increasingly into its chauvinist bunker and the Conservative Party showed little or no concern for the problems of the developing and poor nations.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech in Kensington (14 February 1982), quoted in The Times (15 February 1982), p. 4
1980s

Women, Men, People, Fear

“The chief danger for a country placed as we are is that of living sullenly in the past, of believing that the world has a duty to keep us in the station to which we are accustomed, and showing bitter resentment if it does not do so. This was the mood of Suez; and it is a mood absolutely guaranteed, not to recreate our past glories, but to reduce us to a level of influence and wealth far lower than that which we need occupy. … Our neighbours in Europe are roughly our economic and military equals. We would do better to live gracefully with them than to waste our substance by trying unsuccessfully to keep up with the power giants of the modern world.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

The Labour Case (Penguin, 1959), p. 11
1950s

World, Mood, Past, Country

“I can’t say precisely. I don’t think anyone really knows how a story takes shape. When it’s done you try to explain how it happened, but every effort, at least in my case, is insufficient. There is a before, made up of fragments of memory, and an after, when the story begins. But before and after, I have to admit, are useful only in answering your question now in an intelligible way.”

Elena Ferrante (1943) Italian writer

On being asked how she begins a new work in “Elena Ferrante, Art of Fiction No. 228” https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6370/elena-ferrante-art-of-fiction-no-228-elena-ferrante in The Paris Review (Spring 2015)

Way, Intelligence, Question, Thinking

“Political debate can barely occur in an atmosphere in which people assume words and terms to have distinctly different meanings. They slide, slip and decay. But in the world we are in – where anybody might edit a Wikipedia definition, and where plenty of people are learning on the hoof about complex and disputed ideas – we need to try to agree on what words mean rather than define them for ourselves.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

"Is cultural Marxism a myth?" https://unherd.com/2019/03/is-cultural-marxism-a-myth/, Unherd, March 29, 2019

People, World, Idea, Learning

“What I’m trying to offer the worker is this: fewer rights and jobs, or all their rights and unemployment.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

On 21 July 2019. Brazil's Bolsonaro says government may cut worker protections to boost job creation https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/brazils-bolsonaro-says-government-may-cut-worker-protections-to-boost-job-creation-idUSKCN1UG0PW. Reuters (21 July 2019).

“He thought of a way to state it: Ego is the point of consciousness, the latest term in a continuously expanding series along the line of memory duration. That sounded like a general statement, but he was not sure; he would have to try to formulate it mathematically before he could trust it. Verbal language had such queer booby traps in it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book By His Bootstraps

By His Bootstraps (p. 257)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Way, Mathematics, Memory

“No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage to say: No! my head is too good for that; it shall be active only in its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied spectacle of this world and then reproduce it in some form, whether as art or as literature, that may answer to my character as an individual.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

On Genius, Parerga and Paralipomena, Chapter III,
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

World, Art, Literature, Birth

“It is anything but easy trying to speak of a person one knows so little about but who is nevertheless so close to me.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Personality

“Here’s my attitude, and I’m sort of sorry to say this sometimes – but there are people who try and elevate film music - of all kinds – to being the great twentieth century classical music, and my opinion is it just isn’t. It’s very straightforward, major/minor or modal writing. The only time you get any kind of originality is usually in the timbres and the sounds and the mixture of elements. But to get through a scene it’s either happy, or sad – and it’s either going forward in action or it’s not – and it can be ironic, which means you’ve got to switch from major to minor frequently. But it’s not rocket science. It’s a lot of skills – a lot of political skills, frankly. It’s being in a room and playing off fifty opinions from studios, producers, directors, sometimes actors – and coming out the end with something that vaguely represents music. And frequently it doesn’t. The minute you try to get original or break the box – unless you’ve got either a very experimental or powerful director, it’s probably not going to happen.”

