Quotes about use
page 91

John Calvin photo
John Dear photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Jakaya Kikwete photo
Neil Armstrong photo
Joan Robinson photo
Marilyn Manson photo
Ron Paul photo
Karel Appel photo

“Of course, I painted before Cobra, as afterwards. Each one of us [CoBrA-artists] had his own personality. Cobra is only a very short period of my life. It was like a crossroads. We crossed paths and each continued on his way.... We [artists] are not born to form groups. A group that lasted for too long would destroy the creative activity of its members.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Quote of Appel in an interview with fr:Michel Ragon, 1963; as quoted in; Karel Appel, a gesture of colour, Jean-François Lyotard, (original French text of 1992 based upon intensive correspondence with Karel Appel), Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Herman Parret; University Press, Leuven, Belgium, 2009, p. 105
fr:Michel Ragon asked Appel: 'Without Cobra, would you have been what you are today?'

Vladimir Tatlin photo

“In reinforced concrete we have not only a new material but, of far greater consequence, new constructions and a new method for designing buildings. Therefore, in using [reinforced concrete], we have to renounce the old traditions and concern ourselves with meeting new tasks.”

Vladimir Tatlin (1885–1953) Russian artist

Quote in: 'Zodchii 19' (1915), p. 198; as quoted by Vasilii Rakitin, in The great Utopia - The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 30
Quotes, 1910 - 1925

Indro Montanelli photo
Primo Levi photo
Carrie Ann Inaba photo

“We saw that amazing documentary 'Forks Over Knives' and that cleared everything up for us. Every Sunday we're going to the farmers market now, getting our fresh fruits and veggies. It's just two weeks, but we feel much better. I love animals. I don't want to eat them.”

Carrie Ann Inaba (1968) American entertainer

After she and her fiancé, Jesse Sloan, became vegetarians, in "Carrie Ann Inaba goes vegetarian, George Takei shops for a hybrid", in MNN.com (16 November 2011) http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/carrie-ann-inaba-goes-vegetarian-george-takei-shops-for-a-hybrid

Dan Quayle photo

“Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It's the other way around. They never vote for us.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Misattributed

W. Somerset Maugham photo

“We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 38, p. 129

Saki photo
Richard Stallman photo
Eric Frein photo
George William Curtis photo

“And in this, that philosophy begins in wonder [Plato, Theaetetus 155d], lies the, so to speak, non-bourgeois character of philosophy; for to feel astonishment and wonder is something non-bourgeois (if we can be allowed, for a moment, to use this all-too-easy terminology). For what does it mean to become bourgeois in the intellectual sense? More than anything else, it means that someone takes one's immediate surroundings (the world determined by the immediate purposes of life) so "tightly" and "densely," as if bearing an ultimate value, that the things of experience no longer become transparent. The greater, deeper, more real, and (at first) invisible world of essences is no longer even suspected to exist; the "wonder" is no longer there, it has no place to come from; the human being can no longer feel wonder. The commonplace mind, rendered deaf-mute, finds everything self-explanatory. But what really is self-explanatory? Is it self-explanatory, then, that we exist? Is it self-explanatory that there is such a thing as "seeing"? These are questions that someone who is locked into the daily world cannot ask; and that is so because such a person has not succeeded, as anyone whose senses (like a deaf person) are simply not functioning — has not managed even for once to forget the immediate needs of life, whereas the one who experiences wonder is one who, astounded by the deeper aspect of the world, cannot hear the immediate demands of life — if even for a moment, that moment when he gazes on the astounding vision of the world.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 101–102

Bruce Springsteen photo
Sheila Jackson Lee photo
Jean Dubuffet photo

“Every piece of information about these statues is totally useless... What. import is it to us if their author was a bureaucrat or a cowherd, an old man or a young person? It is very unfounded to pay attention to these meager ircumstances. There is no difference between an old and young man. Not the least in any domain. Or if he was from Burgundy or Auvergne it's the same. And if he is alive or dead for who knows how long it is the same to us. Between a contemporary and someone from the last century, or a companion of Clovis or the big prehistoric reptiles? No difference whatsoever. We are completely wrong to take interest in these details.”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) sculptor from France

Quote in Dubuffet's 1947 Entry on an anonymous sculptor, associated with the Swiss collector O.J. Müller; from: Jean Dubuffet, Les Barbus Müller et Autres Pièces de la Statuaire Provinciale(1947), in Prospectus I, pp. 498-49 (transl. Kent Minturn)
remark about the publication of biographically based texts on individual art brut artists; according to Dubuffet: veritable history of art without 'names,' 'dates,' or 'histories'.
1940's

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Arundhati Roy photo

“The tradition of "turkey pardoning" in the US is a wonderful allegory for new racism. Every year, the National Turkey Federation presents the US president with a turkey for Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the president spares that particular bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with dignitaries, school children and the press.

That's how new racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys - the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell, or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself) - are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park.
The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically, they're for the pot. But the fortunate fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the World Trade Organisation - so who can accuse those organisations of being anti-turkey? Some serve as board members on the Turkey Choosing Committee - so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalisation? There's a stampede to get into Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

From a speech http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/569/569p12.htm given at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, 16 January 2004
Speeches

Stefan Szczesny photo
Rose Wilder Lane photo
John Ray photo

“Prate us but prade; it's money buys land
Money begets money.”

