Quotes about well
page 16

Johnny Cash photo
Etty Hillesum photo
Fidel Castro photo

“I would dare say that today this species is facing a very real and true danger of extinction, and no one can be sure, listen to this well, no one can be sure that it will survive this danger.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

University of Havana address (2005)
Context: I would dare say that today this species is facing a very real and true danger of extinction, and no one can be sure, listen to this well, no one can be sure that it will survive this danger.
Well, the fact that the species would not survive was discussed about 2,000 years ago. I remember that when I was a student I heard of the Apocalypse, a book of prophesy in the Bible. Apparently, 2000 years ago someone realized that this weak species could one day disappear.

Joe Root photo
Malcolm Muggeridge photo

“I can say with truth that I have never, even in times of greatest preoccupation with carnal, worldly and egotistic pursuits, seriously doubted that our existence here is related in some mysterious way to a more comprehensive and lasting existence elsewhere; that somehow or other we belong to a larger scene than our earthly life provides, and to a wider reach of time than our earthly allotment of three score years and ten…It has never been possible for me to persuade myself that the universe could have been created, and we, homo sapiens, so-called, have, generation after generation, somehow made our appearance to sojourn briefly on our tiny earth, solely in order to mount the interminable soap opera, with the same characters and situations endlessly recurring, that we call history. It would be like building a great stadium for a display of tiddly-winks, or a vast opera house for a mouth-organ recital. There must, in other words, be another reason for our existence and that of the universe than just getting through the days of our life as best we may; some other destiny than merely using up such physical, intellectual and spiritual creativity as has been vouchsafed us. This, anyway, has been the strongly held conviction of the greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, who have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me to be untenable; and anyway I'd rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr. Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky, than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, Darwin, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (1988)

Al Gore photo

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, "Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem." If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Testimony before Congress (21 March 2007), as quoted in "Gore Implores Congress To Save The Planet" at CBS Evening News (21 March 2007) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/21/politics/main2591104.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2591104

Chinua Achebe photo
Willie Nelson photo

“I had gotten up to two, maybe three, packs (of cigarettes) a day. And my lungs were bothering me and I'd had pneumonia two or three times. And I was also smoking pot, and I decided, well, one of them's got to go. And so I took a pack of Chesterfields and took all the Chesterfields out, rolled up 20 big fat ones and put it in there, and I haven't smoked a cigarette since then”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Willie Nelson: Road Rules And Deep Thoughts, NPR Staff, NPR.org, National Public Radio, November 18, 2012, November 18, 2012 http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=165223056,

Octavia E. Butler photo
Dan Quayle photo

“I had a good political career, and I have a good business career. I didn't get the brass ring, but I did very well.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Interview with Cathleen Decker (5 September 2008) "Before Sarah Palin, the GOP had Dan Quayle", Los Angeles Times

Flea (musician) photo
Horace Mann photo

“The poniard and the stiletto were once the resource of a murderous spirit; now the vengeance, which formerly would assassinate in the dark, libels character, in the light of day, through the medium of the press.
But through this instrumentality good can be wrought as well as evil.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

"Printing and Paper Making" in The Common School Journal Vol. V, No. 3 (1 February 1843)
Context: Every school boy and school girl who has arrived at the age of reflection ought to know something about the history of the art of printing, papermaking, and so forth. … All children will work better if pleased with their tools; and there are no tools more ingeniously wrought, or more potent than those which belong to the art of the printer. Dynasties and governments used to be attacked and defended by arms; now the attack and the defence are mainly carried on by types. To sustain any scheme of state policy, to uphold one administration or to demolish another, types, not soldiers, are brought into line. Hostile parties, and sometimes hostile nations, instead of fitting out martial or naval expeditions, establish printing presses, and discharge pamphlets or octavoes at each other, instead of cannon balls. The poniard and the stiletto were once the resource of a murderous spirit; now the vengeance, which formerly would assassinate in the dark, libels character, in the light of day, through the medium of the press.
But through this instrumentality good can be wrought as well as evil. Knowledge can be acquired, diffused, perpetuated. An invisible, inaudible, intangible thought in the silent chambers of the mind, breaks away from its confinement, becomes imbodied in a sign, is multiplied by myriads, traverses the earth, and goes resounding down to the latest posterity.

Syd Barrett photo

“Well, I've got a colour telly, and a fridge. I've got some pork chops in the fridge, but the chops keep going off, so I have to keep buying more.”

Syd Barrett (1946–2006) English musician

In response to being asked by David Gilmour what he was up to lately during an unexpected reunion in 1975, as written in Nick Mason's Inside Out

Robert Crumb photo
Pierre-Auguste Renoir photo

“.. to express himself well, the artist should be hidden... The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

Quoted in: Raymond Durgnat (1974) Jean Renoir: Raymond Durgnat, p. 370
undated quotes

Anthony Burgess photo
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
A.E. Housman photo
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan photo
Lotfi A. Zadeh photo
Lotfi A. Zadeh photo

“Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.”

Funeral in Berlin (1964; repr. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966) p. 145
Another Czech joke

Horace Walpole photo

“The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.”

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician

As quoted in The Christian Leader, Vol. 37, Issue 7 (17 February 1934)

Sidonius Apollinaris photo

“Death may overwhelm them, but not fear; unconquerable they stand their ground, and their courage well-nigh outlives their lives.”
Mors obruit illos,<br/>non timor; invicti perstant animoque supersunt<br/>jam prope post animam.

Mors obruit illos,
non timor; invicti perstant animoque supersunt
jam prope post animam.
Carmen 5, line 251; vol. 1 p. 83.
Carmina

Arthur Conan Doyle photo

“He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.”