Graeme Revell (1955) New Zealand musician

Happiness, People, Sadness, Music

“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies — all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception (1954)

Family, Feeling, Lovers, Nature

“The construction of short stories calls for a markedly different set of mind than work on a novel, and for me short stories are at once more interesting and more difficult to write than longer work. The comparative brevity of the story dictates more economical and accurate use of words and images, a limited palette of events, fewer characters, tighter dialogue, strong title and punctuation that works to move the story forward. If the writer is trying to illustrate a particular period or place, a collection of short stories is a good way to take the reader inside a house of windows, each opening onto different but related views—a kind of flip book of place, time and manners.”

Annie Proulx (1935) American novelist, short story and non-fiction author

On her short story collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories in “An Interview with Annie Proulx” https://www.missourireview.com/article/an-interview-with-annie-proulx/ in The Missouri Review (1999 Mar 1) Personal life and writing career

Books, Way, Strong, Relation ships

“Many of the dead very considerably retard the process of dissolution by clinging passionately to the earth which they have left; they simply will not turn their thoughts and desires upward, but spend their time in struggling with all their might to keep in full touch with the physical plane, thus causing great trouble to any one who may be trying to help them. Earthly matters are the only ones in which they have had any living interest, and they cling to them with desperate tenacity even after death. Naturally as time passes on they find it increasingly difficult to keep hold of things down here, but instead of welcoming and encouraging this process of gradual refinement and spiritualization they resist it vigorously by every means in their power… thereby not only causing themselves a vast amount of entirely unnecessary pain and sorrow, but also very seriously delaying their upward progress and prolonging their stay in astral regions to an almost indefinite extent. In convincing them that this ignorant and disastrous opposition to the cosmic will is contrary to the laws of nature, and persuading them to adopt an attitude of mind which is the exact reversal of it, lies a great part of the work of those who are trying to help.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 12

Death, Pain, Law, Nature

“There are some who cannot make anything much of meditation, and when they try to study they find it very hard. They ought to continue to try both these things, because we must develop all sides of our nature, but most of all they should throw themselves into the work, and do something for their fellow-men.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch.3

Men, Making love, Nature, Study

“In order to de-escalate nuclear crisis with NK, we need to understand why Kim Jong-un is holding on so tightly to their nuclear weapons — it is because he sees them as his only deterrent from the US coming in and trying to topple his regime.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Twitter, https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/ (25 February 2019) Twitter account, February 2019

Understanding

“Yes, it is our service members. It is our troops. It is our military families. It is the people in these countries, where these wars are waged, whose suffering ends up far worse after we launch these regime change wars… The skepticism, and the questions that I raised, were very specific around incidents that the Trump administration was trying to use as an excuse to launch a U. S. military attack in Syria.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

2019

War, People, Family, Question

“The power structure in Britain is changing. Authority is no longer obeyed for its own sake. There are severe limits on what government can do, so the way to win the battle against inflation and unemployment is not to try to dragoon the country. If we do we shall fail. We must secure its consent. We are playing for high stakes. In a real sense, adherence to the social contract puts on trial whether our society has the will and determination to solve its problems by democratic means.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in London (27 November 1974), quoted in The Times (28 November 1974), p. 6
Foreign Secretary

Way, Problem, Sense, Change

“When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other.”

Richard Adams book The Plague Dogs

The Plague Dogs (1977)

Life, Making love, Dogs, Cats

“Are you trying to talk peace terms?”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 2, Chapter 5 “A Question of Attitudes” (p. 368)
Oswald Bastable, The Steel Tsar (1981)
Context: “I’ve given that up,” said Makhno. “It doesn’t appear to work. You mention peace and everyone tries to shoot you or jail you.”

