Quotes about wish (3789 quotes, page 27)

“We are sure to displease when we speak too long and too often of one subject, and when we try to turn the conversation upon subjects that we think more instructive than others, we should enter indifferently upon every subject that is agreeable to others, stopping where they wish, and avoiding all they do not agree with.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), V. On Conversation

Thinking , Indifference

“The major thing I'm afraid of is being 65 and saying, 'Gee, I wish I had done this and that, and that.' I want to face old age knowing I've tried all I wanted to try.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

"Chapin Takes 'Taxi' Wherever He Can", Rolling Stone http://harrychapin.com/articles/rsprofile.shtml (July 6, 1972)

Age

“This is the highest honour of the Church, that, until He is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. What consolation is it for us to learn, that, not until we are along with him, does he possess all his parts, or wish to be regarded as complete! Hence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when the apostle discusses largely the metaphor of a human body, he includes under the single name of Christ the whole Church.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Commentary on Ephesians 1:23.
Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, 1854, Rev. William Pringle, tr., Edinburgh, p. 218. http://books.google.com/books?id=i3o9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA218&dq=%22reckons+himself+in+some+measure+imperfect%22&hl=en&ei=sHrpTcfgN4fX0QH2hMSSAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22reckons%20himself%20in%20some%20measure%20imperfect%22&f=false
Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians

God , Learning , Christ , Parting

“I wish I'd get mad about something that actually, you know, kinda mattered. Go in Target and be like: "You know what? If you can't help me, then I need to speak to someone who can, because this is a three dollar pair of flip-flops made by a 5-year-old Guatemalan girl, and I'm not leaving until she gets benefits and an education under the NAFTA Fair Trade Agreement. You better go get a manager. This could take awhile."”

Maria Bamford (1970) American actress and comedian

How to WIN! (2006)

Education , Girl , Help , Madness

“Arms of Orlando, paladin',
By this inscription meaning to deter
Whoever saw the splendid trophy shine,
As though to say: 'Hands off, all who pass by,
Unless Orlando's strength you wish to try.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Armatura d'Orlando paladino;
Come volesse dir: nessun la muova,
Che star non possa con Orlando a prova.
Canto XXIV, stanza 57 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

“There is usually no ressentiment just where a superficial view would look for it first: in the criminal. The criminal is essentially an active type. Instead of repressing hatred, revenge, envy, and greed, he releases them in crime. Ressentiment is a basic impulse only in the crimes of spite. These are crimes which require only a minimum of action and risk and from which the criminal draws no advantage, since they are inspired by nothing but the desire to do harm. The arsonist is the purest type in point, provided that he is not motivated by the pathological urge of watching fire (a rare case) or by the wish to collect insurance. Criminals of this type strangely resemble each other. Usually they are quiet, taciturn, shy, quite settled and hostile to all alcoholic or other excesses. Their criminal act is nearly always a sudden outburst of impulses of revenge or envy which have been repressed for years. A typical cause would be the continual deflation of one's ego by the constant sight of the neighbor's rich and beautiful farm. Certain expressions of class ressentiment, which have lately been on the increase, also fall under this heading. I mention a crime committed near Berlin in 1912: in the darkness, the criminal stretched a wire between two trees across the road, so that the heads of passing automobilists would be shorn off. This is a typical case of ressentiment, for any car driver or passenger at all could be the victim, and there is no interested motive. Also in cases of slander and defamation of character, ressentiment often plays a major role...”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Hostility , Alcohol , Beauty , Cars

“I was carrying out my duty, as the Japanese high commander of the Japanese Army in the Philippine Islands, to control my army with the best of my ability during wartime. Until now, I believe that I have tried my best for my army. As I said in the Manila Supreme Court that I have done everything with all my capacity, so I wouldn't be ashamed in front of the Gods for what I have done when I have died. But if you say to me "you do not have any ability to command the Japanese Army," I should say nothing in response, because it is my own nature. Now, our war criminal trial is going on in the Manila Supreme Court, so I wish to be justified under your kindness and righteousness. I know that all your American military affairs always have had tolerant and rightful judgment. When I had been investigated in the Manila court, I have had good treatment, a kind attitude from your good-natured officers who protected me all the time. I will never forget what they have done for me even if I die. I don't blame my executioners. I'll pray that the Gods bless them. Please send my thankful word to Col. Clarke and Lt. Col. Feldhaus, Lt. Col. Hendrix, Maj. Guy, Capt. Sandburg, Capt. Reel, at Manila court, and Col. Arnard. I thank you. I pray for the Emperor's long life and prosperity forever.”

Tomoyuki Yamashita (1885–1946) general in the Imperial Japanese Army

Last words. Quoted in "Yamashita Hanged Near Los Banos" - "New York Times" article - February 23, 1946.

Life , God , War , Guy

“I say I can't thank you too much for the name 'Nocturne' as a title for my moonlights! You have no idea what an irritation it proves to the critics and consequent pleasure to me — besides it is really so charming and does so poetically say all that I want to say and no more than I wish.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American-born, British-based artist

Anderson and Koval, p. 186; as quoted on the English Wikipedia
posthumous published

Pleasure , Idea

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

This is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
1961, Inaugural Address

Support , Success

“I wished to give a complete relation to your Highnesses, and also where a fort might be built…. However, I do not see it to be necessary, because these people are simple in weapons…. With fifty men I could subjugate them all and make them do everything that is required of them.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

14 October 1492
Journal of the First Voyage

Men , People

“You should be a person who can establish the Heavenly Kingdom rather than just the one who can go there. Those who can go to heaven are those who wish to be dependent on God, but those capable of building the Kingdom are those who can let God depend on them.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

The Way of God's Will Chapter 1-8. Kingdom of Heaven http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/WofGW/wogw1-08.htm Translated 1980.

