Quotes about turn
page 50

“A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 127

War

“You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.

World

“Look, here is the way I swing. I swing hard. I don’t punch the ball. I have bat control, and I don’t go for home runs, but I still swing as hard as some fellows who swing for the fences. My back is practically to first base when I finish the swing. I have to turn around before I can start running. Sometimes the ball is in the fielder’s hands before I drop the bat.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

On how being right-handed negatively impacted his chances of batting .400, as quoted in "Aches, Pains... and Base Hits" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=W6lWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xecDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7036%2C4509721 by Jim Murray, in The Los Angeles Times (August 10, 1971). Also see the above comment (August 11, 1964) re "stepping in the bucket." Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Way, Home

“It is not a snobbish rich-man's college, devoted to leisurely nonsense. It is the property of the people of the state, and what they want—or what they are told they want—is a mill to turn out men and women who will lead moral lives, play bridge, drive good cars, be enterprising in business, and occasionally mention books, though they are not expected to have time to read them. It is a Ford Motor Factory, and if its products rattle a little, they are beautifully standardized, with perfectly interchangeable parts.”

Sinclair Lewis book Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith (1925), Ch 2

Women, Men, People, Books

“I have a particular interest in corporations that give themselves a cultural aura and are in other areas suspect. Philip Morris presents itself in New York as the lover of culture while it turns out that if you look behind the scenes, it is also a prime funder of Jesse Helms, someone who is very hostile to the arts.”

Hans Haacke (1936) conceptual political artist

Hans Haacke in: Roberta Smith "A Giant artistic Gibe at Jesse Helms," in New York Times, April 20, 1990; Republished in: The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century: 1900-1929, (2002) p. 2929
1990s

Hostility, Art, Lovers

“When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way. You're asking that I second say the world.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2005)

Life, World, Way

“The governments of Europe are confronting an epochal choice in the Mediterranean. Do they allow Europe to remain on course toward inundation by the African population explosion, inevitably turning Florence into Ferguson and Barcelona into Baltimore?”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

Africa on the Brink http://takimag.com/article/africa_on_the_brink_steve_sailer/print#ixzz4A3g9JRfU, Taki's Magazine, April 29, 2015

“I tell you, I'd be lucky to hit.280 in New York. There are too many people in New York, and if you don't want to be a bad guy, you must go to all the dinners and meetings. How could I concentrate on baseball? I have so many good friends in New York that it is hard to turn them down. But it is that way every place on the road. I tell the hotel that I will not be disturb, [sic] but people find me anyway.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking after the 1972 NLCS, as quoted in "Puerto Rico Has Lost a Hero"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

People, Way, Guy

“You must forgive me for continually coming back to the same thing; but I believe in the logical development of everything we see and feel through the study of nature and turn my attention to technical questions later.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote of 1906 from a letter; cited in Paul Cézanne, Letters ed. John Rewald, New York, Da Capro Press, 1995, p. 313
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900

Feeling, Forgiveness, Question, Nature

“Whence is it that moral philosophy, which was so carefully cultivated in the ancient academy, should be forced in the modern to give place to natural, that was originally designed to be subservient to it? Which is to exalt the hand-maid into the place of mistress7. This appears not only a preposterous, but a pernicious method of institution; for as the mind takes a turn of thought in future life, suitable to the tincture it hath received in youth, it will naturally conclude that there is no necessity to regard, or at least to lay any stress upon what was never inculcated upon it as a matter of importance then: and so will grow up in a neglect or disesteem of those things which are more necessary to make a person a wise and truly understanding man than all those rudiments of science he brought with him from the school or college.”

John Mason (1706–1763) English Independent minister and author

A Treatise on Self-Knowledge (1745)

Life, Youth, School, Understanding

“The old man made himself look hard at the Raven and saw that it was not a great bird from the sky but the work of men like himself. This first encounter turned out to be peaceful. The men of the La Pérouse expedition were under strict orders to treat with respect any people they might discover, an exceptional policy for its time and after.”

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

4 min 40 sec
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), Who Speaks for Earth? [Episode 13]

Men, People, Peace, Bird

“I didn’t have much, but I was always happy to share what I did have. It seemed like every African that came to New York City would show up at my apartment door at dinnertime, and I couldn’t turn them away. I wasn’t much older than any of them, but they started calling me ‘Mama Africa’ and the name stuck.”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

As quoted in Poet, J. (11 February 2009)

Happiness

“We're no longer officially a superpower. Please turn in your badges.”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 20, 2009)

“Eugenics should, therefore, not be allowed to deceive us into the belief that we should try to raise a race of supermen, nor that it should be our aim to eliminate all suffering and pain. The attempt to suppress those defective classes whose deficiencies can be proved by rigid methods to be due to hereditary causes, and to prevent unions that will unavoidably lead to the birth of disease-stricken progeny, is the proper field of eugenics. How much can be and should be attempted in this field depends upon the results of careful studies of the law of heredity. Eugenics is not a panacea that will cure human ills, it is rather a dangerous sword that may turn its edge against those who rely on its strength.”

