Quotes about well
page 80

“Sorrow and scarlet leaf,
Sad thoughts and sunny weather:
Ah me, this glory and this grief
Agree not well together!”

Thomas William Parsons (1819–1892) American writer

“In our first pilot study we talked with clerical and production workers as well as professional and managerial people. We discovered that the professional and managerial groups were more verbal, showed a quicker grasp of the technique, and gave more and better delineated sequences of events than the clerical and production groups.
The second pilot study was restricted to managerial and professional people. On the basis of our experiences in this work, we decided to concentrate in the major sample on engineers and accountants. It was apparent in the results of this second pilot that engineers were able to give exceptionally vivid accounts of their work experiences. Since our study was still in the nature of an exploratory project, it was vital to us that we mine where the metal was richest.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p. 32

People, Nature, Study

“I want to see the gardens and palace of the Alcazar where the Moorish Kings used to live. It is as perfect an architecture as the Egyptian, Greek or Gothic and just as beautiful, maybe more beautiful and it is well built for it looks as new as if it had just been done. We have to thanks these Moors for our greatest sciences, they did the big work for us, they started them, Algebra, Chemistry, Astronomy. They are our masters.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Thomas Eakins, in Vistas de España, Mary Elizabeth Boone, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 77.

Beauty, Science, Perfection

“Not one species of any creature which flourished before the tertiary (Ehrenberg's infusoria excepted) now exists; and of the mammalia which arose during that series, many forms are altogether gone, while of others we have now only kindred species. Thus to find not only frequent additions to the previously existing forms, but frequent withdrawals of forms which had apparently become inappropriate—a constant shifting as well as advance—is a fact calculated very forcibly to arrest attention. A candid consideration of all these circumstances can scarcely fail to introduce into our minds a somewhat different idea of organic creation from what has hitherto been generally entertained.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 152

Idea

“Juggling is such a white thing, as well, when you think about it. No, just the whole concept. You have so much stuff that, at some point, you are like: "I can't even hold all of this stuff! I'll have to throw some of it in the air!" That's probably how juggling started. Someone was like: "Wow, you have three things, but you only have two hands. Would you like to share something with me?" "No, no, I'll figure this out."”

Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian

9 marzo 2017 The Daily Show Source: Visible at 01:00 White People Are Having a Good Time in America http://www.cc.com/video-clips/sb2sj5/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-white-people-are-having-a-good-time-in-america, CC.com, 9 March 2017.

Thinking

“The odors perceived by the ant seem to lead to a highly standardized course of conduct; but the value of a simple stimulus, such as an odor, for conveying information depends not only on the information conveyed by the stimulus itself but on the whole nervous constitution of the sender and receiver of the stimulus as well. Suppose I find myself in the woods with an intelligent savage who cannot speak my language and whose language I cannot speak. Even without any code of sign language common to the two of us, I can learn a great deal from him. All I need to do is to be alert to those moments when he shows the signs of emotion or interest. I then cast my eyes around, perhaps paying special attention to the direction of his glance, and fix in my memory what I see or hear. It will not be long before I discover the things which seem important to him, not because he has communicated them to me by language, but because I myself have observed them. In other words, a signal without an intrinsic content may acquire meaning in his mind by what he observes at the time, and may acquire meaning in my mind by what I observed at the time. The ability that he has to pick out the moments of my special, active attention is in itself a language as varied in possibilities as the range of impressions that the two of us are able to encompass. Thus social animals may have an active, intelligent, flexible means of communication long before the development of language.”

Norbert Wiener book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

VIII. Information, Language, and Society. p. 157.
Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948)

Intelligence, Communication, Learning, Memory

“You know, at parties, people always ask, "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" Well, I don't have an alibi!”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

E=MO² (1985)

People

“As the Knowledge of Nature tends to enlarge the human Mind, and give us more noble, more grand, and exalted Ideas of the AUTHOR of Nature, and if well pursu'd, seldom fails producing something useful to Man.”

Ebenezer Kinnersley (1711–1778) American scientist

Advertisement for his Course of Experiments in Electricity, 1751.

Idea, Nature, Knowledge

“It may well be, that the future historian, asked to point to the most characteristic expression of the English temper in the period between the two wars will reply without hesitation, "Colonel Blimp."”

David Low (cartoonist) (1891–1963) British cartoonist

C. S. Lewis "Blimpophobia", in Time and Tide September 9, 1944.
Criticism

War, Future

“Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.”

Elizabeth Gaskell book Mary Barton

Mary Barton, ch. 3 (1848)

Girl

“Experiments in digitizing and running neural wetware under emulation are well established; some radical libertarians claim that, as the technology matures, death—with its draconian curtailment of property and voting rights—will become the biggest civil rights issue of all.”

Charles Stross book Accelerando

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 3 (“Tourist”), p. 88

Death

“There was a beautiful row. You’ve really scared people, Hoddan! You deserve well of the republic! Every government and every person needs to be thoroughly terrified occasionally. It limbers up the brain.”

Murray Leinster book The Pirates of Zan

Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 2

People, Beauty, Personality

“Well, we knocked the bastard off!”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Hillary's comment to George Lowe, after his successful ascent of Mt Everest, as he and Tenzing Norgay were descending from the summit. (29 May 1953); as recounted in Nothing Venture, Nothing Win (1975) Ch. 10; also recounted as "Well George, we’ve knocked the bastard off." as quoted by Jan Morris in "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay" for TIME magazine (14 June 1999) http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/hillary_norgay01.html

“Halakhic man, well furnished with rules, judgments, and fundamental principles, draws near the world with an a priori relation. His approach begins with an ideal creation and concludes with a real one. To whom may he be compared? To a mathematician who fashions an ideal world and then uses it for the purpose of establishing a relationship between it and the real world. … The essence of the Halakhah, which was received from God, consists in creating an ideal world and cognizing the relationship between that ideal world and our concrete environment.”

Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993) American theologian

Source: Halakhic Man (1983), p. 19

God, World, Fashion, Drawing

“Whoever believes in a God at all, believes in an infinite mystery; and if the existence of God is such an infinite mystery, we can very well expect and afford to have many of His ways mysterious to us.”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 421.