God , Dependency , Personality

“During my high school years, a boy from my neighborhood named Malcolm chose me to be his friend for a season. His elbow nudged my book in the public library one Saturday afternoon as he sprawled forward across the table feigning some condition—boredom, I suppose. His voice was like shadow—as whispery and as indistinct as shadow, due to an adolescent change. “Do you want to wrestle?” he asked. I have never met anyone since who speaks as Malcolm spoke: He daydreamed; he pronounced strategies out loud (as I raked elm leaves from our lawn and piled them in the curb)—about how he would befriend this boy or that boy, never anyone I knew; Malcolm went to a different high school. “First,” he said, “I will tease him about his freckles. Then I will tease him about his laugh—how his laugh sounds a little like a whinny sometimes. I won’t go too far. You should see how his wrist pivots as he dribbles down the court. “He’s got these little curls above his sideburns. I wish I had those.””

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

(He would catch me up on the way to the library.) “What are you reading? We read that last year. Not really a war story, though, is it? Want to go eat French toast?”
Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

War , Books , School , Way

“The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident.”

Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) New Zealand writer

As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 597

Love , Life , Beauty , Passion

“Every day, the New York Times carries a motto in a box on its front page. "All the News That's Fit to Print," it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure that the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there. Then I check to make sure that it still irritates me. If I can still exclaim, under my breath, why do they insult me and what do they take me for and what the hell is it supposed to mean unless it's as obviously complacent and conceited and censorious as it seems to be, then at least I know I still have a pulse. You may wish to choose a more rigorous mental workout but I credit this daily infusion of annoyance with extending my lifespan.”

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

2000s, 2001, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

Imagination , Hell , Time , Box

“The reduction of the executive power is the wish of neither the chambers nor the country…During all my magistracy, I will see, in accord with the responsible ministers, that the government of the republic maintains intact, under the control of parliament, the authority which it must have…It is possible for a people to be effectively pacific only on condition that they are always ready for war. A diminished France, a France exposed through her own fault to challenges or humiliations, would no longer be France.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Speech to the Chamber (20 February 1913), quoted in Gordon Wright, Raymond Poincaré and the French Presidency (New York: Octagon Books, 1967), pp. 64-65.

War , People , Country

“Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Source: Character of the Happy Warrior http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww302.html (1806), Line 1.

Happiness

“The words nearly break my heart, and I feel something crumble inside me. The truth is often a terrible thing, and I wish again that I were someone else. But it is too late now, too late to change anything. I am old and alone and I'm dying a little more with each passing hour. I'm tired, more tired than I've ever been.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ira Levinson, Chapter 5 Ira, p. 80
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

Truth , Feeling , Change , Heart

“The Bill of Rights must be subjected to no 'interpretation' of any kind except in terms of the original intent of the Founding Fathers, a group of individuals who had just barely defeated the most overbearing, ruthless, and dangerously violent government in the history of the world. Even the British people were having trouble with it at the time.
The Bill of Rights represents an historic bargain between those who advocated a strong central government — and whose political ideas and wishes are expressed in the main body of the Constitution — and those who did not. Without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution ceases to be valid; any legitimate authority that derives from it ceases to exist.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Toward an International Bill of Rights Union," http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?p=36 31 August 2007.

People , World , History , Idea

“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

“…But they accuse us of being terrorists. Terrorists, because when the Palestinian mother welcomes her martyred son, she wishes to receive him as a corpse. She does not want him to be alive…. The wish of the Palestinian mother is to see the body of her son the martyr…”

Ibrahim Mudeiris

Preaching Poison http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/stalinsky200403190914.asp (March 2004)

“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

“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

“The wishes of every human man are, that guilt may not be fixed upon any man; but I confess I am one of those who have not the weakness—which weakness, a Judge at least, and a jury, must get rid of, before they fit themselves to fill the respective stations which they are to fill in the administration of the justice of the country— I say, therefore, I am not one of those who wish under false compassion, inconsistent with the administration of criminal justice, that a person on whom guilt is fairly fixed, should escape the punishment which the law annexes to his guilt.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Stone's Case (1796), 25 How. St. Tr. 1423.

Justice , Law , Personality , Falseness

“In the desert, initially, everywhere is like everywhere else—sky, sand, mountains. So far, this was the extent of what I’d seen in my involuntary roost. Then the day began to ebb, the world turned to topaz and gold, and the color of the sky seemed to sink away into the disc of the sun. I found I really could touch the beauty of it then, as I had touched its beauty so long ago when I was free to travel where I wished, and the city still owned me. Now, tinged with my sorrow, the loveliness was bittersweet, but strong as wine.”

Tanith Lee book Drinking Sapphire Wine

Part 2, Chapter 3 (pp. 69-70)
Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977)

World , Beauty , Color , Travel

“As we shall see in this book's chapters, traditional societies are far more diverse in many of their cultural practices than are modern industrial societies. […] Yet psychologists base most of their generalizations about human nature on studies of our own narrow and atypical slice of human diversity. […] That is, as social scientists Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan express it, most of our understanding of human psychology is based on subjects who may be described by the acronym WEIRD: from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies. […] Hence if we wish to generalize about human nature, we need to broaden greatly our study sample from the usual WEIRD subjects […] to the whole range of traditional societies.”

Jared Diamond book The World Until Yesterday

Prologue, section "Why study traditional societies?"
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? (2012)

Books , Education , Understanding , Nature

“…a reluctance to recognise that today's safety and comfort were bought fifty years ago by means which today's intelligentsia find unacceptable, and from which they wish to distance themselves.”

George MacDonald Fraser book Quartered Safe Out Here

Source: Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), p. xxiii-xxiv.