Franz Boas (1858–1942) German-American anthropologist

Eugenics, in The Scientific Monthly, J. McKeen Cattell, ed., Vol. 3, No. 5,(November, 1916) http://books.google.com/books?id=JKLRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA478&dq=%22not+be+allowed+to+deceive+us+into+the+belief+that+we+should+try+to+raise+a+race%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=T6O1U7SkOtefyASFgIHIDg&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22vol%203%20no%205%22%20november%201916&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=JKLRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA478&dq=%22not+be+allowed+to+deceive+us+into+the+belief+that+we+should+try+to+raise+a+race%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=T6O1U7SkOtefyASFgIHIDg&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22not%20be%20allowed%20to%20deceive%20us%20into%20the%20belief%20that%20we%20should%20try%20to%20raise%20a%20race%22&f=false.

Pain, Disease, Law, Birth

“Computer Algebra Systems are NOT the Devil but the new MESSIAH that will take us out of the current utterly trivial phase of human-made mathematics into the much deeper semi-trivial computer-generated phase of future mathematics. Even more important, Computer Algebra Systems will turn out to be much more than just a `tool', since the methodology of computer-assisted and computer-generated research will rule in the future, and will make past mathematics seem like alchemy and astrology, or, at best, theology.”

Doron Zeilberger (1950) Israeli mathematician

Mathematics, Past, Future

“I can tell you that it is no game for children, and I will confess that, in spite of my nine campaigns, I felt myself turn pale when the first ball flashed past me.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Of cricket) Adventures of Gerard (1903

Children, Game, Past

“On September 13, 1888, Jonathan Goforth, famed Canadian pioneer Presbyterian missionary to China, made his first exploration tour of North Honan. Honan was considered one of the most anti-foreign and dangerous parts of China. Yet God had called Goforth to it. Hudson Taylor wrote him, “We have been trying, unsuccessfully, for ten years, to get into Honan. We’ve been beaten, stoned, and turned back time and again. Brother, if you would enter that province, you must go forward on your knees!”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(from Bill Fietje letter).

God, Time, Parting

“In practice, attempts to sort out good erotica from bad porn inevitably comes down to "What turns me on is erotic; what turns you on is pornographic."”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

" Feminism, Moralism, and Pornography" (1979) http://www2.ucsc.edu/culturalstudies/EVENTS/Spring09/Rubin-%20Willis%20-%20Feminism,%20Moralism%20&%20Porn.pdf, Beginning To See the Light: Pieces of a Decade (1981)

“The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew so well. As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph. But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Mina Harker
Dracula (1897)

Hate, Peace, Imagination, Mountain

“When people throw stones at you, you turn them into milestones.”

Sachin Tendulkar (1973) A former Indian cricketer from India and one of the greatest cricketers ever seen in the world

When quizzed about people still questioning him over his inability to make India win the matches. http://www.cricages.com/sachin-zone/when-people-throw-stones-at-you-you-turn-them-into-milestones-sachin/

People

“Take any action allow’d to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ’tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar’d to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

.
Part 1, Section 1
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 3: Of morals

Way, Feeling, Motivation, Nature

“In 1942 when I was in New York, I was struck by the neon advertisements flashing all over Broadway. You are there, you talk to someone, and all of a sudden he turns blue. Then the colour fades - another one comes and turns him red or yellow. The colour – the colour of neon advertising is free; it exists in space. I wanted to do the same in my canvases.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Quote from Legér and America, exhibition catalogue Fernand Léger, Buffalo 1982, p. 52
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1980's

“Our whole strength will be put into this war of emancipation, -- emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers, -- whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of independent action and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

1910s, Address to Congress: Analyzing German and Austrian Peace Utterances (1918)

Life, Men, War, World

“The cities in which we live in are schools of death, because they are dishuman. Each one of them has become a den of noise and of stench, for each of one has became a chaos of buildings, in which we ammass ourselves in millions, losing our life’s reasons. Unfortunates without escape, we feel to have put ourselves, willing or not, in the labyrinth of the absurd, from which we will leave only when we will die, for our destiny is to continue to multiply ourselves, only to die in great numbers. At every turn of the wheel, the cities in which we live in advance slowly one against the other, desiring only to confuse with each other: it’s a run towards the absolute chaos, in the noise and in the stench. At every turn of the wheel the price of the grounds go up, and in the labyrinth which devours the free space the revenue of the investiments builds up, day after day, hundreds of walls. It’s necessary that money give revenues and that the cities in which we live in advance, so it’s right that the houses double their height at every generation, even if the water is missing half of the days. The builders only desire to escape the destiny that they prepare for us, moving towards the countryside.”

