Quotes about turn
page 27

“I can't keep up with your turning tables
Under your thumb, I can't breathe.I won't let you close enough to hurt me, no.
I won't ask you, you to just desert me.
I can't give you, what you think you gave me.
It's time to say goodbye to turning tables.”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Turning Tables, written by Adele and Ryan Tedder.
Song lyrics, 21 (2011)

Thinking, Time, Hurt

“Once while waiting at Auckland airport, Lange insisted on buying himself a newspaper and joined a queue at a newsstand. The woman in front of him turned around and said, "Good God!" Lange replied affably, "No madam, you are mistaken. I have never made that claim."”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Source: A New Zealand Dictionary of Political Quotations, p. 95.

God, Waiting

“In a country where feeling for art is not one of the national characteristics, it is particularly difficult to arrive at a common understanding of the term "art". There are many obstacles in the way, and some of them are imposed by the mere existence of such a body as the Royal Academy, for lacking any intuition in this matter of art, the majority of people turn to that institution for guidance, and naturally assume that any work receiving its blessing must be a work of art in the strict meaning of the word, and consequently the artistic quality of a painting is, in the popular estimation, measured in ratio to its degree of photographic realism.”

James Bolivar Manson (1879–1945) British artist

Manson, J.B. The Tate Gallery, p. 8, Thomas Nelson and Sons.

People, Art, Way, Feeling

“Waiting for the implosion [of the government of Romano Prodi] is risking to turn into Waiting for Godot.”

Gianfranco Fini (1952) Italian politician

RaiNews24, Roma, 2007-11-16 http://www.rainews24.it/Notizia.asp?NewsId=75829.

Waiting

“The Cubists, to be objective, restrict themselves to considering things by turning around them, to produce their geometric writing. So they remain at a stage of intelligence which sees everything and feels nothing, which brings everything to a standstill in order to describe everything. We Futurists are trying, on the contrary, with the power of intuition, to place ourselves at the very center of things, in such a way that our ego forms with their own uniqueness a single complex. We thus give plastic planes a plastic expansion in space, obtaining this feeling of something in perpetual motion which is peculiar to everything living.”

Carlo Carrà (1881–1966) Italian painter

1910's
Source: Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio Carrà, March 1913, as quoted in Futurism, Didier Ottinger (ed.), 2008, p. 146

Way, Feeling, Intelligence

“An intellectual dapperling of these times boasts chiefly of his irresistible perspicacity, his “dwelling in the daylight of truth,” and so forth; which, on examination, turns out to be a dwelling in the rush-light of “closet logic,” and a deep unconsciousness that there is any other light to dwell in or any other objects to survey with it.”

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

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Truth, Light, Time

““God help us,” said Crawford softly.
“If there is one.” Byron grinned. “A whole lot of ghastly things have turned out to be possible, remember.””

Tim Powers book The Stress of Her Regard

Source: The Stress of Her Regard (1989), Chapter 20 (p. 330)

God, Help

“For me… the notion of an intimate relationship between music and society functions not as a distant goal but as a starting point of great immediacy, and not as an hypothesis but as an assumption. It functions as an idea about a relationship which in turn allows the examination of that relationship from many points of view and its exploration in many directions. It is an idea that generates studies the goal of which (or at least one important goal of which) is to articulate something essential about why any particular music is the way it is in particular, that is, to achieve insight into the character of its identity.”

Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1942) American musicologist

Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1987). "On grounding Chopin", Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance, and Reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521379776.

Music, Way, Idea, Study

“Then he asked in German (the only language that we ever spoke): "Ist die Sowjetregierung eine faschistische Regierung? - Is the Soviet Government a fascist government?"… I sat silent for some moments. Then I said: "Ja, die Sowjetregierung ist eine faschistische Regierung - the Soviet Government is a fascist government"… Krivitsky turned for the first time and looked at me directly. "Du hast recht," he said, "und Kronstadt war der Wendepunkt”

Whittaker Chambers Witness

You are right, and Kronstadt was the turning point." (pp. 459-460)
Witness (1952)

War, Time

“One man prays thus: How shall I be able to lie with that woman? Do thou pray thus: How shall I not desire to lie with her? Another prays: How shall I be released from this? Another prays: How shall I not desire to be released? Another thus: How shall I not lose my little son? Thou thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IX, 40
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

Lie, Way

“By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire: and have made the most extensive, and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

Happiness, Wealth

“I had first learned that I was an idiot in the school yard. I was taunted and poked at and jeered, as were the other one or two idiots. My only advantage over the other one or two, two idiots. My only advantage over the other one or two, who were beaten and chasen, was that I was sullen. When surrounded I was not terrified. They never attacked me but would finally turn on one of the others and beat them as I watched.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 52

School, Learning

“What causes [fragmentation] if not a need to act that specializes us and limits us to the horizon of a particular activity? Even if it turns out to be for the general interest (which generally isn’t true), the activity that subordinates each of our aspects to a specific result suppresses our being as an entirety. Whoever acts substitutes a particular end for what he or she is, as a total being.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: On Nietzsche (1945), p. xxvi

“The organism of the Western society and culture seems to be undergoing one of the deepest and most significant crises of its life. The crisis is far greater than the ordinary; its depth is unfathomable, its end not yet in sight, and the whole of the Western society is involved in it. It is the crisis of a Sensate culture, now in its overripe stage, the culture that has dominated the Western World during the last five centuries. It is also the crisis of a contractual (capitalistic) society associated with it. In this sense we are experiencing one of the sharpest turns in the historical road.”

Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968) American sociologist

Pitirim Sorokin (1957) Social and Cultural Dynamics http://books.google.nl/books?id=fbZyka2W_1cC , p. 622; as cited in: " Culture in Crisis: The Visionary Theories of Pitirim Sorokin http://satyagraha.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/pitirim-sorkin-crisis-of-modernity/." Satyagraha – Cultural Psychology, Aug. 19, 2010

Life, World, Sense

“It would have to be considered from the Imperial point of view whether the system of reciprocal tariffs would really bind the mother country more closely with her colonies than was now the case…how Great Britain might have annually to submit to the pressure of various colonies who were discontented with the tariff as then modified and wanted it modified still further. If they considered Great Britain as a target at which all these proposals for modification and rectification would be addressed, he thought it would occur to their Chamber that it would not altogether add to the harmony of those relations to have these shifting tariffs existing between Great Britain and her colonies. (Cheers)…He thought we should have some form of direct representation from the colonies to guide us and advise us with regard to this question of tariffs…Under a system of free trade every branch of industry did not prosper. He was interested in the landed industry (hear), and he did not know that the land industry had prospered particularly under free trade…he thought it could not be denied that under a system of free trade large tracts of country had been turned out of cultivation, that our own food supply had been diminished, and that the population which had been reared in the rural districts had ceased to be reared in those districts…he was not a person who believed that free trade was part of the Sermon on the Mount, and that we ought to receive it in all its rigidity as a divinely-appointed dispensation.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Speech to the Burnley chamber of commerce (19 May 1903) in the aftermath of Joseph Chamberlain's speech advocating Imperial Preference tariffs on imports, as reported in The Times (20 May 1903), p. 12. The Times reported Rosebery's speech in third person.