“For to those who have not the means within themselves of a virtuous and happy life every age is burdensome; and, on the other hand, to those who seek all good from themselves nothing can seem evil that the laws of nature inevitably impose. To this class old age especially belongs, which all men wish to attain and yet reproach when attained; such is the inconsistency and perversity of Folly! They say that it stole upon them faster than they had expected. In the first place, who has forced them to form a mistaken judgement? For how much more rapidly does old age steal upon youth than youth upon childhood? And again, how much less burdensome would old age be to them if they were in their eight hundredth rather than in their eightieth year? In fact, no lapse of time, however long, once it had slipped away, could solace or soothe a foolish old age.”
Quibus enim nihil est in ipsis opis ad bene beateque vivendum, eis omnis aetas gravis est; qui autem omnia bona a se ipsi petunt, eis nihil potest malum videri quod naturae necessitas afferat. quo in genere est in primis senectus, quam ut adipiscantur omnes optant, eandem accusant adeptam; tanta est stultitiae inconstantia atque perversitas. obrepere aiunt eam citius quam putassent. primum quis coegit eos falsum putare? qui enim citius adulescentiae senectus quam pueritiae adulescentia obrepit? deinde qui minus gravis esset eis senectus, si octingentesimum annum agerent, quam si octogesimum? praeterita enim aetas quamvis longa, cum effluxisset, nulla consolatione permulcere posset stultam senectutem.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

section 4 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0039%3Asection%3D4
Cato Maior de Senectute – On Old Age (44 BC)

Life , Men , Youth , Age

“I wish in closing to emphasize how little corporate philanthrophy (the practical meaning of “creative capitalism,” a terrible expression that implies nonaltruistic capitalism is uncreative) is actually philanthropic, in the sense of being driven by altruism rather than by profit maximization.”

Richard A. Posner (1939) United States federal judge

" Against Creative Capitalism, Part Two https://web.archive.org/web/20080821055810/http://creativecapitalism.typepad.com:80/creative_capitalism/2008/08/against-creativ.html" (2008), published in Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders.

Sense

“"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

“Bejaysus, I wish I didn't have to go back and face what I have to face.”

Enda Kenny (1951) Irish Fine Gael politician and Taoiseach

While at the Irish Embassy in Washington shortly after the 2016 general election. Irish Independent http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-2016/enda-kenny-tells-irish-embassy-in-washington-bejaysus-i-wish-i-didnt-have-to-go-back-and-face-what-i-have-to-face-34543872.html
2010s

“.. I also send the picture of the 'Trinity' [also called La Gloria].... in my wish to satisfy your C. M. [Caesarean Majesty] I have not spared myself the pains of striking out two or three times the work of many days to bring it to perfection and satisfy myself, whereby more time was wasted than I usually take to do such things.... the portrait of Signor Vargas [agent of Charles V, who was paying Titian for his works] introduced into the work [very probably in the 'La Gloria' / 'Trinity'] was done at his request. If it should not please your C. M. any painter can, with a couple of [brush] strokes, convert it into another person.”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

In a letter from Venice to the Spanish emperor Charles V in Bruxelles, 10 Sept. 1554; original in the 'Appendix' of Titian: his life and times - With some account of his family... Vol. 2., J. A. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle, Publisher London, John Murray, 1877, p. 231-232
Titian is announcing in his letter the completion and the delivery of the paintings 'Trinity' and 'Addolorata' and probably a third painting 'Christ appearing to the Magdalen', for Mary of Hungary
1541-1576

Pain , Time , Personality , Perfection

“Bonaparte's wish is Peace, nay that he is afraid of war to the last degree.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Charles Grey (12 December 1802), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 201.
1800s

War , Peace

“There’s nothing quite so pernicious as wishful thinking.”

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 11, “War” (p. 285)

Thinking

“I scarcely know a professional man I can like, and certainly not one who has been what the world calls successful, that I should the least wish to resemble.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter I
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

World , Success

“I have never been a supporter of or an apologist for Saddam Hussein. Indeed, I recall many lonely occasions in the House when I spoke against Saddam Hussein, his genocide against the Kurdish people and the way that the British Government were financing the re-arming of Iraq. Indeed, the chemical weapons being manufactured in Iraq largely comprise chemicals made in western Europe and north America. Some £1 billion was loaned to Saddam Hussein by British banks, with the agreement of the British Government. His power is largely the creation of western Europe and north America. I do not support him and I do not think that he was right to invade Kuwait…The only purpose of sending troops to the region is to defend and guarantee oil supplies. I find it difficult to accept that the United States is merely defending a small country against a larger country. If that were true, why were Grenada and Panama invaded? What was the Vietnam war about, other than a powerful United States wishing to extend its control and influence throughout the world? …If the shooting starts and there is war in the Gulf, the retaking of Kuwait will not be a clean, clinical operation—it will be a filthy and long war with hundreds of thousands of dead, and at the end of that war there will still have to be negotiations on the future order and the future government of that area and those countries.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/nov/07/first-day in the House of Commons (7 November 1990).
1990s

War , People , World , Way

“I was bothered by a sense of entitlement among many Finns, especially younger people. Sirpa Jalkanen, a microbiologist and biotech entrepreneur affiliated with Turku University in that ancient Finnish port city, told me she was discouraged by "this new generation we have now who love entertainment, the easy life." She said she wished the government would require every university student to pay a "significant but affordable" part of the cost of their education, "just so they'd appreciate it."”