Albert Caraco (1919–1971) French-Uruguayan philosopher

Translation from: Albert Carao (1919-1917) http://illusioncity.net/albert-caraco/ at illusioncity.net by Snake June 17, 2012 Ma confession (1975)

Life, Death, Money, School

“It might bear remembering that when, in 1989, Ceausescu did try to go to war with his own population, Secretary of State James Baker made the unprecedented public statement that the United States would not object to a Russian intervention to spare further chaos and misery in Romania. Are the Russians and the Chinese so wedded to the legal niceties, or so proud of their association with Qaddafi, that they would repudiate a speech from President Barack Obama in which he asked for reciprocation? We cannot know this if such a speech is never made or even contemplated…There are a number of other low-cost tactics that could affect the odds, such as jamming Qaddafi's airwaves. But what principally strikes the eye is not the absence of resources—or, indeed, options—but the absence of preparedness…If the other side in this argument is correct, or even to the extent that it is correct, then we are being warned that a maimed and traumatized Libya is in our future, no matter what. That being the case, a piecemeal and improvised policy is the least pragmatic one. Even if Qaddafi temporarily turns the tide, as seems thinkable, and covers us all with shame for doing so, we will still have it all to do again. Let us at least hope that certain excuses will not be available next time.”

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

2011-03-14
Don't Let Qaddafi Win
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/03/dont_let_qaddafi_win.html: On the 2011 Libyan civil war
2010s, 2011

War, Hope, Wedding, Time

“She…cast an eye over the contents of his cart, wondering whether this was totally random stuff…to perfect his Walmart shopper disguise: 5.56-millimeter cartridges, a water purification device, jerky, bug repellent, a camouflage hat. Freeze-dried meals. A roll of black plastic sheeting. Parachute cord. Batteries. A folding bucksaw. Camouflage binoculars.…
It turned out that Sokolov really did want to buy all that stuff. Not because he envisioned any particular use for it. He just believed in stocking up on such things, on general principles, whenever an opportunity presented itself.
He would fit in well here.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 20, Northern Idaho
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

Water, Perfection

“Did you see that recent flick, Hollow Man? Good effects but the dialogue was crap. Kevin Bacon is a hot shot scientist who, together with his hot shot scientist mates, turns himself invisible, but then finds that he can't turn himself back. So he goes insane and decides to kill all his mates, blow up the lab and ride off into the sunset on a very confused horse.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

Why it would kick arse to be invisible http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/essays/invis.htm Fully Ramblomatic, Essays

Horse

“Look, Trump has been elected, he will be our president and he has the right to choose conservatives. But instead of turning to the many principled Republicans available, he seems drawn to hotheads and bigots, embarrassing himself and our nation.”

Nicholas D. Kristof (1959) journalist, author, columnist

Trump Embarrasses Himself and Our Country http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/so-many-options-yet-donald-trump-picks-the-ugly.html, The New York Times (November 19, 2016)

“Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people,… he turned to his friend and said, "Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?"”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

55 Phocion
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

People

“If I hadn't refused Ken Russell, Fellini and Spielberg and made their movies when they asked me, my life would be no different. It is not my fault that I accepted one movie and turned down another. I don't see any point in defending myself, either.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Fangoria interview

Life

“[Ike] was presiding over a situation in which history was turning into demography, in which judgment—and Ike possessed judgment with a capital J—was being drained out of every powerful situation, and marketing considerations were being pumped in.”

George W. S. Trow (1943–2006) American writer

My Pilgrim’s Progress (1999)

History

“A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in a kind of superperson. A few believe God is another word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just about anything they happen not to understand or feel in control of.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 2 (p. 15)

God, People, Feeling, Understanding

“In fact, an information theory that leaves out the issue of noise turns out to have no content.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 13, Electric Information, From Morse to Shannon, p. 121

“Claus Graf von Stauffenberg’s famous last words Es lebe das geheime Deutschland have turned out to be not quite so romantically foolish as they sounded at the time. If there never was a secret Germany, the July plotters at least provided a sacred moment, and the Germans of today are right to cherish it.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

Secret, Time

“Jordan Elliot: What's for dinner?
Lois Lane: Pizza. After that, if Jonathan's quiet, I thought maybe bed with a bottle of wine. And after that, I figure we just live happily ever after. Sound good to you?
Jordan: Lois, my love… [turns and winks to the reader as he closes the door] What do you think?”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (1986)

Love, Thinking, Wine

“I seem to see before me the smiling faces of thousands of children some young and fresh and some wearing the friendly marks of age. But all children at heart and not an unfriendly face among them. And while I’m trying hard to speak the right word, I seem to hear a voice lifted above the rest saying you have made some of us happy. And so I feel my heart fluttering and my lips trembling, and I have to bow silently and turn away and hurry back into the obscurity that fits me best.”

Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908) Journalist, children's writer

Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1895), Preface.