John Ray (1627–1705) British botanist

Source: English Proverbs (1670), p. 140

Patrick Buchanan photo
Jon Stewart photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
William James photo
Franz Marc photo

“The harvest of your Summer [1910] is displayed on our walls. I like some of them terrifically. The 'certainty' with which most of it is done makes me feel ashamed of myself. The thousand steps that I need to take for a picture are of no advantage, as I sometimes foolishly used to think. Things must change.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

In a letter to August Macke, Nov. 1910; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 128
Franz Marc is reacting on Macke who focused in his exhibited works strongly on the independent power of color
1905 - 1910

Richard Russo photo
Al Franken photo

“What I do is taking what they say and using it against them. What I do is jujitsu.”

Al Franken (1951) American comedian and politician

Al Franken: God Spoke (2006)

Albert Einstein photo

“Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest.”

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

A note Einstein wrote underneath an etching of himself (made by Hermann Struck) which he sent to a friend, Dr. Hans Mühsam. According to the book, "the date is 1920 or perhaps earlier", p. 24
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

Gregory Benford photo
Albert Einstein photo

“It seems hard to sneak a look at God's cards. But that He plays dice and uses "telepathic" methods… is something that I cannot believe for a single moment.”

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

Letter to Cornel Lanczos (21 March 1942), p. 68
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

Donald A. Norman photo
Warren Farrell photo
Jacques Ellul photo
David Cameron photo

“One of the tasks that we clearly have is to rebuild trust in our political system. Yes, that's about cleaning up expenses, yes, that's about reforming parliament, and yes, it's about making sure people are in control and that the politicians are always their servants and never their masters.
But I believe it's also something else — it's about being honest about what government can achieve. Real change is not what government can do on its own, real change is when everyone pulls together, comes together, works together, when we all exercise our responsibilities to ourselves, our families, to our communities and to others. And I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain, one where we don't just ask what are my entitlements but what are my responsibilities, one where we don't ask what am I just owed but more what can I give, and a guide for that society that those that can should and those who can't we will always help.
I want to make sure that my Government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country.
We must take everyone through us on some of the difficult decisions that we have ahead.
Above all it will be a Government that is built on some clear values, values of freedom, values of fairness and values of responsibility. I want us to build an economy that rewards work, I want us to build a society with stronger families and stronger communities and I want a political system that people can trust and look up to once again.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2010, First speech as UK Prime Minister (2010)

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Lester B. Pearson photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Will Tuttle photo
Sharron Angle photo
Richard Pipes photo
Athanasius of Alexandria photo
Nonie Darwish photo
Orson Scott Card photo

“What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because [they] force us or because we're afraid they might force us?”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, Earthborn (1995)

Margaret Thatcher photo
George Friedman photo
Eric Holder photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“What you don't use, you lose.”

Krishna Kant Shukla (1959) Indian Classical musician

Variant: What you abuse, you lose.

“Rational people,” said the man, “realize that their lives must be made meaningful. Meaning isn’t just given us.”

Joanna Russ (1937–2011) American author

Source: Fiction, And Chaos Died (1970), Chapter 3 (p. 155)

Alfred Marshall photo
Harry Turtledove photo
Nicholas Sparks photo

“A truth emerges in any long marriage, and the truth is this: Our spouses sometimes know us better than we even know ourselves.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ira Levinson, Chapter 28, p. 325
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

John Zerzan photo

“If we once — and for so long — lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again. The catastrophe that’s overtaking us has deep roots, but our previous state of natural anarchy reaches much further into our shared history.”

John Zerzan (1943) American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

"Whose Future?", from the book Take My Advice : Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two (2007) by James L. Harmon