Robert G. Kaiser (1943) American journalist

As quoted in "Ten Reasons We Can't, and Shouldn't, Be Nordic" https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/ten-reasons-we-cant-and-shouldnt-be-nordic/ (12 March 2018), by Jim Geraghty, National Review
2000s, "Why can't we be more like Finland?" (2005)

Love , Life , People , Education

“I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Time , Country

“Women, he held, had never been treated with elementary justice. To worship them was no less unfair than to hold them in contempt. The honest man, in our day, should regard a woman without the least bias of sexual prejudice; should view her simply as a fellow-being, who, according to circumstances, might or not be on his own plane. Away with all empty show and form, those relics of barbarism known as chivalry! He wished to discontinue even the habit of hat-doffing in female presence. Was not civility preserved between man and man without such idle form? Why not, then, between man and woman? Unable, as yet, to go the entire length of his principles in every-day life, he endeavoured, at all events, to cultivate in his intercourse with women a frankness of speech, a directness of bearing, beyond the usual. He shook hands as with one of his own sex, spine uncrooked; he greeted them with level voice, not as one who addresses a thing afraid of sound. To a girl or matron whom he liked, he said, in tone if not in phrase, "Let us be comrades." In his opinion this tended notably to the purifying of the social atmosphere. It was the introduction of simple honesty into relations commonly marked — and corrupted — by every form of disingenuousness. Moreover, it was the great first step to that reconstruction of society at large which every thinker saw to be imperative and imminent.
But Constance Bride knew nothing of this, and in her ignorance could not but misinterpret the young man's demeanor. She felt it to be brusque; she imagined it to imply a purposed oblivion of things in the past.”

George Gissing (1857–1903) English novelist

Source: Our Friend the Charlatan (1901), Ch. II

Life , Women , Justice , Sex

“You know that my wishes go in the direction of a conciliation with Russia which opens up further possibilities and prepares them. Only we must not try to make Russia too strong.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to von Winterfedlt-Menkin (19 July 1915), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 105.

Strong

“The most successful behaviour-liars are those who, instead of consciously concentrating on modifying specific signals, think themselves into the basic mood they wish to convey and then let the small details take care of themselves. This method is frequently used with great success by professional liars, such as actors and actresses. Their entire working lives are spent performing behavioural lies, a process which can sometimes be extremely damaging to their private lives. Politicians and diplomats are also required to perform an undue amount of behavioural lying, but unlike the actors they are not socially 'licensed to lie', and the resultant guilt feelings tend to interfere with their performances. Also, unlike the actors, they do not undergo prolonged training courses.”

Desmond Morris book The Naked Ape

(2000), p. 116
The Naked Ape (1967)

Lie , Feeling , Lying , Mood

“It is an erroneous assumption of limited minds that great ones such as Jesus, Krishna, and other divine incarnations are gone from the earth when they are no longer visible to human sight. This is not so… Jesus Christ is very much alive and active today. In Spirit and occasionally taking on a flesh-and-blood form, he is working unseen by the masses for the regeneration of the world. With his all-embracing love, Jesus is not content merely to enjoy his blissful consciousness in Heaven. He is deeply concerned for mankind and wishes to give his followers the means to attain the divine freedom of entry into God's Infinite Kingdom….”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, (2004) by Yogananda

Love , God , World , Freedom

“I'm dedicating my little story to you; doubtless you will be among the very few who will ever read it. It seems war stories aren't very well received at this point. I'm told they're out-dated, untimely and as might be expected - make some unpleasant reading. And, as you have no doubt already perceived, human beings don't like to remember unpleasant things. They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with a few exceptions, seem to accomplish their "forgetting" quite admirably. But you, my children, I don't want you to be among those who choose to forget. I want you to read my stories and a lot of others like them. I want you to fill your heads with Remarque and Tolstoy and Ernie Pyle. I want you to know what shrapnel, and "88's" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean. I want you to feel, no matter how vicariously, a semblance of the feeling of a torn limb, a burnt patch of flesh, the crippling, numbing sensation of fear, the hopeless emptiness of fatigue. All these things are complimentary to the province of war and they should be taught and demonstrated in classrooms along with the more heroic aspects of uniforms, and flags, and honor and patriotism. I have no idea what your generation will be like. In mine we were to enjoy "Peace in our time". A very well meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words… less than a year before the whole world went to war. But this gentleman was suffering the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing the rose colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the war that came before.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Excerpt from a dedication to an unpublished short story, "First Squad, First Platoon"; from Serling to his as yet unborn children.
Other

War , Children , World , Fear

“The time has passed for our sensations in painting to be whispered. We wish them in the future to sing and re-echo upon our canvasses in deafening and triumphant flourishes.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 132.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

Singing , Time , Future , Painting

“So the Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep.”

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

As quoted in [14 February 2000, QUOTATION OF THE DAY, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/14/nyregion/quotation-of-the-day-815233.html, The New York Times]
2000s

“It is generally believed that scientific talent reveals itself in early youth. […] This was certainly not my case. I somehow slid into my scientific profession. My mother wished for me to become a physician, just like my father. […] I myself wanted to be a lawyer, defender of the unjustly accused. But my career is the result of political circumstances, academic possibilities, and lucky accidents.”

Fred Jelinek (1932–2010) Czech linguist

Talking about his life in a 2001 speech
Source: Jelinek, Frederick. " How I Got Here http://www.clsp.jhu.edu/people/jelinek/promoce.html" Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia (November 22, 2001). Retrieved on December 17, 2010. Honoris causa degree acceptance speech.

