Quotes about well
page 59

“Obviously the government of [Mussolini's] time, out of fear that German power might lead to complete victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it … The racial laws were the worst fault of Mussolini as a leader, who in so many other ways did well.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

In a speech in Milan, while heading a coallition which includes parties with fascist roots, as quoted in "Berlusconi praises Mussolini on Holocaust Memorial Day" at BBC News (27 January 2013) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21222341 2013

Fear, Law, Way, Time

“If you don't have massive dreams, you might as well stay in bed.”

Sonny Bill Williams (1985) New Zealand rugby player and heavyweight boxer

Williams while speaking on his sporting aspirations. Time gets close for SBW to make call http://www.smh.com.au/sport/boxing/time-gets-close-for-sbw-to-make-call-20130206-2dyud.html, by Phil Lutton, Sydney Morning Herald, dated 7 February 2013.

Dreams

“A few months ago I read an interview with a critic; a well-known critic; an unusually humane and intelligent critic. The interviewer had just said that the critic “sounded like a happy man”, and the interview was drawing to a close; the critic said, ending it all: “I read, but I don’t get any time to read at whim. All the reading I do is in order to write or teach, and I resent it. We have no TV, and I don’t listen to the radio or records, or go to art galleries or the theater. I’m a completely negative personality.”
As I thought of that busy, artless life—no records, no paintings, no plays, no books except those you lecture on or write articles about—I was so depressed that I went back over the interview looking for some bright spot, and I found it, one beautiful sentence: for a moment I had left the gray, dutiful world of the professional critic, and was back in the sunlight and shadow, the unconsidered joys, the unreasoned sorrows, of ordinary readers and writers, amateurishly reading and writing “at whim”. The critic said that once a year he read Kim, it was plain, at whim: not to teach, not to criticize, just for love—he read it, as Kipling wrote it, just because he liked to, wanted to, couldn’t help himself. To him it wasn’t a means to a lecture or an article, it was an end; he read it not for anything he could get out of it, but for itself. And isn’t this what the work of art demands of us? The work of art, Rilke said, says to us always: You must change your life. It demands of us that we too see things as ends, not as means—that we too know them and love them for their own sake. This change is beyond us, perhaps, during the active, greedy, and powerful hours of our lives, but during the contemplative and sympathetic hours of our reading, our listening, our looking, it is surely within our power, if we choose to make it so, if we choose to let one part of our nature follow its natural desires. So I say to you, for a closing sentence: Read at whim! read at whim!”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Poets, Critics, and Readers”, pp. 112–113
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

Love, Life, Happiness, Books

“The substitution of meaning accounts for the grasping of misers as well as the extravagance of spendthrifts. Karl Marx well understood this peculiar transformation of flesh into coin.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 8, Holy Dread, p. 211

“Translated:
I’m growing old, I’m sixty years;
I’ve labored all my life in vain.
In all that time of hopes and fears,
I’ve failed my dearest wish to gain.
I see full well that here below
Bliss unalloyed there is for none
My prayer would else fulfilment know —
Never have I seen Carcassonne!”

Gustave Nadaud (1820–1893) songwriter

Je me fais vieux, j’ai soixante ans,
J’ai travaillé toute ma vie,
Sans avoir, durant tout ce temps.
Pu satisfaire mon envie.
Je vois bien qu’il n’est ici-bas
De bonheur complet pour personne.
Mon vœu ne s’accomplira pas:
Je n’ai jamais vu Carcassonne!
Stanza 1.
Carcassonne, (c. 1887; with translation by John Reuben Thompson)

Life, Fear, Hope, Time

““Three days after this, the king entered Jhain at midday and occupied the private apartment of the rai… He then visited the temples, which were ornamented with elaborate work in gold and silver. Next day he went again to the temples, and ordered their destruction, as well as of the fort, and set fire to the palace, and ‘thus made hell of paradise’… While the soldiers sought every opportunity of plundering, the Shah was engaged in burning the temples, and destroying the idols. There were two bronze idols of Brahma each of which weighed more than a thousand mans. These were broken into pieces and the fragments distributed amongst the officers, with orders to throw them down at the gates of the Masjid on their return.”65”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan Jalalu’d -Din Khalji (AD 1290-1296) in Jhain (Rajasthan) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. III, p. 542.
Miftahu'l-Futuh

Hell

“To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

Death, Stupidity, Feeling

“The one function that T. V. news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.”

David Brinkley (1920–2003) American journalist

as cited in One Man's America (2008), George F. Will, Random House, p. 118 (Chapter 15, Lingerie and Duct Tape) : ISBN 0307407861 9780307407863

“In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well oiled in the closet, but unused.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Preface to The First Forty-Nine Stories (1944)

“Jack: Well, only if you have enough. I'd hate for you to run out to the zoo just for me.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Hate

“Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)

Life, Men, Books, Knowledge

“A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

As quoted in Mackay's The Harvest of a Quiet Eye, A Selection of Scientific Quotations (1977), p. 34

Love, Money, Hope

“Today I walked into the sunset — to mail some letters —... But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters I walked home — and kept walking - The Eastern sky was all grey blue — bunches of clouds — different kinds of clouds — sticking around everywhere and the whole thing — lit up — first in one place — then in another with flashes of lightning — sometimes just sheet lightning — and some times sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it -. I walked out past the last house — past the last locust tree — and sat on the fence for a long time — looking — just looking at — the lightning — you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land — land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know — There was a wonderful moon. Well I just sat there and had a great time by myself — Not even many night noises — just the wind —... I wondered what you were doing - It is absurd the way I love this country — Then when I came back — it was funny — roads just shoot across blocks anywhere — all the houses looked alike — and I almost got lost — I had to laugh at myself — I couldn't tell which house was home - I am loving the plains more than ever it seems — and the SKY — Anita you have never seen SKY — it is wonderful”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas (September 11, 1916), pp. 183-184
1915 - 1920, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Love, Way, Home, Tree

“The youth of the country, who are the most potent force in building India to progress and in preserving its unity, have to be shown the right example and given the right lead. A spirit of self-introspection and dedication to national well-being will make us all go along the right path.”

