Quotes about well
page 62

Paul A. Samuelson photo
Swami Vivekananda photo

“Learn to recognise the mother in Evil, Terror, Sorrow, Denial, as well as in Sweetness and in Joy.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Address to his English disciples, as quoted in The life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel, 5th edition (1960) by Romain Rolland, p. 53

Sarah Palin photo

“Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

National Rifle Association annual convention, , quoted in [2014-04-27, Sarah Palin talks waterboarding, guns at NRA convention, Jake Miller, CBS News, http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/sarah-palin-waterboarding-is-how-we-baptize-terrorists/]
2014

Hillary Clinton photo
John Bright photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Maimónides photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo
Sam Harris photo

“I'll tell you what harms the vast majority of Muslims that love freedom and hate terror: Muslim theocracy does. Muslim intolerance does. Wahabism does. Salafism does. Islamism does. Jihadism does. Sharia law does. The mere conservatism of traditional Islam does. We're not talking about only jihadists hating homosexuals and thinking they should die, we're talking about conservative Muslims. The percentage of British Muslims polled who said that homosexuality was morally acceptable was zero. Do you realize what it takes to say something so controversial in a poll that not even 1% of those polled would agree with it? There's almost no question that extreme that you will ever see in a poll that gets a zero, but ask British Muslims whether homosexuality is morally acceptable, and that's what you get. And the result is more or less the same in dozens of other countries. It's zero in Cameroon, zero in Ethiopia. 1% in Nigeria, 1% in Tanzania, 1% in Mali, 2% in Kenya, 2% in Chad. 1% in Lebanon, 1% in Egypt, 1% in the Palestinian territories, 1% in Iraq, 2% in Jordan, 2% in Tunisia, 1% in Pakistan. But 10% in Bangladesh. Bangladesh: that bright spot in the Muslim world where they are regularly hunting down and butchering secular writers with machetes. The people who suffer under this belief system are Muslims themselves. The next generation of human beings born into a Muslim community who could otherwise have been liberal, tolerant, well-educated, cosmopolitan productive people are to one or another degree being taught to aspire to live in the Middle Ages, or to ruin this world on route to some fictional paradise after death. That's the thing we have to get our heads around. And yes, some of what I just said applies with varying modifications to other religions and other cults. But there is nothing like Islam at this moment for generating this kind of intolerance and chaos. And if only a right wing demagogue will speak honestly about it, then we will elect right wing demagogues in the West more and more in response to it. And that will be the price of political correctness: that's when this check will finally get cashed. That will be the consequence of this persistent failure we see among liberals to speak and think and act with real moral clarity and courage on this issue. The root of this problem is that liberals consistently fail to defend liberal values as universal human values. Their political correctness, their multiculturalism, their moral relativism has led them to rush to the defense of theocrats and to abandon the victims of theocracy and to vilify anyone who calls out this hypocrisy for what it is as a bigot. And to be clear, and this is what liberals can't seem to get, is that speaking honestly about the ideas that inspire Islamism and jihadism, beliefs about martyrdom, and apostasy and blasphemy and paradise and honour and women, is not an expression of hatred for Muslims. It is in fact the only way to support the embattled people in the Muslim community: The reformers and the liberals and the seculars and the free thinkers and the gays and the Shiia in Sunni-majority context and Sufis and Ahmadiyyas, and as Maajid Nawaz said, the minorities within the minority, who are living under the shadow, and sword rather often, under theocracy. […] If you think that speaking honestly about the need for reform within Islam will alienate your allies in the Muslim community, then you don't know who your allies are.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Waking Up with Sam Harris Podcast #38 — The End of Faith Sessions 2" (15 June 2016) https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-end-of-faith-sessions-2
2010s