Peace

“Any three-year-old can see how unsatisfactory and clumsy is this whole business of reproducing and dying by the billions. We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet. There is not a people in the world that behaves as badly as praying mantises. But wait, you say, there is no right and wrong in nature; right and wrong is a human concept. Precisely: we are moral creatures, then, in an amoral world. The universe that suckled us is a monster that does not care if we live or die—does not care if it itself grinds to a halt. It is fixed and blind, a robot programmed to kill. We are free and seeing; we can only try to outwit it at every turn to save our skins.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

" The Force That Drives the Flower https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1973/11/the-force-that-drives-the-flower/308963/", The Atlantic, Nov. 1973

God, People, World, Business

“England will soon show us her true face: It is a fight for existence between us. England wants to destroy Germany, her most serious rival in the world market, and, if not today or tomorrow, will do so soon, before the German fleet has been further strengthened. I do not believe that the matter will be taken so seriously in official circles with us. As in their way, the Liberal papers try to disguise the gravity of the situation; it is really too hard on them that their paragon, England, should want to break with free trade. A bitter revenge is now in store for those who have sought to turn Germany into an industrial country pure and simple.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 19 February 1904, shortly before his death.

World, Way, Revenge, Fight

“And I say something else. If I were to ascertain that our soldiers really used violence on the women of Bangladesh, I’d insist on being the one to try them and punish them.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Ali Bhutto in Karachi, April 1972

Women

“Tikka Khan was a soldier doing a soldier’s job. He went to East Pakistan with precise orders and came back by precise orders. He did what he was ordered to do, though he wasn’t always in agree ment, and I picked him because I know he’ll follow my orders with the same discipline. And he won’t try to stick his nose in politics. I can’t destroy the whole army, and anyway his bad reputation for the events in Dacca is exaggerated. There’s only one man really responsible for those events—Yahya Khan. Both he and his advisers were so drunk with power and corruption they’d even forgotten the honor of the army. They thought of nothing but acquiring beautiful cars, building beautiful homes, making friends with bankers, and sending money abroad. Yahya Khan wasn’t interested in the government of the country, he was interested in power for its own sake and nothing else. What can you say of a leader who starts drinking as soon as he wakes up and doesn’t stop until he goes to bed? You’ve no idea how painful it was to deal with him. He was really Jack the Ripper.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Ali Bhutto in Karachi, April 1972

Money, Pain, Bad luck, Making love

“According to what I’ve been able to find out so far, there must have been something like fifty thousand. Mind you, too many. Even if the action was morally justified. I’m not trying to minimize things; I’m trying to bring them back to reality—there’s quite a difference between fifty thousand and three million.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Ali Bhutto in Karachi, April 1972

Reality

“We withdrew U. S. aid to those areas that was intended to stabilize those areas… It deepened and exacerbated all of the crises that are already happening, causing a flood of people to try to escape these horrifying conditions. So we are contributing to the surge in the first place. We’re engineering it, so that’s coming to our border.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Quoted in Ocasio-Cortez says U.S. is headed to 'fascism' under Trump, The Hill, Justin Wise https://thehill.com/homenews/house/451601-ocasio-cortez-says-us-is-headed-to-fascism-under-trump (3 July 2019) Twitter Quotes (2019), July 2019

People

“Seems like Trump’s DOT Secretary, Elaine Chao, has been caught trying to use her position to enrich her family’s shipping company. Her husband has lots of sway in US laws, too: Mitch McConnell. At this point it might be easier to ask where in this admin there *isn’t* corruption.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Twitter Post https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1135575427135737856, (3 June 2019) Twitter Quotes (2019), June 2019

Family, Law, Relation ships

“I think it’s great that we have multiple female presidential candidates, so there’s not the woman running… I’m very excited about there being multiple women across — that can represent different parts of the political spectrum on the left, so that’s something that I’m thankful for… what we’re trying to do is is frame the debate and the conversation… that we’re going to be having in the next two years…”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her First Weeks In Washington, The Intercept https://theintercept.com/2019/01/28/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-podcast/ (28 January 2019) Quotes (2019)

Women, Thinking, Parting

“My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this: God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be. It is the message of grace… A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wages as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party no ifs, ands, or buts… This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us… Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover. Grace is enough… Jesus is enough.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir https://books.google.com/books?id=eFTh3OqjASkC&pg=PA192 (2011), pp. 192–194 2010s

