Quotes about well (10000 quotes, page 51)

“Not only had he become adept at predicting the behavior of others, but he could predict his own behavior just as well. He no longer surprised himself. It was one of the saddest things about aging.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 13 (p. 181)

Age , Behavior

“86. He that lives well is learned enough.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Learning

“There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.”

A. J. Muste (1885–1967) Christian pacifist and civil rights activist

"Pacifism and Class War" in The Essays of A. J. Muste (1967) edited by p. 179-85; also quoted in American Power and the New Mandarins (2002) by Noam Chomsky, p. 160.

Life , Peace , Thinking , Evil

“In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 420

Motivation

“The Word of God says that if a father provides all other necessary things to raise a child and yet fails to discipline him, the child is a bastard and may as well not have a father.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

Cults, Sects and Questions (c. 1979)

God

“Foreign policy deals across time as well as space.”

William Pfaff (1928–2015) American journalist

Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 5, Nationalism, p. 146.

Time

“Archytas of Tarentum found the two mean proportionals by a very striking construction in three dimensions, which shows that solid geometry, in the hands of Archytas at least, was already well advanced. The construction was usually called mechanical, which it no doubt was in form, though in reality it was in the highest degree theoretical. It consisted in determining a point in space as the intersection of three surfaces: (a) a cylinder, (b) a cone, (c) an "anchor-ring" with internal radius = 0.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

Achimedes (1920)

Reality

“Lincoln habitually would tell people he was totally ignorant of a subject which in fact he was quite well versed in, because then they would underestimate him, and when they underestimated him they would fall into his trap. Leonard Swett once said that anybody who mistook Lincoln for a simple man would soon end up with his back in a ditch.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)

People

“People like to do things. They like to do them well. People take the dangerous, hard jobs because they take pride in doing them, they can—egoize, we call it—show off?—to the weaker ones. Hey, look, little boys, see how strong I am! You know? A person likes to do what he is good at doing…. But really, it is the question of ends and means. After all, work is done for the work’s sake. It is the lasting pleasure of life. The private conscience knows that. And also the social conscience, the opinion of one’s neighbors. There is no other reward, on Anarres, no other law. One’s own pleasure, and the respect of one’s fellows. That is all. When that is so, then you see the opinion of the neighbors becomes a very mighty force.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 5 (p. 150)

Life , People , Pleasure , Law

“Personally I'm very much opposed to Hamas' policies in almost every respect. However, we should recognize that the policies of Hamas are more forthcoming and more conducive to a peaceful settlement than those of the United States or Israel. … So, for example, Hamas has called for a long-term indefinite truce on the international border. There is a long-standing international consensus that goes back over thirty years that there should be a two-state political settlement on the international border, the pre-June 1967 border, with minor and mutual modifications. That's the official phrase. Hamas is willing to accept that as a long-term truce. The United States and Israel are unwilling even to consider it… The demand on Hamas by the United States and the European Union and Israel […] is first that they recognize the State of Israel. Actually, that they recognize its right to exist. Well, Israel and the U. S. certainly don't recognize the right of Palestine to exist, nor recognize any state of Palestine. In fact, they have been acting consistently to undermine any such possibility. The second condition is that Hamas must renounce violence. Israel and the United States certainly do not renounce violence. The third condition is that Hamas accept international agreements. The United States and Israel reject international agreements. So, though the policies of Hamas are, again in my view, unacceptable, they happen to be closer to the international consensus on a political peaceful settlement than those of their antagonists, and it's a reflection of the power of the imperial states - the United States and Europe - that they are able to shift the framework, so that the problem appears to be Hamas' policies, and not the more extreme policies of the United States and Israel… And we must remember that in their case it's not just policies. It's not words - it's actions.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview on LBC TV, May 23, 2006 http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1152
Quotes 2000s, 2006

Peace , Problem , Appearance , Personality

“Until now, neither the distinction between “worthy, since durable” and “vain, since transient,” nor the unbridgeable abyss separating the two, has disappeared for a moment from reflections on human happiness. Nonentity, the demeaning and humiliating insignificance of the individual bodily presence in the world by comparison with the unperturbed eternity of the world itself, has haunted philosophers (and non-philosophers, during their brief spells of falling into and staying in a philosophical mood) for more than two millennia. In the Middle Ages it was raised to the rank of the highest purpose and supreme concern of mortals, and deployed to promote spiritual values over the pleasures of the flesh—as well as to explain (and, hopefully argue away) the pain and misery of the brief earthly existence as a necessary and therefore welcome prelude to the endless bliss of the afterlife. It returned with the advent of the modern era in a new garb: that of the futility of individual interests and concerns, shown to be abominably short-lived, fleeting and vagrant when juxtaposed with the interests of “the social whole”—the nation, the state, the cause.”

Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) Polish philosopher and sociologist

Source: The Art of Life (2008), p. 31.

Pain , Pleasure , Age , World

“Thought may well be ever ranging,
And opinion ever changing,
Task-work be, though ill begun,
Dealt with by experience better;
By the law and by the letter
Duty done is duty done
Do it, Time is on the wing!”

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) English poet

Love, Not Duty http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CloughArthurHugh/verse/poemsproseremains/lovenotduty.html, st. 1 (1841).

Law , Change , Time

“In this reconstruction, the idea of reason comprises three elements: impartiality with regard to persons, temporal impartiality, and rational or well-founded beliefs. No doubt we should add goodwill, in order to exclude impartial malice.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

Idea , Personality

“[I]f we demonstrate this moving principle, if we show that matter, far from being as indifferent as it is supposed to be, to movement and to rest, ought to be regarded as an active, as well as a passive substance, what resource can be left to those who have made its essence consist in extension?”