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

Source: His Last Bow: 8 Stories

Gregor Mendel photo
Herodotus photo
50 Cent photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo

“Without the correct principle the fight cannot be won.
The spirit of my school is to win through the wisdom of strategy, paying no attention to trifles. Study this well.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Wind Book
Context: If you rely on strength, when you hit the enemy's sword you will inevitably hit too hard. If you do this, your own sword will be carried along as a result. Thus the saying, "The strongest hand wins", has no meaning.
In large-scale strategy, if you have a strong army and are relying on strength to win, but the enemy also has a strong army, the battle will be fierce. This is the same for both sides.
Without the correct principle the fight cannot be won.
The spirit of my school is to win through the wisdom of strategy, paying no attention to trifles. Study this well.

John Dalton photo
Ed Sheeran photo

“We don't fit in well 'cause we are just ourselves”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

Píseň Beautiful People

Vera Rubin photo

“It is well known that I am available twenty-four hours a day to women astronomers.”

Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer

As quoted in Jewish Women's Archive https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/rubin-vera-cooper

Shiing-Shen Chern photo
Marlene Dietrich photo
Douglas Adams photo
Stéphane Mallarmé photo
Pelé photo
Mortimer J. Adler photo

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Bestselling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information

Desmond Morris photo
Tina Turner photo
Khandro Rinpoche photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Wilhelm Keitel photo
Tom Waits photo
Gabriele Münter photo
Hans-Hermann Hoppe photo
John Muir photo

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
1910s
Variant: Everybody needs beauty... places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.

Harun Yahya photo

“The proponents of violence are killing Muslims and they are killing Christians, they are killing Jews as well; they are enemies to everyone. Allah does not consider those people as Muslims.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

20 April 2013.
A9 TV addresses, 2013
Context: The proponents of violence are killing Muslims and they are killing Christians, they are killing Jews as well; they are enemies to everyone. Allah does not consider those people as Muslims. They are idolaters. They are pagans. I mean they do not accept the Qur’an as their basis.

Anthony Burgess photo
Benny Hinn photo
Gene Simmons photo

“We can't be The Beatles. I can't shine their shoes. I can't sing as well as Paul or John. I can't write those kind of songs. But they would die in my armour and my eight-inch platform heels, and Paul can't spit fire, so there you have it.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

Mojo magazine (December 2009), p. 40.

Gene Simmons photo

“My mother was 14 when she was in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. My mother’s alive and well, but only because of America. Without America’s military, the world would be in deep… fill-in-the-blank. I’m forever grateful for that.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

Interview with Radio.com (July 6, 2016)

Edith Stein photo
Mike Shinoda photo
Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum photo
Jim Butcher photo
Georgy Zhukov photo
Temple Grandin photo
Fred Astaire photo

“When I was in the Soviet Union recently I was being interviewed by a newspaperman and he said, "Which dancers influenced you the most?" and I said, "Oh, well, Fred Astaire." He looked very surprised and shocked and I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "Well, Mr. Balanchine just said the same thing."”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Jerome Robbins in Heeley, David, producer and director. Fred Astaire: Puttin' on his Top Hat and Fred Astaire: Change Partners and Dance (two television programs written by John L. Miller), PBS, March 1980. (M).

Martha C. Nussbaum photo

“When I arrived at Harvard in 1969, my fellow first-year graduate students and I were taken up to the roof of the Widener Library by a well-known professor of classics. He told us how many Episcopal churches could be seen from that vantage point. As a Jew (in fact a convert from Episcopalian Christianity), I knew that my husband and I would have been forbidden to marry in Harvard's church, which had just refused to accept a Jewish wedding. As a woman I could not eat in the main dining room of the faculty club, even as a member's guest. Only a few years before, a woman would not have been able to use the undergraduate library. In 1972 I became the first female to hold the Junior Fellowship that relieved certain graduate students from teaching so that they could get on with their research. At that time I received a letter of congratulation from a prestigious classicist saying that it would be difficult to know what to call a female fellow, since "fellowess" was an awkward term. Perhaps the Greek language could solve the problem: since the masculine for "fellow" in Greek was hetairos, I could be called a hetaira. Hetaira, however, as I knew, is the ancient Greek word not for “fellowess” but for “courtesan.””

Martha C. Nussbaum (1947) American philosopher

[Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity, https://books.google.com/books?id=V7QrAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA6, 1 October 1998, Harvard University Press, 978-0-674-73546-0, 6–7]

Harriet Beecher Stowe photo

“Well, good-by, Uncle Tom; keep a stiff upper lip.”

Ch 10 The Property Is Carried Off
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

Thomas Berry photo

“Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being and spiritual integrity.”

Thomas Berry (1914–2009) American priest

Reported in Food for the Spirit https://books.google.it/books?id=EL8nAAAAYAAJ by Steven Rosen (New York: Bala Books, 1987), in the “Critics praise” section.

Thomas Berry photo
Titian photo
Julius Evola photo
George Lucas photo
Ted Bundy photo
Marie Corelli photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
John D. Rockefeller photo

“I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man's word should be as good as his bond, that character—not wealth or power or position—is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual's highest fulfillment, greatest happiness and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist
Jimmy Carter photo

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Kurt Gödel photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Michael Ende photo
Winston Groom photo
Al Gore photo

“No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, Concession speech (2000)
Context: I've seen America in this campaign, and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for and that's a fight I'll never stop. As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe, as my father once said, that "No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out."

Robert Frost photo

“I'm not confused. I'm just well mixed.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Variant: I am not confused, I'm just well mixed.

Robert Schumann photo
Aristotle photo

“To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
Markus Zusak photo
Bell Hooks photo