Food, Question, Parting, Personality

“Chris Rock: I love the story of how you turned down an offer to appear in Michael Jackson's music video for, Bad.
Prince: You know that Wesley Snipes character? That would've been me. Now you run that video in your mind. The first line in that song is "your butt is mine." Now I said to Michael, who's gonna sing that to whom? 'Cause you sure ain't singing it to me and I sure ain't singing it to you so right there we got a problem.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

VH1 interview (1997) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9ZN9nKQqe0

Love, Music, Problem, Appearance

“I espouse reproductive libertarianism, because when everyone has the broadest choice, love itself expands. The affection my family have found in one another is not a better love, but it is another love, and just as species diversity is crucial to sustain the planet, this diversity strengthens the ecosphere of kindness. The road less traveled by, as it turns out, leads to pretty much the same place.”

Andrew Solomon (1963) American journalist

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 12 Father, p. 700.

Love, Family, Travel

“What joy have I in June's return?
My feet are parched—my eyeballs burn,
I scent no flowery gust;
But faint the flagging Zephyr springs,
With dry Macadam on its wings,
And turns me "dust to dust."”

Thomas Hood (1799–1845) British writer

Ode Imitated from Horace (1844), st. 2.
1840s

Spring, Joy

“Go where the others have gone, to the tenebrous limit
for the golden fleece of void, your ultimate prize
go upright among those who are on their knees
among those turning their backs on and those fallen to dust.”

Zbigniew Herbert (1924–1998) Polish writer

Message of Mr. Cogito.
Quoes

“Listen, can anyone deviate from his real nature? If he does, it cannot be called his real nature; for it is changeable. Man's real nature is covered by a dense cloud of ignorance, and consequently he appears to be something different, but that does not mean he has deviated from his real nature…. Haven't you seen those polishing shops at Mechuabazar in Calcutta where they have glass jars filled with colored liquids? The metal worker takes a tarnished brass pot and dips it into a jar, and instantly all the tarnish goes away and the pot starts to glitter. Then he dips it into another jar and it turns a golden color. Similarly, dip your mind in the jar of the Lord's name, and all the unclean stuff will be washed away. Then dip it in the jar of the Lord's grace. You will see how beautifully your real nature will shine forth.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

Source: God Lived with Them, p.434

Color, Nature, Appearance

“How difficult, how extremely difficult for the soul to sever itself from its body the world: from mountains, seas, cities, people. The soul is an octopus and these are its tentacles. … No force anywhere on earth is as imperialistic as the human soul. It occupies and is occupied in turn, but it always considers its empire too narrow. Suffocating, it desires to conquer the world in order to breathe freely.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco

"My Friend The Poet. Mount Athos.", Ch. 19, p. 188
Report to Greco (1965)

People, World, Soul, Mountain

“What should a society be, so that in his last years a man might still be a man?
The answer is simple: he would always have to have been treated as a man. By the fate that it allots to its members who can no longer work, society gives itself away — it has always looked upon them as so much material. Society confesses that as far as it is concerned, profit is the only thing that counts, and that its "humanism" is mere window-dressing. In the nineteenth century the ruling classes explicitly equated the proletariat with barbarism. The struggles of the workers succeeded in making the proletariat part of mankind once more. But only in so far as it is productive. Society turns away from the aged worker as though he belonged to another species. That is why the whole question is buried in a conspiracy of silence.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Conclusion, p. 542
The Coming of Age (1970)

Fate, Age, Question, Silence

“Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief.”

Mark Williams American conservative activist, radio talk show host and author

From a blog post.

“With the election behind us, our country turns hopeful eyes to the future. I have a few hopes of my own. I congratulate our first African-American president-elect. Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly would be proud to see this day. We are stronger for embracing diversity, and I am hopeful that we can continue working through the tensions and wrongs of the past and become a more just and colorblind society. I hope this new administration will help bring us together, and not further divide us. I have always found that freedom is the best way to break down barriers. A free society emphasizes the importance of individuals, and not because they are part of a certain group. That's the only way equal justice can be achieved.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Hopes For the Future https://web.archive.org/web/20120119202026/http://www.ronpaularchive.com/2008/11/hopes-for-the-future/ (November 2008). 2000s, 2006-2009

Justice, Hope, Way, Freedom

“In even greater measure is this true of the top. The top has been everybody's toy and must, therefore, at one time or another have piqued everybody's curiosity. Lagrange, Poinsot, Jacobi, not to mention other great names, have in turn paid their tribute; yet the top may be set spinning to-day, unhampered by a completed theory to account for its evolutions.”

Carl Barus (1856–1935) U.S. physicist

"The Mathematical Theory of the Top" (April 8, 1898)

Time

“We witness the President approve a contract with ZTE for $328 million which turned out to be overpriced by as much as 60%.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

“Lang kept at it until everyone had had a turn shooting an AK-47. Then he said, "This weapon can do one other thing I haven't shown you yet. When you move the change lever all the way down instead of to the middle position, this is what happens." He stuck a fresh clip in the repeater, turned toward the target circle, and blasted away. He went through the whole magazine almost before Caudell could draw in a startled breath. "Good God almighty," Rufus Daniel said, peering in awe at the brass cartridge cases scattered around Lang's feet. "Why didn't he show us that in the first place?" He was not the only one to raise the question; quite a few shouted it. Caudell kept quiet. By now, he was willing to assume Lang knew what he was doing. The weapons instructor stayed perfectly possessed. He said, "I didn't show you that earlier because it wastes ammunition and because the weapon accurate past a few meters- yards- on full automatic. You can only carry so many rounds. If you shoot them all off in the first five minutes of battle, what will you do once they're gone? Think hard on that, gentlemen, and drill it into your private soldiers. This weapon requires fire discipline- requires it, I say again."”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 31

God, Way, Question, Thinking

“In my defence… it depends how you define the word 'mistake'. What people call Murrayisms are malapropisms or getting the words in the wrong order. You're standing there in front of a TV set and getting live pictures. The words are pouring out of you. You have to say what comes into your head, and sometimes the wrong words come, in the wrong order or I'd make prophecies which immediately turned out to be wrong.”

Murray Walker (1923) Motorsport commentator and journalist

Alison Kervin (May 10, 2008) "The Daily Telegraph: Still Go Go Go for Walker in the slow lane Legendary voice of F1 remains fuelled with a passion for motorsport", The Daily Telegraph, p. 023.
Interviews

People, Dependency

“Guess what? Wheels have been round for a really long time, and anybody who "reinvents" the new wheel is generally considered a crackpot. It turns out that "round" is simply a good form for a wheel to have. It may be boring, but it just tends to roll better than a square, and "hipness" has nothing what-so-ever to do with it.”