God, Way

“The term "free software" has an ambiguity problem: an unintended meaning, "Software you can get for zero price," fits the term just as well as the intended meaning, "software which gives the user certain freedoms."”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

We address this problem by publishing a more precise definition of free software, but this is not a perfect solution; it cannot completely eliminate the problem. An unambiguously correct term would be better, if it didn't have other problems.
1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

Problem, Freedom

“For if this country… were to make its defense program a function of its domestic employment situation, it would become impossible to conduct a constructive and well-thought out foreign policy or to develop any lasting collaboration.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

compare Dwight Eisenhower's January, 1961 Farewell Speech
1930s- 1950s, The New Society (1950)

Country

“I have been known as a crank, faddist, madman. Evidently the reputation is well deserved. For wherever I go, I draw to myself cranks, faddists, and madmen.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Young India (13 June 1929); also in All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections (2005) edited by Krishna Kripalani, p. 163
1920s

Drawing

“Why Baroque? Because it is set in the Baroque, and it IS baroque. Why Cycle? Because I am trying to avoid the T-word ("trilogy"). In my mind this work is something like 7 or 8 connected novels. These have been lumped together into three volumes because it is more convenient from a publishing standpoint, but they could just as well have been put all together in a single immense volume or separated into 7 or 8 separate volumes. So to slap the word "trilogy" on it would be to saddle it with a designation that is essentially bogus. Having said that, I know everyone's going to call it a trilogy anyway.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

Baroque Cycle entry in now-defunct MetaWeb

“[My aim is] to design logic as a calculating discipline, especially to give access to the exact handling of relative concepts, and, from then on, by emancipation from the routine claims of natural language, to withdraw any fertile soil from "cliché" in the field of philosophy as well. This should prepare the ground for a scientific universal language that, widely differing from linguistic efforts like Volapük [a universal language like Esperanto, very popular in Germany at the time], looks more like a sign language than like a sound language.”

Ernst Schröder (1841–1902) German mathematician

Source: V. Peckhaus, "19th Century Logic between Philosophy and Mathematics," Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, 5 (1999), 433-450.

Nature, Effort, Universe, Time

“Alternative medicine people call themselves "holistic" and say it's the "whole" approach. Well, if it's the whole approach, let it be the mind as well. Use logic, use sense, use the incredible five wits you were given by creation.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Room 101, Season 6 Episode 10
2000s

People, Sense

“When was the last time you looked at anything, solely, and concentratedly, and for its own sake? Ordinary life passes in a near blur. If we go to the theatre or the cinema, the images before us change constantly, and there is the distraction of language. Our loved ones are so well known to us that there is no need to look at them, and one of the gentle jokes of married life is that we do not.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Art Objects (1995)

Love, Life, Change, Time

“I was very happy. I thought I would cut my way through life.... victory after victory, [laughing.. ] Well, I adjusted as soon as they carried me into my mother. Half of my victories fell to the ground.. [she pauses].. My mother had victories.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

her candid, weather-beaten face darkens abruptly
Mary Lance, in 'With My Back to the World' a documentary made in 2002; as quoted by Olivia Laing,
Martin claimed she could remember the exact moment of her birth. She had entered the world, she tells Lance, 'as a small figure with a little sword'
after 2000

Life, Happiness, Way, Victory

“To paint an autumn landscape I will not try to remember what colors suit this season, I will only be inspired by the sensation that the season gives me; the icy clearness of the sour blue sky will express the season just as well as the tonalities of the leaves. My sensation itself may vary, the autumn may be soft and warm like a protracted summer or quite cool with a cold sky and lemon yellow trees that give a chilly impression and announce winter.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Source: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 412

Color, Autumn, Tree, Winter

“Well-being is about the combination of our love for what we do each day, the quality of our relationships, the security of our finances, the vibrancy of our physical health, and the pride we take in what we have contributed to our communities. Most importantly, it's about how these five elements interact.”

Tom Rath (1975) American author

Tom Rath, ‎James K. Harter & ‎Jim Harter (2010), Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, p. 4

Love, Health, Communication

“Look at the men themselves who lead in this cause. Is there one among them with whom you would trust yourself in the dark? Can you have, I will not say, any confidence in their opinions and principles, but any doubt of the wickedness of their intentions? Look at them, at their characters, at their conduct. What is there more base, and more detestable, more at variance with all tact and decency, as well as all morality, truth, and honour? A cause so supported cannot be a good cause. They may use Burdett as an instrument for a time, and you also if you place yourself in their trammels, but depend upon it, if a convulsion follows their attempt to work upon the minds of the people, inflamed as they now are by distress, for which your reform will afford a very inadequate remedy, I shall not precede you many months on the scaffold, which you will have assisted in preparing for us both.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to General Sir Robert Thomas Wilson (October 1819) on the Radicals, quoted in M. R. Brock, Lord Liverpool and Liberal Toryism. 1820-1827 (Cambridge University Press, 1941), pp. 117-118.
1810s

Men, People, Truth, Confidence

“Gorymikine: Surely, he must be aware that Russia is facing a revolt!
Rachovsky: Perhaps…but let us hope, my dear Gorymikine that the Tsar will stand firm in his governance!
Gorymikine: No, my dear Rachkovsky he’ll follow whatever advice is easiest.
Rachikovsky: Well, I hear that Witte is talking him into “modernizing” Russia with a liberal bias!
Gorymikine: It will bring Russia down providing fuel to the fire. We must stop him at all costs!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp.23-24

Hope

“The surrender of something attained heroically and at great cost — something to which the well-being of entire generations has been sacrificed — is far more dangerous to a government than not having it to begin with.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, And Then What? (June 2018)

“If you have to do it every day, for God’s sake learn to do it well.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

God, Learning

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions that exist in today's society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

Yes, we know that depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring here to those cases in which environment plays the predominant role.
"Control of Human Behavior", item 145
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

People, Way, Imagination, Science

“In our worship of certainty we must distinguish between the sound certainty and the sham, between what is gold and what is tinsel; and then, when certainty is attained, we must remember that it is not the only good; that we can buy it at too high a price; that there is danger in perpetual quiescence as well as in perpetual motion; and that a compromise must be found in a principle of growth.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Page 17
Other writings, The Growth of the Law (1924)

“no groups of populations welcomed the opening of the career of talent to whatever kind more passionately than those minorities who had hitherto been disbarred not merely because they were not well-born, but because they suffered official and collective discrimination.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Source: The Age of Revolution (1962), Chapter 10, A Career Open to Talent

Suffering, Passion

“The small size of our territory, as well as our turbulent history, has rendered us deeply conscient of our dependence upon those who surround us. I believe that this understanding has had the merit of keeping us from arrogance.”