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751) French physician and philosopher

Source: The Natural History of the Soul (1745), Ch. V Concerning the Moving Force of Matter

Indifference

“Life is a magic garden. With wondrous softly shining flowers, but between the flowers there are the little gnomes, they frighten me so much, they stand on their heads, and the worst is, they call out to me that I should also stand on my head, every once in a while I try, and I die of embarrassment; but sometimes the gnomes shout that I am doing very well, and that I’m indeed a real gnome myself after all. But on no account I will ever fall for that.”

L. E. J. Brouwer (1881–1966) Dutch mathematician and logician

To C.S. Adama van Scheltema (1906); in Dirk van Dalen (ed.) The Selected Correspondence of L.E.J. Brouwer (2011), p. 23

Life , Flowers

“Yes, sir. My battalion is famous for self-inflicted wounds and just to make sure I cracked my skull with a rifle butt as well and ran a bayonet into my groin.”

Arnold Ridley (1896–1984) Playwright, actor

On being asked by a doctor if the damage to his hand was self-inflicted.
Biography on Spartacus

“A shop-keeper in good business is quite as well off as a pedlar that travels the country with his wares on his back. Commercial jealousy is, after all, nothing but prejudice: it is a wild fruit, that will drop of itself when it has arrived at maturity.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter IX, p. 101

Jealousy , Travel , Business , Country

“You think of the Republican Party as a party, like the British Conservative Party - well it isn't! I don't say that the British Conservative Party is much better, I'm only saying the Republican Party is a mindset. They love war! They love money! They're out to hang on through all the connections that they have, through their various operatives.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

On the Republican Party http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD0p-wfCARk&feature=youtu.be&t=46s
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

Love , Money , War , Thinking

“You are here to discuss a matter which is of extreme importance to yourselves, your families and your community, so let's get to the subject at hand. A hundred and fifty-five years ago, in the state of Guanajuato in Mexico, a padre proclaimed the struggle for liberty. He was killed, but ten years later Mexico won its independence. We Mexicans here in the United States, as well as all other farm workers, are engaged in another struggle for the freedom and dignity which poverty denies us. But it must not be a violent struggle, even if violence is used against us. Violence can only hurt us and our cause. The law is for us as well as the ranchers. The strike was begun by the Filipinos, but it is not exclusively for them. Tonight we must decide if we are to join our fellow workers.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

Delano, California (16 September 1965) as quoted in Delano: the story of the California Grape Strike (1967) by John Gregory Dunne

Family , Law , Communication , Freedom

“The American dream is under attack because our government has been hijacked by the liberals in Washington, D. C. … They want you to believe that they're going to drag out enough prisoners and dead people to win the election. Well, let me tell you a little secret. Conservatives that are alive outnumber the dead people and prisoners. … I have a message for the political elites in Washington, D. C.: The United States of America is not going to become the United States of Europe, not on our watch.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

[Tea Party speaker: 'Stupid people' running country, Dayton Daily News, 2010-10-15, Lynn, Hulsey, http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/tea-party-speaker-stupid-people-running-country-977298.html, 2011-10-08]

People , Secret , Dreams , Dead

“I wasn't motivated to do it [re-record Bach's Goldberg Variations] until rather recently, when it occurred to me, on one of my rare relistenings to that early recording, that it was very nice, but that it was perhaps a little bit like thirty very interesting but somewhat independent-minded pieces, going their own way, and all making a comment on the ground bass on which they are all formed and to which they all conform. And I suddenly felt, not having played it in, well, since I stopped playing concerts, about 20 years, having not played it in all that time, that maybe I wasn't savaged by any over-exposure to it, and that if I looked at it again, I could find a way of making some sort of almost arithmetical correspondence between the theme and the subsequent variations, so that there would be some sort of temporal relationship, I don't want to say just exactly 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, that kind of correspondence, but, you know what I mean, there would be a sense in which, substituting for the fact that Bach had absolutely no melodic design that is continuous but rather a base harmonic design that is continuous, there would be at least a rhythmic design that is continuous, and the sense of pulse that went through it. And that seemed to me sufficient justification […] to do it all over again.”

Glenn Gould (1932–1982) Canadian pianist

transcribed from The Glenn Gould Collection vol 13 (Sony laserdisc).

Way , Motivation , Sense , Time

“Firstly, I must of necessity express some obvious qualifications about my remarks. Foremost, I can never fully imagine, much less experience, the issues faced by any woman. I was born male in an advanced Western nation, to comfortably well off parents. I have never routinely experienced discrimination in my career, nor the apprehension of violence in my personal life. Far too many women regardless of nationality, religion, or class status have known both. Most benefits of masculinity and patriarchy have accrued to me. Nonetheless, I hope those considerable limitations in my perspective can in part be offset by my sincere intent to support women in my organisation to thrive in the absence of both.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Life , Women , Religion , Hope

“Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, "I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men." If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

2005 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2005.html
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Men , Law , Star , Loss

“We have tried occasionally to buy toads at bargain prices with results that have been chronicled in past reports. Clearly our kisses fell flat. We have done well with a couple of princes — but they were princes when purchased. At least our kisses didn’t turn them into toads. And, finally, we have occasionally been quite successful in purchasing fractional interests in easily-identifiable princes at toad-like prices.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1981 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1981.html
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Kiss , Success , Past

“On a personal note: I have contracted an outstanding case of breast cancer, from which I intend to recover. I don’t need get-well cards, but I would like the beloved women readers to do something for me: Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done.”

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American journalist

Dec. 14, 1999 syndicated column

Women , Personality

“If we feel less threatened today, if we feel as though we live in a non-violent society, it is only because we have ceded so much power over our daily lives to the state. Some call this reason, but we might just as well call it laziness. A dangerous laziness, it would seem, given how little most people say they trust politicians.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Violence is Golden
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

People , Feeling

“[On inspiration]: I think it comes from anxiety. That is to say, either the mind or the body is already rather highly charged and in need of some kind of expression, some way to crystallize and relieve the pressure. And it seems to me that if you’re in that condition and an idea, an insight, an association occurs to you, then that energy is released through the expression of that insight or idea, and after the poem is written, you feel a certain resolution and calmness. Well, I won’t say a “momentary stay against confusion” (Robert Frost’s phrase) but that’s what I mean. I think it comes from that. You know, Bloom says somewhere that poetry is anxiety.”