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

Attributed Source: on Desktop_architects: Drivers &ndash; below the OS, Fri Aug 3 18:12:57 PDT 2007 https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2007-August/002446.html.

Time

“[The masses] … must turn their hopes toward a miracle. In the depths of their despair reason cannot be believed, truth must be false, and lies must be truth. "Higher bread prices," "lower bread prices," "unchanged bread prices" have all failed. The only hope lies in a kind of bread price which is none of these, which nobody has ever seen before, and which belies the evidence of one's reason.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 84

Truth, Hope, Falseness, Despair

“Boxing Helena was something that I think was pretty cool, but people judged it without even having seen it. It’s not perfect, but I think for the story that we were trying to tell, it turned out pretty good. What it signified was really powerful to me: how society puts us in boxes one way or another.”

Sherilyn Fenn (1965) American actress

Sherilyn Fenn, quoted in "Fenn & Now", by Dennis Hensley. Movieline (USA). June 1999. p. 54-59.
on starring in Boxing Helena.

People, Way, Thinking, Perfection

“Creating stars in laboratories on the very planets you inhabit turns out to be a bad idea.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/ on Tor.com, January 29, 2018 2010s

Star, Idea

“You do not know what things you set in motion, he said. No man can know. No prophet foresee. The consequences of an act are often quite different from what one would guess. You must be sure that the intention in your heart is large enough to contain all wrong turnings, all disappointments. Do you see? Not everything has such value.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

Disappointment, Heart

“The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do more, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Time (23 October 1950)

““Are you coming?” he said.
“In a moment.”
“It’s now or never.”
Maybe it would be never, then. She was so transfixed by the formidable power being unleashed in front of her, she couldn’t avert her astonished gaze. It fascinated her that strength of this magnitude should be turned to the sordid business of atrocity; something was wrong with a reality that made that possible, and offered no cure for it, nor hope of cure.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Part Thirteen “Magic Night”, Chapter iv “Symmetry”, Section 2 (p. 569)
(1987), BOOK THREE: OUT OF THE EMPTY QUARTER

Hope, Business, Reality

“Loving someone means helping them to be more themselves, which can be different from being what you'd like them to be, although often they turn out the same.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Love, Help

“[I wouldn't mind turning into] a vermilion goldfish.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

At age 80, as quoted in Matisse (1984) by Pierre Schneider
Posthumous quotes

“I want to see Brother Zachariah."
"He is well. You need not worry yourself about him."
"I want to see him. I nearly killed him at the Citadel--"
"That was not you. That was the heavenly fire. And it did anything but harm him."
"He said when I met him that he believes a debt is owed to the Herondales. I'm a Herondale. He'd want to see me."
"And then you intend to depart the Basilias?"
"There is nothing wrong with me. I don't need to be in the infirmary. Surely you could be using your resources more fruitfully on the actually wounded. Look, you can either bring me to Brother Zachariah or I can wander around yelling for him until he turns up."
"You are a great deal of trouble, Jace Herondale.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"So I've been told."
Jace Herondale and Brother Enoch, pg. 229-230
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

“I am not saying that the events in one life cause the events in another, but that there is an overall pattern - a bank of probable events - and that in each life each individual chooses those that suit his or her overall private purposes. Yet those lives will be connected. An individual may have a serious illness in one life. That event may turn up as one uncomfortable nightmare in another existence. In still another life, the individual might have a dear friend who suffers from the same disease. In still another existence the individual might decide to be a doctor, to seek a cause and a cure for the same disease.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Way Toward Health (1997), p. 229

Life, Disease, Suffering

“Each wave of men in turn grew peaceful as it grew to know and love the land, so that the Light flourished again. But always the Dark was there, swelling and waning, gaining a new Lord of the Dark whenever a man deliberately chose to be changed into something more dread and powerful than his fellows. Such creatures were not born to their doom, like the Old Ones, but chose it.”

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), The Dark Is Rising (1973), Chapter 7 “Betrayal” (p. 107)

Love, Men, Peace, Light

“On an ordinary day the corridor would have been filled with the early lunch crowd, but now the emptiness gave the place an eerie feeling, as though I were a trespasser and hidden eyes were watching me. Except that I was the only one there and the single sign of life was the light behind my office door.
I turned the knob, pushed it open and just stood there a second because something was wrong, sure as hell wrong, and the total silence was as loud as a wild scream. I had the.45 in my hand, crouched and edged to one side, listening, waiting, watching.”

Mickey Spillane book The Killing Man

The Killing Man (1989)

Life, Feeling, Hell, Light

“The realization that he is white in a black country, and respected for it, is the turning point in the expatriate’s career. He can either forget it, or capitalize on it. Most choose the latter.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Tarzan Is an Expatriate, quoted in Patrick Marnham's Dispatches from Africa, ch. 1 (1981).

Country, Forgetting

“In the night as he slept Boyd came to him and squatted by the deep embers of the fire as he'd done times by the hundreds and smiled his soft smile that was not quite cynical and he took off his hat and held it before him and looked down into it. In the dream he knew that Boyd was dead and that the subject of his being so must be approached with a certain caution for that which was circumspect in life must be doubly so in death and he'd no way to know what word or gesture might subtract him back again into that nothingness out of which he'd come. When finally he did ask him what it was like to be dead Boyd only smiled and looked away and would not answer. They spoke of other things and he tried not to wake from the dream but the ghost dimmed and faded and he woke and lay looking up at the stars through the bramblework of the treelimbs and he tried to think of what that place could be where Boyd was but Boyd was dead and wasted in his bones wrapped in the soogan upriver in the trees and he turned his face to the ground and wept.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

The Crossing (1994)

Life, Death, Smile, Dreams

“When I came here, you seldom saw a black player get together with a white player and go someplace together after a ball game. Now it is more common. Yes, there has been improvement but some things still remain the way they were. I cannot, for example, go up to a white player and say to him, "Are you for real?" or "Are you concerned with me at all?" But now, once in a while, they will come to you and ask you about it. They don't turn their backs on you like they used to.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Sports Parade"
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Way, Game

“The “natural magic” of the camera obscura anticipated Hollywood in turning the spectacle of the external world into a consumer commodity or package.”

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

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 146

World, Nature

“We will do precisely what the British nation has done all through its history when it had its back to the wall — turn round and fight for the things it believes in, and that is what I shall do.”