Henri of Luxembourg (1955) Grand Duke (head of state) of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

L’étroitesse de notre territoire ainsi que notre histoire mouvementée nous ont rendus pleinement conscients de notre dépendance à l’égard de tous ceux qui nous entourent. Je pense que cette prise de conscience a le mérite de nous préserver de l’arrogance. Christmas message http://www.monarchie.lu/fr/actualites/discours/2014/12/discours-noel-lu/index.html (25 December 2015) Luxembourg

History, Understanding, Dependency

“Marcia: (Laughs) Well done Hayley! Sex kitten to boot.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 5

Sex

“The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. … But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. … It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

2000s, Speech at the Four Seasons, New York (25 September 2008)

Women, Children, People, World

“He saw the light gradually approaching him until it rested upon the tops of the trees. He beheld that the leaves of the trees were not consumed by it, although its brightness, apparently, was sufficient, as he at first thought, to consume everything before it. But the trees were not consumed by it, and it continued to descend until it rested upon him and enveloped him in its glorious rays. When he was thus encircled about with this pillar of fire his mind was caught away from every object that surrounded him, and he was filled with the visions of the Almighty, and he saw, in the midst of this glorious pillar of fire, two glorious personages, whose countenances shone with an exceeding great lustre. One of them spoke to him, saying, while pointing in the other, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him."”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 12:354 (February 24, 1869).
Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision

Tree, Light

“After earning the PhD degree and acquiring some relatively extensive experience in digital computers… It was time to leave the University. The result of an extensive search for the right job was a family move to Arlington Heights, Illinois, where it was a short commute to the Research Laboratories of the Pure Oil Company at Crystal Lake. I was given the title of Mathematical and Computer Consultant. The Labs were set in a beautiful campus, the professional personnel were eager to learn what I had to teach and to include me in many interesting projects where my knowledge and skills could be put to good use. I was encouraged to initiate my own program of research. I went to work with enthusiasm.
The corporate headquarters of Pure Oil were located in down town Chicago. Pure Oil had been trying to install an IBM 705 computer system for all their accounting needs including calculation of all data necessary for the management of exploration, drilling, refining and distribution of oil products and even royalties to shareholders in oil wells. Typical for those early days, the programming team was in deep difficulties and needed help; they lacked adequate resources and suitable training. The Executive Vice President of Pure Oil, when he heard that there was a computer expert already on the payroll at the Crystal Lake lab, ended our family blissful dream and I was reassigned to the down town office.”

A. Wayne Wymore (1927–2011) American mathematician

Systems Movement: Autobiographical Retrospectives (2004)

Family, Beauty, Dreams, Search

“Industry, which needs young men who are healthy, tractable, unpretentious and, I would even say, full of illusions, often receives engineers who are tired out, weak in body, and less ready than one could wish to take modest jobs and work so hard that everything seems easy to them. I am convinced that they could begin practical work much earlier and just as well prepared, by leaving things which are not used in practice out of their school education.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: Henri Fayol addressed his colleagues in the mineral industry, 1900, p. 909

Men, Education, School

““It is the principle of Business, which is more fundamental than the law of gravity. Wherever you go in the galaxy, you can find a food business, a housebuilding business, a war business, a peace business, a governing business, and so forth. And, of course, a God business, which is called ‘religion,’ and which is a particularly reprehensible line of endeavor. I could talk for a year on the perverse and nasty notions that the religions sell, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. But I’ll just mention one matter, which seems to underlie everything the religions preach, and which seems to me almost exquisitely perverse.”
“What’s that?” Carmody asked.
“It’s the deep, fundamental bedrock of hypocrisy upon which religion is founded. Consider: no creature can be said to worship if it does not possess free will. Free will, however, is free. And just by virtue of being free, is intractable and incalculable, a truly Godlike gift, the faculty that makes a state of freedom possible. To exist in a state of freedom is a wild, strange thing, and was clearly intended as such. But what do the religions do with this? They say, ‘Very well, you possess free will; but now you must use your free will to enslave yourself to God and to us.’ The effrontery of it! God, who would not coerce a fly, is painted as a supreme slavemaster! In the face of this, any creature with spirit must rebel, must serve God entirely of his own will and volition, or must not serve him at all, thus remaining true to himself and to the faculties God has given him.”
“I think I see what you mean,” Carmody said.
“I’ve made it too complicated,” Maudsley said. “There’s a much simpler reason for avoiding religion.”
“What’s that?”
“Just consider its style—bombastic, hortatory, sickly-sweet, patronizing, artificial, inapropos, boring, filled with dreary images or peppy slogans—fit subject matter for senile old women and unweaned babies, but for no one else. I cannot believe that the God I met here would ever enter a church; he had too much taste and ferocity, too much anger and pride. I can’t believe it, and for me that ends the matter. Why should I go to a place that a God would not enter?””

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 13 (pp. 88-89)

Women, God, War, Peace

“I met [Meyerbeer] at the performance of my "Battle." Most of the composers then in Vienna were kind enough to undertake something or other in my orchestra, and the young man played the big drum. Ha! ha! ha! (a peal of laughter). I had reason not to be very well satisfied with him. He was always behindhand, and I had to give it him roundly. (New peal of laughter.) He must have felt mortified by my observations; but there is no reliance to be placed in him; he has not the courage to raise his arm at the proper moment.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

10th October, 1814
In: Johann Wenzel Tomaschek, "A Talk with Beethoven", The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 33, Beethoven Supplement (Dec. 15, 1892)

Courage, Laughter

“Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression. Even the wells and trees had their masters, who allowed men to make firewood of the one and drink of the other freely, as much as was required for their need, but who would instantly check anyone trying to turn the property to account and to exploit it or its products among others for private benefit. The desert was held in a crazed communism by which Nature and the elements were for the free use of every known friendly person for his own purposes and no more. Logical outcomes were the reduction of this licence to privilege by the men of the desert, and their hardness to strangers unprovided with introduction or guarantee, since the common security lay in the common responsibility of kinsmen.”

T. E. Lawrence book Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Source: Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922), Ch. 11

Men, Family, Communication, Drink

“You made me come to Paris. You pestered me to start living again. Well, now it's up to you to make my life livable. You mustn't let three whole days go by without coming to see me. … You wanted me to take notice of you. Now nothing else matters to me. I know you're alive and I feel emptiness inside me when you're away.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Raimon to Regina. p. 20
All Men are Mortal (1946)

Life, Feeling

“The transformations initiated by a healthy vegan diet go well beyond physical health. For those who want it to be, a plant-based diet is also a potent political comment on our broken food system. … we're looking at a diet for which the ultimate beneficiary is the individual. Healthy veganism explicitly serves no corporate or industrial gods. In fact, it counters these interests. … If the prospect of simultaneously giving corporate food executives nightmares while achieving personal dietary empowerment -- not to mention lowering your carbon footprint and minimizing animal suffering -- has any appeal, then veganism is for you.”