A.R. Ammons (1926–2001) American poet

Paris Review interview (1996)

Way , Feeling , Idea , Thinking

“Got my ticket at the airport
Well I guess I've been marking time
I've been living in another country
That operates along entirely different lines
Keep me away from porter or whiskey
Don't play anything sentimental it'll make me cry
I've got to go back my friend
Is there really any need to ask why?”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Got to Go Back
Song lyrics, No Guru (1986)

Time , Cry , Country

“When Mrs. Casaubon was announced he started up as from an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his fingerends. Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion, in the adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance, which might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed the message of a magic touch. And so it had. For effective magic is transcendent nature; and who shall measure the subtlety of those touches which convey the quality of soul as well as body, and make a man’s passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-top differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels? Will, too, was made of very impressible stuff. The bow of a violin drawn near him cleverly, would at one stroke change the aspect of the world for him, and his point of view shifted— as easily as his mood. Dorothea’s entrance was the freshness of morning.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

World , Soul , Imagination , Mountain

“Like the major US- and European-based human rights organisations (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International) and following the line taken up by white western women's organisations and publications, the Gay International was to reserve a special place for the Muslim countries in its discourse as well as its advocacy. The orientalist impulse … continues to guide all branches of the human rights community.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid., p. 161.
Desiring Arabs

Women , Communication , Country

“Engineers, scientists, and statisticians have, until recently, been the groups chiefly interested in activity called quality control. These technologists have been primarily concerned with the technical methods which have become associated with the subject. They have applied these methods to a number of industrial quality problems.
Excellent results in improving quality and in reducing costs are now being reported from these applications. These reports have generated growing interest by industrial managers in the potentialities of quality control as a business method.
What, management is asking, is meant by the term "quality control"? Is there anything really new about it? What are the quality-control activities? What is the proper organization for quality control? How much does the program cost, and what benefits can result from it? Is quality control good only for mass production? May it be useful in a job shop as well? How do statistical methods fit into the quality-control pattern? What does quality control mean to the foreman, to the design engineer, to the salesman? How is quality control introduced to a company?”

Armand V. Feigenbaum (1922–2014) American businessman

Source: Quality Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration. 1951, p. vii; Preface: lead paragraph

Business , Problem

“F. Shaw: As prolific as you are, how long did it take you to research and write this book?
A. Axelrod: Well over a year. I do my research for one book while I write another—that way I get to read as well as write.”

Alan Axelrod (1952) American historian

Alan Axelrod in an interview with Frank R. Shaw, Aug 23, 2007 http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/frank/axelrod.htm.

Books , Way , Reading

“What if there are not only two nostrils, two eyes, two lobes, and so forth, but two psyches as well, and they are separately equipped? They go through life like Siamese twins inside one person … They can be just a little different, like identical twins, or they can be vastly different, like good and evil.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Kittredge Gardiner, in Harlot's Ghost : A Novel (1991)

Life , Evil , Personality

“. I don't love less the gray waters of my Holland, their serious and somewhat sad color, which corresponds so well with the similar gray skies and vapors that are hanging there. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

(version in original Dutch / citaat van Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands:) ..niet minder bemin ik toch de graauwe wateren van mijn Holland, hunne ernstige, eenigsinds droeve kleur, die zoo goed overeenkomt met de even grijze luchten en dampen, dier er overeen hangen.
as cited in The land of Mauve: utopia or a reality? / Het land van Mauve: utopie of werkelijkheid? https://www.rug.nl/research/kenniscentrumlandschap/mscripties/christina_vlasma-het_land_van_mauve-masterscriptie.pdf; master-scriptie by Christina van Staats-Vlasma; Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, La Broquerie, Manitoba Canada, Nov. 2010, p. 97
undated quotes

Love , Sadness , Color , Water

“Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus, and it's hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy, and more than anything else in the world, you wanna get off. And the only reason in the world you don't get off is it's still fifty blocks from where you're going. Well, I can get off right now if I want to. Because even if I ride fifty more years and get off then, it's still the same place when I step down to it. Whenever I feel like it, I can get off. Whenever I've had enough, it's my stop. I've had enough.”

Marsha Norman (1947) American playwright, screenwriter and novelist

Jessie
night Mother (1983)

World , Feeling

“It’s never been such a good time to be a crook. In what other country of laws does one enjoy so much freedom to defraud one’s government and fellow citizens without having to worry about cops showing at the door? Small-time crooks sooner or later end up in the slammer, but our big-time con artists, as we’ve come to learn, are now regarded as the untouchables, too well-heeled and powerful to lock up.”

Charles Simic (1938) American poet

"A Thieves' Thanksgiving," http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/nov/26/thieves-thanksgiving/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR+Goya+Ferrante+crooks&utm_content=NYR+Goya+Ferrante+crooks+CID_8376c474295b4e263a32522d2bbfd922&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=A%20Thieves%20Thanksgiving New York Review of Books, November 26, 2014

Law , Freedom , Learning , Time

“There's been historical conflict between China and Russia for well over 1,000 years. … People forget that the Mongols came all the way to the Baltic Sea and all the way to where St. Petersburg is today … And the Russians have a good sense of history and they remember that.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, CNN interview (2000)

People , Way , History , Sense

“The atmosphere at the conference was frankly hostile. (…) It was up to people from the audience to protest and oblige the chairperson to allow me to read out my paper. When it was my turn, I was heckled somewhat by the Leftist crowd, especially by a well-known Indo-American Communist academic, who was rolling his eyes like a madman and making obscene gestures until an elderly American lady sitting next to him told him to behave. At the end, Mathew came to collect a copy of my text (the book version, of which I had some author's copies handy), called me a "liar, and told his buddies that they needed to write a scholarly rebuttal. Which is still being awaited today.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

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

Hostility , People , Books , Reading

“Do I care? No I flipping well don't!”