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

Michael White, Patrick Wintour, "Hanley set to carry the can as defiant Major vows to fight on", The Guardian, 6 May 1995.
Public statement following poor showing in local elections, 5 May 1995. Major's mixed metaphor (if your back is to the wall and you turn round, you are then facing the wall) was remarked upon.
1990s, 1995

History, Fight

“Whom could this operetta offend? Only those of us who, despite the fact that we may respond, loathe being manipulated in this way and are aware of how cheap and ready-made are the responses we are made to feel. We may become even more aware of the way we have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs. The dauntless, scrubbed-face heroine (Julie Andrews), in training to become a nun, is sent from the convent to serve as governess to the motherless Von Trapp children, and turns them into a happy little troupe of singers before marrying their father (Christopher Plummer). She says goodbye to the nuns and leaves them outside at the fence, as she enters the cathedral to be married. Squeezed again, and the moisture comes out of thousands--millions--of eyes and noses. Wasn't there perhaps one little Von Trapp who didn't want to sing his head off, or who screamed that he wouldn't act out little glockenspiel routines for Papa's party guests, or who got nervous and threw up if he had to get on a stage? The only thing the director, Robert Wise, couldn't smooth out was the sinister, archly decadent performance by Christopher Plummer--he of the thin, twisted smile; he seems to be in a different movie altogether.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

"The Sound of Music," p. 697
5001 Nights at the Movies (1982)

Happiness, Children, Smile, Way

“All right lad this is what we want with you. Your mission is this: to go out into the world and pull down all those election posters. Let’s get all those ugly faces off our streets and out of our elective offices. We are not going to vote any more, no matter how often they come around with their sound trucks and statesmanlike gestures. Pull down the sound trucks. Pull down the outstretched arms. To hell with the whole business. Voting has turned out to be a damned impertinence. They never do what we want them to do anyhow. And when they do what we want them to do, they don’t do it well. To hell with them. We are going to save up all our votes for the next twenty years and spend them all at one time. Maybe by that day there will be some Rabelaisian figure worth spending them on. …”

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

Source: Snow White (1967), p. 146.

World, Hell, Business, Time

“When the Father would give men the light of the knowledge of His glory, how does He proceed? To what does He turn men's gaze? Not to His mighty works; not to creative or providential wonders; not to geological or astronomical facts; not to the data on which Paley and Bell and other admirable writers build up their argument from design; not to the still greater wonder of mind, but to " the face of Jesus Christ," that face that was more marred than any man's; that endured the ruffian blows; down which the blood drops trickled; that looked down on a mocking crowd from an ignominious cross.”

John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 70.

Men, Knowledge, Light, Christ

“When the train of history makes a sharp turn, said Lenin, the passengers who do not have a good grip on their seats are thrown off. Last week the Communist Limited had just about completed the dizzy turn from the Communazi Pact to the Battle of Britain, and U. S. literary liberals were spattered all over the right of way.”

Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) Defected Communist spy

"Revolt of the Intellectuals," January 6, 1941
TIME magazine (1939-1948)

Way, History, Training

“A novelist carries with him constantly what most women carry in large purses: much that is useless, a few absolutely essential items, and then, for good measure, a great number of things that fall in between. But the novelist does not transport them physically because his trove of possessions is mental. Now and then he adds a new and entirely useless idea; now and then he reluctantly cleans out the trash -- the obviously worthless ideas -- and with a few sentimental tears sheds them. Once in a great while, however, he happens by chance onto a thoroughly stunning idea new to him that he hopes will turn out to be new to everyone else. It is this final category that dignifies his existence. But such truly priceless ideas… perhaps during his entire lifetime he may, at best, acquire only a meager few. But that is enough; he has, through them, justified his existence to himself and to his God.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others" (1977)

Women, God, Hope, Idea

“We are in the world and, before we know where we are, we are on one of the paths which we must traverse in our few score years between birth and death. Moreover, each man's path leads up to the theatre on the one side and down from it on the other. The inexorable manager, Fate, requires that each should go through with his comedy or his drama, if he be judged worthy of a leading part, with his scene or his act in another man's piece, if he be fit only to play the walking gentleman, the dumb footman, or the mechanically trained supernumerary who does duty by turns as soldier, sailor, courtier, husbandman, conspirator or red-capped patriot. A few play well, many play badly, all must appear and the majority are feebly applauded and loudly hissed. He counts himself great who is received with such an uproar of clapping and shout of approval as may drown the voice of the discontented; he is called fortunate who, having missed his cue and broken down in his words, makes his exit in the triumphant train of the greater actor upon whom all eyes are turned; he is deemed happy who, having offended no man, is allowed to depart in peace upon his downward road.”

Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909) Novelist, short story writer, essayist (1854-1909)

A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1894)

Death, Fate, Happiness, World

“Language of the liberal dead speaks
From the soil of Highgate, tears
Show a great water table is intact.
You cannot leave England, it turns
A planet majestically in the mind.”

Peter Porter (1929–2010) British poet

"The Last of England", p. 1.
The Last of England (1970)

Tear, Water, Dead

“If some people hadn’t felt obliged to repeat what is untrue simply because they had at one point maintained it, they would have turned into quite different people.”

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

Wenn mancher sich nicht verpflichtet fühlte, das Unwahre zu wiederholen, weil er’s einmal gefügt hat, fo wären es ganz andere Leute geworden.
Maxim 586, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

People

“The magnitude of the service which you rendered to your country and to humanity is beyond estimation. Sharp outlines here and there we know, but the whole account of the World War would be on a scale so stupendous that it could never be recorded. In the victory which was finally gained by you and your foreign comrades, you represented on the battle field the united efforts of our whole people. You were there as the result of a great resurgence of the old American spirit, which manifested itself in a thousand ways, by the pouring out of vast sums of money in credits and charities, by the organization and quickening of every hand in our extended industries, by the expansion of agriculture until it met the demands of famishing continents, by the manufacture of an unending stream of munitions and supplies, by the creation of vast fleets of war and transport ships, and, finally, when the tide of battle was turning against our associates, by bringing into action a great armed force on sea and land of a character that the world had never seen before, which, when it finally took its place in the line, never ceased to advance, carrying the cause of liberty to a triumphant conclusion. You reaffirmed the position of this Nation in the estimation of mankind. You saved civilization from a gigantic reverse. Nobody says now that Americans can not fight.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Money, War, People, World

“Learning can be defined as occurring under two conditions. First, learning occurs when an organisation achieves what it intended; that is, there is a match between its design for action and the actual outcome. Second, learning occurs when a mismatch between intention and outcome is identified and corrected; that is, a mismatch is turned into a match…. Single-loop learning occurs when matches are created, or when mismatches are corrected by changing actions. Double-loop learning occurs when mismatches are corrected by first examining and altering the governing variables and then the actions.”