James E. McWilliams (1968) American historian

"The Evidence for a Vegan Diet", in The Atlantic (18 January 2012) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-evidence-for-a-vegan-diet/251498/.

God, Health, Food, Suffering

“It is not enough that we have a guilty defendant. We must have an innocent system as well.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 107

“Before I got married, I was on a date one night. This girl had a snake as a pet. A 12-foot boa constrictor; she named it Fluffy. Well, that's just sick in my book. But I didn't know about the snake, and it was our first date. We'd been out drinking. We drank way too much. We get back to her mobile home. Woo, wish I was making that part up. She shuts the door behind me and gives me one of these. [hisses, exhales] She wasn't real good at it, alright? "I'm gonna slip into something a little more comfortable… okay?" and I'm like, "Alright! I'll be waitin' right here! Well, maybe here. Hell, you'll see me." She comes out of the bedroom/kitchen… in a negligee and that snake wrapped around her neck. Boy, that'll sober you up! I'm backin' out the front door, going, "No, thanks, I can drive." She looks at me and she goes, "No, wait, Bill! Fluffy can wrap around us while we make love."”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

I said, "No, he can't, 'cause I'll kill him... Okay?"
Here's Your Sign (1996)

Love, Books, Making love, Way

“Our public prayers too often consist almost entirely of passages of Scripture—not always judiciously chosen or well arranged — and common-place phrases, which have been transmitted down for ages, from one generation to another, selected and put together just as we would compose a sermon or essay, while the heart is allowed no share in the performance; so that we may more properly be said to make a prayer than to pray.”

Edward Payson (1783–1827) American religious leader

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 472.

Age, Heart

“You played and sang a snatch of song,
A song that all-too well we knew;
But whither had flown the ancient wrong;
And was it really I and you?
O, since the end of life's to live
And pay in pence the common debt,
What should it cost us to forgive
Whose daily task is to forget?”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XV

Life, Forgiveness, Forgetting

“In an essay entitled ‘The Poet’, published in 1844, the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson lamented the narrow definition of beauty subscribed to by his peers, who tended to reserve the term exclusively for the bucolic landscapes and unspoilt pastoral scenes celebrated in the works of well-known artists and poets of the past. Emerson himself, however, writing at the dawn of the industrial age, observing with interest the proliferation of railways, warehouses, canals and factories, wished to make room for the possibility of alternative forms of beauty. He contrasted the nostalgic devotees of old-fashioned poetry with those whom he judged to be true contemporary poetic spirits, deserving of the title less by virtue of anything they had actually written than for their willingness to approach the world without prejudice or partiality. The former camp, he averred, ‘see the factory-village and the railway, and fancy that the beauty of the landscape is broken up by these, for they are not yet consecrated in their reading. But the true poet sees them fall within the great order of nature not less than the beehive or the spider’s geometrical web.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 216.

Age, World, Beauty, Fashion

“I am a very big admirer of Hillary's and I am an admirer of Obama as well.”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

On Question Time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etg5lm92Io8, 18 September, 2008.

“On working at La Passione (1996): Day one, the damage was done. All it was meant to be was one hour of a little boy’s dreams. And I had things I wanted to do with the guitar that hadn’t been done before. Like, there’s one number called "Olive Oil", where I was actually playing slide guitar in the same scale as a saxophone. […] But then in came millions of executives from America. So in the end, it fell flat on its arse. And it came out the same week that Britpop took off. Blair had just won the election. Oasis. Spice Girls. So something a bit Fellini-ish – about a little boy who loved red cars – went straight over the top. It was like, ‘Well, don’t you have a 335 guitar with a Union Jack on it?’”

Chris Rea (1951) English singer-songwriter

2015

Love, Dreams, Cars, Girl

“To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body. As black Americans living in a small Kentucky town, the railroad tracks were a daily reminder of our marginality. Across those tracks were paved streets, stores we could not enter, restaurants we could not eat in, and people we could not look directly in the face. Across those tracks was a world we could work in as maids, as janitors, as prostitutes, as long as it was in a service capacity. We could enter that world but we could not live there. We had always to return to the margin, to cross the tracks, to shacks and abandoned houses on the edge of town. There were laws to ensure our return. To not return was to risk being punished. Living as we did-on the edge-we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the margin. We understood both. This mode of seeing reminded us of the existence of a whole universe, a main body made up of both margin and center. Our survival depended on an ongoing public awareness of the separation between margin and center and an ongoing private acknowledgment that we were a necessary, vital part of that whole. This sense of wholeness, impressed upon our consciousness by the structure of our daily lives, provided us an oppositional world view-a mode of seeing unknown to most of our oppressors, that sustained us, aided us in our struggle to transcend poverty and despair, strengthened our sense of self and our solidarity. … Much feminist theory emerges from privileged women who live at the center, whose perspectives on reality rarely include knowledge and awareness of the lives of women and men who live in the margin. As a consequence, feminist theory lacks wholeness, lacks the broad analysis that could encompass a variety of human experiences. Although feminist theorists are aware of the need to develop ideas and analysis that encompass a larger number of experiences, that serve to unify rather than to polarize, such theory is complex and slow in formation. At its most visionary, it will emerge from individuals who have knowledge of both margin and center.”

Bell Hooks book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

p. xvii https://books.google.com/books?id=ClWvBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT8. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Preface

Women, Men, People, World

“It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter III, p. 381.

People, Law

“This is what fascinates Shaw: this enormous force that ignores our human preferences, our logic and intellect. It fascinates him because to be suddenly gripped by it is to see that human beings are not the accidental products of a mechanical universe — that they are not 'alone'. As social animals, we live in a narrow but apparently logical world with a well-defined identity and position. But man is the satellite of a double-star; there is also an inner-world that seems to have a completely different set of laws from the rational universe. And in fact, if we judge this 'rational universe' by its own laws, we see that it is not self-complete and self-explanatory; space must end somewhere, time must have a stop; but the alternative propositions sound equally 'logical': space is infinite; time has neither beginning nor end. The answer to these paradoxes must be that the outer universe is not self-complete; it is only half a universe. The inner world is the other half. But at present we know very little about this inner world. It is only within the present century that its existence has been clearly recognized by psychology.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Bernard Shaw: A Reassessment (1969), p. 167

World, Law, Star, Universe

“Nobody can predict the future, but there is nobody in my generation who wants to be on the board of a symphony orchestra or an opera company and raise the kind of money that's needed. I think that the energy that in the 19th century went into opera is, in the 20th century, going into films. Films have that same over-the-top, overwhelming, high impact--all of the senses knocked out--and vast popular following, with stars who are larger than life. Well, that's what opera did in the 19th century.”