V. V. Giri (1894–1980) Indian politician and 4th president of India

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, P.84

Youth, Country

“Climate change is an issue determining our destiny as mankind – it will determine the well-being of all of us.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

Cited in: Damian Carrington, "Climate change will determine humanity's destiny, says Angela Merkel" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/15/climate-change-will-determine-humanitys-destiny-says-angela-merkel, The Guardian, 15 November 2017 (page visited on 15 November 2017). 2017

Change

“Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance.
He knows well the limits of his knowledge and how much is waiting to be learned.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11

Knowledge, Learning, Waiting

“The landlady had white hair. Around her neck was a high net collar fitting tightly like a corset. She was in her seventies, a tall woman who increased her height by rising on tiptoe and peering at me over her glasses…She smiled with a smile that seemed to hurt her face, cracking it open with old lines that broke up the dry flesh around her mouth and cheeks…She was lonely, and so lost and still proud. One afternoon she took me to her apartment on the top floor. It was like walking into a well-dusted tomb…For two hours she talked of Bert, and Lord! how she loved that man, even in death, but he was not dead at all; he was in that apartment, watching over her, protecting her, daring me to hurt her…The tea was old. The sugar was old and lumpish. The tea cups were dusty, and somehow the tea tasted old and the little dried up cookies tasted of death. When I got up to leave, Bert followed me through the door and down the hall, daring me to think cynically of him.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Love, Death, Smile, Thinking

“I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I’ve grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let’s peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write.”

Amy Poehler book Yes Please

Yes Please (2014)

Love, People, Smile, Way

“Believing in development, in a new generation of those who create and those who enjoy, we call together the youth of today. And as a youth which bears the future, we aim to create space to live and work, as opposition to the well-established, older powers. Everyone who reproduces, directly and without illusion, whatever he senses the urge to create, belongs to us.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

from the group manifesto of Die Brücke, written by Kirchner in Dresden, 1906; as quoted in 'The Artists' Association 'Brücke' – Chronology' http://www.bruecke-museum.de/chronology.htm, Brücke Museum. Retrieved 29 September 2016; from Wikipedia: Kirchner 1905 - 1915

Youth, Sense, Future

“The fate of the Statute of Uses is one of the most curious in legal history. Its secret and unavowed purpose, of securing the estates of the monasteries for the Crown, it accomplished. Its ostensible purpose, fortified by a wealth of hypocritical justification, it entirely failed to achieve. Not only were devises of lands, after a brief interval, put on a legal footing; but, as is well known, uses of lands as distinguished from legal estates, soon re-appeared in full vigour. Whilst in unforeseen directions, that statute worked havoc in the medieval system of conveyancing; and gradually modernized it out of existence.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter VII, New Interests In land, p. 99

Fate, Secret, History, Appearance

“Imperfect markets are different. (…) Similarly, in Paul Krugman’s neat adaptation, “all perfect markets are perfect in the same way: all imperfect markets imperfect in their own different way.” But truly perfect markets exist only in economists’ models; in the real world, markets are imperfect. But within imperfect markets there is a range from those that work well enough for a laissez-faire approach to be broadly valid to those for which market failure or imperfection is extreme and inherent. The market for restaurants works pretty well. The best way to ensure a range of restaurants that provide us with variety, incentives for good service, and enjoyment of changing ambience and menu is to let entrepreneurship do its business—let thousands of flowers bloom, some to succeed and some to wilt.”

Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell (1955) British businessman

Source: Economics after the crisis : objectives and means (2012), Ch. 2 : Financial Markets: Efficiency, Stability, and Income Distribution

World, Way, Flowers, Failure

“Well, I think that the image is a part of me. I wear the baggy pants, the hats, the whole nine. And you know, I may add a little for the excitement and the intrigue in the videos, but my family has told me that little air of mystery that surrounds me is for real.”

Aaliyah (1979–2001) American singer, actress and model

Attributed

Family, Thinking, Parting

“I was not blinded by faith, but the encounter was indeed astonishing at several levels. In our private talk, Sai Baba uttered insights about my family and myself that he could not possibly have known…. He waved his hand in the air and opened his palm. In it nestled a gold ring with nine embedded stones, a navratan. He slipped it on my finger, remarking, "See how well it fits. Even a goldsmith would have needed to measure your finger."”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

The Hindu, "Reality - Spiritual and Virtual", Nov 10, 2002 Available Online http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2002/11/10/stories/2002111000620300.htm. 2000s

Family, Faith

“Now my sister's daughter, Elizabeth May
Is going to get married next Sunday, they say
Now what will I buy her? She's such a nice girl.
I think a piano will do very well.
I saw one today, 'twas a beauty I found.
Only ninety-five guineas. I'll have it sent round.”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

And Yet I Don't Know!

Beauty, Girl, Thinking, Sister

“M: If you cannot impress people simply by being part of the great fat human race, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you don't impress people by the way you look, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you are now going to ask is everything I did just a way to gain some form of attention, well that's not entirely true. It is in a small way, but that's in the very nature of being alive.
PM: Wanting to be loved?
M: To be seen, above all else. I wanted to be noticed, and the way I lived and do live has a desperate neurosis about it because of that. All humans need a degree of attention. Some people get it at the right time, when they are 13 or 14, people get loved at the right stages. If this doesn't happen, if the love isn't there, you can quite easily just fade away. … In a sense I always felt that being troubled as a teenager was par for the course. I wasn't sure that I was dramatically unique. I knew other people who were at the time desperate and suicidal. They despised life and detested all other living people. In a way that made me feel a little bit secure. Because I thought, well, maybe I'm not so intense after all. Of course, I was. I despised practically everything about human life, which does limit one's weekend activities”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From "Wilde child", interview by Paul Morley, Blitz (April 1988).
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

Love, Life, People, Way

“I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would.
Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Highway Patrolman"
Song lyrics, Nebraska (1982)