Chris Argyris (1923–2013) American business theorist/Professor Emeritus/Harvard Business School/Thought Leader at Monitor Group

Chris Argyris (1982) as cited in: "Chris Argyris: The Manager's Academic" in Business (2003). p. 965

Learning, Change

“The university is a vast public utility which turns out future workers in today's vineyard, the military-industrial complex. They've got to be processed in the most efficient way to see to it that they have the fewest dissenting opinions, that they have just those characteristics which are wholly incompatible with being an intellectual. This is a real internal psychological contradiction. People have to suppress the very questions which reading books raises.”

Mario Savio (1942–1996) American activist

Quoted in interview with Jack Fincher, "The University Has Become a Factory," Life magazine (1965-02-26).

People, Books, Way, Question

“Nor was my attendance at the Polo Grounds limited to baseball games. I sat in the lower left field stands to watch the championship professional football game between the undefeated Chicago Bears led by Bronc Nagurski and the New York Giants. Because the field was so icy slick—the temperature dipped to four degrees above zero that Sunday afternoon—the Giants' owner Wellington Mara had a minion at halftime break into Manhattan College's gymnasium and steal the school's basketball sneakers. Clad in sneakers and suddenly able to keep from sliding all over the joint, the Giants turned a 13-3 deficit into a 30-13 victory. All this despite an advisory to his teammates from a former Chicago linebacker named George Halas, "Step on their toes! Step on their toes!"”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From his Foreword https://books.google.com/books?id=jF7v30gqs_0C&pg=PA8&dq=%22Nor+was+my+attendance%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAGoVChMIr7rJg_3UxwIVRDc-Ch0APQ6M#v=onepage&q=%22Nor%20was%20my%20attendance%22&f=false to The Early Polo Grounds Sports-related

School, Game, Victory, Football

“But I have to tell you what I saw... I had entered a dark room [in the city Tunis], lit by a small, elongated horizontal window,.. The light cut sharply.... and drew itself on the stone floor... There behind the table was sitting the Jewish scribe with his arms forward, leaning on the parchment. He turned his lordly head in my direction... It was a beautiful head, delicate and translucent pale as alabaster, large and small wrinkles were lining along the small eyes and around the big curved hawk nose. A black cap covered the white skull and a low white-yellow beard lay in large tufts over the written parchment... two crutches lay slantingly on the floor beside him. How much I desired to get my sketchbook out.... but in front of the staring gaze of the scribe, I didn't find the courage to carry out my intention.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van de tekst van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): Maar ik moet u vertellen wat ik zag.. Ik was een donkere ruimte binnengetreden, verlicht door een klein langwerpig horizontaal liggend raampje,.. .Scherp sneed het licht.. ..en tekende zich af op de stenen vloer.. .Daar zat achter de tafel de joodse wetschrijver met zijn armen voorover op het perkament geleund en draaide zijn vorstelijk hoofd naar mij toe;. ..Het was een prachtig hoofd, fijn en doorschijnend bleek als albast, rimpels, grote en kleine, liepen langs de kleine ogen en om de grote gekromde haviksneus. Een zwart kapje bedekte de witte schedel en een lage witgele baard lag in grote vlokken over het beschreven perkament.. ..twee krukken lagen naast hem schuin op de grond. Hoe gaarne had ik mijn schetsboek voor de dag gehaald,. ..maar voor de starende blik van de wetschrijver durfde ik mijn voornemen niet ten uitvoer te brengen.
Quote of Israëls from his text Spanje, een reisverhaal, publisher, Martinus Nijhoff, De Haag, 1899, p. unknown
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

Beauty, Courage, Light

“Although it is obvious that the Keynesians were all wrong and interventionism and central economic planning don’t work, whom are we listening to for advice on getting us out of this mess? Unfortunately, it’s the Keynesians, the socialists, and big-government proponents. Who’s being ignored? The Austrian free-market economists — the very ones who predicted not only the Great Depression, but the calamity we’re dealing with today. If the crisis was predictable and is explainable, why did no one listen? It’s because too many politicians believed that a free lunch was possible and a new economic paradigm had arrived. But we’ve heard that one before — like the philosopher’s stone that could turn lead into gold. Prosperity without work is a dream of the ages.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

The Austrians Were Right, November 20, 2008 http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/tx14_paul/statement_11_20_08.shtml http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PIEGK0IbA4 2000s, 2006-2009

Age, Dreams

“The more blessed she felt on earth, the more rarely she turned to heaven.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

White Teeth (2000)

“Aurangzeb did this for two reasons: first, because by this time his treasures had begun to shrink owing to expenditure on his campaigns; secondly, to force the Hindus to become Mahomedans. Many who were unable to pay turned Mahomedans, to obtain relief from the insults of the collectors.”

Niccolao Manucci (1638–1717) Italian writer and historian

About the Jizya. Manucci II. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.
Storia do Mogor

Time

“He watched her. He took his time.
Had he known that he was about to enter a tunnel whose only egress was his own annihilation, would he have turned away?
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
Who can tell?”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things (1997)

Time

“There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

"1901", p. 66
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

Men, Feeling, Sense, Universe

“The fighting in western Bosnia intensified as the cease-fire approached. (…) Facing the end of the fighting, the Croats and the Bosnians finally buried their differences, if only momentarily, and took Sanski Most and several other smaller towns. But Prijedor still eluded them. For reasons we never fully undestood, they did not capture this important town, a famous symbol of ethnic cleansing.* (*In March 1997, I attended a showing at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York of a powerful documentary film, Calling the ghosts, that recounted the brual treatmen two Bosnian women from Prijedor had suffered during their incarceration at the notorious Omarska prison camp. Following the film, the two women angrily asked me why they were still unable to return to their hometown. I told them we'd repeatedly encouraged an assault on Prijedor. They were stonished; they said General Dudakovic, the Bosnian commander, had told them personally that "Holbrooke would not let us capture Prijedor and Bosanski Novi". I subsequently learned that this story was widely believed in the region. This revisionism was not surprising; it absolved Dudakovic and his associates of responsibility for the failure to take Prijedor. I suspect the truth is that after the disaster at the Una River the Croatians did not want to fight for a town the would have to turn over to the Muslims - and the Bosnians could not capture it unaided.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 206

Women, Truth, Failure, Suffering

“But Titus said, with his uncommon sense,
When the Exclusion Bill was in suspense:
"I hear a lion in the lobby roar;
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door
And keep him there, or shall we let him in
To try if we can turn him out again?"”

James Bramston (1694–1744) British writer

Art of Politics (1729). Colonel Titus is reported to have said, "I hope we shall not be wise as the frogs to whom Jupiter gave a stork for their king. To trust expedients with such a king on the throne would be just as wise as if there were a lion in the lobby, and we should vote to let him in and chain him, instead of fastening the door to keep him out". On the Exclusion Bill, Jan. 7, 1681.