Peter Sellars (1957) American theatre director

Source: Mark Swed, "For L.A., History's Knocking", Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1996

Life, Money, Star, Thinking

“Vienna. It means nothing to me but to Orson Welles, it was the setting for one of his finest performances - and a place to get huge plates of cheap rich food. I followed the footsteps of my hero, which are still visible in the concrete, to the world famous Ferris wheel.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

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

World, Food

“I live in Scotland, have you been to Scotland? [a few of the audience whoop and cheer] See that's the exact same number of people, as answered that question in the affirmative when I asked it in England… and erm, people… English people, don't go up there, it's nearly half the country, and you say "Why don't you go?" and they go "Ahh, well, you know, it's very dark and dreary"… 'cos they get so used to the crocodiles and the tropical storms down there in England. "Dark and dreary, you can't understand the accents, the food's disgusting, and a lot of violence, a lot of drugs, people injecting temazepam into each other's stumps… other wise I'd go, you know?"”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

What It Is (2009)

People, Food, Understanding, Question

“Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession.”

Anthony Trollope book Doctor Thorne

First lines
Doctor Thorne (1858)

Country

“Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.”

Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–1889) English writer and poet

Of Discretion.
Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1849)

Silence, Time

“Its (Rasayan’s) principles (certain operations, drugs and compound medicines, most of which are taken from plants) restore the health… and give back youth to fading old age… white hair becomes black again, the keenness of the senses is restored as well as the capacity for juvenile agility, and even for co-habitation, and the life of the people in this world is even extended to a long period.”

Al-Biruni (973–1048) Persian scholar and polymath

quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1 https://archive.org/details/alberunisindiaac01biru/page/188 From Alberuni's India

Life, People, Health, Youth

“Peacefulness to be found in writing. Why do I not write every day? Partly because I feel I ought to write well and know I can't. But that is not a good enough reason for not writing, if it gains me poise & peace.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 219 (1960)

Peace, Feeling

“I think the reason it’s cheaper is, first of all, we are a private entity and we have a very lean system in here. What we have been able to do here at SpaceX is to cherry-pick, you know, the top one or two percent and give them, you know, capital to execute well and a clear mission, which is low cost, reliable access to space, and no other constraints.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Thinking

“I am the midnight watchman down at Miller's Tool and Die.
And I watch the metal rusting, and I watch the time go by.
A week ago at the diner I stopped to get a bite.
And this here lovely lady she sat two seats from my right.
And Lord, Lord, Lord she was alright.
Oh she was so damned beautiful that she'd warm a winter's frost.
But she was long past lonely, and well nigh unto lost.
Now I'm not much of a mover, or a pick-em-up easy guy,
But I decided to glide on over, and give her one good try.
And Lord, Lord, Lord she was worth a try.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Better Place to Be
Song lyrics, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972)

Love, Beauty, Guy, Winter

“Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team”

Clayton M. Christensen (1952–2020) Mormon academic

Christensen (2011) in: Harvard Business Review (2011) HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself. p. 4
2010s

Way, Learning, Success, Help

“They left me, by the side of the road, with a plastic bag and all kinds of bitterness Well, in my mind, and I can say this forever I suppose, and people might laugh at it, but I don't think I ever really left The Libertines, nor can I ever leave The Libertines, you know, having been a founder of the band with Carl, but that sounds silly, doesn't it, seeing as they played all the festivals without me and made it difficult, no - impossible, for me to play live with them.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

December 2004, Newsnight; when asked whether he left The Libertines or The Libertines left him
Music and politics

People, Thinking

“In America, where many peoples are held together largely by their sense of opportunities and their hope of reward, the subject is of the gravest concern. The attitude and reactions of the native-born American who believes in Americanization, and the one who does not, with all shades of opinion and of feeling lying between the two extremes, are to be considered. There is the man who comes here to stay and the one who in- tends to return. There is the racial solidarist bent upon reestablishing his own race here with as few changes as possible. There is the race which hates another, and for its own independent reasons tries to block its progress in the new land. We have to reckon with a situation created by men who are representatives of powerful foreign corporations, who will spend their lives here, make their homes here, and who never intend to become part of America. There are leaders who manipulate their people in the interest of the country of their origin, as well as those genuinely interested in serving America. In addition, there are factions in each race having no desire to unite with one another; there are races opposed to healing their own differences of centuries ago; and there are groups passionately devoted to their own culture and ideals, to which in their opinion nothing can compare.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men, Hate, People, Hope

“Well, they're taking kids out of the country and sending them over there, National Guard kids and Army Reserve. They're sending kids who are barely prepared for this, and they're sending them over there to kill people, which is a serious thing. And to kill not terrorists, but to kill insurgents. I sort of find myself in agreement, uncomfortably, with Patrick Buchanan, who writes about this in his book, Where The Right Went Wrong. And writes that great powers, the way they skidded off the road, was getting involved in wars. That it's the role of great powers to stay out of wars.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Real Time with Bill Maher (15 October 2004)

War, People, Books, Way

“Actually, none of this is fine. None of it! Trump should be directing all resources at his disposal to punish Russia for the attacks and prevent future ones. But he is not. America’s commander wants to be chummy with the enemy who committed the crime. Trump is more concerned with protecting his presidency and validating his election than he is in protecting this country. This is an incredible, unprecedented moment. America is being betrayed by its own president. America is under attack and its president absolutely refuses to defend it. Simply put, Trump is a traitor and may well be treasonous.”

Charles M. Blow (1970) American journalist

Trump, Treasonous Traitor https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/opinion/trump-russia-investigation-putin.html (July 15, 2018), The New York Times. Quote

Future, Country

“Interviewer: It seems to be acknowledged that there're more people out there supporting the aims of Al-Qaeda and groups like them, and are willing to die, as a result of this war, than perhaps there were previously?

Hitchens: Well, you could as easily say that the number of people who used to be based in Afghanistan, have, as a result of the intervention there, relocated themselves and spread the virus in that way. Both of these arguments lead to only one terminus, which is: we should surrender to jihadism, and not try to oppose it, in case we make them upset.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Scotland Live (2005-10-31}: On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2005

War, People, Way, Support

“I flatter my self to have demonstrated that, neither the Friendly Qualities and kind Affections that are natural to Man, nor the real Virtues he is capable of acquiring by Reason and Self-Denial, are the Foundation of Society; but that what we call Evil in this World, Moral as well as Natural, is the grand Principle that makes us sociable Creatures, the solid Basis, the Life and Support of all Trades and Employments without Exception: That there we must look for the true Origin of all Arts and Sciences, and that the Moment Evil ceases, the Society must be spoiled, if not totally dissolved.”