Conrad Aiken photo
Robert Fogel photo
Murray Bookchin photo
Paul Bourget photo

“Well, you must now imagine my friend at my age or almost there. You must picture him growing gray, tired of life and convinced that he had at last discovered the secret of peace. At this time he met, while visiting some relatives in a country house, a mere girl of twenty, who was the image, the haunting image of her whom he had hoped to marry thirty years before. It was one of those strange resemblances which extend from the color of the eyes to the 'timbre' of the voice, from the smile to the thought, from the gestures to the finest feelings of the heart. I could not, in a few disjointed phrases describe to you the strange emotions of my friend. It would take pages and pages to make you understand the tenderness, both present and at the same time retrospective, for the dead through the living; the hypnotic condition of the soul which does not know where dreams and memories end and present feeling begins; the daily commingling of the most unreal thing in the world, the phantom of a lost love, with the freshest, the most actual, the most irresistibly naïve and spontaneous thing in it, a young girl. She comes, she goes, she laughs, she sings, you go about with her in the intimacy of country life, and at her side walks one long dead. After two weeks of almost careless abandon to the dangerous delights of this inward agitation imagine my friend entering by chance one morning one of the less frequented rooms of the house, a gallery, where, among other pictures, hung a portrait of himself, painted when he was twenty-five. He approaches the portrait abstractedly. There had been a fire in the room, so that a slight moisture dimmed the glass which protected the pastel, and on this glass, because of this moisture, he sees distinctly the trace of two lips which had been placed upon the eyes of the portrait, two small delicate lips, the sight of which makes his heart beat. He leaves the gallery, questions a servant, who tells him that no one but the young woman he has in mind has been in the room that morning.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Pierre Fauchery, as quoted by the character "Jules Labarthe"
The Age for Love

Dennis M. Ritchie photo
Ron Paul photo

“Well, gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense. […] First, these men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners. These conditions do not make one's older years the happiest. Second, because sex is the center of their lives, they want it to be as pleasurable as possible, which means unprotected sex. Third, they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

1994
January
AIDS Dementia
Ron Paul Survival Report
5
http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/SR_Jan94_p5.pdf, quoted in * 2011-12-23
TNR Exclusive: A Collection of Ron Paul's Most Incendiary Newsletters
New Republic
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/98883/ron-paul-incendiary-newsletters-exclusive
Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Survival Report

Margaret Cho photo
Peter Cook photo
Hugo Weaving photo

“In a real fight, there ain't no time and you've got to use your wits. If someone were threatening the life of my child, then I'd be a good fighter. If somebody just wanted to steal my wallet, well, maybe I wouldn't worry about it so much.”

Hugo Weaving (1960) Nigerian born British-Australian actor

Interview at about.com http://actionadventure.about.com/cs/weeklystories/a/aa051003.htm on The Matrix Reloaded.

David Bohm photo
William H. Rehnquist photo

“Our judges will not continue to represent the diverse face of America if only the well-to-do or the mediocre are willing to become judges.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

ibid.
Books, articles, and speeches

Philip Sidney photo

“As in geometry, the oblique must be known, as well as the right; and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in actions of life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue.”

Philip Sidney (1554–1586) English diplomat

Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney; with remarks, by Miss Porter (1807), p. 23. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.aa0000617332;view=1up;seq=53

Shi Nai'an photo
Svetlana Alliluyeva photo
H. Rider Haggard photo
David Miscavige photo
Maimónides photo

“Whatever God desires to do is necessarily done; there is nothing that could prevent the realisation of His will. The object of His will is only that which is possible, and of the things possible only such as His wisdom decrees upon. When God desires to produce the best work, no obstacle or hindrance intervenes between Him and that work. This is the opinion held by all religious people, also by the philosophers; it is also our opinion. For although we believe that God created the Universe from nothing, most of our wise and learned men believe that the Creation was not the exclusive result of His will; but His wisdom, which we are unable to comprehend, made the actual existence of the Universe necessary. The same unchangeable wisdom found it as necessary that non-existence should precede the existence of the Universe. Our Sages frequently express this idea in the explanation of the words, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time" (Eccl. iii. 11)… This is the belief of most of our Theologians; and in a similar manner have the Prophets expressed the idea that all parts of natural products are well arranged, in good order, connected with each other, and stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect; nothing of them is purposeless, trivial, or vain; they are all the result of great wisdom. …This idea occurs frequently; there is no necessity to believe otherwise; philosophic speculation leads to the same result; viz., that in the whole of Nature there is nothing purposeless, trivial, or unnecessary, especially in the nature of the spheres, which are in the best condition and order, in accordance with their superior substance.”