Patrick Allen (1927–2006) Film, television and voice actor

E4, Brat Camp USA' Trail

“It's possible, you can never know, that the universe exists only for me. If so, it's sure going well for me, I must admit.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

TIME magazine Vol. 149, No. 2 (13 January 1997) http://web.archive.org/web/20000619011644/http://www.time.com/time/gates/gates2.html
1990s

Universe

“We should be offended when children are denied a proper education. We should be offended when children are told they will spend eternity in hell. We should be offended when medical science, for example stem-cell research, is compromised by the bigoted opinions of powerful and above all well-financed ignoramuses. We should be offended when voodoo, of all kinds, is given equal weight to science. We should be offended by hymen reconstruction surgery. We should be offended by 'female circumcision', euphemism for genital mutilation. We should be offended by stoning.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Lecture at UC Berkeley about The God Delusion, 08/03/2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaJelU29jeI&t=49s
Lecture at UC Berkeley (2008)

Children , Education , Hell , Science

“I understand where Bill Maher is coming from when he says, basically, the world is destroying itself over a bunch of fairy tales about talking snakes and men who are alive inside fishes. I'm very sympathetic to it, but at the same time, given the cosmos that we're living in, it's very persuasive, the idea that there is some kind of first cause that's running things. It might not be the god of Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, it might not be the god of al-Qaida, and it might not be the god of Abraham, but something very well could be running things. The order of the universe as we see it, the interlocking nature, and the way things work together, are persuasive of the idea that there may be some overarching first cause.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

[John, Marks, http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/10/23/stephen_king/print.html, Stephen King's God trip, Salon.com, 2008-10-23, 2008-10-23]

Men , God , World , Way

“I’ve never, ever, in my entire life, been upset at a casting choice. I started taping my dad’s auditions when I was 11, when he was auditioning actors for one of his movies. I would see, over and over again, that there wasn’t just one actor for the role. It was really clear that there were a lot of people who could play a character really well, and it would always come down to something kind of weird and non-obvious as to why a person was cast. If you’re not right, you’re not right, but that’s okay.”

Bryce Dallas Howard (1981) American actress

Bryce Dallas Howard https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/bryce-dallas-howard (February 10, 2017)

Life , People , Personality

“The single idea that resounds on every page of this book is the idea of the infinity of the human spirit, in the individual as well as in humanity. It is a view of the wonderful and terrible disproportion of that spirit to everything that would contain and diminish it, of its awakening to its own nature through its confrontation with the reality of constraint and the prospect of death, of its terror before the indifference and vastness of the nature around it, of its discovery that what it most shares with the whole of the universe is its ruination by time, of its subsequent recognition that time is the core of reality if anything is, of its enslavement to orders of society and culture that belittle it, of its need to create a world, a human world, in which it can be and become itself even if to do so it must nevertheless rebel against every dogma, every custom, and every empire, and of its power to realize this seemingly impossible and paradoxical program by identifying, in each intellectual and political situation, the next steps.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger book The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound

Source: The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound (2007), p. 26-7

Death , Books , World , Idea

“The joys of command — well, you know. You taught them to me. One part glory to ten parts shoveling manure.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 76

Joy , Parting

“Overcoming hopelessness requires addressing its causes: poverty, disease, and ignorance. Challenging these conditions is in the interest of every nation in this chamber. And democracies are particularly well-positioned to carry out this work. Because we have experience responding to the needs of our own people, we're natural partners in helping other nations respond to the needs of theirs. Together, we must commit our resources and efforts to advancing education and health and prosperity.”

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

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People , Health , Education , Disease

“This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Source: Americans for Justice in the Middle East A J M E News, Volumes 14-17 http://books.google.co.in/books?id=lTVtAAAAMAAJ, 1988, p. 30

Life , People , Fear , Suffering

“The inductive-reasoning system I have described above consists of a multitude of “elements” in the form of belief-models or hypotheses that adapt to the aggregate environment they jointly create. Thus it qualifies as an adaptive complex system. After some initial learning time, the hypotheses or mental models in use are mutually co-adapted. Thus we can think of a consistent set of mental models as a set of hypotheses that work well with each other under some criterion—that have a high degree of mutual adaptedness. Sometimes there is a unique such set, it corresponds to a standard rational expectations equilibrium, and beliefs gravitate into it. More often there is a high, possibly very high, multiplicity of such sets. In this case we might expect inductive reasoning systems in the economy—whether in stock-market speculating, in negotiating, in poker games, in oligopoly pricing, in positioning products in the market—to cycle through or temporarily lock into psychological patterns that may be non-recurrent, path-dependent, and increasingly complicated. The possibilities are rich.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

Source: Inductive Reasoning and Bounded Rationality (The El Farol Problem) (1994), p. 8

Game , Thinking , Learning , Time

“All this probing and grappling we must do, out in society: how much easier, Annabelle thinks, it is to stay in rooms you know as well as your own body, having a warm meal and an evening of television, where it's all so comfortably one-way.”

John Updike book Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

Way , Thinking

“well well boss there is
something to be said
for the lyric and imperial
attitude
believe that everything is for
you until you discover
that you are for it
sing your faith in what you
get to eat right up to the
minute you are eaten
for you are going
to be eaten”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

the robin and the worm

Faith , Singing

“ People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), What Animals Shall We Imitate?, p. 8

Life , People , Law , Nature

“I know we live in troubled times, my friends, I know things which once stood up suddenly don't stand up anymore. I know that innocent people shopping or buying gas are often shot down, shot down for no reason. And it makes a nation nervous. Now, personally, I like the nation to be nervous. And in these nervous times, sometimes people come up to me, and they say, "Perhaps, Jack, you should tone down your rhetoric a bit. Perhaps, the stuff you say in between songs might be construed as, well, not very patriotic. Well, actually, Jack, you might get yourself in some big trouble." And I say to myself, "Oh! Trouble is my business, friend." In these uncertain times, it's not a good idea to give up on your values, and change your mind about the things you hold dear. It's not. I want to talk about someone who fell pretty damn hard, and this song is called "I Shot President Reagan, and I'm Gonna Do It Again and Again and Again and Again!"”