Bernard Mandeville book The Fable of the Bees

"A Search into the Nature of Society", p. 428
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Life, World, Art, Support

“A few months before the murder [of Domitian] a raven perched on the Capitol and croaked out the words: "All will be well!" – a portent which some wag explained in the following verse:
There was a raven, strange to tell,
Perched upon Jove's own gable, whence
He tried to tell us "All is well!" –
But had to use the future tense.”
Ante paucos quam occideretur menses cornix in Capitolino elocuta est: εσται πάντα καλως, nec defuit qui ostentum sic interpretaretur: Nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix, "Est bene" non potuit dicere, dixit: "Erit."

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Ante paucos quam occideretur menses cornix in Capitolino elocuta est: εσται πάντα καλως, nec defuit qui ostentum sic interpretaretur:
Nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix,
"Est bene" non potuit dicere, dixit: "Erit."
Source: The Twelve Caesars, Domitian, Ch. 23

Future

“The Brahmans who were custodians of the idols and idol-houses, and “teachers of the infidels”, also received their share of attention from the soldiers of Allãh. Our citations contain only stray references to the Brahmans because they have been compiled primarily with reference to the destruction of temples. Even so, they provide the broad contours of another chapter in the history of medieval India, a chapter which has yet to be brought out in full. The Brahmans are referred to as magicians by some Islamic invaders and massacred straight away. Elsewhere, the Hindus who are not totally defeated and want to surrender on some terms, are made to sign a treaty saying that the Brahmans will be expelled from the temples. The holy cities of the Hindus were “the nests of the Brahmans” who had to be slaughtered before or after the destruction of temples, so that these places were “cleansed” completely of “kufr” and made fit as “abodes of Islam”. Amîr Khusrû describes with great glee how the heads of Brahmans “danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet”, along with those of the other “infidels” whom Malik Kãfûr had slaughtered during the sack of the temples at Chidambaram. Fîrûz Shãh Tughlaq got bags full of cow’s flesh tied round the necks of Brahmans and had them paraded through his army camp at Kangra. Muhmûd Shãh II Bahmanî bestowed on himself the honour of being a ghãzî, simply because he had killed in cold blood the helpless BrãhmaNa priests of the local temple after Hindu warriors had died fighting in defence of the fort at Kondapalli. The present-day progressives, leftists and dalits whose main plank is anti-Brahminism have no reason to feel innovative about their ideology. Anti-Brahminism in India is as old a the advent of Islam. Our present-day Brahmin-baiters are no more than ideological descendants of the Islamic invaders. Hindus will do well to remember Mahatma Gandhi’s deep reflection--“if Brahmanism does not revive, Hinduism must perish.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Feeling, History, Teachers, Dance

“The further we move our main force to the westward, and still be within supporting distance of this garrison, the better, both for the preservation of the provision and forage of this State, as well as to les sen the general expense of transportation. And the greater stock of provision and forage we can leave in this State, and upon the communications, the less difficulty we shall find in giving support to this place, should the enemy approach it. I should re commend, therefore, to quarter the army as far wesir ward as Morristown or Baskingridge. The country is strong, secure from a surprise, happily situated to receive supplies of provisions and forage, and not very inconvenient for giving protection and cover to the inhabitants. It is true, it is considerably removed from this place. But were we to take a position at Suffern's or Pompton, the consumption of forage would be so great that it would destroy the possibility of keeping up a communication with the Western States, however pressing the necessity, before the grass sea son. Suppose the enemy should move up, early in the spring, and lay siege to West Point, and the supplies of this State prove unequal to our support, should we not be obliged to abandon it to its fate?”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (November 1779)

Fate, Spring, Communication, Support

“"Who can I trust?" Arthur blurted out.
"Those who wish you well," said the Old One. "Not those who wish to use you well. Be a player, not a pawn. And that is three questions and all your time."”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Mister Monday (2003), p. 247.

Question, Time

“June 1, 2009 was the day that we were meant to go to the stadium and try and get the president's attention. It's a national holiday, it's broadcast across the country, and I showed up at the stadium. My friends did not show up. I found myself alone, and I didn't know what to do. I was scared, but I knew very well that that particular day, I had to make a decision. Was I able to live as a coward, like everyone else, or was I going to make a stand? And when the president stood up to speak, I found myself on my feet shouting at the president, telling him to remember the post-election violence victims, to stop the corruption. And suddenly, out of nowhere, the police pounced on me like hungry lions. They held my mouth and dragged me out of the stadium, where they thoroughly beat me up and locked me up in jail. I spent that night in a cold cement floor in the jail, and that got me thinking. What was making me feel this way? My friends and family thought I was crazy because of what I did, and the images that I took were disturbing my life. The images that I took were just a number to many Kenyans. Most Kenyans did not see the violence. It was a story to them. … That day in the stadium, I stood up as a smart coward. By that one action, I said goodbye to the 24 years living as a coward.”

Boniface Mwangi (1983) Kenyan photojournalist

The day I stood up alone

Life, Family, Way, Feeling

“All existence seemed to be based on duality, on contrast. Either one was a man or one was a woman, either a wanderer or sedentary burgher, either a thinking person or a feeling person-no one could breathe in at the same time as he breathed out, be a man as well as a woman, experience freedom as well as order, combine instinct and mind. One always had to pay for one with the loss of the other, and one thing was always just as important and desirable as the other.”