Nathanael Greene photo
William Luther Pierce photo

“If we're going to consider failure to comply with UN directives a good reason for wrecking a country with cruise missiles, hey, I can think of a country in the Middle East which is in violation of a lot more UN directives than Iraq is. Israel has consistently thumbed its nose at UN directives, and no one in Washington has ever told Israel, "Comply or get hit." Let's understand one fundamental fact. This crusade against Iraq isn't about the United Nations or international security or stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It's about making the Middle East safe for Israel to continue bullying its neighbors and stealing from them. Every other explanation is lies and hypocrisy. And we really can expect a bigger dose of lies and hypocrisy than usual as the warmongers work to get this war against Iraq started. The media bosses will trot more generals and politicians in front of the TV cameras and have them bluster patriotically about how we're not going to let Saddam Hussein get away with it any longer, by god, and they'll show groups of military personnel cheering when they're told that they're being shipped out to the Persian Gulf to kick Saddam Hussein's behind and keep him from getting away with whatever it is he's getting away with, which mainly seems to be running his country the way he wants to instead of the way the United Nations tells him. They will work overtime at convincing the couch potatoes and the mindless yahoos who like to wave flags and shout patriotic slogans that destroying Iraq really is an act of American patriotism. And as long as the number of Americans killed in a Jewish war against Iraq remains small, the flag-waving yahoos and the bought politicians ought to be able to drown out any dissent from Americans like me who believe that we don't have any reasonable justification for waging such a war. And keeping casualties small ought to be easy, so long as it remains strictly a high-tech war, with us launching missiles against defenseless targets from many miles away. Of course, sometimes wars get out of hand, and unexpected things happen. If the Jews manage to get Iran involved in the war also -- and that's what they really want to do, what they really need to do -- then I think we stand a pretty good chance of seeing some major terrorist activity in the United States. I know that if I were Osama bin Laden, I'd have been spending my time getting ready for just such a development ever since Bill Clinton blew up that pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. I'd be putting my teams into place in the United States, assembling materials, choosing targets, and waiting for the Jews to provide justification for me to begin killing Americans on a significant scale. Of course, whether Osama bin Laden is as resourceful and as capable as he's said to be remains to be seen. Personally, I have very little faith in the ability of these flea-bitten Muslims to get things done. But we'll see.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Why War? (November 21, 1998) http://web.archive.org/web/20070324011124/http://www.natvan.com/pub/1998/112198.txt, American Dissident Voices Broadcast of November 21, 1998 http://archive.org/details/DrWilliamPierceAudioArchive308RadioBroadcasts.
1990s, 1990

Steve Kilbey photo
Mike Huckabee photo

“When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom by the way were clergymen, they said that we had certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator, and among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life being one of them. I still believe that.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Republican Presidential Debate, 2007-10-21, quoted in [The Republican Debate on Fox News Channel, 2007-10-21, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/politics/21debate-transcript.html?pagewanted=9, 2011-03-01]
asked his opinion on Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's position to do nothing to change the laws that keep abortion legal
Republican Debates

Dave Eggers photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“The new media are not bridges between man and nature - they are nature…The new media are not ways of relating us to the old world; they are the real world and they reshape what remains of the old world at will.”

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

Media as the New Nature, 1969, p. 14
1960s

George Holmes Howison photo

“Therefore, precisely by the investigation through which Lange has led us, we are now in the position to assure ourselves of the reality, the absoluteness in quality, of our human intelligence.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Later German Philosophy, p.169-70

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“The waves round the horn will toss us to and fro, to and fro like a rubber duckie in the bathtub of an angry God.”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Captain Ahab
Moby (No Last Name Given) (2014)

Richard Feynman photo
Herm Edwards photo
Herm Edwards photo
George Boole photo

“The principles of the theory of probabilities [cannot] serve to guide us in the election of… [scientific] hypotheses.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

Source: 1850s, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), p. 375, as cited in: Lev D. Beklemishev (2000) Provability, Computability and Reflection, p. 432

Ken Ham photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Maurice Allais photo

“Anyone who dares to speak about an aether is regarded as an ignorant and backward mind and he can only lose his credibility in scientific circles, although in reality those who criticize him use the same concept of intermediate medium in other words, whether it be fields, an associated fluid, a probability fluid, a pilot fluid, a quantum fluid, etc.”

Maurice Allais (1911–2010) French economist; 1988 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics

[Maurice Allais, L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience, Editions Clément Juglar, Paris, 1997, 506, 2-908735-09-1]

El Lissitsky photo
Theo de Raadt photo

“I actually am fairly uncomfortable about it, even if our firm stipulation was that they cannot tell us what to do. We are simply doing what we do anyways — securing software — and they have no say in the matter. I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built.”

Theo de Raadt (1968) systems software engineer

Quoted in U.S. military helps fund Calgary hacker, Akin, David, 2004-04-06, 2007-01-10, Globe and Mail, http://web.archive.org/web/20040815134728/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030406.whack46/BNStory/Technology/?query=openbsd, 2004-08-15 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030406.whack46/BNStory/Technology/?query=openbsd,
on receiving a monetary grant from the US military.

Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi photo

“Do not be worried about the events and earthquakes that have occurred. Know that God created this world as a test … The supreme leader holds a great many of the blessings God has given us and at a time of such uncertainties our eyes must turn to him.”

Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi (1934) Member of Iran's Assembly of Experts

"Discontented Muslim clergy challenge Iran's supreme leader behind scenes" by Bill Meyer in World News at Cleveland.com (8 July 2009) http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2009/07/discontented_muslim_clergy_cha.html

Richard Stallman photo
C. V. Raman photo

“I have a feeling that if the women of India take to science and interest themselves in the progress and advance of science as well, they will achieve what even men have failed to do. Women have one quality--the quality of devotion. It is one of the most important passports to success in science. Let us therefore not imagine that intellect is a sole prerogative of males only in science.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Raman's views on role of women quoted in Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern India's Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of India's website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

Nelson Mandela photo

“The time for the healing of the wounds has come.
The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come.
The time to build is upon us.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Inaugural celebration address (1994)

Thomas Moore photo

“There was a little man, and he had a little soul;
And he said, Little Soul, let us try, try, try!”

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

Little Man and Little Soul.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Robert Burns photo
Gillian Anderson photo
Sam Harris photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us….”

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

Letter to Benjamin Hawkins (13 August 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 5:390
1780s