Jack Terricloth (1970)

Introducing "Secret Service Freedom Fighting U.S.A."
Live

People , Idea , Business , Change

“Put down the banks, and if this country could not be carried through the longest war against her most powerful enemy without ever knowing the want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitorous classes of her citizens, without bearing hard on the resources of the people, or loading the public with an indefinite burden of debt, I know nothing of my countrymen. Not by any novel project, not by any charlatanerie, but by ordinary and well-experienced means; by the total prohibition of all private paper at all times, by reasonable taxes in war aided by the necessary emissions of public paper of circulating size, this bottomed on special taxes, redeemable annually as this special tax comes in, and finally within a moderate period.”

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

Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1815. http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/gallatin1.html ME 14:356
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

War , People , Time , Dependency

“The fireside is an emblem of the future heavenly home…To obtain the highest conception of the calling of a man and a woman in the capacity of parents, one must look upon them from an educational point of view, for from no other does the grandeur of this sacred relationship so well present itself to the mind with all its intricate complexity. The home is the sanctuary of the human race, where each generation is consecrated for its life's mission. The parents are the high priests, responsible to God for the spirit of their ministry”

Karl G. Maeser (1828–1901) prominent Utah educator and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

School and Fireside (1898) pg 45, 59 https://archive.org/stream/schoolfireside00maesrich#page/58/mode/2up

Life , God , Education , Home

“Joel groaned softly. “I-ah-I don’t think I was altogether myself,” he excused.
“Are you ever?” Bertrand countered.
“What?”
“I am always my self, even when my objurgatory circuits are cut in by some frustration-inducing outside event. But you’re invariably either drunk or suffering indigestion or still half-asleep or so excited as to be manic or so downcast as to be suicidal or—”
Loftily Joel broke in: “That’s part of the marvel and wonder of the subjective human experience, not susceptible machine analysis.” He gulped the last of his brandy and set the glass aside. “And we are a fantastic species really, aren’t we? For all our shortcomings! I mean, well—here I am talking to a machine, for pity’s sake, a machine, a manufactured article! So cleverly designed, it’s impossible to tell that its responses are programmed in, not the result of intelligence.””

John Brunner (1934–1995) British author

“I resent that,” Bertrand said, but Joel ignored the comment.
Section 6 (pp. 135-136)
You’ll Take the High Road (1973)

Intelligence , Thinking , Suicide , Suffering

“Political skepticism is the source of so many of our dilemmas. Even if free markets worked as advertised, it would be hard to claim that they constituted a sufficient basis for the well-lived life. So what precisely is it that we find lacking in unrestrained financial capitalism, or ‘commercial society’ as the 18th century had it? What do we find instinctively amiss in our present arrangements and what can we do about them? What is it that offends our sense of propriety when faced with unfettered lobbying by the wealthy at the expense of everyone else? What have we lost?
We are all children of the Greeks. We intuitively grasp the need for a sense of moral direction: it is not necessary to be familiar with Socrates to feel that the unexamined life is not worth much. Natural Aristotelians, we assume that a just society is one in which justice is habitually practiced; a good society one in which people behave well. But in order for such an implicitly circular account to convince, we need to agree on the meaning of ‘just’ or ‘well’.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Ch. 5 : What Is to be Done?

Life , Children , People , Justice

“At home, as well as abroad, there is paralyzing uncertainty among business men as to whether the Reserve Board will allow that expansion of bank credit without which such prosperity as we have had in recent years simply cannot last. In short, the Board has created a state of mind which breeds business depression.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Foster and Catchings, in: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 144, (1929), p. 102; cited in: William J. Barber. From New Era to New Deal. 1988, p. 77.

Men , Home , Business

“I got into a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face." I said, "You'll be sorry." He said, "Oh yeah? Why?" I said, "Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well."”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

GQ Magazine - 75 Funniest Jokes of All Time (June 1999)

Guy , Time , Fight

“It is a grand book worthy of one’s hopes of you. A most powerful piece of well organized analysis with high aesthetic qualities, though written more perhaps than you see yourself for the cognoscenti in the temple and not for those at the gate. Anyhow I prefer it for intellectual enjoyment to any recent attempts in this vein.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Letter to Abba Lerner, 1942, On The Economics of Control

Books , Hope

“This part of optics, when well understood, shows us how we may make things a very long distance off appear as if placed very close, and large near things appear very small, and how we may make small things placed at a distance appear any size we want, so that it may be possible for us to read the smallest letters at incredible distances, or to count sand, or seed, or any sort of minute objects.”

Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253) English bishop and philosopher

De iride (On the rainbow) Note this prediction of optical scientific instruments like the telescope and microscope, not to be utilized until 250 years later.

Appearance , Reading , Parting

“One knows quite well that harmony can be a harmony of appearances”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Science in a Free Society

pg 51.
Science in a Free Society (1978)

Appearance

“One runs a business ultimately to do well so you can do good for everyone.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 102.

Business

“There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

Speech to the International Eucharistic Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as quoted in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner (13 August 1976)
1970s

Love , Children , Family

“History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

As quoted in Cesar Chavez : A Triumph of Spirit (1997) by Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard A. Garcia, p. 116

History

“To understand events as experienced by actual men and institutions we must be concerned with the history of errors and false starts as well as successes-although we make this distinction on the basis of what we now know of the tradition of success. As we go back in time the uncertainty of the outlook and of the objectives of scientific inquiries increases. The essence of the scientific movement is research. The answers to the essential question, what to do in scientific research-what questions to put to nature, by what methods to get answers, what to count as satisfactory answers-became clear only by the accumulation of successes and the marking of failures.”