Happiness, Children, Age, Smile

“Peter sighed. He turned the palms of his hands up as though to guess at rain. Anna knew him, theme and choreography. The sunshiny spring afternoon seeped through his fingers. He looked up at the witnessing heavens to keep what he could. He dropped his arms and let the rest go.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"The Pale Pink Roast" (1959)

Spring

“[Crack] used to be called freebase when white rich people did it. Then it got sold in batches, and white rich people were still doing it, and it was still called freebase. And then all of a sudden this guy named Ricky Freeway Ross started making it and he happened to be black, and— everything is political— and, then it turned into "crack."”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

Explaining the racist politics of the history of cocaine; The Howard Stern Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXZ7Wwv1og0 (2005) 1996–2005

People, Guy

“Aquinas and Augustus of Hippo, both proposed this extraordinary idea that babies who were unbaptised would not know heaven. They also proposed the idea of purgatory which doesn’t exist in The Bible. There’s absolutely no evidence for it. However, what an extraordinary brilliant coup to imagine such a thing as purgatory. That a soul needs to be prayed for, in order to go to heaven. In order to turn left when he enters the aeroplane of heaven and get a first class seat. That, he needs to be prayed for. And many hundreds, indeed over a thousand years, you’ll be amazed what generous terms those prayers came at. Sometimes as little as two thirds of a year’s salary. Could ensure that a dead loved one would go to heaven. And money could ensure that your baby. Your dead child, your dead uncle, your dead mother, could go to heaven. And if you were rich enough, you could have a chantry built and monks would permanently sing prayers so that that existence in heaven for the child would go up and up and up until they were at the table of the Lord themselves.”

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

2010s, Intelligence Squared, 2014

Love, Money, Soul, Imagination

“We take for granted that the organism does not learn to grow arms or to reach puberty… When we turn to the mind and its products, the situation is not qualitatively different from what we find in the case of the body.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s, Rules and Representations (1980), p. 2-3 as cited in: Jerry Fodor (1983) Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology. p. 4.

Learning

“Look, when I go to rallies, they turn around, they start screaming at CNN. They want to throw their placards at CNN. You know. I think you would do much better by being different.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, February

Thinking

“For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it. We know the IRS has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit. So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. So if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are, because it must be something really important, even terrible, that he's trying to hide. And the financial disclosure statements, they don't give you the tax rate. They don't give you all the details that tax returns would. And it just seems to me that this is something that the American people deserve to see. And I have no reason to believe that he's ever going to release his tax returns, because there's something he's hiding.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

People, Health, School, Business

“I was definitely getting the hang of this skating thing. I'd started to copy a fancy cross-over turn from a German girl in front of me, and it was working pretty well. I was just about keeping up with her too, which was pleasing. She must have been about six.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

The Gun Seller (1996)

Girl

“Glorified is He before Whom all the dwellers of earth and heaven bow down in adoration and unto Whom all men turn in supplication. He is the One Who holdeth in His grasp the mighty kingdom of all created things and unto Him shall all return. He is the One Who revealeth whatsoever He willeth and by His injunction ‘Be Thou’ all things have come into being.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’

Men

“The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more… Consider Uganda, pearl of Africa, as an example of the British record. … the British planted coffee and cotton and tobacco, and they were broadly right… If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain. You never saw a place so abounding in bananas: great green barrel-sized bunches, off to be turned into matooke. Though this dish (basically fried banana) was greatly relished by Idi Amin, the colonists correctly saw that the export market was limited… The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Discussing his views on Africans and "Instant Carbohydrate Gratification" The Spectator 2 February 2002
2000s, 2002

Fate, Feeling, Coffee, Understanding

“The majority of men … never turn their attention from the outside world to examine themselves. … They go through life drawn hither and thither by outside happenings, with scarcely any originality, or without any more control of their direction than have the leaves which are whirled about by the autumn wind.”

Jules Payot (1859–1940) French educationist

Source: The Education of the Will (1920), pp. 146-147

Life, Men, World, Autumn

“There various news I heard of love and strife,
Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life,
Of loss and gain, of famine and of store,
Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,
Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,
Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,
Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,
The fall of favourites, projects of the great,
Of aid mismanagements, taxations new:
All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Source: The Temple of Fame (1711), Lines 449-458.

Love, Life, Death, War

“If education really educates, there will, in time, be more and more citizens who understand that relics of the old West add meaning and value to the new. Youth yet unborn will pole up the Missouri with Lewis and Clark, or climb the Sierras with James Capen Adams, and each generation in turn will ask: Where is the big white bear? It will be a sorry answer to say he went under while conservationists weren’t looking.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wilderness", p. 199.

Youth, Education, Understanding, Time

“Christmas turns things last end foremost. The people whom the world arranges last in its procession — the weary, the poor, the foolish, the lame, the halt, the blind — these are the ones who come at the very head of the column in the consideration of the Little Child who leads.”