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.25

Babe Ruth photo
Derren Brown photo
George Bernard Shaw photo

“It's well to be off with the Old Woman before you're on with the New.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Act II
1890s, The Philanderer (1893)

“There is no absolute virtue in iambic pentameter as such.. however well they may be done. There is no immediate virtue to rhythm even. These things are merely a means to an end.”

Edward Storer (1880–1944) British writer

'Essay on Imagism' (appended to 'Mirrors of Illusion', Sisley, London) 1909

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Stjepan Mesić photo

“The Croatian parliament elected me to be the Croatian member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. I went to Belgrade, where first, for several months, I was not allowed to take up my duties because the Federal Assembly was unable to meet. After that, the Serbian bloc boycotted my election as president under… Finally, under pressure from the international community, I was elected president. Croatia adopted a decision on its independence. Croatia, in agreement with the international community, postponed its secession from Yugoslavia by three months. This time period had elapsed. Yugoslavia no longer existed. The federal institutions were no longer functioning. I returned to Zagreb, and that's precisely what I said. Because I [had not gone] to Belgrade to open up a house-painting business. I went there as a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. Since Yugoslavia no longer existed and the Presidency no longer existed, I had performed the tasks entrusted to me by the Croatian parliament and was reporting back, ready to take up a different office. What was I to do in Belgrade when the Presidency no longer existed?… The accused is a lawyer. He understands very well what I'm talking about. My 'task' was to represent Croatia in the Federal Presidency.”

Stjepan Mesić (1934) Former Croatian and Yugoslav president

ICTY Transcript, Page 10636 - Mesić's cross-examination by Slobodan Milošević at the ICTY on 2 October 2002, 8 April 2012 http://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/trans/en/021002IT.htm, Responding to an earlier quote in which he stated My task has come to an end. There is no more Yugoslavia. ("Moj posao je završen - Jugoslavije više nema") 5 December 1991 in the Croatian parliament having left the presidency of the Yugoslav presidency.

Adrienne von Speyr photo
A.E. Housman photo
Mary Midgley photo

“Philosophy, like speaking prose, is something have to do all our lives, well or badly, whether we notice it or not.”

Mary Midgley (1919–2018) British philosopher and ethicist

Introduction, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).

John Salley photo
Elton John photo
Dennis Kucinich photo
Jane Roberts photo
Aubrey Beardsley photo
David Attenborough photo
John Suckling photo

“Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?”

John Suckling (1609–1642) English poet

Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?

Septimius Severus photo
Anne Brontë photo

“You might as well sell yourself to slavery at once, as marry man you dislike.”

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLI : Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast; Helen to Esther

Alain Aspect photo
James K. Polk photo

“There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress, as well as others, than I had any conception [of], before I became President of the U. S.”

James K. Polk (1795–1849) American politician, 11th President of the United States (in office from 1845 to 1849)

Diary entry (16 December 1846).

Kage Baker photo

““Oh, that’s childish,” says Nicholas in disgust.
“Well, so what?” says Alec. “We happen to be children.””

Source: The Sons of Heaven (2007), Chapter 22, Section 1 “Child Care in the Cyborg Family, Volume Six: The Challenge of Psychological Development” (p. 268)

Will Arnett photo
Roger Penrose photo
Burt Reynolds photo

“I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.”

Burt Reynolds (1936–2018) American actor, director and producer.

Attributed to Reynolds in: Colin Jarman (1993). The Book of Poisonous Quotes. p. 129

Yoshijirō Umezu photo

“It is all very well to be cautious, but if we are too cautious we will miss our opportunity.”

Yoshijirō Umezu (1882–1949) Japanese general

Quoted in "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire" - Page 754 - by John Toland - History - 2003.

Dylan Moran photo

“Well, you know what they say about John, anyway?”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

Monster (2004)

George W. Bush photo

“The first ladies ought to be ambassadors as well.”