Alistair Cameron Crombie (1915–1996) Australian zoologist, historian of science

A. C. Crombie, 1963. as cited in: Robert Maxwell Young. Mind, Brain, and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century, 1970. p. 101.

Men , Error , History , Failure

“I tell you, when we travel with our own band and we're on the road... Well, I can't even believe this is work.”

Jane Monheit (1977) American singer

CNN.com (7/29/2001)

Travel

“Well I’m just people watching
The other people watching me.
And we’re all people watching
The other people watching we.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

People Watching.
Song lyrics, Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George (2006)

People

“People ask me, "Do you have optimism about the world, about how terrible it is?" And I say, "Yes, it's great the way it is" … I had the wonderful privilege of sitting face to face with [a Hindu guru] and the first thing he said to me was "Do you have a question?", cause the teacher always answers questions… I said, "Yes, I have a question." I said, " Since in Hindu thinking all the universe is divine, a manifestation of divinity itself, how can we say no to anything in the world? How can we say no to brutality to stupidity to vulgarity to thoughtlessness?" And he said, "For you and me, you must say yes." Well, I learned from my friends who were students of his that that happened to be the first question he asked his guru, and we had a wonderful conversation for an hour there.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Episode 2, Chapter 12
The Power of Myth (1988)

People , Stupidity , World , Way

“Nehru’s daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, carried her father’s game much farther. In her fight for a monopoly of power, she split the Congress Party, and made a common cause with the Communists. Well-known Communists and fellow-travellers were given positions of power in the ruling Congress Party, in the Government at the Centre as well in the States, and in prestigious institutions all over the country. The Muslim-Marxist combine of “historians” had already captured the Indian History Congress during the days of Pandit Nehru, and many honest historians had been hounded out of it. Now this combine was placed in control of the Indian Council of Historical Research and entrusted with extensive patronage. The combine took over the National Council of Educational Research and Training also, and laid down the guidelines for producing school textbooks on various subjects. The Jawaharlal Nehru University was created and financed on a fabulous scale in order to collect Communist professors from all over the country, and form them into a frontline brigade for launching all sorts of anti-Hindu campaigns. The smokescreen for this Stalinist operation was provided by the slogan of Secularism which nobody was supposed to question, or examine as to what it had come to mean. Its meaning had to be accepted ex-cathedra, and as laid down by the Muslim-Marxist combine. In the new political parlance that emerged, Hinduism and the nationalism it inspired, became blackned as “Communalism.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Small wonder that the word “Hindu” started becoming a dirty word in the academia as well as the media.
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Education , School , Travel , History

“If you want to be thought anything of amongst Englishmen, you must make yourself see their point of view. They don't care for melancholy people, and have a contempt for sentiment. This applies to love as well as to patriotism and religion.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

Love , People , Religion

“Well, I think it [painting] is a life measuring stick. And I'm concerned with being myself, getting to know more and more what that is, what is possible, and what the real meaning of beauty and development is. I'm concerned with development and growth. But I am in my everyday life. I hate to feel deadly. But that does not mean that repetition or experiment isn't in the total picture of growth and development. And I think that pace and place differently at different times for each person.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

quote about her attitude
1960s, Interview with Barbara Rose', Archives - American Art, 1968

Life , Hate , Beauty , Feeling

“No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice. … No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, The Chance for Peace (1953)

Hunger , People , Peace , Justice

“Well governed, poverty, ill governed, wealth a disgrace.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Ethics of Confucius https://books.google.ca/books?id=dYfFFik3e0YC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, Cosimo Inc, 2005, p. 318 of Index under "People, the Nourishment of".
:Variation: To be wealthy in an unjust society is a disgrace.
Attributed

Wealth

“Remember we had a big debate about partial birth abortion? Well, here is a guy, who, in the Senate of Illinois, voted against a bill that was aimed at making sure that hospitals could no longer take babies who were born alive after a botched abortion — these are living babies, wholly separate from the mother, and are there in a nurse's arms, and in a case that I know of, the nurse is begging the doctors to please help, to do something for this child. And she is told to put the child aside, and let it die. That's not abortion. That is infanticide. That is the taking of a child's life. That is simply murder, by neglect. And there was a bill to stop it. And the United States Senate, in a similar bill, passed ninety-eight to zero. Even Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski could not find it in their abortion-seared consciences to vote for this practice. But Barack Obama voted to let it continue.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

National Federation of Republican Assemblies, NYC, August 31, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_08_31nfra.htm.
2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race

Life , Guy , Birth , Help

“Well, I think you just have to be prepared to be weirder and weirder. I follow the example of Robyn Hitchcock who, I think, has created a career out of this world he has constructed. It’s very much his world, and he continually builds upon it. I think he’s received criticism in the past along the lines of, “Oh, here’s another Robyn Hitchcock record about flesh and fish,” and things like that, but in fact if you really look at the songs, they’re just the building blocks for this very complex, very vibrant, and very real world that exists within his songwriting. So I look to him for inspiration.”