Sense

“All right and wrong, confounded in impious madness, turned from us the righteous will of the gods.”
Omnia fanda nefanda malo permixta furore iustificam nobis mentem avertere deorum.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXIV
Carmina

God, Madness

“My father, more perceptive than many, wryly commented that by the time I was an adult there might not be an Indian Civil Service to enter. He turned out to be right. I had to settle for British politics instead.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 195

Time

“Crises of every kind - economic crises more frequently, but not only these - in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards concentration and monopoly”

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

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

“I could be counted upon to perform the mission they had assigned me, or, if that was unworkable, to improvise and turn my men's exertions upon a secondary undertaking as good as or better than the first.”

Steven Pressfield book Killing Rommel

Richmond Chapman, p. 175, the first criteria for an able commander
Killing Rommel (2008)

Men

“Professor S. A. A. Rizvi gives some graphic details of this dream described by Shah Waliullah himself in his Fuyûd al-Harmayn which he wrote soon after his return to Indian in 1732: “In the same vision he saw that the king of the kafirs had seized Muslim towns, plundered their wealth and enslaved their children. Earlier the king had introduced infidelity amongst the faithful and banished Islamic practices. Such a situation infuriated Allah and made Him angry with His creatures. The Shah then witnessed the expression of His fury in the mala’ala (a realm where objects and events are shaped before appearing on earth) which in turn gave rise to Shah’s own wrath. Then the Shah found himself amongst a gathering of racial groups such as Turks, Uzbeks and Arabs, some riding camels, others horses. They seemed to him very like pilgrims in the Arafat. The Shah’s temper exasperated the pilgrims who began to question him about the nature of the divine command. This was the point, he answered, from which all worldly organizations would begin to disintegrate and revert to anarchy. When asked how long such a situation would last, Shah Wali-Allah’s reply was until Allah’s anger had subsided… Shah Wali-Allah and the pilgrims then travelled from town to town slaughtering the infidels. Ultimately they reached Ajmer, slaughtered the nonbelievers there, liberated the town and imprisoned the infidel king. Then the Shah saw the infidel king with the Muslim army, led by its king, who then ordered that the infidel monarch be killed. The bloody slaughter prompted the Shah to say that divine mercy was on the side of the Muslims.””

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

S.A.A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times, Canberra. 1980, p.218. Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (1995). Muslim separatism: Causes and consequences. ISBN 9788185990262

Children, Faith, Dreams, Travel

“My observation of the flight of buzzards leads me to believe that they regain their lateral balance when partly overturned by a gust of wind, by a torsion of the tips of the wings. If the rear edge of the right wing tip is twisted upward and the left downward the bird becomes an animated windmill and instantly begins to turn, a line from its head to its tail being the axis. It thus regains its level even if thrown on its beam’s end, so to speak, as I have frequently seen them. I think the bird also in general retains its lateral equilibrium, partly by presenting its two wings at different angles to the wind, and partly by drawing in one wing, thus reducing its area. I incline to the belief that the first is the more important and usual method….
My business requires that my experimental work be confined to the months between September and January and I would be particularly thankful for advice as to a suitable locality where I could depend on winds of about 15 miles per hour without rain or too inclement weather. I am certain that such localities are rare.”

Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) American aviation pioneer

Letter to Octave Chanute (13 May 1900)

Business, Bird, Thinking, Animals

“China, up to 50 years ago, was completely non-homogenous, being compartmented into groups divided against each other. The war-making tendency was almost non-existent, as they still followed the tenets of the Confucian ideal of pacifist culture. At the turn of the century, under the regime of Chang Tso Lin, efforts toward greater homogeneity produced the start of a nationalist urge. This was further and more successfully developed under the leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek, but has been brought to its greatest fruition under the present regime to the point that it has now taken on the character of a united nationalism of increasingly dominant, aggressive tendencies.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)

War, Effort, Change

“Interestingly, the Downing Street memo is actually being reported by CNN and FOX News. It is being discussed in the major papers. Congress intends to examine it. Hearing it mentioned on the half hour by CNN Headline News has not dispossessed me of the belief that a state suicide is impossible. Thus, my gentle thoughts are increasingly turning to murder. Murder of the state. In self-defense, of course!”

Karen Kwiatkowski (1960) retired military officer and author

" Unleashing the Resistance http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski113.html", LewRockwell.com, 15 June 2005.

Suicide

“We can either passively continue on the road to utter domestication and destruction or turn in the direction of joyful upheaval, passionate and feral embrace of wildness and life that aims at dancing on the ruins of clocks, computers and that failure of imagination and will called work. Can we justify our lives by anything less than such a politics of rage and dreams?”

John Zerzan book Future Primitive and Other Essays

Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994)

Life, Dreams, Imagination, Failure

“To turn $100 into $110 is work. To turn $100 million into $110 million is inevitable.”

Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (1929–2013) Canadian-American businessman

Quoted in Nancy Folbre, "Field Guide to the U.S. Economy" (2011), p. 15.

“The individual who is subordinate to an objective law feels himself determined by it, while he, in turn, in no way determines the law, and has no possibility of reacting to it in a manner which could influence it—quite in contrast to even the most miserable slave, who, in some fashion at last, can still in this sense react to his master.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

“Domination” (1908), in On Individuality and Social Forms (1971), pp. 113-114

Law, Way, Feeling, Fashion

“A curious horror overtook him, then. His skin crawled; the back of his neck turned damp and cold. I can’t go yet, he thought. It’s not fair! He shuddered. The void seemed to speak to him. Fairness has nothing to do with it. This will happen, and your wishes are meaningless.”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 12, “Bouncers” (p. 257)

“It seems that in writing a composition, one must first have in mind a reason for writing. If there is a reason behind it, no matter what one writes about, it will turn out to be excellent writing. If there is no reason behind it, there is no way to write. Even if one can produce something, it will be as dry and unpleasant as chewing wax.”

Jin Shengtan (1610–1661) Chinese writer

"How to Read the Shui-hu chuan", § 26; in How to Read the Chinese Novel (1990), ed. David L. Rolston, p. 137

Way

“There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results. Why? First, when you have a celebrity, the company turns into “the one genius with 1,000 helpers.” It creates a sense that the whole thing is really about the CEO. At a deeper level, we found that for leaders to make something great, their ambition has to be for the greatness of the work and the company, rather than for themselves.”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

James C. Collins, in interview in: Fast Company online magazine, October 2001.

Sense

“By turning names into things we create false models of reality. By endowing nations, societies or cultures, with the qualities of internally homogeneous and externally distinctive bounded objects, we create a model of the world as a global pool hall in which the entities spin off each other like so many hard and round billiard balls.”

Eric Wolf (1923–1999) American anthropologist

Source: Europe and the People Without History, 1982, Chapter 1, Introduction, p. 6.