Youth

“A faith, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment changes. It is not a gentle process in either case. … It's nice to have grizzly bears and wolves living in the wild. They are no longer a menace; we can peacefully co-exist, with a little wisdom. The same policy can be discerned in our political tolerance, in religious freedom. You are free to preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does not become a public menace. We're all on the Earth together, and we have to learn some accommodation. … The message is clear: those who will not accommodate, who will not temper, who insist on keeping only the purest and wildest strain of their heritage alive, we will be obliged, reluctantly, to cage or disarm, and we will do our best to disable the memes they fight for. Slavery is beyond the pale. Child abuse is beyond the pale. Discrimination is beyond the pale. The pronouncing of death sentences on those who blaspheme against a religion (complete with bounties or reward for those who carry them out) is beyond the pale. It is not civilized, and it is owed no more respect in the name of religious freedom than any other incitement to cold-blooded murder. … That is — or, rather, ought to be, the message of multiculturalism, not the patronizing and subtly racist hypertolerance that "respects" vicious and ignorant doctrines when they are propounded by officials of non-European states and religions.”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Death , Wisdom , Faith , Religion

“It were doubtless to be wished, that the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves had not been postponed until the year 1808, or rather that it had been suffered to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to account, either for this restriction on the general government, or for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that period, it will receive a considerable discouragement from the federal government, and may be totally abolished, by a concurrence of the few States which continue the unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example which has been given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before them of being redeemed from the oppressions of their European brethren!”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Federalist No. 42 http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes/slavery.html
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Suffering , Happiness

“That is the wishful thinking by some interested parties. India and China are going to be the powers that will shape the 21st century. China knows it. India is conscious of it. Together, we can make a distinctive contribution toward global development and shaping of global disputes.”

S. M. Krishna (1932) Indian politician

Describing China and India, October 29, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4001697.stm

Thinking

“It is erroneous to consider the multiplication (or increase) of needs as a sign of progress, to think that it is necessary to arouse in the people still unpolished (or rough), new needs to bring them to a more civilised life. Similarly ("de même", Fr.) it is erroneous to expect (or want, or wish, - "vouloir," Fr.) to measure (or assess) the degree of culture of a man to the degree of refinement he make (or deploy, or unfold) in his methods ("modes", Fr.) of pleasure”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

"jouissance", Fr.
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 48 - Gandhi wrote something that is almost word for word the same, in All men are brothers.

Life , People , Pleasure , Thinking

“If E1 is the cause of E2, then a small variation (a mark) in E1 is associated with a small variation in E2, whereas small variations in E2 are not associated with variations in E1. If we wish to express even more clearly that this concept does not contain the concept of temporal order, we can express it in the following form, where events that show a slight variation are designated E*: E1E2, E1*E2*, E1E2* and never the combination E1*E2.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

“It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Winston Churchill, Speech to House of Commons on 12th November 1940, 3 days after his death.
About

Love , World , Peace , Faith

“Here I must inject a personal note—I never shed blood upon the field of Sidwell Friends, nor did I fight the battles of Yale Law. I am a miner's son, and my father was a self-made man who unmade himself during my youth. Education was not a family legacy, and my kin belonged to the United Mine Workers of America, not to Skull and Bones. My forebears fought this country's wars from the bottom ranks, and I began my own military career as a private. I have felt the full arrogance of those to whom much was given, and personally, wish that I might come to bury the elite, not to praise them. Yet, those who would rise need examples to emulate. It grates on me to write it, but our military needs a return of the nation's elite to the officer corps, to the extent that a traditional elite, with its spotty but essential ideals of service, still exists.”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

autobiographical aside from Beyond Terror, p. 319. Originally part of an essay entitled "Hucksters in Uniform" which appeared in the May 1999 edition of The Washington Monthly.
1990s, Hucksters in Uniform (1999)

War , Youth , Education , Family

“Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none. He is a madman, an immolator, wishful of burning, and slaughter, and sacrificing.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

As quoted in Peter Kropotkin : From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 407

History

“I am God of Origin, God in Truth. There is causality in this Residence. At this time I have descended here to save all humankind. I wish to receive Miki as the Shrine of God.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, p. 1
The Life of Oyasama

God , Truth , Time

“That woman I once was,
in a black agate necklace,
I do not wish to meet again
till the Day of Judgement.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Poem without a Hero (1963)

“Arthur had heard Peggy say that she didn’t wish for more comfortable furniture, because if the chairs were softer, company would be inclined to stay longer.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 17 “Foundation” (p. 334).

“Äärelä (Minne muistot matkaa): I wish that in my mind I'll always be able to find my way back to these special moments of ours. A wedding waltz.”

Pauli Hanhiniemi (1964) Finnish musician and composer

Way , Wedding

“Indeed when we trace it all back to its origin we find at the beginning of this unhappy story a man who was only an emperor and wished to be something more. He would have ruled the world but has only meddled with it; and his folly has brought misery to millions, and there lies his broken dream on the broken earth.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

Tales of War http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5713, The Nightmare Countries

World , Dreams

“The question about “good origins” becomes the crux for enlightenment. It becomes more and more clear that this idea of origin has not a temporal but a Utopian reference. The Good is still nowhere to be found, except in the wishful human spirit.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 56

Idea , Question

“In the first days
Of my distracting grief, I found myself
As women wish to be who love their lords.”

John Home Douglas

Act i, scene 1.
Douglas (first performed 1756)

Love , Women

“Whenever I go anywhere I find persons in humble situations who smile at me and wish me well. I smile back and wish them well. It is because at some time or other I have tipped them. To me the system has never been an annoyance but a delightful opportunity for the exercise of tact and judgment.”

Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) American politician

Bohemian San Francisco, Its Restaurants and Their Most Famous Recipes—The Elegant Art of Dining http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9464/pg9464.html, 1914, by Clarence E. Edwords
1810s

Smile , Exercises , Time , Personality

“Star Trek never really caught on with audiences, ran for three seasons, and was canceled. I wish I had taken notes at the time, because you people sure do have a lot of questions about it.”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at large, by William Shatner and Chris Regan (2011), "Shatner Rules Deluxe: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large" https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1101564148 William Shatnerwith Chris Regan

People , Star , Question , Time

“Don't ask for what you'll wish you hadn't got.”
postea noli rogare quod inpetrare nolueris.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Seneca himself states that he is quoting a 'common saying' here.
Alternate translation: Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got. (translator unknown).
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCV: On the usefulness of basic principles, Line 1

“I know a hell of a lot about intercourse. I wish I knew less.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Norah Vincent, Sex, Love and Politics, id., p. 40, col. 4.