Family

“Likewise, gleefully describing the Hindu predicament under the Sultanate, Amir Khusrau puts this statement into the mouth of a subdued Raja; ‘Thanks to the perennial, well established convention of the world, the Hindu has all along been a game of the Turks. The relationship between the Turk and the Hindu cannot be described better than that the Turk is like a tiger and the Hindu, a deer. It has been a long established rule of the whirling sky that the Hindus exist for the sake of the Turk. Being triumphant over them, whenever the Turk chooses to make an inroad upon them, he catches them, buys them, and sells them at will. Since the Hindu happens to be a (wretched) slave in all respects, none need exercise force on his slave. It does not become one to scowl at a goat which is being reared for one’s meals. Why should one wield a sharp sword for one who will die by (just) a fierce look?”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

Amir Khusrow, quoted from Harsh Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990) p. 17 https://archive.org/details/MythOfCompositeCultureHarshNarain

World, Exercises, Game

“I believe that producing pictures, as I do, is almost solely a question of wanting so very much to do it well.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

undated quotes, M.C. Escher Foundation

Question

“We're all a mishmash of extremes. I know that I have demons. I don't know if I want to get rid of them altogether, but I would like to experience them in a different way. Maybe go face to face with them. I've never really had the time to go to therapy. Well, here and there. But not enough to help me.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in Kevin Sessums, "Johnny Be Good," Vanity Fair (February 1997)

Way, Time, Help

“What the structure of Rawls’s argument indicates is a more fundamental feature of his thought. This is an amphibious world, which contains just enough land of real social reference to avoid the tricky deeps of first philosophy (the gesture is roughly: let’s start out from where we’re at – in other words, Bush–Clinton country), while floating carefully enough on the waters of abstraction to avoid contact with the ground of actual political change (for example: what has happened in the US since the 1970s). The result is a kind of political cabotage, a critique of existing society that clings nervously to its shores. Readers of Rawls might well ask: where is the actual justice in the United States that corresponds to the ideal construct he offers us, if it is based on ‘plain truths widely accepted by citizens’?”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Source: Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 4. "Designing Consensus, John Rawls" (1994), p. 108-9

Truth, World, Justice, Water

“One of the great moral advances of the Enlightenment was abolishing torture. Its interesting to think how far we've come when we think about the fact that 300 years ago in every square of every civilized city, certainly in Europe, torturing people to death was not just that took place, but was something you would've taken your children to go and see on a Saturday afternoon. Right? I mean, that's what was happening. Now, the question is what did people learn, empirically, when they decided, "Oh gosh, drawing and quartering actually causes too much suffering; I think we'll put it out?" I mean, I don't think there's a fact that changed there that somebody had to realize. I think the example, by the way, is particularly important because while it shows that there can be moral progress, it also shows that it's absolutely not necessary, and there can also be moral regression, as in the case of the current administration. But I don't see that what's taking place somehow when Bush decides to legalize torture and thereby cancel one of the major achievements of the Enlightenment (Well he has! Right? I mean many of the achievements of the enlightenment, but that one in particular.) I don't see that what's happened is that there's something that he doesn't know. That he could somehow be tutored on.”

Susan Neiman (1955) American academic

Beyond Belief conference (November 2006)

Death, Children, People, Way

“Edward Smith: What do you think is the characteristic of a really nice person? Some people you obviously do like more than others.
Andy Warhol: Ummm, well, if they talk a lot.
Edward Smith: What, and don't make you talk?
Andy Warhol: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person.
Edward Smith: Thank you, Andy.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

1975 - 1987, BBC interview (1981)

People, Thinking, Personality

“Following the positive HIV test of adult actress Darren James on April 13, 2004, a new HIV scare led to a search for all potentially infected partners of the actor, as well as a two-month shut down of adult movie production in Los Angeles. Commenting on this on April 29, 2004, Gibson said that the actors "should not be surprised, considering what they do" and noted that "this was bound to happen to them sooner or later."”

John Gibson (media host) (1946) American radio talk show host

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&ncid=1505&e=3&u=/afp/20040502/pl_afp/afplifestylehivscare

Angels, Search

“One can ask two different kinds of questions with regard to the topics of study in psychology as well as in other sciences. One can ask for the phenomenal characteristics of psychological units or events, for example, how many kinds of feelings can be qualitatively differentiated from one another or which characteristics describe an experience of a voluntary act. Aside from this are the questions asking for the why, for the cause and the effect, for the conditional-genetic interrelations. For example, one can ask: Under which conditions has been a decision made and which are the specific psychological effects which follow this decision? The depiction of phenomenal characteristics is usually characterized as “description”, the depiction of causal relationships as “explanation.””

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Kurt Lewin (1927). "Gesetz und experiment in der Psychologie" [Law and experiment in psychology]. in: Symposion, Vol 1, p. 375-421. Translated by and cited in: Kurt Kreppner " On the Generation of Data in the Study of Social Interaction1 http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ptp/v17n2/7871.pdf" in: Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa Vol 17, nr. 2, p. 109. 1920s

Feeling, Question, Decision, Study

“When Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sind, he took captives wherever he went and sent many prisoners, especially women prisoners, to his homeland. Parimal Devi and Suraj Devi, the two daughters of Raja Dahir, who were sent to Hajjaj to adorn the harem of the Caliph, were part of a large bunch of maidens remitted as one-fifth share of the state (Khums) from the booty of war (Ghanaim). The Chachnama gives the details. After the capture of the fort of Rawar, Muhammad bin Qasim “halted there for three day, during which time he masscered 6,000 …men. Their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoner.” When the (total) number of prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons (Kalichbeg has sixty thousand), amongst whom thirty were the daughters of the chiefs. They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of prisoners were forwarded in charge of the Black Slave Kaab, son of Mubarak Rasti.96 In Sind itself female slaves captured after every campaign of the marching army, were married to Arab soldiers who settled down in colonies established in places like Mansura, Kuzdar, Mahfuza and Multan. The standing instructions of Hajjaj to Muhammad bin Qasim were to “give no quarter to infidels, but to cut their throats”, and take the women and children as captives. In the final stages of the conquest of Sind, “when the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim… one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number… (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers”.97 Obviously, a few lakhs of women were enslaved and distributed among the elite and the soldiers.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Chachnama, in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

Women, Men, War, Children

“In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.”