World, Reality, Falseness

“So, all through the medieval period, Foreign and Indian Muslims strove hard to make India a Muslim country by converting and eliminating the Hindus. They killed and converted, and converted and killed by turns. In the earlier centuries of their presence here, the picture was sombre indeed. Turkish rule was established in northern India at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Within fifteen years of Muhammad Ghori’s occupation of Delhi, the Turks rapidly conquered most of the major cities of northern India. Their lightening success, as described by contemporary chroniclers, entailed great loss of life. Qutbuddin Aibak’s conquests during the life-time of his master and later on in the capacity of king (c.1200-1210) included Gwalior, parts of Bundelkhand, Ajmer, Ranthambhor, Anhilwara, as well a parts of U. P. and Malwa. In Nahrwala alone 50,000 persons were killed during Aibak’s campaign.8 No wonder, he earned the nickname of killer of lacs.9 Bakhtiyar Khalji marched through Bihar into Bengal and massacred people in both the regions. During his expedition to Gwalior Iltutmish (1210-36) massacred 700 persons besides those killed in the battle on both sides. His attacks on Malwa (Vidisha and Ujjain) were met with stiff resistance and were accompanied by great loss of life. He is also credited with killing 12,000 Khokhars (Gakkhars) during Aibak’s reign.10 The successors of Iltutmish (Raziyah, Bahram, etc.) too fought and killed zealously. During the reigns of Nasiruddin and Balban (1246-86) warfare for consolidation and expansion of Turkish dominions went on apace. Trailokyavarman, who ruled over Southern U. P., Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand, and is called “Dalaki va Malaki” by Persian chroniclers, was defeated after great slaughter (1248). In 1251, Gwalior, Chanderi, Narwar and Malwa were attacked. The Raja of Malwa alone had 5,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry and would have been defeated only after great loss of life. The inhabitants of Kaithal were given such severe punishment (1254) that they ‘might not forget (the lesson) for the rest of their lives.’ In 1256 Ulugh Khan Balban carried on devastating warfare in Sirmur, and ‘so many of the rebellious Hindus were killed that numbers cannot be computed or described.’ Ranthambhor was attacked in 1259 and ‘many of its valiant fighting men were sent to hell.’ In the punitive expedition to Mewat (1260) ‘numberless Hindus perished under the merciless swords of the soldiers of Islam.’ In the same year 12,000 men, women and children were put to the sword in Hariyana.”

K. S. Lal book Indian Muslims: Who Are They

Indian Muslims: Who Are They (1990)

Life, Women, Men, Children

“When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël book Corinne

Bk. 4, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)

Money

“So the game plan is not merely to free the income of the wealthiest class to “offshore” itself into assets denominated in harder currencies abroad. It is to scrap the progressive tax system altogether. … How stable can a global situation be where the richest nation does not tax its population, but creates new public debt to hand out to its bankers? … The “solution” to the coming financial crisis in the United States may await the dollar’s plunge as an opportunity for a financial Tonkin Gulf resolution. Such a crisis would help catalyze the tax system’s radical change to a European-style “Steve Forbes” flat tax and VAT sales-excise tax…. More government giveaways will be made to the financial sector in a vain effort to keep bad debts afloat and banks “solvent.” As in Ireland and Latvia, public debt will replace private debt, leaving little remaining for Social Security or indeed for much social spending. … The bottom line is that after the prolonged tax giveaway exacerbates the federal budget deficit – along with the balance-of-payments deficit – we can expect the next Republican or Democratic administration to step in and “save” the country from economic emergency by scaling back Social Security while turning its funding over, Pinochet-style, to Wall Street money managers to loot as they did in Chile. And one can forget rebuilding America’s infrastructure. It is being sold off by debt-strapped cities and states to cover their budget shortfalls resulting from un-taxing real estate and from foreclosures. Welcome to debt peonage. This is worse than what was meant by a double-dip recession. It will be with us much longer.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Obama's Bushism http://michael-hudson.com/2010/12/obamas-bushism/ (December 8, 2010) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Money, Game, Effort, Change

“Now I, Abraham, built an altar in the land of Jershon, and made an offering unto the Lord, and prayed that the famine might be turned away from my father’s house, that they might not perish.”

Abraham (-1813–-1638 BC) Biblical patriarch

Book of Abraham 2:17

Housing

“Cardan's originality in the matter seems to have been shown chiefly in four respects. First, he reduced the general equation to the type x^3 + bx = c; second, in a letter written August 4, 1539, he discussed the question of the irreducible case; third, he had the idea of the number of roots to be expected in the cubic; and, fourth, he made a beginning in the theory of symmetric functions. …With respect to the irreducible case… we have the cube root of a complex number, thus reaching an expression that is irreducible even though all three values of x turn out to be real. With respect to the number of roots to be expected in the cubic… before this time only two roots were ever found, negative roots being rejected. As to the question of symmetric functions, he stated that the sum of the roots is minus the coefficient of x2</sup”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

Source: History of Mathematics (1925) Vol.2, pp.461-464

Idea, Question, Time

“Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. God appointed the Afghanistan veteran to avenge himself on this evil nation. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist Church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living that you can still repent and obey. This is ultimatum time with God. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:3. This nation unleashed criminal violent veterans on Westboro Baptist Church for telling you to obey God. We told you at your soldiers' funerals that they are dying for your sins. You hate those words and you will not stop sinning. So you sent violent veterans, so-called patriot guard riders, to attack and try to silence Westboro Baptist Church. Then you sent violent crippled veteran Ryan Newell with 90 rounds of ammunition, planning to shoot five Westboro Baptist Church members while picketing. God restrained the hand of them all, then he turned the violent veteran on you. 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire outside a Tucson, Arizona grocery store, shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John M. Roll, and sixteen others. At least six are dead and counting. Congress passed three laws against Westboro Baptist Church. Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby-killing, was shot for that mischief. A federal judge in Baltimore, part of the massive military community in Maryland and in the District of Columbia, put Westboro Baptist Church on trial for faithful words from God. Federal Judge Roll paid for those sins with his life. Today, mouthy witch Sarah Palin had Representative Giffords in her crosshairs on her website. She quick took it down, however, because she is a cowardly brute like the rest of you. The crosshairs to worry about are God's and he's put you in his and your destruction is upon you. You should have obeyed. This nation of violent murderers is in full rebellion against God. God avenged himself on you today by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you in your affliction. Westboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise God for his righteous judgments in this Earth. Amen.”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

Fred Phelps, on the 2011 Tucson shooting. As quoted in Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Christina Green’s Funeral http://www.anorak.co.uk/270124/media/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-christina-greens-funeral.html. Anorak News. January 10, 2011. 2010s, Thank God for the Violent Shooter (2011)

Life, God, Hate, Faith

“By involving all men in all men, by the electric extension of their own nervous systems, the new technology turns the figure of the primitive society into a universal ground that buries all previous figures.”