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

2010s, 2014, U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Spousal Program (August 2014)

Christopher Titus photo
Eugène Delacroix photo
Russell Brand photo

“Only Boris concerns me. When I used to watch Have I Got News For You, which as a kid I was proud to watch, full stop, I loved it when Boris Johnson came on. I didn't know who he was or what he did, I didn't think about it, I just liked him. I liked his voice, his manner, his name, his vocabulary, his self-effacing charm, humour and, of course, his hair. He has catwalk hair. Vogue cover hair, Rumplestiltskin spun it out of straw, straight-out-of-bed, drop-dead, gold-thread hair. He was always at ease with Deayton, Merton and Hislop, equal to their wit and always gave a great account of himself. "This bloke is cool," I thought. As I grew up I found out that he was an old Etonian, bully-boy, Spectator-editing Tory.
"That's weird," I thought. While I was busy becoming a world-class junkie, the man from HIGNFY became mayor. People like Boris Johnson; I like the HIGNFY Boris. He is the most popular politician in the country. Well, not in the country, on the television. There is a difference. Most people, of course, haven't met him, they've seen him on the telly. When I met Boris in his office, the nucleus of his dominion, I glanced at his library. Among the Wodehouses and the Euripides there were, of course, fierce economic tomes, capitalist manuals, bibles of domination. Eye-to-eye, the bumbling bonhomie appeared to be a lacquer of likability over a living obelisk of corporate power.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Russell Brand - The Guardian (2013)

J. William Fulbright photo
Rodolfo Graziani photo

“Until face to face with the enemy, who inexorably advanced well protected toward sure prey, they cried with the last spark of life, "Long Live Italy!"”

Rodolfo Graziani (1882–1955) Italian general

Quoted in "Marshal Is Frank" - "New York Times" article, December 23, 1940

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“Well,” he said. “Strange roads have strange guides. Let’s go on.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 6, "Lorbanery" (Ged)

Ben Stein photo

“It's depressing to realize how few of the teams in our lives use their human capital and opportunities well, when it comes to sustaining performance, innovating, or adapting. That's true whether we're talking about families, sports, projects, management, or research.”

Richard Boyatzis (1946) American business theorist

Boyatzis (2012) " The Resonant Team Leader http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/the_resonant_team_leader.html" at HBR Blog Network, April 13, 2012.

John Ball (priest) photo
Sebastian Vettel photo

“Well, I think as far as I understood if you said to Red Bull I think we are still selling cans, so not much has happened in that regard.”

Sebastian Vettel (1987) German racing driver in Formula 1

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2010/7/11046.html July, 22 2010.
The situation in Red Bull.
Sourced quotes

Dogen photo

“When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

III, 7
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

Gertrude Jekyll photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Herbert Spencer photo
Erving Goffman photo
Elton John photo
Bill Cosby photo
Peter Kropotkin photo
William McFee photo

“Most people might just as well buy a share of the whole market, which pools all the information, than delude themselves into thinking they know something the market doesn't.”

Merton Miller (1923–2000) American economist

Source: Investment Gurus: A Road Map to Wealth from the World's Best Money Managers. 1999, p. 269.

Thomas Friedman photo
William Lane Craig photo

“Hitchens: I've got another question for you, which is this: How many religions in the world do you believe to be false?
Craig: I don't know how many religions in the world there are, so I can’t answer.
Hitchens: Well, could you name... fair enough. I'll see if I can't narrow that down. That was a clumsily asked question, I admit. Do you regard any of the world's religions to be false?
Craig: Excuse me?
Hitchens: Do you regard any of the world's religions to be false preaching?
Craig: Yes, I think—yes, certainly.
Hitchens: Would you name one, then?
Craig: Islam.
Hitchens: That's quite a lot.
Craig: Pardon me?
Hitchens: That's quite a lot.
Craig: Yes.
Hitchens: Do you, therefore—do you think it's moral to preach false religion?
Craig: No.
Hitchens: So religion is responsible for quite a lot of wickedness in the world right there?
Craig: Certainly.
Hitchens: Right.
Craig: I'd be happy to concede (laughs) that. I would agree with that.
Hitchens: So if I was a baby being born in Saudi Arabia today, would you rather it was me or a Wahhabi Muslim?
Craig: Would I be—you rather be what?
Hitchens: Would you rather it was me—it was an atheist baby or a Wahhabi baby?
(Audience and Dr. Craig laugh):
Craig: I-I don't have any preference as to whether you would be... (laughing)
Hitchens: You don’t? As bad as that, O. K. Are there any—I'm sorry. I've only got a few seconds. It's a serious question. I shouldn't squander it. Are there any Christian denominations you regard as false?
Craig: Certainly.
Hitchens: Could I know what they are?
Craig: Well, I am not a Calvinist, for example. I think that certain tenets of Reformed Theology are incorrect. I would be more in the Wesleyan Camp myself. But these are differences among brethren. These are not differences on which we need to put one another in some sort of a cage. So within the Christian camp, there's a large diversity of perspectives. I'm sure there are views that I hold that are probably false, but I'm trying my best to get my theology straight, trying to do the best job. But I think all of us would recognize that none of us agree on every point of Christian doctrine, on every dot and tittle.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Craig vs Christopher Hitchens debate, Biola University, La Mirada, California, 4th April 2009 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/does-god-exist-craig-vs-hitchens-apr-2009#section_6