Hermann Hesse book Narcissus and Goldmund

Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)

Feeling, Thinking, Freedom, Loss

“Mr. Holker made many inquiries yesterday, respecting the temper and disposition of our army. He seemed desirous to know, whether peace, upon a plan of independence agreeable to the state of the alliance, would be satisfactory; the fishery to be con fined to the limits of the States. This would well nigh ruin the Eastern States. Upon the whole, I think there have been some overtures made upon the subject of peace. It is said Russia on the part of England, and Spain on the part of France, are to stand mediators. This is merely conjectural. Mr. Jay says the Congress have no official propositions of peace; but I believe it is beyond a doubt there have been debates upon the subject for several days past, particularly with regard to the fishery.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (26 April 1779)

Peace, Thinking, Past, Parting

“Saint Paul says, with regard to charity, “He that will not work, let him not eat.” And it says that a man and his faith are to be judged by his responsibility towards them of his own household, his family in particular and the Christian community and he that is not charitable here is worse than an infidel and has denied the faith. Well, the biblical perspective stresses that we are to love our neighbor as ourself. We are to be mindful of his needs. And it puts it on a personal and a moral level. When you put welfare in the place of charity and it becomes a function of a vast bureaucracy to administer it is depersonalized. It no longer considers the individual. It is interested in dehumanizing it, because the statist perspective is not moral nor personal. Its goal is statist power, statist authority, the predominance of the state in every and any sphere where it has controls.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Christian Charity vs Welfarism (September 4, 1996)

Love, Family, Faith, Communication

“It is well for the heart to be naive and for the mind not to be.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Il est bon que le cœur soit naïf et que l’esprit ne le soit pas. Series II : M. Jules Lemaître http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/M._Jules_Lema%C3%AEtre The Literary Life (1888-1892)

Heart

“There was great uncertainty about how well we would be able to walk in our cumbersome pressurized suit.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Letter to Robert Krulwich (2010)

“You can't blame me sure the killer was my son
but I didn't teach him to pull the trigger of the gun
It's the killing on this tv screen
you can't blame me it's those images he's seen.
Well you can't blame me says the media man
Well I wasn't the one who came up with the plan
And I just point my camera at what the people want to see
Man it's a two way mirror and you can't blame me.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Cookie Jar.
Song lyrics, On and On (2003)

People, Way

“Why do we call ourselves 'Imagists'. Well why not? Well I think it is a very good and descriptive title and it serves to enunciate some of the principles we mos firmly believe in… Direct treatment of the subject… as few adjectives as possible… a hardness, as of cut stone… individuality of rhythm…”

Richard Aldington (1892–1962) English writer and poet

Modern Poetry and the Imagists in the Egoist, London 1914

Thinking

“I had barely sat down when he began to tell me… that science writers were "ignoramuses" and a "terrible breed" who invariably got things wrong: only scientists were really qualified to present their work to the masses. As time went on, I felt less offended, since it became clear that Gell-Mann held most of his scientific colleagues in contempt as well.”

John Horgan (journalist) (1953) American science journalist

Source: The End of Science (1996), p. 212

Science, Time

“Seize all the joy you can that robs no other. Sleep in peace, play in jolly earnest, wag well and mean it, and finally, be happy always. The more I see of dogs the less I think of men. Whoever beats dogs loves not man.”

Arsène Houssaye (1814–1896) French writer

Source: James O'Donnell Bennett (1908) When Good Fellows Get Together, p. 109

Love, Men, Happiness, Peace

“And if the immortality of the soul had been unable to find vindication in rational empiricism, neither is it satisfied with pantheism. To say that everything is God, and that when we die, we return to God, or more accurately, continue in Him, avails our longing nothing; for if this indeed be so, then we were in God before we were born, and if we die we return to where we were before being born, then the human soul, the individual consciousness, is perishable. And since we know very well that God, the personal and conscious God of Christian monotheism, is simply the provider, and above all the guarantor, of our immortality, pantheism is said, and rightly said to be merely atheism disguised; and in my opinion, undisguised.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), V : The Rationalist Dissolution

God, Soul, Personality

“Yes, we're lazy. Yet we also can't seem to sit still. So we've started making things like GO-GURT. That's yogurt for people on the go. Let me ask you, was there a big mobility problem with yogurt before? How time-consuming was it, really? [pretending to be on the phone:] "Hello?…Oh, hi, Tom…oh, I've been dying to see that movie…Umm, no…I just opened up some yogurt…Yeah, I'm in for the night…No, not even later-it's the kind with fruit on the bottom. Well, have fun. Thanks anyway."”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Here and Now

People, Problem, Time, Night

“All’s well that changes least.”

David H. Levy (1948) Canadian astronomer

Humor in Psychotherapy (2007)

Change

“Logic teaches us that on such and such a road we are sure of not meeting an obstacle; it does not tell us which is the road that leads to the desired end. For this, it is necessary to see the end from afar, and the faculty which teaches us to see is intuition. Without it, the geometrician would be like a writer well up in grammar but destitute of ideas.”

Henri Poincaré book Science and Method

La logique nous apprend que sur tel ou tel chemin nous sommes sûrs de ne pas rencontrer d'obstacle ; elle ne nous dit pas quel est celui qui mène au but. Pour cela il faut voir le but de loin, et la faculté qui nous apprend à voir, c'est l'intuition. Sans elle, le géomètre serait comme un écrivain qui serait ferré sur la grammaire, mais qui n'aurait pas d'idées.
Part II. Ch. 2 : Mathematical Definitions and Education, p. 130
Science and Method (1908)

Idea

“O brave youth, how good for thee it were couldst thou be made to understand how infinitely precious are thy school years—years when thou hast leisure to grow, when new worlds break in upon thee, and thou fashionest thy being in the light of the ideals of truth and goodness and beauty! If now thou dost not fit thyself to become free and whole, thou shalt, when the doors of this fair mother-house of the mind, close behind thee, be driven into ways that lead to bondage, be compelled to do that which cripples and dwarfs; for the work whereby men gain a livelihood involves mental and moral mutilation, unless it be done in the spirit of religion and culture. Ah! well for thee, canst thou learn while yet there is time that it will profit thee nothing to become the possessor of millions, if the price thou payest is thy manhood.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), pp. 58-59

Men, Truth, Youth, World

“In the case of a novel, or any imaginative work, especially if the tone is poetic, my own preference is for ending with a touch of symbolism which shall leave the reader brooding. A fine novel, a well-written story, "proves" nothing. Certain characters have played their parts, life goes on, and the final passage may be allowed to remain with one foot in the air, as is the case with some of Chopin's conclusions. But there is no absolute rule in such matters, and there are epic novelists who like to end on a powerful crescendo, as Ravel does in Bolero, or Dvorak in the New-World Symphony. Composition has features which are common to all the arts, and the author can learn as much about his business in the concert hall as in the library.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

The Art of Writing

Life, World, Art, Imagination

“Besides the theory there are a lot of small technical details that must be learned so well that you can recall them almost instantaneously, such as the trigonometric identities… put one part of the identity on one side of a 3 x 5 card and the other part on the other side. Using these flash cards you can, in the odd moments of your daily life, learn the mechanical parts of the course. …for this kind of low-level material many short learning sessions are much more efficient than a few long, intense ones; but this is not necessarily true for larger ideas. …most students will not use such trivial devices as flash cards; it seems to be beneath their dignity. They suffer accordingly.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)

Life, Idea, Suffering, Learning

“Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they become men."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Aristippus, 4.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 2: Socrates, his predecessors and followers

Men, Boy, Learning

“I thanked the President [George W. Bush] for the steadfastness and resolve with which he's tackling the very complicated problems in the Middle East and Iraq, as well as the Israel-Palestinian issue…. It's critical for us in Southeast Asia that America does that…. because it affects America's standing in Asia and the world, and also the security environment in Asia because extremists, the jihadists, watch carefully what's happening in the Middle East and take heart, or lose heart, depending on what's happening.”