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

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 25

Men, Universe

“But they all do sort of the same thing, and that is rearrange what you thought was real, and they remind you of the beauty of pretty simple things. You forget, because you're so busy going from A to Z, that there's 24 letters in between…
You turn on… tune in… and you drop out…”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

Grace Slick, and Leary are both quoted in the Infected Mushroom song "Drop out" on the EP Deeply Disturbed (2003), but only the final portion actually quotes Leary.
Misattributed

Beauty, Business, Forgetting

“When more nutrient-rich foods are present in the diet, the body does not have to eat as much as it would with less nutrient-rich foods. In addition, when the body is fed the nutrients it needs, the brain turns off the hunger signal. And so, the need to continually consume, a state many people who subsist on a refined-food diet experience, ceases, and not as much needs to be eaten and digested.”

Brendan Brazier (1975) Canadian triathlete, publisher, writer, editor

Source: The Thrive Diet, Ch. 2

Hunger, People, Food

“I work so much. If I don't get all the comforts, I will turn mad.”

Lalu Prasad Yadav (1948) Indian politician

Responding to the criticism of his adversaries that he always travelled in a salon. (July 3, 2004 The Times of India).

Madness

“The only generally agreed upon definition of mathematics is "Mathematics is what mathematicians do." […]
In the face of this difficulty [of defining "computer science"] many people, including myself at times, feel that we should ignore the discussion and get on with doing it. But as George Forsythe points out so well in a recent article*, it does matter what people in Washington D. C. think computer science is. According to him, they tend to feel that it is a part of applied mathematics and therefore turn to the mathematicians for advice in the granting of funds. And it is not greatly different elsewhere; in both industry and the universities you can often still see traces of where computing first started, whether in electrical engineering, physics, mathematics, or even business. Evidently the picture which people have of a subject can significantly affect its subsequent development. Therefore, although we cannot hope to settle the question definitively, we need frequently to examine and to air our views on what our subject is and should become.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Hamming cites Forsythe, G.E., "What to do until the computer scientist comes", Am. Math. Monthly 75 (5), May 1968, p. 454-461.
One Man's View of Computer Science (1969)

People, Hope, Feeling, Mathematics

“Lord Peter Wimsey: Wherever trouble turns up, there am I at the bottom of it.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Murder Must Advertise

Murder Must Advertise (1933)

“Perhaps there was too much of religion in one sense; the word is English, smacks too much of things external such as creeds, rites, an external piety; there is no one Indian equivalent. But if we give rather to religion the sense of the following of the spiritual impulse in its fullness and define spirituality as the attempt to know and live in the highest self, the divine, the all-embracing unity and to raise life in all its parts to the divinest possible values, then it is evident that there was not too much of religion, but rather too little of it — and in what there was, a too one-sided and therefore an insufficiently ample tendency. The right remedy is, not to belittle still farther the agelong ideal of India, but to return to its old amplitude and give it a still wider scope, to make in very truth all the life of the nation a religion in this high spiritual sense. This is the direction in which the philosophy, poetry, art of the West is, still more or less obscurely, but with an increasing light, beginning to turn, and even some faint glints of the truth are beginning now to fall across political and sociological ideals.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Renaissance in India (1918)

Life, Truth, Religion, Art

“Naqi suspected that the ability to turn drunkenness on and off like a switch must be one of the most hallowed of diplomatic skills.”

Alastair Reynolds book Diamond Dogs

Turquoise Days, Chapter 2 (p. 237)
Short fiction, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003)

“The way things turned out in Misrata was not what Khadafy had hoped for. Right to the very bitter end, he remained a prisoner of his illusions. For four decades, he had heard people, men and women, shouting themselves hoarse with promises of dying for him. For four decades, he had distributed vast sums of money, generated by Libya’s huge oil exports, among a few hundred thousand “Fedaees” or “self-sacrificers,” individuals who were supposed to fight for him to the end. When high on hubris and the “stimulant” drugs he took, the colonel claimed to have “an army of Omar Mukhtars” under his command, named after a bandit who became a local hero by fighting Italian colonialists in 1912. Yet the first city to rise against Khadafy was Tobruk — Omar Mukhtar’s birthplace. Then Benghazi rose, followed by Braiga. As each town and city rose against him, the colonel promised to fight back from another. His last stands were in Bani-Walid and Sirte. Tens of thousands of Omar Mukhtars did enter the battlefield. But they were fighting not for but against him.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Khadafy, kha-put" http://nypost.com/2011/10/21/khadafy-kha-put/, New York Post (October 21, 2011). New York Post

Women, Men, Money, People

“When we read or hear how some professed Christian has turned defaulter, or lapsed into drunkenness, or slipped from the communion table into open disgrace, it simply means than a human arm has broken. The man has forsaken the everlasting arms.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 21.

Reading

“No, I don’t think it’s correct to define my writing as fables. There are themes, yes, but I’m not trying to offer some categorical cure-it-all to the problematic situation of Man. I’m neither theologian nor a politician. My concern in my first novel, The Zoo, was loss of inner life. After long years of writer’s block, the novel just exploded out of me. Thirty days. All too quickly to really do it justice. With my second novel, The Nihilesthete, I was taken by the spiritual diminishment and the all-pervasive powerlessness that I felt was taking over our culture which in turn prevented and inverted my lead character’s full expression. Such is the motive-force behind almost banal, cerebralized cruelties he harbours upon his arch-enemy, the artist, Brodski.”

Richard Kalich novelist

Richard Kalich in conversation with Lucy Sweeney Byrne - Books Go Social http://booksgosocial.com/2015/01/13/richard-kalich-in-conversation-with-lucy-sweeney-byrne/ January 13, 2015.

Life, Justice, Motivation, Thinking

“Suddenly, immediately, things took a certain shape a very brilliant creation was worked out in extraordinary detail, with marvellous experiences, contact with divine beings, and all kinds of manifestations which are considered miraculous; … One day, I went as usual to relate to Sri Aurobindo what had been happening — we had come to something really very interesting, and perhaps I showed a little enthusiasm in my account of what had taken place — then Sri Aurobindo looked at me... and said: 'Yes, this is an Overmind creation. It is very interesting, very well done. You will perform miracles which will make you famous throughout the world, you will be able to turn events on earth topsy-turvy, indeed, … ' and then he smiled and said: 'It will be a great success. But it is an Overmind creation. And it is not success that we want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

Quoted in "Pondicherry", and also in The Mother: The Story of Her Life by Georges Van Vrekhem (2004) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=8hgG8aweqncC&pg=RA1-PT107, p. 107

World, Smile, Success

“After a major terrorist attack, every society faces a choice between fear and resolve. The world’s great democracies can’t sacrifice our values or turn our backs on those in need. Therefore, we must choose resolve. And we must lead the world to meet this threat.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech on fighting ISIS (November 20, 2015)

World, Fear, Democracy

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Quotes about turn
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