William Congreve The Old Bachelor

Act I, scene iii
The Old Bachelor (1693)

Love, Suffering

“Postal will be so politically incorrect and harsh, it's like a mirror to American society, and I don't think the movie will be well received by anybody. For example, Osama Bin Laden will be one of the lead characters—I think that shows the mood of the movie.”

Uwe Boll (1965) German restaurateur and former filmmaker

Uwe Boll Bites Back, 2006-06-13, Ellie Gibson, Eurogamer, 2006-02-15 http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62899, 2000s

Mood, Thinking

“Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well timed.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

La libéralité consiste moins à donner beaucoup qu'à donner à propos.
Aphorism 47; Variant translation: Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.
Les Caractères (1688), Du Coeur

Time

“One may well use one’s head even though one is in love. Someone has said that one cannot prevent lightening from striking – but one may prevent the whole town from burning down.”

Margrethe II of Denmark (1940) Queen of Denmark

From 'Om man så må sige – 350 Dronning Margrethe-citater', quoted in English here http://trondni.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/new-books-wit-and-wisdom-of-margrethe-ii.html. Personal

Love

“You never see your dog running nonstop around and around in a circle for an hour. If he did, you'd think there was something wrong with him. Instead, he'll chase something, roll around, sprint, rest, mix things up. Animal play has a purpose, and it's not hard to surmise that human play should as well.”

Erwan Le Corre (1971)

Bill Katovsky (2012). 1,001 Pearls of Runners' Wisdom: Advice and Inspiration for the Open Road, Skyhorse Publishing.

Dogs, Thinking, Animals

“Our school systems are all nonsynergetic. We take the whole child and fractionate the scope of his or her comprehending coordination by putting the children in elementary schools—to become preoccupied with elements or isolated facts only. Thereafter we force them to choose some specialization, forcing them to forget the whole. … We may well ask how it happened that the entire scheme of advanced education is devoted exclusively to ever narrower specialization. We find that the historical beginnings of schools and tutoring were established, and economically supported by illiterate and vastly ambitious warlords who required a wide variety of brain slaves with which to logistically and ballistically overwhelm those who opposed their expansion of physical conquest. They also simultaneously DIVIDED and CONQUERED any and all "bright ones" who might otherwise rise within their realms to threaten their supremacy. The warlord vitiated their threat by making them all specialists and reserving to himself exclusively the right to think about and act comprehensively. The warlord made all those about him differentiators and reserved the function of integration to himself.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

Source: 1960s, Presentation to U.S. Congressional Sub-Committee on World Game (1969), p. 15

Children, Education, School, Support

“There is no such thing, wrote Oscar Wilde, as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. Presumably, then, Mein Kampf would have been all right had it been better written.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Trash, Violence, and Versace: But Is It Art? http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_1_urbanities-trash.html (Winter 1998). City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Books

“Of all the ridiculous expressions people use--and people use a great many ridiculous expressions--one of the most ridiculous is "No news is good news." "No news is good news" simply means that if you don't hear from someone, everything is probably fine, and you can see at once why this expression makes such little sense, because everything being fine is only one of many, many reasons why someone may not contact you. Perhaps they are tied up. Maybe they are surrounded by fierce weasels, or perhaps they are wedged tightly between two refrigerators and cannot get themselves out. The expression might as well be changed to "no news is bad news," except that people may not be able to contact you because they have just been crowned king or are competing in a gymnastics tournament. The point is that there is no way to know why someone has not contacted you, until they contact you and explain themselves. For this reason, the sensible expression would be "no news is no news," except that it is so obvious that it is hardly an expression at all.”

Daniel Handler book The Hostile Hospital

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

People, Way, Sense, Change

“Well I'm not sure which ones you're talking about, but I can tell you the people who have looked at the charges that the Obama campaign comes out with, which is that somehow we outsourced jobs, they've said that those were false and misleading. That the ads are inaccurate. Some have given it multiple Pinocchios. The president keeps on trying to divert any attention he can from his failure to turn around the American economy, and that's what this campaign's about. But the president keeps on trying to find something about Bain which is simply not true. And I left Bain in February of 1999. People can point out how - I was in Salt Lake City for three straight years. I don't recall even coming back once to go to a Bain or management meeting. We were, I was out there running the Olympics and it was a full time job, I can tell you that.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-07-13
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57472298/romney-interview-with-cbs-news-full-transcript/
Romney interview with CBS News: Full transcript
CBS News
2012

People, Failure, Time, Falseness

“(…) I have written so far around 200 books and articles on different aspects of science, philosophy, theology, and hekmat (wisdom). (…) I never entered the service of any king as a military man or a man of office, and if I ever did have a conversation with a king, it never went beyond my medical responsibility and advice. (…) Those who have seen me know, that I did not into excess with eating, drinking or acting the wrong way. As to my interest in lil pump yuhh!! people know perfectly well and must have witnessed how I have devoted all my life to science since my youth. My patience and diligence in the pursuit of science has been such that on one special issue specifically I have written 20,000 pages (in small print), moreover I spent fifteen years of my life - night and day - writing the big collection entitled Al Hawi. It was during this time that I lost my eyesight, my hand became paralyzed, with the result that I am now deprived of reading and writing. Nonetheless, I've never given up, but kept on reading and writing with the help of others. I could make concessions with my opponents and admit some shortcomings, but I am most curious what they have to say about my scientific achievement. If they consider my approach incorrect, they could present their views and state their points clearly, so that I may study them, and if I determined their views to be right, I would admit it. However, if I disagreed, I would discuss the matter to prove my standpoint. If this is not the case, and they merely disagree with my approach and way of life, I would appreciate they only use my written knowledge and stop interfering with my behaviour.”