Halford E. Luccock (1885–1960) American Methodist minister

Source: Fares, Please! (1915), Everything Upside Down, p. 187
Context: Christmas turns things last end foremost. The people whom the world arranges last in its procession — the weary, the poor, the foolish, the lame, the halt, the blind — these are the ones who come at the very head of the column in the consideration of the Little Child who leads. The last, the least, the lost — how often those words were on Jesus's lips — the three great objects of his passion! It is not the world's idea of correct form. … most of us unconsciously arrange our acquaintances or possible acquaintances in the order of what advantage they may be to us. Jesus reverses the whole scheme as a perversion and sets up a new basis of classification. His question is not, What can this man do for me? but What can I do for him? The most important person for us to know, he tells us both by word and example, is the one who needs us most. "The first shall be last and the last shall be first."

People, World, Christmas

“At the word I turned hastily to another column and found the news that had stirred him. And even in the midst of world-shaking events it stirred me too. For a brief moment I forgot the war and was back in that cheerful world where we used to be happy, where we greeted the rising sun with light hearts and saw its setting without fear. In that cheerful world I can hardly recall a time when a big man with a black beard was not my King … I owe more undiluted happiness to him than to any man that ever lived. For he was the genial tyrant in a world that was all sunshine.”

Alfred George Gardiner (1865–1946) British journalist and writer

On being told in 1915 that W. G. Grace had died. From Pebbles on the Shore (1916)

War, Happiness, World, Fear

“Were I to remove the veil, all would recognize Me as their Best Beloved, and no one would deny Me. Let not this assertion astound Your Majesty; inasmuch as a true believer in the unity of God who keepeth his eyes directed towards Him alone, will regard aught else but Him as utter nothingness. I swear by God! I seek no earthly goods from thee, be it as much as a mustard seed. Indeed, to possess anything of this world or of the next would, in My estimation, be tantamount to open blasphemy. For it ill beseemeth the believer in the unity of God to turn his gaze to aught else, much less to hold it in his possession. I know of a certainty that since I have God, the Ever-Living, the Adored One, I am the possessor of all things, visible and invisible…”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Epistle to Muhammad Sháh

God, World

“Man's conception of what is most worth knowing and reflecting upon, of what may best compel his scholarly energies, has changed greatly with the years. His earliest impressions were of his own insignificance and of the stupendous powers and forces by which he was surrounded and ruled. The heavenly fires, the storm-cloud and the thunderbolt, the rush of waters and the change of seasons, all filled him with an awe which straightway saw in them manifestations of the superhuman and the divine. Man was absorbed in nature, a mythical and legendary nature to be sure, but still the nature out of which science was one day to arise. Then, at the call of Socrates, he turned his back on nature and sought to know himself; to learn the secrets of those mysterious and hidden processes by which he felt and thought and acted. The intellectual centre of gravity had passed from nature to man. From that day to this the goal of scholarship has been the understanding of both nature and man, the uniting of them in one scheme or plan of knowledge, and the explaining of them as the offspring of the omnipotent activity of a Creative Spirit, the Christian God. Slow and painful have been the steps toward the goal which to St. Augustine seemed so near at hand, but which has receded through the intervening centuries as the problems grew more complex and as the processes of inquiry became so refined that whole worlds of new and unsuspected facts revealed themselves. Scholars divided into two camps. The one would have ultimate and complete explanations at any cost; the other, overcome by the greatness of the undertaking, held that no explanation in a large or general way was possible. The one camp bred sciolism; the other narrow and helpless specialization.
At this point the modern university problem took its rise; and for over four hundred years the university has been striving to adjust its organization so that it may most effectively bend its energies to the solution of the problem as it is. For this purpose the university's scholars have unconsciously divided themselves into three types or classes: those who investigate and break new ground; those who explain, apply, and make understandable the fruits of new investigation; and those philosophically minded teachers who relate the new to the old, and, without dogma or intolerance, point to the lessons taught by the developing human spirit from its first blind gropings toward the light on the uplands of Asia or by the shores of the Mediterranean, through the insights of the world's great poets, artists, scientists, philosophers, statesmen, and priests, to its highly organized institutional and intellectual life of to-day. The purpose of scholarly activity requires for its accomplishment men of each of these three types. They are allies, not enemies; and happy the age, the people, or the university in which all three are well represented. It is for this reason that the university which does not strive to widen the boundaries of human knowledge, to tell the story of the new in terms that those familiar with the old can understand, and to put before its students a philosophical interpretation of historic civilization, is, I think, falling short of the demands which both society and university ideals themselves may fairly make.
A group of distinguished scholars in separate and narrow fields can no more constitute a university than a bundle of admirably developed nerves, without a brain and spinal cord, can produce all the activities of the human organism.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Scholarship and service : the policies of a national university in a modern democracy https://archive.org/details/scholarshipservi00butluoft (1921)

Life, Men, God, Pain

“The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn
When teachers themselves are taught to learn.”

Bertolt Brecht book Life of Galileo

Scene 6
Life of Galileo (1939)

World, Knowledge, Learning, Teachers

“Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.”