Hell

“When you get in these people when you… get these people in, say: 'Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that' ah, without going into the details… don't, don't lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, 'the President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again.' And, ah because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this case, period!”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

The 'smoking gun tape' on (23 June 1972)
1970s

People , Lie , Error , Feeling

“And therefore I wish, that in 50 years the citizens of Europe will say: At that time, in Berlin, the united Europe has set the course correctly. At that time, in Berlin, the European Union has pursued a good future. Then it has renewed its fundamentals to make its contribution inwards, on this old continent, as well as outwards, in this big-small world.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

Und so wünsche ich mir, dass die Bürgerinnen und Bürger Europas in 50 Jahren sagen werden: Damals, in Berlin, da hat das vereinte Europa die Weichen richtig gestellt. Damals, in Berlin, da hat die Europäische Union den richtigen Weg in eine gute Zukunft eingeschlagen. Sie hat anschließend ihre Grundlagen erneuert, um nach innen, auf diesem alten Kontinent, wie nach außen, in dieser einen großen-kleinen Welt, einen Beitrag zu leisten.
Speech at the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome on March 25, 2007
2007

World , Time , Future

“Your Excellency undoubtedly has frequently had under consideration a proper position for winter-quarters. It is not always in the power of a General to take a position most favorable to his wishes, on ac count of provision and forage, or to place himself in the most advantageous point of view for covering the country and securing his capital posts. A certainty with respect to provision and forage is an object of the first consideration in taking a position. All inferior evils, of whatever nature, may, in some sort, be remedied by foresight and precaution; but there is no contending with hunger. Therefore, what would be considered only as secondary objects in some cases, become principals here.”

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

Letter to George Washington (November 1779)

Hunger , Nature , Winter , Evil

“…it is preposterous to suppose that a thought could for a moment have been entertained that the President, placed at the capital, in the center of the country, could better understand the wants and wishes of the people than their own immediate representatives, who spend a part of every year among them, living with them, often laboring with them, and bound to them by the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection.”

William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (in office in 1841)

Inaugural address (March 4, 1841)

People , Understanding , Parting , Country

“In the languor of disease and the weariness of old age, the pleasures of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction. In this miserable aspect does greatness appear to every man when reduced either by spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation, and to consider what it is that is really wanting to his happiness. Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which, in spite of all our care, are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. …
But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those great objects of human desire, when in better health and in better humour, we never fail to regard them under a more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that accommodation which reigns in the palaces and economy of the great; and admire how every thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their most frivolous desires. If we consider the real satisfaction which all these things are capable of affording, by itself and separated from the beauty of that arrangement which is fitted to promote it, it will always appear in the highest degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely view it in this abstract and philosophical light. We naturally confound it, in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or economy by means of which it is produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered in this complex view, strike the imagination as something grand, and beautiful, and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it.
And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Chap. I.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part IV

Pain , Health , Pleasure , Youth

“I wish I could meet a Christian who would proselytize to me, but they keep running away from me. I wanna talk to you all.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Shock and Awe (2003)

“When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes,
I was your son, high on your horse,
My mind a top whipped by the lashes
Of your rhetoric, windy of course.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

On his father in "The Public Son of a Public Man" as quoted in TIMEmagazine (20 January 1986) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074981,00.html

Dreams , Horse

“These kinds of habits, in good company, are so very nauseous and disgusting, that if we indulge ourselves in them, no one can be very fond of our acquaintance. So far from it, that even those, who are inclined to wish us well, must, by these and the like disagreeable customs, be entirely alienated from us.— Those ill-bred people, who expect their acquaintance to love and caress them, with all their foibles, are as absurd as a poor ragged cinder-wench; who should roll about upon an heap of ashes, scrabbling and throwing dust in the face of every one that passed by; and yet flatter herself that she should allure some youth to her embraces, by these dirty endearments; which would infallibly keep him at a distance.”

Giovanni della Casa (1503–1556) Roman Catholic archbishop

Source: Galateo: Or, A Treatise on Politeness and Delicacy of Manners, p. 15

Love , People , Youth

“Let me tell you 'bout a girl I know
I met her walkin' down a uptown street
She's so fine you know I wished she was mine
I get shook up every time we meet”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"I'm Talking About You" (1961)
Song lyrics

Girl , Time

“I think that people imagine protocol and etiquette as some kind of great dragon that hovers behind the pageantries of the palace to pounce on you and eat you up if you aren't behaving as you should. But in fact etiquette is saying how to do when you meet people, saying good night to your parents before going to bed, opening a door to a woman, getting up if an older person wants to sit down on the bus and it's all full, that is etiquette, or protocol, if you wish. At the everyday level, all the time, all of us. It's a way of knowing what you've got to do so that you have your mind free to do other things and think of other things.”

Margrethe II of Denmark (1940) Queen of Denmark

Television documentary 'Queen Margrethe of Denmark', BBC & Jørgen Bonfils, 31:30, 28 April 1974.
Protocol

People , Way , Imagination , Thinking

“I wish more English teachers helped their students engage the classics at the level of raw delight, instead of putting them on the scent of symbols. A novel is not a cryptogram.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), P. S. (p. 15)

Teachers , Help

“What's left is only bittersweet
For the rest of my life,
admitting the best is behind me Now I'm drunk and afraid
Wishing the world would go away
What's the point of singing songs
If they'll never even hear you?”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Eugene"
Lyrics, Carrie and Lowell (2015)

Life , World , Singing

“Men's wishes are not always vain, nor is every life too brief to satisfy its possessor. Only when we attempt, from the point of view permitted by physics and biology, to sum up the possibilities of collective human endeavour, do we fully realise the "vanity of vanities" proclaimed by the Preacher.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

Life , Men

“Pat Buchanan likes to say we're in a culture war. The Civil War was a culture war, and brothers killed brothers. I wonder if they avoided dinner conversation about politics. What if this culture war turned into a real war? I'd look back on that dinner and wish that I'd ordered a side of argument.”