Love, God, Making love

“The fact is that most gay men and women lead, or try to lead, ordinary lives indistinguishable from those of their neighbours.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.53

Women, Men

“The answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the problem. But, if I do not escape from the problem and try to look at the problem without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem — mathematical, political, religious, or any other — and not look to an answer, then the problem will begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process and eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can’t we start right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

which is extremely arduous, isn’t it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the more significance there is in it. To understand, I must approach it quietly, not impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem will reveal its significance. Why is it not possible to have tranquillity of the mind right from the beginning? "Eighth Talk in The Oak Grove, 7 August 1949" http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=320&chid=4643&w=%22The+answer+is+in+the+problem%2C+not+away+from+the+problem%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 490807, Vol. V, p. 283 Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Fear, Way, Search, Mathematics

“Is the Iraqi state succeeding? I think there are some prospects for this country to be moving in the right direction. But the legacies of the past, the problems are really, really monumental… We need to deliver. Otherwise we will not be able to justify what we do in the eyes of our public. And public opinion does matter in Iraq. People speak their minds. People are engaged, are interested… Life is coming back… Every time I go out of the presidential palace in Baghdad — and I do try to go out as often as I can — I do see normalcy coming back, more and more. I do think there is a window of opportunity — it should be cherished. We’ve not had it like this for a long, long time… It’s precious, but precarious.”

Barham Salih (1960) President of Iraq

As quoted in "Iraq’s president explains why the U.S. must reengage with Baghdad" https://web.archive.org/web/20190320221430/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/20/iraqs-president-explains-why-us-must-reengage-with-baghdad/?utm_term=.400c91bdd2cf (20 March 2019), by Christian Caryl, The Washington Post 2010s

Life, People, Problem, Thinking

“I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world… True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion… We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda… They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

"Presidential Candidates Proposing to Ban Muslim Immigration to the United States" http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/muhammad-ali-hits-trump-misguided-murderers-sabotaging-islam-n477351 (9 December 2015).

People, World, Religion, Learning

“Give it a chance, try to make it happen. This is our greatest asset as a nation and one that we have to continue to encourage. You don’t have to go broke, you don’t have to bet everything on it, but you can start one day at a time by taking a chance and seeing if you too can build a great company.”

Kevin Plank (1972) American entrepreneur and philanthropist

Social Growth Technologies Wins U-Maryland Cupid’s Cup Business Competition Under Armour’s Kevin Plank and BB&T Sponsor Fifth Annual Event https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/news/social-growth-technologies-wins-u-maryland-cupids-cup-business-competition-under-armours-kevin, University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business (May 10, 2010)

Making love, Chance, Time

“Well, I’ll try to sketch it out for you, but I’ll have to repeat stuff I’ve told you before.”

Poul Anderson book The Boat of a Million Years

“That’s all right. I’m a simon-pure layman. My basic thought habits were formed early in the Iron Age. Where it comes to science, I can use plenty of repetition.”
Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 18 “Judgment Day”, Section 3 (p. 331)

“Tommy Robinson is not far-right… and does not have far-right views. He is someone who can give some information and research which is useful to me. We have always been a democratic, non-racist party. That has always been in our constitution and that is exactly the way we are going to keep it. It is very odd in this day and age when you get called far-right, when what you have spent the last 25 years trying to do is to return government to our own democratically elected Parliament.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

UKIP: Gerard Batten says Nigel Farage trying to 'discredit' party https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47926785 BBC News (14 April 2019) 2019

Age, Way

“In short, what the sensitive liberals want is a thus try to deprive the French Revolution of its status as the founding event of modern democracy, relegating it to a historical anomaly: there was a historical necessity to assert the modern principles of personal freedom, etc.”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

Robespierre: Virtue and Terror (2007)