George Bernard Shaw photo

“You don't learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well hammered yourself.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Mrs. George
1900s, Getting Married (1908)

Albert Camus photo
Tom Waits photo
William Hague photo
Richard Cobden photo
Scott McClellan photo

“Well, I indicated yesterday that I think there were some -- a few staff-level meetings. But, no, I'm making sure that I have a thorough report back to you on that. And I'll get that to you, hopefully very soon.”

Scott McClellan (1968) Former White House press secretary

Source: Press briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060105-2.html, January 5, 2006

Derren Brown photo
Marc Chagall photo
Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
Eugène Fromentin photo

“The art of painting is only the art of expressing the invisible by the visible. Whether its roads be great or small, they are sown with problems which it is permitted to sound for one's self as truth, but which it is well to leave in their darkness as mysteries.”

Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) French painter

Quote from The Old Masters of Belgium and Holland - Les Maitres d’Autrefois, 'Preface', Eugène Fromentin; ed. Mary Caroline Robbins, publisher: J. R. Osgood and company, Boston 1882, p. iv

Abby Stein photo
Roger Ebert photo

“I was noodling around Rotten Tomatoes, trying to determine who played the bank's security chief, and noticed the movie had not yet been reviewed by anybody. Hold on! In the "Forum" section for this movie, "islandhome" wrote at 7:58 a. m. Jan. 8: "review of this movie … tonight i'll post." At 11:19 a. m. Jan. 10, "islandhome" was finally back with the promised review. It is written without capital letters, flush left like a poem, and I quote it verbatim, spelling and all:
:hello sorry i slept when i got back
:well it was kinda fun
:it could never happen in the way it was portraid
:but what ever its a movie
:for the girls most will like it
:and the men will not mind it much
:i thought it was going to be kinda like how to beat the high cost of living
:kinda the same them but not as much fun
:ill give it a 4 0ut of 10
I read this twice, three times. I had been testing out various first sentences for my own review, but somehow the purity and directness of islandhome's review undercut me. It is so final. "for the girls most will like it/and the men will not mind it much."”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

How can you improve on that? It's worthy of Charles Bukowski. ...The bottom line is some girls will like it, the men not so much, and I give it 1½ stars out of 4.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mad-money-2008 of Mad Money (17 January 2008)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Margrethe II of Denmark photo
Nasreddin photo

“Conventions of generality and mathematical elegance may be just as much barriers to the attainment and diffusion of knowledge as may contentment with particularity and literary vagueness… It may well be that the slovenly and literary borderland between economics and sociology will be the most fruitful building ground during the years to come and that mathematical economics will remain too flawless in its perfection to be very fruitful.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Kenneth Boulding (1948) "Samuelson's Foundations: The Role of Mathematics in Economics," In: Journal of Political Economy, Vol 56 (June). as cited in: Peter J. Boettke (1998) " James M. Buchanan and the Rebirth of Political Economy http://publicchoice.info/Buchanan/files/boettke.htm". Boettke further explains "Boulding's words are even more telling today than they were then as we have seen the fruits of the formalist revolution in economic theory and how it has cut economics off from the social theoretic discourse on the human condition."
1940s

L. Ron Hubbard photo
Nat Hentoff photo
Lucian photo
Remy de Gourmont photo