Colin Meloy (1974) American musician

Interview with Colin Meloy, 2004-06 http://www.believermag.com/issues/200406/?read=interview_meloy,

World , Thinking , Fish , Past

“The specialist serves as a striking concrete example of the species, making clear to us the radical nature of the novelty. For, previously, men could be divided simply into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other. But your specialist cannot be brought in under either of these two categories. He is not learned, for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his speciality; but neither is he ignorant, because he is "a scientist," and "knows" very well his own tiny portion of the universe. We shall have to say that he is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with an the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XII: The Barbarism Of "Specialisation"

Men , Fashion , Nature , Learning

“Well, it took me over two hours to find Frencesco’s keys which was disappointing but I did go to Venice for free and I didn’t fall into the canal on the way home like a twat.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Disappointment , Way , Home

“Well, perhaps you have begun your journey toward wisdom, Mr. Flattery,” Kent said seriously. “We have such a short time and the journey is so terribly long. One cannot begin too soon.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: World Without End (1995), Chapter 11 (p. 158)

Wisdom , Time

“Well, this is a strange reversal of the situation. The English are at loggerheads with the Americans. The Lansdowne Clique has coalesced with the Labour Party to obtain a swift acceptable peace for Germany. It seems that Lloyd George put pressure on him to this end. On the other hand we know that the Paris Senate has said that it will not come to the conference table to sue for peace but pursue the war with every means in its power. After your report I'll read you a confidential letter I have received from an agent in Holland…The agent…points to a possibility of coming to terms with England, which is obviously perturbed by American numerical superiority, and thinks we should have done better not to make peace overtures to America but to England…An agreement with England, to include a treaty with Japan to fling the Americans out of Europe. A European Monroe doctrine therefore to which I outlined to Hintze at Spa as the policy to be followed in future.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Georg Alexander von Müller's diary entry (29 October 1918), quoted in Georg Alexander von Müller, The Kaiser and His Court (London: Macdonald, 1961), pp. 416-417
1910s

War , Peace , Thinking , Reading

“I take unceasing delight in Chaucer. His manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my old age. How exquisitely tender he is, and yet how perfectly free from the least touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping! The sympathy of the poet with the subjects of his poetry is particularly remarkable in Shakspeare and Chaucer; but what the first effects by a strong act of imagination and mental metamorphosis, the last does without any effort, merely by the inborn kindly joyousness of his nature. How well we seem to know Chaucer! How absolutely nothing do we know of Shakspeare!”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

15 March 1834
Table Talk (1821–1834)

Age , Imagination , Nature , Effort

“A lot of hard-faced men who look as if they had done very well out of the war.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On the new MPs elected in 1918; quoted by John Maynard Keynes in Economic Consequences of the Peace, Ch. 5
1910s

Men , War

“If we except the great name of Newton (and the exception is one that the great Gauss himself would have been delighted to make) it is probable that no mathematician of any age or country has ever surpassed Gauss in the combination of an abundant fertility of invention with an absolute vigorousness in demonstration, which the ancient Greeks themselves might have envied. It may be admitted, without any disparagement to the eminence of such great mathematicians as Euler and Cauchy that they were so overwhelmed with the exuberant wealth of their own creations, and so fascinated by the interest attaching to the results at which they arrived, that they did not greatly care to expend their time in arranging their ideas in a strictly logical order, or even in establishing by irrefragable proof propositions which they instinctively felt, and could almost see to be true. With Gauss the case was otherwise. It may seem paradoxical, but it is probably nevertheless true that it is precisely the effort after a logical perfection of form which has rendered the writings of Gauss open to the charge of obscurity and unnecessary difficulty. The fact is that there is neither obscurity nor difficulty in his writings, as long as we read them in the submissive spirit in which an intelligent schoolboy is made to read his Euclid. Every assertion that is made is fully proved, and the assertions succeed one another in a perfectly just analogical order… But when we have finished the perusal, we soon begin to feel that our work is but begun, that we are still standing on the threshold of the temple, and that there is a secret which lies behind the veil and is as yet concealed from us. No vestige appears of the process by which the result itself was obtained, perhaps not even a trace of the considerations which suggested the successive steps of the demonstration. Gauss says more than once that for brevity, he gives only the synthesis, and suppresses the analysis of his propositions. Pauca sed matura—few but well matured… If, on the other hand, we turn to a memoir of Euler's, there is a sort of free and luxuriant gracefulness about the whole performance, which tells of the quiet pleasure which Euler must have taken in each step of his work; but we are conscious nevertheless that we are at an immense distance from the severe grandeur of design which is characteristic of all Gauss's greater efforts.”

Henry John Stephen Smith (1826–1883) mathematician

As quoted by Alexander Macfarlane, Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century (1916) p. 95, https://books.google.com/books?id=43SBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA95 "Henry John Stephen Smith (1826-1883) A Lecture delivered March 15, 1902"

Pleasure , Secret , Age , Feeling

“But in that case politics as well as religion miss their common parlance meanings, and become esoteric terms which scoundrels and secularists alone can decipher.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Religion

“I’m a gluten-free, soy-free vegan who also tries to be sugar-free as much as possible, so it can be crazy on the road trying to find things to eat. Once we were in Madison, Wisconsin and I was trying to explain what veganism was at a restaurant, and they went, “So can you eat roast beef?” […] When I was doing Celebrity Big Brother and told me that I wasn’t the spokesperson for gay people, I said… well wait a second, I’m not a dog, does that mean I can’t fight and speak up for animal rights?”

Michelle Visage (1968) American singer, radio DJ, TV host

"An Interview with the One and Only Michelle Visage", HuffPost (28 July 2017) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/an-interview-with-the-one-and-only-michelle-visage_us_597b6b6ce4b09982b737640f.

People , Dogs , Waiting , Animals

“The premise of this statement is what one might call the principle of non-indirection. I call “indirection” an indirect operation that makes it possible to arrive at a certain result through two successive actions, the first of which serves only to make the second possible. … This principle is not limited to rational actions. … The principle of non-indirection thus expresses a broader idea of coherence that includes the emotional as well as the rational.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

Idea , Success

“And finally we have this, this discovery that Earth's magnetic field can be ripped open and our atmosphere laid bare to the solar wind, much like Mars. Magnetism is underrated in the grand scheme of things, in my opinion. We'd do well to pay more attention to magnetic trends in our corner of the universe and what effects it has on Earthly climate.”

Anthony Watts (1958) American television meteorologist

Earth's Magnetic Field Has Massive Breach – scientists baffled http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/16/earths-magnetic-field-has-massive-breach-scientists-baffled/, wattsupwiththat.com, December 16, 2008.
2008

Universe

“I know very well that I'm not the dancer that Danny is. He's on a completely different level. For the last four years, I've known who he is, and I just wanted to talk to him. So standing there with him tonight [as the final two] was the craziest thing.”