Democracy, Freedom, Personality

“We noted at the beginning of this show that Ilhan Omar is trying to take this show off the air. Shut us up. Silence us. We want to reassure you that’s not going to happen. Why? Because we work at Fox News, and they’ve got our back, and we’re thankful for that.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

July 10, 2019 on Tucker Carlson Tonight ([Tucker Carlson Taunts Critics After Racist Rant: Fox News Has My Back, Nick, Visser, July 10, 2019, HuffPost, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-ilhan-omar-fox-news_n_5d269326e4b0cfb596006121]; [Tucker Carlson Says Fox News Has 'Got Our Back' After Ilhan Omar Calls for Host to Be Fired, Ramsey, Touchberry, July 10, 2019, Newsweek, https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-ilhan-omar-feud-fox-news-boycott-response-1448707])
2010s, 2019

Silence

“I think any such analysis must take into account the intelligence of the people. People’s ability to understand the arithmetic and the logic behind the coming together of the Mahamilawat (great contamination) parties should never be underestimated. People know exactly why they are coming together, no matter how much these parties themselves try to mislead. There was a time when many different parties did come together to fight an election. This was the Emergency era when survival of our democracy was first priority. So, when many parties united, there was a clear issue that brought them together in national interest and people blessed them. What is the uniting factor for the Mahamilawat now? Personal survival and personal interest. People are aware of this and will reject such opportunism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2019, "2014 was a mandate for hope and aspiration, 2019 is about confidence and acceleration", 2019

People, Democracy, Intelligence, Understanding

“In keeping with a pattern which will be familiar to anyone studying the writings of supporters of the Aryan invasion theory, such unnatural or anomalous phenomena do not make these scholars rethink their theory; it only makes them try to think of ways to maintain their theory in the face of inconvenient facts.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 7 : The Indo-European Homeland

Making love, Way, Support, Thinking

“Witzel starts out with the intention of pitting the linguistic evidence of place-names and river-names against the evidence of archaeology; and he ends up having to try and argue against, or explain away, this linguistic evidence, since it only confirms the archaeological evidence.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 7 : The Indo-European Homeland

“Go out into the field and bring in the rest of the workers, that they may be fully equipped for their great mission. We will wrest what we can, step by step, from the capitalists, but with out eye fixed upon the goal; we will press forward, keeping step together with the inspiring music of the new emancipation; and when we have enough of this kind of organization, as Brother DeLeon said so happily the other day, when we are lined up in battle array and the capitalists try to lock us out, we will turn the tables on the gentlemen and lock them out. We can run the mills without them but they cannot run them without us.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

"Industrial Unionism" (1905), Eugene Debs Speaks

Music

“If the next government is sincere in its desire to reach an agreement with Europe, it must try to get more time. If it does not, the British parliament will insist on getting a new postponement. I will remain a member of the House of Commons. I will do everything in my power from my position to make sure that parliament blocks a Brexit without agreement.”

Philip Hammond (1955) British Conservative politician

Philip Hammond will 'not exclude' backing no confidence vote to stop no-deal Brexit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49044966 BBC News (19 July 2019) 2019

Making love, Time, Housing, Sincerity

“It Suicide is the deliberate or the hurried action of the man who is trying to get out of a trouble and escape from it. Yet he cannot escape from it…He is wide awake on the other side of death, exactly the same man he was a moment before… no more changed than if he had merely taken off his coat. The result of his losing the physical body is that his capacity for suffering is very much increased…. All the part of him that drove him to suicide is there… The result of that is that he has still in him everything which made him commit the act; the consequence of this is that he keeps on committing it, going through the whole of the trouble that drove him up to the final act.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Suicides and Compassion 1932, The Theosophist https://www.theosophyforward.com/index.php/theosophy/609-suicides-and-compassion.html (2012)

Death, Suicide, Suffering, Change

“There is one very big difference between me and Boris, which is that I am foreign secretary and I have a very big job to do to try and get this deal over the line and that has to be my focus. I think that what matters is we have a cabinet that believes in Brexit.”