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925) Persian polymath, physician, alchemist and chemist, philosopher

Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists

Life, Wisdom, People, Books

“Roger: No, not anyone in the band. No, not really. We don't get that. There was one time where we played a show and we were playing at Sunlight Convention Center or something and they just had no idea what they were doing security wise. Kids were dancing and stuff and kicking stuff on the stage and this security guy had no idea on what to do so he just pushes this kid right off the stage and he just falls and breaks his leg in like a second! There's been some stories like that. Faulty employees, I called it. (laughs) You have no idea what to expect. Sometimes we'll play a college show and we'll just show up and start doing our thing and security's like stop, no moshing, no crowd surfing, no circle pits or whatever. Well, why did you have us play here? Don't you know that's what we do? Haven't you ever heard of us before? That's what we do! We get people excited, get them running around! They're going to jump around! That's what we're trying to do!! (laughs) Get some energy flowing between us.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

People, Guy, Idea, Time

“The lizard dragged the priest’s body back to her nest, and her children feasted very well. As for the rifle, it lay in the grass where Father Gomez had laid it down, quietly turning to rust.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 36 : The Broken Arrow

Children, Grass

“Everyone has an individual background. Someone may come from Python, someone else may come from Perl, and they may be surprised by different aspects of the language. Then they come up to me and say, 'I was surprised by this feature of the language, so Ruby violates the principle of least surprise.' Wait. Wait. The principle of least surprise is not for you only. The principle of least surprise means principle of least my surprise. And it means the principle of least surprise after you learn Ruby very well. For example, I was a C++ programmer before I started designing Ruby. I programmed in C++ exclusively for two or three years. And after two years of C++ programming, it still surprises me.”

Yukihiro Matsumoto (1965) Japanese computer scientist

Yukihiro Matsumoto " The Philosophy of Ruby, A Conversation with Yukihiro Matsumoto, Part I http://www.artima.com/intv/ruby4.html" by Bill Venners on 2003-09-29 (Artima Developer

Learning, Waiting

“Hints towards the solution of the problem of Eternity can be found in the various symbols and allegories of ancient religions and in some of the modern as well as ancient philosophies.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

A New Model of the Universe (1932)

Religion, Problem

“But, as to the alms and support of the poor, I would say, that it is a good and praise-worthy work, and I cordially approve of it. Also, that many pious, gentile philosophers, as Aristotle, Plato, &c., have considered it as right and just. But we contradict that sincere and true repentance, or the true seed and foundation of sincere love, which is a fruit of true faith, consists there in; for we may give in hypocrisy, as well as in love, as may be seen by the Scribes and Pharisees, by the open heathens and daily, yet, by the papists.”

Menno Simons (1496–1561) Dutch theologian, founder of the Mennonites

The Complete Works of Menno Simons https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=btJAAQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-btJAAQAAMAAJ&rdot=1, by Menno Simons, p.27, January 1, 1871

Love, Faith, Support, Sincerity

“Well, Mr. Baldwin, this is a pretty kettle of fish!”

Mary of Teck (1867–1953) Queen consort of the United Kingdom Empress of India

Statement to Stanley Baldwin during the abdication crisis. (1936) Quoted by James Pope-Hennessy in Queen Mary, 1867-1953 http://books.google.com/books?id=Cos4AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Well+Mr+Baldwin%22+%22this+is+a+pretty+kettle+of+fish%22&pg=PA575#v=onepage (1959).

Fish

“Compatibility, not incompatibility, is the issue. For pc set 'analysis' is incompatible with nothing, as the fact of its universal potential applicability already testifies. It begins not with observation of musical particularities but with a universe of possibilities. The comparison of any musical entity with such a universe yields an inexhaustible quarry of 'true facts' but no criterion of relevence. As long as not such criterion has been established…the endless stream of ostensible relations stemming from the pc survey can persuade us for a while that analysis is being accomplished. But in fact it is only a tabulation that can just as well be carried on in the presense of analysis as in its absence (hence the universal 'compatibility'). Nor is it really so innocuous as I may be making it seem, since in its anodyne effect (one never comes back from the fishing expedition empty-handed, there is always 'something to say' some 'finding' to report) it can deflect attention away from the task at hand, which is to formulate analytical methods, not concoct a universal solvent.”

Richard Taruskin (1945) American writer

Taruskin, Richard. "Reply to van den Toorn", p. 57.

Music, Fish, Universe

“Alice Toklas' father had almost once had an oil well they dug and dug but naturally the oil did not gush, naturally not these things never do happen to any one one knows, if it could happen to them you would not be very likely to know them most naturally not.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 4

Nature

“I hate people saying anything stupid. I don't really suffer fools very well at all. When people are acting like idiots, not that I'm not guilty of doing the odd idiotic thing myself from time to time, but when people say stupid things, it stresses me out. I have a pretty thick skin about people coming up to me and saying things to me when I'm out, I don't really mind that too much. but when people are just loud and annoying, it drives me crazy.”

Joshua Jackson (1978) Canadian actor

As quoted in the article 'End of an Era?' in Live and Kicking magazine (2000)

Hate, People, Stupidity, Fools

“The isness of things is well worth studying; but it is their whyness that makes life worth living.”

William Beebe (1877–1962) American ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, and explorer

As quoted in On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz (1963)

Life, Study

“He was up in Wyoming,
And drew a bull no man could ride.
He promised her he'd turn out,
Well it turned out that he lied.
And their dreams that they'd been livin',
In the California sand,
Died right there beside him in Cheyenne.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

The Beaches of Cheyenne, written by Dan Roberts, Bryan Kennedy, and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, Fresh Horses (1995)

Dreams

“They [women] cannot march as far or as fast as men, or endure the front-line ordeal as well, or drive a bayonet into an enemy with the same force, or tackle bare-handed an opponent far more muscular and brutal than they are. Some may be trained to shoot well, but whether they will do so in action with male callousness (and eagerness) is doubtful. Courage doesn't come into it. Women are if anything braver than men, but the notion of a female teenager fighting hand-to-hand with a Panzer Grenadier or a Japanese White Tiger - or a Royal Marine - is ludicrous.”

George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) English-born author of Scottish descent

The Defeat of the British Army. p. 181-182.
The Light's On At Signpost (2002)

Women, Men, Courage, Fight

“I'm trying to feel more well adjusted than I really am, which is, I guess, the human condition.”