Danny Tidwell (1984) American dancer

Sabra Johnson,
Starr Seibel, Deborah (2007-08-17). "Backstage at the So You Think You Can Dance Finale!" http://www.tvguide.com/news/dance-finale-sabra/070817-05 TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2007-08-17
About

“What, finally, are the functions of reason and rationality in human behaviors? They are the functions, respectively, of the prince’s tutor and his councilor. The tutor teaches the prince to promote the public good in the long term. The councilor tells him how to act in order to achieve his goals, whatever they might be, in the most efficient way. It is not incumbent upon the councilor to impose the demands of reason; but if the tutor has done his job well, the prince will make them his own.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

Way , Behavior

“Well, Douglas became the leader of the Republicans in the struggle in Congress to defeat the Lecompton Constitution, and he succeeded. And from becoming the antichrist of the anti-slavery movement, he became the savior. And many people in the Republican Party wanted Lincoln and the Republicans in Illinois to support Douglas for reelection.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

People , Support

“Nigel Barton (On TV): I feel I don't belong here, that's my trouble.
Interviewer (on TV): Well, where do you belong? At home?
Harry Barton: Of course!
Nigel Barton (on TV): No, I'm afraid I don't. Now it hurts to say this, of course, but it's the truth. Back at home, in the village, in the workingmen's club, with people I went to school with, I'm so much on the defensive, you see. They suspect me of making qualitative judgments about their environment, you understand, but it's not that I wish to do so. Yet I even find my own father looking at me oddly some times, waiting to pounce on some remark, some expression in my face, watching me like a hawk. I don't feel at home in either place. I don't belong. It's a tightrope between two different worlds, and I'm walking it.
Harry Barton: You're a bloody liar, Nigel!”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

Stand up, Nigel Barton (1965)

People , Truth , World , School

“The search for the sense of humour is as fruitless and as enduring as the hunt for the unicorn; the really wise man knows that the unicorn, being no reality but a life-enhancing myth, must never be hunted, and may only be glimpsed by the well-disposed and the lucky; it cannot be captured, and it is encountered only by indirection.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Life , Search , Reality , Sense

“An order must first of all be clear. A meditation may be vague, a scheme always has something of the vision in it, but an order must be precise. All order can be misunderstood; an obscure one will never be understood. "To do a thing well," said Napoleon, "one must do to oneself." This is not always true, but the prudent leader will admit that few people understand and that almost everyone forgets. It is therefore not enough to give an order; one must see to its execution and, when giving it, anticipate anything that may nullify its effectiveness. The stupidity of human beings and the malevolence of chance are limitless. The unexpected always happens. The leader who endeavors to frustrate the onset of ill luck and who strengthens the weak points in his schemes against stupidity is more apt to impose his will than one who does not take these measures.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

People , Stupidity , Understanding , Chance

“[In response to "Do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?"] "Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House…. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

2000s, 2003

People , Way , Question , Thinking

“Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

The French attribute this to the painter Nicolas Poussin (born 15 June 1594) "Ce qui vaut la peine d'être fait vaut la peine d'être bien fait"
Disputed

“Well it's bulls and blood,
It's dust and mud,
It's the roar of a Sunday crowd.
It's the white in his knuckles,
The gold in the buckle,
He'll win the next go 'round.
It's boots and chaps,
It's cowboy hats,
It's spurs and latigo.
It's the ropes and the reins,
And the joy and the pain,
And they call the thing rodeo.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

Rodeo, written by Larry Bastian.
Song lyrics, Ropin' the Wind (1991)

Pain , Joy

“Cynthia: Of all the times to come out to your family, I had to do it right before the last presidential debate. Damn that John Kerry!
Ginger: Cynthia, I'm sorry your parents are having a meltdown, but it's hardly John Kerry's fault.
Cynthia: When he called Mary Cheney a lesbian, I felt like I had been drop-kicked.
Ginger: Well, Mary Cheney is a lesbian, and you're a political football.”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#452, "Absolute Value" (2004), collected in Invasion of the DTWOF (2005).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Family , Parent , Time , Football

“I traveled to Baghdad to personally show our nation's commitment to a free Iraq, because it is vital for the Iraqi people to know with certainty that America will not abandon them after we have come this far. The challenges that remain in Iraq are serious. We face determined enemies who remain intent on killing the innocent, and defeating these enemies will require more sacrifice and the continued patience of our country. But our efforts in Iraq are well worth it, the mission is necessary for the security of our country, and we will succeed.”

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

Radio Address http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060617.html, June 17, 2006
2000s, 2006

People , Travel , Effort , Personality

“There is nothing perhaps so generally consoling to a man as a well-established grievance; a feeling of having been injured, on which his mind can brood from hour to hour, allowing him to plead his own cause in his own court, within his own heart, — and always to plead it successfully.”

Anthony Trollope book Orley Farm

Source: Orley Farm (1862), Ch. 8

Feeling , Heart

“General Myers seems to assume that things have gone well in Iraq. General Myers seems to assume that the American people, the support for our conflict there is not eroding. General Myers seems to assume that everything has gone fine and our declarations of victory, of which there have been many, have not had an impact on American public opinion. Things have not gone as we had planned or expected, nor as we were told by you, General Myers. And that's why I'm very worried, because I think we have to win this conflict.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Comments made to General Richard Myers in U.S. Senate hearings into the Iraq War http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec05/hearings_9-29.html (29 September 2005)
2000s, 2005

People , Support , Thinking , Victory

“Wings of an angel
Replace my beautiful scars
Well hidden in the dark
Time seems to stand still
The world is falling apart
So heavy on my heart.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Broken Wings
Resurrection (2014)

World , Beauty , Angels , Time

Quotes about well page 51

Quotes about well
page 51