Alvin Plantinga (1932) American Christian philosopher

God, Exercises, Freedom, Evil

“I saw an aged woman turn
To her wretched home again —
All day she had asked charity,
And all day asked in vain....”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette, 1832

Age, Home

“Only if you admit the existence of god does everything become meaningful. When we bring God into our lives, distinctions lessen and we feel that all people are our own. On the physical plane there is a difference between myself and others, but on the spiritual plane we are the same Satchidananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute). From that standpoint no one can help another—one is only helping oneself. The key to our philanthropy is this: In doing good to others, we try to forget the apparent distinctions between ourselves and other people. The welfare of others is my welfare—that is our attitude. Who does not want his own good? If you believe in God and serve society, you can never feel any resentment…. People may get social merit through philanthropic activities, but if their egos are involved in those activities, they will not get any spiritual merit. Even the result of a good action turns into a bondage if it is done with ego. On the other hand, unselfish actions destroys the bondage of action and bring literation to humanity.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

In reply to western ladies who said that one should give higher place to philanthropy than to God.
Source: God Lived with Them, p.430

God, People, Feeling, Help

“Don’t let me get grand with you; I’m not someone who was, from day one, turning himself into a philosophical academic or anything; I was, from day one, someone who was determined to survive, and to pay attention to what was going on around him, period, and when Elvis Presley came along, my heart stood still, to borrow the Larry Hart lyric. The first note I heard from him, I said, “Well, this is it, this is a sufferer like me, this is something new, this is what I want, this is who I am, in a way,” and Elvis had that gift. That’s why there are so many Elvis imitators.”

George W. S. Trow (1943–2006) American writer

My Pilgrim’s Progress (1999)

Way, Suffering, Heart

“Back o'er the deep I turn my longing eyes,
And chide the wayward passions that rebel:
Yet boots it not to think, or to complain,
Musing sad ditties to the reckless main.
To dreams like these, adieu! the pealing bell
Speaks of the hour that stays not—and the day
To life's sad turmoil calls my heart away.”

William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850) English priest, poet and critic

On Landing at Ostend, from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 - With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan (1855).

Life, Sadness, Dreams, Thinking

“I don’t believe in road rage; I prefer the gentle rebuke. If I don’t like the way someone is driving, I pull up alongside the other car and say, “I hope your children turn out poorly.” Only once have I lost my cool. That was the time I said to a woman, “I hope you get a blister on your cunt.’ But I said it with a smile.”

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

Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)

Children, Smile, Hope, Cars

“The Hindu, sickened by idolatry (Islam's and Christianity's common name for Hinduism), turns to the other two religions which surround him, and inquires into their respective claims … we must be ready at hand to meet him with the proofs of our most holy faith… the comparison of the two religIOns, Christianity and Islam, cannot fail to be of essential service, under God's blessings, to lead to practical results.”

John Muir (indologist) (1810–1882) Scottish Sanskrit scholar and Indologist

Calcutta Review in 1845, Quoted from Swarup, Ram (1995). Hindu view of Christianity and Islam.

God, Faith, Religion

“Near the eastern gate of the mosque lie two very big idols of copper connected together by stones. Every one who comes in and goes out of the mosque treads over them. On the site of this mosque was a bud khãnã that is an idol-house. After the conquest of Delhi it was turned into a mosque…”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

About Delhi. The Rehalã of Ibn Battûta translated into English by Mahdi Hussain, Baroda, 1967, p. 27
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Lie, Housing

“Methinks, I see the wanton houres flee,
And as they passe, turne back and laugh at me.”

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–1687) English statesman and poet

As quoted in The Encyclopædia Britannica (1910)

“In the world view of tauhid, man fears only one power, and is answerable before only one judge. He turns to only one qibla, and directs his hopes and desires to only one source. And the corollary is that all else is false and pointless all the diverse and variegated tendencies, strivings, fears, desires and hopes of man are vain and fruitless.”

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

Source: On the sociology of Islam: lectures. (1979), p. 97; partly cited in: John L. Esposito (1996) Islam and Democracy. p. 25.

World, Fear, Hope, Falseness

“In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.”

Primo Levi book The Periodic Table

"Zinc"
The Periodic Table (1975)

Life

“Technique shapes an aristocratic society, which in turn implies aristocratic government. Democracy in such a society can only be a mere appearance. Even now, we see in propaganda the premises of such a state of affairs. When it comes to state propaganda, there is no longer any question of democracy.”

Jacques Ellul book The Technological Society

Source: The Technological Society (1954), p. 275

Democracy, Question, Appearance

“Those who turn to God for comfort may find comfort but I do not think they will find God.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

God, Thinking

“As sunshine broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Lalla Rookh http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/lallarookh/index.html (1817), Part V-VIII: The Fire-Worshippers

“…four very powerful corporate lobbies have repeatedly come out on top and turned our democracy into what might more accurately be called a corporatocracy.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable," w:Good Reads, https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/53895656-building-the-new-american-economy-smart-fair-and-sustainable

Democracy

“Awaited on my turn to burn can I get a light? Little dog, bigger bite, Jackson Five, little Mike.”