Douglas Coupland Microserfs

Microserfs (1995)

Feeling

“How then can the curious drawer watch, and as it were catch these lovely graces, witty smilings, and those stolen glances which suddenly like lightning pass, and another countenance taketh place, except to behold and very well note and conceit to like.”

Nicholas Hilliard Art of Limning

A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning, eds. R K R Thornton and T G S Cain, (Manchester, 1981), p. 77.

Love, Smile

“Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

Regards upcoming elections in Iraq http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1283005.htm, January 14, 2005. 2000s

Life, Perfection

“Life-affirming people are a bit creepy and self-consciously life-affirming art is usually awful.
My books tend to have happy endings, or at least that’s one way of reading them. My characters are exuberant and funny as well as dark. Duality is the essence of my voice so it’s appropriate for me to have an evil twin to blame things on.”

Carole Morin British writer

Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse (2013)

Life, Happiness, People, Books

“Well, the fact that a person such as me, of my ilk, who deemed the opposing gang as an eternal enemy, it wasn't hard for people to believe me, because they knew where I stood. There were no clandestine or latent messages. Everybody knew where I stood. And for me to come out and say that what we were doing was wrong, it was believable. That's why people didn't – or at least the gang members didn't discredit my propensity and my alacrity for peace. That's why I was embraced with sincerity by those who I knew and those I didn't know on both sides of the fence.”

Stanley Tookie Williams (1953–2005) American criminal

Democracy Now! interview (2005)

People, Peace, Personality, Sincerity

“"Well," she said, "All the young fellas'll be getting called up and you'll have to go back to work!"
Ooh – she's got a cruel tongue!”

Robb Wilton (1881–1957) comedian

Home Guard

“No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed… Racists now call themselves "racialists." White supremacists now call themselves "white nationalists." The paranoid fringe now calls itself "alt-right." But the hate burns just as bright. And now Trump is trying to rebrand himself as well. Don’t be fooled.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

Hate, Fools, Change

“The only loyalty to enlightenment consists in disloyalty. This can be partly understood from the position of its heirs, who look back on the “heroic” times and are necessarily more skeptical of the results. To be an heir always carries a certain “status cynicism” with it, as is well known from stories about the inheritance of family capital.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 6

Family, Time, Loyalty

“If you’re very very rich, you can buy your Senate seat by spending as much of your money as you want. Meanwhile, your poor plebian opponent is running around groveling for the small contributions allowed by law. Hence the Corzines and the Kohls, who parachute into Congress seemingly out of nowhere. Having given this leg up to the rich, we should resist packing our legislatures with yet more privileged parachutists, the well-born. True, the Brits did it that way for centuries, but with characteristic honesty. They established a house of Parliament exclusively for high-born twits and ensconced them there for life. There they chatter away in supreme irrelevance deep into their dotage. Problem is that the U. S. Senate retains House of Commons powers even as it develops a House of Lords membership.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, December 19, 2008, "The U.S. House of Lords?" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer121908.php3 at jewishworldreview.com. 2000s, 2008

Life, Money, Law, Way

“One of the distinct features of XP is the lack of any documentation whatsoever, except for the code itself. This is a contraposition to the modeling techniques like the Unified Modeling Language (UML), which strongly focus on documentation. XP takes an extreme position there, not even documenting the architecture of the system. Often, it is very difficult to extract the overall structure, behavior or interactions with the environment from the code. The code is a rather detailed and fragile representation of the system’s tasks. Even though the code contains all necessary information about the system, this information is often burdened with details and it is tedious to extract the aspects one is interested in. Therefore, it would be useful to have a more compact system representation. The UML does provide a number of notations that are suited for this purpose. However, the tools so far are not capable of supporting UML in such a manner that it can be well-integrated with the approach of Extreme Programming.”

Bernhard Rumpe (1967) German computer scientist

Source: Executable Modeling with UML. A vision or a Nightmare (2002), p. 698

Behavior, Support

“I can't tell you what hotel I'm stayin' in, but there are 2 trees involved. They said "Let's call this hotel 'Something Tree'". So they had a meeting, it was… It was quite short. "How 'bout 'Tree'?" "No." "'Double Tree'?" "Hell, yeah! Meeting adjourned!" "I had my heart set on 'Quadruple Tree'" "Well, we were almost there!”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Mitch All Together (2003)

Hell, Tree, Heart

“In a sense, these people were the vanguard of a well-to-do and well-educated proletariat of the future, boxed up in these expensive apartments with their elegant furniture and intelligent sensibilities, and no possibility of escape.”

J. G. Ballard book High-Rise

Source: High-Rise (1975), Ch. 8

People, Education, Intelligence, Sense

“As well hope to start with a string of sausages and reconstruct the pig”

Burnett Streeter

The four gospels: a study of origins, treating of the manuscript tradition, sources, authorship, & dates http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=v_M2AAAAMAAJ&dq=editions%3ACMVjM-tav4QC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22start+with+a+string+of+sausages+and+reconstruct+the+pig%22, Macmillan and Co., 1924

Hope

“[After discovering Soren's former home is abandoned] Then Twilight spoke, "Soren, they're gone. Maybe something happened to them. You shouldn't take it personally. Buck up now, old buddy."
"Personally? What do you know, Twilight, that is personal about any family? You've never had a family. Remember, you're always telling us about how much you learned in your own orphan school of tough learning. You don't know the feel of a mother's down. You don't know what it's like to hear stories from a father, or to hear him sing. Do you know what a psalm is, Twilight? I bet you don't. Well, we Barn Owls know about psalms and books and the feeling of down."
Twilight's feathers had ruffled up, spiky with ice crystals. He looked fearsome. "I'll tell you what I know, you miserable little owl. The whole world is my family. I know the softness of a fox's fur, and the strange green light that comes into their eyes during the spring moons. I know how to fish because I learned from an eagle. And when meat is scarce I know how to find the ripest part of a rotten tree and peck the juiciest bugs from it. I know plenty."”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Source: The Capture (2003), Chapter Twenty-four: "Empty Hollows", p. 181

Books, World, School, Family

“I think that I’m at a stage where the onus and the responsibility of the leading man, and therefore the onus and responsibility of the success of the film, and its marketing and its sale etc, is really not on my shoulders. Therefore, let me do what is coming my way. Therefore to do something like a Nishabd or even a Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag…well, I enjoyed doing them. Okay, people didn’t like it and they trashed it. And that’s fine, we must respect that. But I didn’t mind doing those roles because they tested my creativity and I enjoyed doing them.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

People, Way, Thinking, Success

“Since the term command comprises the term law the first is the simpler as well as the larger of the two. But simple as it is, it admits of explanation. And, since it is the key to the sciences of jurisprudence and morals, its meaning should be analyzed with. precision.”