Ze Frank (1972) American online performance artist

http://www.zefrank.com/wiki/index.php/the_show:_06-08-06
"The Show" (www.zefrank.com/theshow/)

War

“Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of “robber of remorse” and that I place in myself all [the townspeople’s] repentence?”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Orestes to Electra, Act 2
The Flies (1943)

“One of the century’s most famous intellectual pronouncements comes at the beginning of The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” Reading this for the first time I was puzzled and continued to be throughout much of the essay, since despite the work’s persuasive logic and eloquence there was a lot that eluded me, and I always came back to grapple vainly with the initial hypothesis, unable to deal with the premise that anyone should come close to wishing to kill himself in the first place. A later short novel, The Fall, I admired with reservations; the guilt and self-condemnation of the lawyer-narrator, gloomily spinning out his monologue in an Amsterdam bar, seemed a touch clamorous and excessive, but at the time of my reading I was unable to perceive that the lawyer was behaving very much like a man in the throes of clinical depression. Such was my innocence of the very existence of this disease.”

William Styron book Darkness Visible

Source: Darkness Visible (1990), II

Life , Disease , Question , Problem

“The truth, of course, is that libertarianism wants to advance principles of property but that it in no way wishes to defend, willy nilly, all property which now is called private.Much of that property is stolen. Much is of dubious title. All of it is deeply intertwined with an immoral, coercive state system which has condoned, built on, and profited from slavery; has expanded through and exploited a brutal and aggressive imperial and colonial foreign policy, and continues to hold the people in a roughly serf–master relationship to political–economic power concentrations.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

"Letter From Washington," http://www.panarchy.org/hess/libertarianism.html The Libertarian Forum 1, no. 6 http://web.archive.org/web/20071201123614/http://mises.org/journals/lf/1969/1969_06_15.pdf (15 June 1969), p. 2

People , Truth , Way

“The great man folded his palms and bowed all around him. He had one of those either/or faces that all great Indian politicians have. This face says that it is now at peace—and you can be at peace too if you follow the owner of that face. But the same face can also say, with a little twitch of its features, that it has known the opposite of peace and it can make this other face yours too, if it wishes.”

Aravind Adiga book The White Tiger

The Third Night.
The White Tiger (2008)

Peace

“I do not propose to say many words tonight. The time has come when action rather than speech is required. Eighteen months ago in this House I prayed that the responsibility might not fall upon me to ask this country to accept the awful arbitrament of war. I fear that I may not be able to avoid that responsibility. But, at any rate, I cannot wish for conditions in which such a burden should fall upon me in which I should feel clearer than I do to-day as to where my duty lies…We shall stand at the bar of history knowing that the responsibility for this terrible catastrophe lies on the shoulders of one man—the German Chancellor, who has not hesitated to plunge the world into misery in order to serve his own senseless ambitions.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1939/sep/01/british-note-to-germany in the House of Commons (1 September 1939) on the British ultimatum to Germany
Prime Minister

War , World , Fear , Feeling

“When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul.”

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937

[Szent-Györgyi, Albert, The Crazy Ape: Written by a Biologist for the Young, 1970, 20-21, The Universal Library Crosset & Dunlap, A National General Company, New York, https://archive.org/details/isbn_0448002566, July 24, 2017, Internet Archive]

Money , War , World , Way

“When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.”

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

As quoted in Baseball's Greatest Quotes (1992) by Paul Dickson; cited in "Game Day in the Majors" at the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/robinson/jrgmday.html

Boy , Fish , Summer

“I am often asked if I would have liked to have been involved with Jurassic Park. The plain answer is no. Although excellent, it is not with all its dollars what I would have wished to do with my career. I was always a loner and worked best that way. Since the very beginning I fought and struggled under constant pressure to keep the design and final result within my hands. As time moved on this became more difficult, until I was forced to bow to the fact that my method of working, in the financial sense, was no longer practical. Model animation has been relegated to a reflection, or a starting point for creature computer effects that has reached a high few could have anticipated. However, for all the wonderful achievements of the computer, the process creates creatures that are too realistic and for me that makes them unreal because they have lost one vital element - a dream quality. Fantasy, for me, is realizing strange beings that are so removed from the 21st century. These beings would include not only dinosaurs, because no matter what the scientists say, we still don't know how dinosaurs looked or moved, but also creatures of the mind. Fantastical creatures where the unreal quality becomes even more vital. Stop-motion supplies the perfect breath of life for them, offering a look of pure fantasy because their movements are beyond anything we know.”

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013) American animator

Ray Harryhausen & Tony Dalton (2003), An Animated Life, Aurum Press, p. 8

Life , Dreams , Way , Sense

“There may be those who wish to hear more — more promises to this group or that — more harsh rhetoric about the men in the Kremlin — more assurances of a golden future, where taxes are always low and subsidies ever high. But my promises are in the platform you have adopted — our ends will not be won by rhetoric and we can have faith in the future only if we have faith in ourselves.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1960, The New Frontier

Men , Faith , Future

“Such, then, was the God of the worldly-minded, who would be grateful that he had organized the things of this world so that everything was in accordance with laws which they could understand, and that he did not interfere in their decisions when, as prudent and reasonable men, they wished to order their own destinies.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 93

Men , God , World , Law

“This is Harvey Milk speaking from the camera store on the evening of Friday, November 18. This is to be played only in the event of my death by assassination. I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes a target or the potential target for somebody who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed themselves. Knowing that I could be assassinated at any moment, any time, I feel it's important that some people know my thoughts. And so the following are my thoughts, my wishes, and my desires, whatever, and I'd like to pass them on and have them played for the appropriate people.”