Lil Wayne (1982) American rapper, singer, record executive and businessman

SportsCenter
Official Mix tapes, Dedication 2 (2006)

Dogs, Light

“…In essence, the A. R. F.'s present strategy does not differ from the strategy it pursued at the turn of the [20th] century. The A. R. F. viewed its armed propaganda as a means of introducing the "Armenian Cause" (Hai Tad) into the arena of international politics. In fact, almost all of the A. R. F.'s tactics, armed or not, are still aimed at somehow convincing "Western" governments and diplomatic circles to sponsor the party's demands… This strategy is very dependent on foreign initiatives, and it implies a belief that the Armenian people's future cannot be determined primarily by the Armenian people themselves.”

Monte Melkonian (1957–1993) National Hero of Armenia

Source: The Right to Struggle (1993), P. 55-56.

People, Future, Dependency

“The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world. Where freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope. When freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the peaceful pursuit of a better life.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)

Life, Women, Men, World

“You can look at any painting ever done of Jesus over the centuries, and you can spot immediately that he's not English, 'cos he's very often shown wearing sandals, but never with socks. I think that would be an English Messiah's look, wouldn't it? - socks, sandals, khaki shorts skimming the knee, little Fair Isle slipover - in case it turns, 'cos it's deceptive, the desert - and I think, instead of all that camp and rather beautiful 'Oh Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?' business - instead of all that - I think he'd be up there trying to make the best of it - 'cos moping doesn't help, does it? I think he'd be up there going, 'Cor, here's a pretty pickle. No, I didn't do it either, but you don't like to say, do you?' (Wrap Up Warm tour, May 2004)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

Beauty, Business, Thinking, Help

“It's useless to advise people not to see Independence Day, so I'll issue a warning instead: curb your enthusiasm and don't expect much. With suitably low expectations, you're likely not to be too disappointed, unless you make the mistake of actually thinking about what's taking place on-screen while it's going on. The last half hour is built on a series of contrivances and implausibilities that even a six-year old could find serious flaw with, so be prepared to use the "brain off" switch. But Independence Day isn't about logic and intelligence. It's about space battles, mass destruction, and a laughably "rousing" speech by the President. This is a spectacle, pure and simple. Unfortunately, because the filmmakers mistakenly tried to inject a load of weak dramatic elements, Independence Day turns out to be overlong, overblown, and overdone. For alien invasions this summer, give me The Arrival instead.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/i/id4.html of Independence Day (1996). Two star reviews

People, Disappointment, Intelligence, Thinking

“I am 36 years old and I have been a criminal all of my life. I have 11 felony convictions against me. I have served 20 years of my life in Jails, Reform Schools and prisons. I know why I am a criminal. Others may have different theories as to my life but I have no theory about it. I know the facts. If any man ever was a habitual criminal. I am one. In my lifetime I have broken every law that was ever made by both Man and God. If either had made more, I should cheerfully have broken them also. The mere fact that I have done these things is quite sufficient for the average person. Very few peopel ever consider it worth while to wonder why I am what I am and do what I do. All that they think it is necessary to do is to catch me, try me convict me and send me to prison for a few years, make life miserable for me while in prison and then turn me loose again. That is the system that is in practice today in this country. The consequences are that such that any one and every one can see. crime and lots of it. Those who are sincere in thier desire to put down crime, are to be pitied for all of thier efforts which accomplish so little in the desired direction. They are the ones who are decieved by thier own ignorance and by the trickery and greed of others who profit the most by crime.”

Carl Panzram (1891–1930) American serial killer

sic
Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers, p. 187, (1997), Brian King, ed. ISBN 096503240X

Life, God, School, Law

“…they have brainwashed us into believing in the last 150 years… that quantitative change is superior to qualitative attributes. If we can turn out more… it doesn't matter if they're half as good. …We're quantifying everything, and that is why we're trying to put everything on computers. Governments will no longer have to make decisions; computers will do it.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Decision, Change

“There's nothing better than a party that turns into a death trap.”

Russell T. Davies (1963) Screenwriter, former executive producer of Doctor Who

Doctor Who Confidential Series 2, Episode 5, "Cybermen" http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/confidential/index5.shtml (Doctor Who documentary series, 2005)

Death

“When you have a planned economy and when you abolish private property, someone must make the decision "Plan in what ways? What do people need?" They now must make those purchase decisions for you. What should you really buy and what shouldn't you buy? Removing choice in the interest of a collective pursuit, those central planners who are one and the same time your schoolteacher, your landlord, your employer, and your police, that's an extraordinary concentration of power, ladies and gentlemen. That is an extraordinary concentration of power. They must get people of what we are planning for and you see this in the history of every communist society. Which means in the final analysis, they must govern the culture, they must control values. Its why religion or any independent thinking is such an enemy. They must control the values, the preferences, the culture, and the education and they must find ways to repress those who are urging different paths and elections don't take care of that because if you're planning an entire economy. If you're planning the allocation of all goods and services and human choices. You can't every four years turn around and say "Oh, lets abandon 'A' and do 'B'." Elections don't get you out of that dilemma.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011), Q&A