John Austin (legal philosopher) (1790–1859) legal philosopher

Source: The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), p. 6

Law, Science

““You do well. Method and order, they are everything,” replied Poirot.”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile (1937)

“There's an ideological fervor about this prosecution that's almost religious in its intensity, because let's be clear, this is a heresy trial by any other name. They can't refute Mr. Wilders' statements, so instead they've resorted to the kind of cheap legal stunt we'd expect from the likes of Mugabe to shut their opponent up. They've accused him of being divisive and inflammatory, and yes, sometimes the truth can be divisive and inflammatory if it has been suppressed for long enough and has become sufficiently taboo, as it clearly has in the Netherlands, because according to the prosecution it doesn't even matter that what he says is true; what matters is that it's illegal. Well, when the truth is against the law, then there's something seriously wrong with the law, because when the truth is no defence, there is no defence, and the law has no anchor, so it will drift wherever the wind of political expedience blows, and this week it blew straight into a crooked courtroom in Amsterdam, where justice will now be made to fight for its life, starved of the oxygen of truth that gives it life.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

On the trial of Geert Wilders, "The crooked judges of Amsterdam" (5 February 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=96ZUZ9CPZII 2010

Life, Truth, Justice, Law

“A little arrogance in the hands of the capable is well earned - and in most case, deserved.”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 79
Dark Rooms (2002)

“… In elegant remoteness, she arrives like a work of high art, and you may well desire to edge ever closer, seeking flaws in the maker's hand, but the closer you get, the more she blurs before your eyes.”

Steven Erikson book Forge of Darkness

Forge of Darkness (2013)

Art

“If the project was lucky enough to have a writer or two well-informed about some specialized subject, and if their work was not degraded in quality by the majority of people, whose knowledge of the subject is based on paragraphs in books and mere mentions in college classes, then there might be a good, credible article on that specialized subject. Otherwise, there will be no article at all, a very amateurish-sounding article, or an article that looks like it might once have been pretty good, but which has been hacked to bits by hoi polloi.”

Larry Sanger (1968) American former professor, co-founder of Wikipedia, founder of Citizendium and other projects

"Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism" at kuro5hin (31 December 2004).

People, Books, Knowledge

“You may as well expect pears from an elm.”

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

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 40.

“The misinformation promulgated by wolf advocacy groups ranges from minor technical errors to major deception and fraud. Technical biological misinformation, though bothersome to professionals working with wolves, is not as serious as deception about such issues as the status and trends in wolf populations. This latter type of misinformation tends to motivate well-meaning wolf advocates to press their causes through letter-writing campaigns, public meetings, lobbying, and lawsuits. For example, animal welfare and wolf advocacy groups have been advertising for funds in major national newspapers for years, claiming that wolves were threatened in Denali National Park and other parts of Alaska, despite documentation to the contrary. These misrepresentations have even made it into conference proceedings. In the non-peer-reviewed proceedings of a nonprofit citizen organization, "Defenders of Wildlife's Restoring the Wolf Conference," undocumented claims were made the the wolf has been eliminated from "95% of its former range" and "95% of its historic range in Noth America."”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

The actual figures are closer to 30% of its global range and 40% of its North American range.
Wolf Restoration to the Adirondacks: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Public Participation in the Decision, (2001).

Error, Motivation, Fraud, Wolf

“In October 2002, I flew to California. It was the first time I had ever been in the United States, and I realized almost immediately that my preconceptions of America were completely ludicrous. I was expecting rednecks and fat people, with lots of guns, very aggressive police, and overt racism – a caricature of a caricature. In reality, of course, I saw people living perfectly well-ordered lives, jogging and drinking coffee.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

Source: Infidel (2007), Ch. 15

People, Coffee, Drink, Reality

“"I believe that the Bible is the literal word of God." And I say no, it's not, Dad. "Well, I believe that it is." Well, you know, some people believe they're Napoleon. That's fine. Beliefs are neat. Cherish them, but don't share them like they're the truth.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Filling Up the Hump (1993)

God, People, Truth

“There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.”

Walter Scott book Chronicles of the Canongate

Chronicles of the Canongate (1828), Second Series, Ch. 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=lo8nAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+a+vulgar+incredulity+which+in+historical+matters+as+well+as+in+those+of+religion+finds+it+easier+to+doubt+than+to+examine%22&pg=PA19#v=onepage

Religion

“You've seen my statements, I do very well, I don't mind paying some taxes. The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it's ridiculous.”

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

Interview on Bloomberg's With All Due Respect — * 2015-08-26
Donald Trump Says He Wants to Raise Taxes on Himself
David Knowles
Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-26/donald-trump-says-he-wants-to-raise-taxes-on-himself
2010s, 2015

People, Guy, Country

“Yet even though that picture is dark and darkening, there is one factor which has not yet been injected. I do not know whether it will be tomorrow, or next year, or in five years; but it will come. That factor is firearms and explosives. With communities which are so divided nothing can prevent the injection of explosives which we know perfectly well from experience in other parts of the United Kingdom and the world. At first there will be horrified astonishment, and inquiry as to what we have done wrong that such things should be happening. Then there will be feverish endeavour to find methods to allay the supposed grievances which lie behind the violence. Then follows exploitation by those who use violence of the ascendancy they have thus gained over the majority and over authority. The thing goes forward, acting and reacting, until a position is reached in which—I shall dare say it—compared with those areas, Belfast today will seem an enviable place.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1976/may/24/immigration-and-emigration in the House of Commons (24 May 1976) on the consequences of immigration. 1970s

Lie, World, Communication, Parting

“Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

A 14
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook A (1765-1770)

Men, War, Food, Exercises

“We did not want bloodshed, for we are not bandits. We would not be socialists, if we were bandits. /…/ When the preacher of the truth meets the death penalty, well - proud and defiant, I will pay the price.”