Harvey Milk (1930–1978) American politician who became a martyr in the gay community

From a tape recording (1977-11-18) to be played in the event of his assassination, quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982, ISBN 0-31256-085-0), p. 275

Death , People , Feeling , Time

“I'm just a dark guy from a den of iniquity. A dark shadowy figure from the bowels of iniquity. I wish I could be Mike who gets an endorsement deal. But you can't make a lie and a truth go together. This country wasn't built on moral fiber. This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

As quoted in Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2002/05/01/sotys02.xml (2002).

Truth , Lie , Guy , Country

“I wish to know whether I must increase the number of pack-horses. Orders have been given for one thousand; but General Sullivan thinks near five hundred more will be wanted. It does not appear so to me; but I am not a good judge of the business. The Board of War are out of lead; and I fear the ammunition will not be ready. This is only conjectural.”

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

Letter to George Washington (24 April 1779)

War , Fear , Business , Thinking

“England is the country of the English… England is the stage on which the drama of English history was played and the setting within which the English became conscious of themselves as a people … when politicians and preachers attempt to frighten and cajole the English into pretending away the distinction between themselves and people of other nations and other origins, they are engaged in undermining the foundation upon which democratic government by consent and peaceable civilised society in this country are supported … those who at the end of the twentieth century wish to keep alive that consciousness of being English, which seemed so effortless and uncontroversial to our forefathers, will discover that they are called upon, if they take their purpose seriously, to confront the most arrogant and imposing prejudices of their time.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Speech to The Royal Society of St George (23 April 1988), from Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell (Phoenix, 1999), p. 918-19

People , History , Support , Time

“That it is a perfect absurdity to suppose that any body of men would ever take a man's money without his consent, for any such object as they profess to take it for, viz., that of protecting him; for why should they wish to protect him, if he does not wish them to do so? To suppose that they would do so, is just as absurd as it would be to suppose that they would take his money without his consent, for the purpose of buying food or clothing for him, when he did not want it.”

Lysander Spooner book No Treason

No Treason (1867–1870), No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority

Men , Money , Food , Perfection

“When I was first in Czechoslovakia, it occurred to me that I work in a society where as a writer everything goes and nothing matters, while for the Czech writers I met in Prague, nothing goes and everything matters. This isn't to say I wished to change places. I didn't envy their persecution and the way in which it heightens their social importance. I didn't even envy them their seemingly more valuable and serious themes. The trivialization, in the West, of much that's deadly serious in the East is itself a subject, one requiring considerable imaginative ingenuity to transform into compelling fiction.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

Paris Review Interview (1986)

Way , Imagination , Change , Envy

“All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: "I refuse to be what I am."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Interlude: West's Disease", p. 241
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“The manchildren, the mortals, have many ideas of what happens after they die, and wrangle about who is right and who is wrong. These disagreements often come to bloodshed, as if they wished to dispatch messengers who could discover the answer to their dispute. Such messengers, as far as I know of mortal philosophy, never return to give their brethren the taste of truth they yearn for.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 28, “Sparks” (p. 707).

Truth , Idea

“Benevolence is not a commodity that needs to be distributed sparingly like cake or chocolate. It is away of being, an attitude, an intention to do good for those who enter our sphere of attention and the wish to alleviate their suffering. Loving animals also does not mean loving humans less. In fact, by also loving animals we love people better, because our benevolence is then vaster and therefore of better quality. Someone who loves only a selection of sentient beings, even of humanity, is the possessor of only fragmentary and impoverished benevolence.”

Matthieu Ricard (1946) French writer and Buddhist monk

Source: A Plea for the Animals (2014), Chapter 5, p. 98

Love , People , Suffering , Animals

“Mostly the adult Indians did not wish their children to learn these arts from the emissaries of what they astonishingly considered an alien, false and hostile God.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 21

God , Hostility , Children , Art

“There is much to be said concerning retirement. Some men cannot survive it because they have not prepared themselves for it. For the man who has retained his curiosity, retirement in old age can be the most enjoyable period of his life; but he must be aware of the emptiness of public renown and desire the peace of obscurity; he must still have the wish to learn and understand; in his village, his garden, or his house, he must have some restricted personal occupation. The wise man, after having given all his time to his public activities, now devotes himself entirely to his personal affairs and development; and this will be easier for him if he has been able to interest himself in poetry and the beauties of nature, even during his busiest years. For myself, I cannot imagine a pleasanter old age than one spent in the not too remote country where I could reread and annotate my favorite books. "The mind," says Montaigne, "must thrive upon old age as the mistletoe upon a dead oak."”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Life , Men , Books , Age

“By a ‘spontaneous disturbance’ we shall mean any change in the underlying conditions, the cause of which we are prepared to take for granted and do not wish to examine, but the effect of which on the domestic and external position of our two countries we wish to examine. By a ‘policy’ change we shall mean a change which the State or some public authority brings about as a result of a definite decision of State policy in order to achieve some given end of general economic policy and in particular to offset some of the effects of a ‘spontaneous disturbance’. Finally, by an ‘induced’ change is meant a change in some quantity which occurs on purely commercial principles because of the repercussions of some previous ‘spontaneous’ or ‘policy’ change.”

James Meade (1907–1995) British economist

Source: The balance of payments, 1951, p. 43; As cited in: Metaxas, Phillip Edmund, and Ernst Juerg Weber. Australia's contribution to international trade theory: The dependent economy model. (2013), p. 18

Decision , Change , Country

Quotes about wish page 27

Quotes about wish
page 27