People, Education, Religion, Way

“The most serious flaw of Foucault's system is in the area of sex. I view his hurried, compulsive writing as a massive rationalist defense-formation to avoid thinking about (a) woman, (b) nature, (c) emotion, and (d) the sexual body. His attempt to make the body passive property of male society is an evasion of the universal fact so intolerable to him: that we are all born of human mothers. By turning women into ciphers, he miniaturizes and contains them.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 230

Women, Sex, Nature, Thinking

“The nice thing is that MOND has not had to change or adjust itself to the many observations that came after it was proposed. … In the end, the process that might sway people's minds could be a slow one, in which they become disillusioned and dissatisfied with DM, while MOND explains more and more of the observations. And, if MOND does turn out to have some truth to it, the fact that it encountered so much opposition will just show how nontrivial a thought it was.”

Mordehai Milgrom (1946) Israeli physicist

"Dark Matter Heretic," 2003

People, Truth, Change

“You may recall that a few weeks ago, President Obama came to this chamber, and he addressed the chamber on health care before a joint session of the House and the Senate. During that session I was privileged to be here, and I saw my colleagues on the far side of the aisle, the Republicans, waving pieces of paper during his speech, and I was wondering what they were. I couldn’t imagine — it almost seemed like they wanted President Obama’s autograph. I just didn’t get it. I heard from one of my colleagues that this is what they called the Republican health care plan. I went over, after the speech was over, I picked up a copy that was lying down on the Republican side, and it turns out that the Republicans’ health care plan was a blank piece of paper. I inquired further, trying to find out exactly what the Republicans’ health care plan is. And it’s my duty and pride tonight to be able to announce exactly what the Republicans plan to do for health care in America.”

Alan Grayson (1958) American politician

2009

Health, Imagination, Lying, Housing

“The (TV) Cultura lost his hand in an area that was the leader, tried to reinvent the wheel three times. The 'Rá-Tim-Bum', a project extremely daring and successful, was abandoned to turn the 'Castelo (Rá-Tim-Bum)', which was also very good. There had to stop. Instead of continuing, preferred to create 'Ilha Rá-Tim-Bum', which failed.”

Marcelo Tas (1959) Brazilian actor

In an interview with Quem criticizing the TV Cultura, the television station where he worked for several years. Marcelo Tas critica a TV Cultura, December 27, 2009, Quem Online, Portuguese http://revistaquem.globo.com/Revista/Quem/0,,EMI113055-8224,00-MARCELO+TAS+CRITICA+A+TV+CULTURA.html,

Time, Success

“Earth, Earth,” the short, alien Carmody mused. “I think I remember the name now. There was a recent study of isolated worlds and the peculiarities of their development. Earth was mentioned as a planet covered with an obsessively overproductive species. Object manipulation is their outstanding modality. Their project is an attempt to live in their own, ever-accumulating waste products. In short, Earth is diseased place. I believe it is being phased out of the Galactic Master Plan on the basis of chronic cosmic incompatibility. The place will then be rehabilitated and turned into a refuge for daffodils.”

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 4 (p. 29)

World, Disease, Thinking, Study

“Turn those cameras back there, please, that is so incredible. By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible, massive crowd, record-setting is going to be shown on television tonight? 1% or zero? The fake media will say, "President Trump", and you know what this is, "President Trump spoke before a small crowd of boy scouts today."”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, July, 2017 National Scout Jamboree (July 24, 2017)

Way, Boy, Thinking, Chance

“Most societies are ruled by mediocre people that have no vision and no imagination. Most rulers are scared of creation and creative people. Artists are funny people. All they want is to touch and move, challenge and surprise others. But dictators hate surprises more than anything else. All they want is to turn their territory into a neat little toy prison camp and play with their little toy people. Push them around, rip a leg or a head off now and then or throw them into the garbage when they are tired of their stupid, little doll faces.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

Interview by Michal Szyksznian http://www.gottfried-helnwein-interviews.com/interviews/celebritarian.html, celebritarian.pl, 2009

Hate, People, Stupidity, Imagination

“Europe in its infinite wisdom decided to deal with this bankruptcy by loading the largest loan in human history on the weakest of shoulders … What we’ve been having ever since is a kind of fiscal waterboarding that has turned this nation into a debt colony.”

Yanis Varoufakis (1961) Greek-Australian political economist and author, Greek finance minister

Source: Russell Hotten. " Yanis Varoufakis: In his own words http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31111905" at bbc.co.uk, 3 February 2015; On the austerity terms of Greece's €240bn bailout

Wisdom, History