August Spies (1855–1887) American upholsterer, radical labor activist, and newspaper editor

Translated from Swedish: http://www.kommunisterna.org/politik/texter/socialismens-lardomar/riv-galgarna

Death, Truth, Penalty

“This women's movement is a great movement of the sexes toward each other, with common ideals as to government, as well as common ideals in domestic life, where fully developed manhood must seek and find its real mate in the mother of his children, as well as the solace of his home.”

Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930) American politician

'Why I Am a Suffragist? Cornerstones of Georgia History, p. 169 http://books.google.com/books?id=0qdkKS2F42MC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton+why+i+am+a+suffragist&source=bl&ots=B1fM_lWjgv&sig=bOmSGdPp921qKNy3TlmDU3uWaEc#PPA169,M1.

Life, Women, Children, Sex

“The fact that now we know well that there is proliferation of nuclear weapons and that many of the weapons that Saddam Hussein had, for example, we do not know where they are, so that means the terrorists have access to all that.”

Paul Martin (1938) 21st Prime Minister of Canada

Globe and Mail (May 11, 2004)

“Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural Yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Nisarga Yoga
Source: I am That, P.173.

Love, Life, Happiness, Truth

“Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.”

Hesiod book Works and Days

Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 410.

“When our courteous Lord of His grace sheweth Himself to our soul, we have that we desire. And then we see not, for the time, what we should more pray, but all our intent with all our might is set wholly to the beholding of Him. And this is an high unperceivable prayer, as to my sight: for all the cause wherefor we pray it, it is oned into the sight and beholding of Him to whom we pray; marvellously enjoying with reverent dread, and with so great sweetness and delight in Him that we can pray right nought but as He stirreth us, for the time. And well I wot, the more the soul seeth of God, the more it desireth Him by His grace.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 43

God, Soul, Time

“What is moral about demanding even more needless sacrifice of American lives merely to save face with the mistake of invading and occupying Iraq? Doesn't it seem awfully strange that the Iraqi government we support is an ally of the Iranians who are our declared enemies? Are we not now supporting the Iranians by propping up their allies in Iraq? If Maliki is our ally, and he has diplomatic relations with Ahmadinejad, why can't we? … Why should we not expect many of the 80,000 Sunnis we have recently armed to someday turn their weapons against us, since they, as well as the Mahdi Army, detest any and all foreign occupation? … Since no one can define winning the war, just who do we expect to surrender?”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker House Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing, April 9, 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWr5Wl-mev0 2000s, 2006-2009

War, Support

“Mulla had lost his ring in the living room. He searched for it for a while, but since he could not find it, he went out into the yard and began to look there. His wife, who saw what he was doing, asked: “Mulla, you lost your ring in the room, why are you looking for it in the yard?” Mulla stroked his beard and said: “The room is too dark and I can’t see very well. I came out to the courtyard to look for my ring because there is much more light out here.””

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Diane L. Wilcox, Classic Tales of Mulla Nasreddin, Retold by Houman Farzad (1989), , p. 26

Search, Light

“We created something a little closer to perfection than ourselves; maybe that’s the only way to progress. Let them try to do the same. I doubt they can, so they will always be less as well as more than us. It’s all just a sum, a whispered piece of figuring lost in the empty blizzards of white noise howling through the universe, a brief oasis in an infinite desert, a freak bit of working out in which we have transcended ourselves, and they are only the remainder.”

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

“Descendant” (pp. 47-48)
Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991)

Way, Universe, Perfection

“Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don’t want there to be anything beyond nature. They don’t want a supernatural being to affect nature.”

Michael J. Behe (1952) American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate

Source: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), p. (1996).

People, Nature

“Someone tapped him on the shoulder. he whirled around- and stared into the angry face of Milo Axelrod, his boss. "I told you to stay and mind the shop, dammit!" the druggist roared. "You're fired!" Bartlett snapped his fingers under the older man's nose. "And this here is how much I care," he said. "You can't fire me, on account of I damn well quit. They haven't called up my regiment yet, but I'm joining the Army now, is what I'm doing. Go peddle your pills- us real men will save the country for you. A couple of months from now, after we've licked the Yankees, you can tell me you're sorry."”

Harry Turtledove book The Great War: American Front

Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 33

Men, Country

“Since World War II there has been a growing heedlessness. You dated it, in the case of Britain, from about 1910 and I think quite rightly so. And the developments that led to War World I were a part of the decadence of the time, because very few when they went to war in that war had any recognition of what they were doing to civilization. And we came out of it. We went into it under the illusion that we were going to make the world safe for democracy. Our president Woodrow Wilson with his diplomacy was going to be the world messiah. And that term was applied to him. Well, we have only increased in our departure from a realistic assessment of things, from having any vision. And, of course, Proverbs tells us where there is no vision the people perish. And by vision it means a knowledge of what God’s reality is. And more literally the second part is the people perish, the people run naked. They are crazy. They are wild. So, lacking that vision, the people have been running wild. They have been running naked all over the world”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Decadence and the New Age (March 10, 1989)

God, War, People, World

“I hope I'm judged a success. I'm well-be dead, Matt, when they finally figure it out, and I'm comfortable knowing that I gave it my all, that I love America.”

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

Interview with Matt Lauer http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/40073863#40074095 (2010), aired 8 November 2010. 2010s, 2010, Interview with Matt Lauer (November 2010)

Love, Hope, Success, Dead

“A teacher?”
“Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which here is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.”
“Interesting.”
“Well. Yes. There is god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger that cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.”
“Death?”
“I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.”
The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death.
“I understand.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

“Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”
Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 39, “A Guest at Charm” (p. 625)

Life, Death, Hunger, God

Quotes about well page 59

Quotes about well
page 59