Jeremy Hunt (1966) British politician

Brexit: Jeremy Hunt says 'absolute priority' to avoid European polls https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47933511, BBC News, 15 April 2019 2019

Thinking

“Despite his subsequent reputation for anti-Marxist tirades, Hitler did not fight or oppose the communists during this time, as some might presume. He was serving them, although he later shared few details about this period in his life. One thing seems certain: Hitler did not try to escape from the political thicket in Munich, nor did he join the anti-Bolshevik armed forces of General Franz Ritter von Epp.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 345

Life, Time, Fight

“Monist is, in fact, every philosophy that is not an eclectic patchwork. Therefore, I gladly admit to you that I myself consider my positions even more monist than yours, because I try to give my monism a broader extension, following as far as possible the example of the greatest of all monists: Spinoza.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Wilhelm Wundt, in a letter to Ernst Haeckel, September 1899 [original in German]. As quoted in Saulo de Freitas Araujo, Wundt and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: A Reappraisal (Springer, 2015)
S - Z

“ICELANDER: Thus I reply to you. I am well aware you did not make the world for the service of men. It were easier to believe that you made it expressly as a place of torment for them. But tell me: why am I here at all? Did I ask to come into the world? Or am I here unnaturally, contrary to your will? If however, you yourself have placed me here, without giving me the power of acceptance or refusal of this gift of life, ought you not as far as possible to try and make me happy, or at least preserve me from the evils and dangers, which render my sojourn a painful one? And what I say of myself, I say of the whole human race, and of every living creature.”

Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) Italian poet, philosopher and writer

Essays and Dialogues (1882), Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander

Life, Men, Pain, Happiness

“What other paths were there? His studies had shown him that revolution and evolution were the only ways that societies ever truly changed. Revolution and evolution, built of a mix of education and violence and politics and compromise and self-interest and self-preservation. Certainly, history showed that rigid societies, like ancient dinosaurs, always died. The Confed was the biggest dinosaur ever, and while it was already dying and had been doing so for a long time, it would take many years before it finally fell. Any empire which had to hold its citizens in check with military force was far down the road to destruction. Which brought up another thought: what would replace the dead beast when it began to rot? What parasite would emerge from the corpse to try and breed itself into superiority?”

Steve Perry book The Man Who Never Missed

Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 15 (p. 132)

Education, Way, History, Study

“In lectures, it is important that you lecture plain. We are interested in the smartest students, and we really should take care of those who have most difficulties with understanding certain concepts. I try to balance it. You know what? In lecturing, Jerzy Vetulani really helped me – listening to his lectures, I learned how to teach correctly, so that the students did not fall asleep after fifteen minutes.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Marek Sanak, geneticist and molecular biologist, friend and disciple of Vetulani. Kobos, Andrzej (2012). Po drogach uczonych. 5. Polska Akademia Umiejętności. p. 334. ISBN 978-83-7676-127-5.

Understanding, Learning, Help

“What will happen when the curfew is lifted? Modi says this is done for the prosperity of Kashmir. But what will happen when 8 million Kashmiris come out of a lockdown and face 900,000 troops? I fear there will be a bloodbath. The way Kashmiris are caged like animals in homes. Their political leadership arrested, even pro India ones. 13,000 boys picked up & taken to unknown locations. Youngsters blinded with pellets. This will only lead to further radicalisation. We fear another Pulwama incident. And for that, India will again blame Pakistan. Indian FM says Pakistan has 500 terrorists waiting on the border. What will 500 terrorists do against 0.9 million troops? They just want an excuse, the catchword & mantra of Islamic terrorism. The phrase Islamic terrorism allows India to dismiss human rights and further increase cruelty on the people of Kashmir. Why would we ever want to disrupt peace? But it’s because there is no other narrative left for India. There will be another Pulwama incident because of their own cruelty in Kashmir, they will blame us and try to bomb us again.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Speech at the United Nations General Assembly, 2019

People, Fear, Peace, Way

Quotes about try page 63

Quotes about try
page 63