Lee Hsien Loong (1952) Prime Minister of Singapore

President Bush Welcomes Prime Minister Lee of Singapore to the White House http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070504-3.html# May 4, 2007

World, Problem, Heart, Dependency

“It doesn't just say Christians. It also says persecuted Muslims get priority as well. So, this is not a Muslim ban…. And the reason we chose those seven countries was, those were the seven countries that both the Congress and the Obama administration identified as being the seven countries that were most identifiable with dangerous terrorism taking place in their country…. Now, you can point to other countries that have similar problems, like Pakistan and others. Perhaps we need to take it further. But for now, immediate steps, pulling the Band-Aid off, is to do further vetting for people traveling in and out of those countries.”

Reince Priebus (1972) American attorney and politician; White House Chief of Staff, January – July 2017

Discussing bill to bar entry to U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen), "Priebus and Conway Echo Trump: ‘This Is Not a Muslim Ban’ http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/priebus-and-conway-echo-trump-not-muslim-ban (January 30, 2017)

People, Travel, Problem, Country

“[A]fter I got evicted from the Republican Party, I began reading considerably more of the works of American anarchists, thanks largely to Murray Rothbard…and I was just amazed.When I read Emma Goldman, it was as though everything I had hoped that the Republican Party would stand for suddenly came out crystallised. It was a magnificently clear statement. And another interesting things about reading Emma Goldman is that you immediately see that, consciously or not, she's the source of the best in Ayn Rand. She has the essential points that the Ayn Rand philosophy thinks, but without any of this sort of crazy solipsism that Rand is so fond of, the notion that people accomplish everything all in isolation. Emma Goldman understands that there’s a social element to even science, but she also writes that all history is a struggle of the individual against the institutions, which of course is what I’d always thought Republicans were saying, and so it goes.In other words, in the Old Right, there were a lot of statements that seemed correct, and they appeal to you emotionally, as well; it was why I was a Republican—isolationist, anti-authoritarian positions, but they’re not illuminated by anything more than statement. They just are good statements. But in the writings of the anarchists the same statements are made, but with this long illumination out of experience, analysis, comparison…it's rock-solid, and so I immediately realised that I'd been stumbling around inventing parts of a tradition that was old and thoughtful and already existed, and that's very nice to discover that—I don't think it's necessary to invent everything.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Anarchism in America http://alexpeak.com/art/films/aia/ (15 January 1983)

People, Hope, History, Understanding

“Well, you know, Hubbard had a bunch of people sworn to commit suicide when he died. So of course he never officially died…”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199804141540.IAA05247@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

People, Suicide

“The generation of Isaiah did not require the detailed description; his account, "I saw the Lord," &c., sufficed. The generation of the Babylonian exile wanted to learn all the details. …Isaiah was so familiar with it that he did not consider it necessary to communicate it to others as a new thing, especially as it was well known to the intelligent.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.6

Intelligence, Communication, Learning

“This Spring of 1911 Marianne von Werefkin [his former study-mate in Russia and in fact his life-comapnion for many years, but never married] Andrei, Helene and I went to Prerow on the Baltic [coast]. For me that summer meant a great step forward in my art. I painted my finest landscapes there as well as large figure paintings in powerful, glowing colours and not at all naturalistic or objective. I used a great deal of red, blue, orange, cadmium yellow and chromium-oxide green. My forms were very strongly contoured in Prussian blue, and came with tremendous power from an inner ecstasy. 'Der Buckel', 'Violetter Turban', 'Selbstporträt'.... were created in this way. It was a turning-point in my art. It was in these years, up to 1914, just before the war [World War 1. ], that I painted my most powerful works, referred to as the pré-war works.”

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter

Quote c. 1911; in 'Lebenserinnerungen', 1938; as cited in Alexej von Jawlensky, Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam; exhibition catalog 25/9 – 27/11-1994 (a. o. his life quotes from ['Life Memories'] he dictated late in his life, in 1938)
1900 - 1935

Life, War, World, Art

“I prefer character-driven stuff. I am an actor and I come from theater and I love creating a scene and working with actors as opposed as opposed to working with CGI. But there is some fun to be had with the B-movie monster movies as well especially today because they are so self-aware, you can have a lot of fun. But I definitely prefer the more straightforward horror.”

Griff Furst (1981) American actor, director and musician

SLIFF 2016 Interview: Griff Furst – Director of COLD MOON http://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2016/10/slif-2016-interview-cold-moon-director-griff-furst/ (October 31, 2016)

Love

“Our ground today is not so much the national or the regional ground as it is the understanding of this single earth. The earth has been round for some time now, but not in man’s relation to man, nor in the understanding of the arts of each as a part of that roundness. As usual we have occupied ourselves too much with the outer, the objective, at the expense of the inner world wherein tie true roundness lies... America more than any other country is placed geographically to lead in this understanding., and if from past methods of behaviour she has constantly looked towards Europe, today she must assume her position, Janus-faced, toward Asia, for in not too long a time the waves of the Orient shall wash heavily upon her shores. All this is deeply related with her growth in the arts, particularly upon the Pacific slopes. Of this I am aware. Naturally my work will reflect such a condition and so it is not surprising to me when an Oriental responds to a painting of mine as well as an American or an European..”

Mark Tobey (1890–1976) American abstract expressionist painter

Quote from Fourteen Americans, Mark Tobey, exhibition catalogue MOMA New York, 1946, p. 70
1940's

World, Art, Understanding, Nature

“Quantum mechanics is the most useful and powerful theory physicists have ever devised. Yet today, nearly 90 years after its formulation, disagreement about the meaning of the theory is stronger than ever. New interpretations appear every year. None ever disappear. … The message from QBism is this: You needn't feel guilty about never getting nervous about this stuff. You were right not to be bothered. But for the sake of intellectual coherence, you had better reexamine what you wrongly may have thought you understood perfectly well about the nature of probability.”

David Mermin (1935) American physicist

Fixing the shifty split http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.1618, Physics Today, Volume 65, Issue 7, July 2012, p. 8

Feeling, Nature, Appearance

Quotes about well page 80

Quotes about well
page 80