Quotes about wish (3789 quotes, page 32)

“Yes, Johannes Vermeer [Dutch 17th century master painter] paints in thin layers – there is no waste effort – and those small dots – no, they are not like Seurat's, though they contain all the light the pointillist may have wished for, concentrated, hovering before the object, but not obliterating it... Vermeer is not a sun painter, but rather a moon-painter – like Uccello – that's good, it is the pure, final stage of art, the moment when it becomes more real than reality.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1942 - 1948, Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), pp. 357-58: in: 'A visit to the Metropolitan Museum with Gorky', Ethel Schwabacher]], 1947

Art , Reality , Effort , Light

“Our life is determined for us — and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing and only think of bearing what is laid upon us and doing what is given us to do.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Book V, ch. i
The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Life , Thinking

“I wish to say to you that I am innocent. I have never done a crime, some sins, but never any crime. I thank you for everything you have done for me. I am innocent of all crime, not only this one, but of all, all. I am an innocent man. I now wish to forgive some people for what they are doing to me.”

Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888–1927) Italian American anarchist executed by Massachusetts

Last words http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0823.html (April 15, 1920)

People , Forgiveness

“The farmer needs to learn different skills if he wants to cultivate, just as the doctor and hunter need to learn many things if they are to heal or hunt. And so must he who wishes to gain from the scripture and from Christ learn all rational and logical skills. He must go to geometry, music, grammar and philosophy itself and take from them what is useful, in order to defend his faith against those who plot to destroy it. If he does not do this, he is, as Plato says, like the athlete who turns up unprepared for the games.”

Eric Osborn (1922–2007)

Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge University Press: 2008), p. 63

Faith , Music , Game , Learning

“Indeed, if any man can say, that it is not an interesting question, whether his existence terminate at death, or is to be resumed at a future period, and then to continue for ever, he must be of a low and abject mind. To a rational being, capable of contemplating the wonders of nature, and of investigating the laws of it, and to a being of a social disposition, his existence, and the continuance of his rational faculties, must be an object of unspeakable value to him; and consequently he must ardently wish that christianity… may be true. For to a philosopher, who forms his judgment by what he actually observes, the doctrine of soul, capable of subsisting and acting when the body is in the grave, will never give any satisfaction. To every person, therefore, who is capable of enjoying his existence, the christian doctrine of a resurrection opens a glorious and transporting prospect.”

Joseph Priestley book An History of the Corruptions of Christianity

General Conclusions, Part I : Containing Considerations addressed to Unbelievers and especially to Mr. Gibbon
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)

Death , Law , Soul , Question

“We know that there are children out there whose parents do not take the kind of interest in their upbringing and in their existence that we would wish, but I don't think censorship is ever the solution to any problem, be it societal or be it the kind of information or ideas that you have access to.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

"Easy Access?" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec97/library_8-7.html by Spencer Michels, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (August 7, 1997)

Children , Idea , Problem , Thinking

“The Puerto Ricans forming the ranks of the gallant 65th Infantry on the battlefields of Korea … are writing a brilliant record of achievement in battle and I am proud indeed to have them in this command. I wish that we might have many more like them.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Quoted on 12 February 1951 in Tokyo http://www.valerosos.com/HonorandFidelity3.html#The_Korean_War:_1950

“We have known so much & shared & lost so much together—Even if it isn’t the way you wish now—I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

In a letter to David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron Harlech, as quoted in the article "The One That Got Away: A Trove of Jacqueline Kennedy’s Love Letters Has Been Found" (9 February 2017) http://www.vogue.com/article/jacqueline-kennedy-onassis-letters-david-ormbsy-gore

Love , Pain , Hope , Way

“The state does not function as we desired. The car does not obey. A man is at the wheel and he seems to lead it, but the car does not drive in the desired direction. It moves as another force wishes.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in A Fate Worse than Debt (1988) Susan George.
Attributions

Cars

“It is my greatest wish to enable our people to live with nothing to envy at the earliest possible date, and it is my greatest pleasure to work energetically, sharing my joys and sorrows with our people, on the road of translating my wish into reality.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Source: Response to questions from Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency (13 October 2011) http://naenara.com.kp/en/news/news_view.php?22+1477

People , Pleasure , Reality , Joy

“It may be that everywhere else in the world, the ascendance of Flower Power began and ended in the sixties, Mr. Speaker, but in Montreal it began in 1971 and ended yesterday when Guy Lafleur retired. This is the end of a great era, Mr. Speaker. I am certain that the House and the entire population of Canada will join me in wishing him good luck in the future and thanking him for the unforgettable moments he has given us.”

Guy Lafleur (1951) Canadian ice hockey player

Canadian MP Lorne Nystrom comments on Lafleur's retirement, in the House of Commons.
Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Guy Lafleur," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198802.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2003-03-16)
About

World , Guy , Flowers , Future

“I, George Carlin, being of sound mind, do not wish, upon my demise, to be buried or cremated. I wish to be BLOWN UP.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Last Words (2009)

“I believe the time is coming when this question must be laid hold of by a Government, and that Parliament will feel that it dare not treat it in future as it has treated it in the past. These great meetings, as Mr. Mill very justly said, were not meetings so much for discussion as they were meetings for demonstration of opinion, and, if you like, I will add for exhibition of force. (Cheers.) Such exhibitions, if they be despised and disregarded may become exhibitions of another kind of force…I have been insulted in past times…that I was in favour of peace at any price…I believe that however much any of us may abhor the thought that political questions in any country should ever again be settled by force, yet there is something in the constitution of our nature that when these evils are allowed to run on beyond a certain period unredressed, that the most peace-loving of men are unable to keep the peace. (Hear, hear.) And bear this in mind,—that, however much we may wish political questions to be settled by moral means, yet it is no more immoral for a people to use force in the last resort for the obtaining and the securing of freedom than it is for a Government by force to suppress and deny that freedom.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Loud cheers, the audience rising.
Speech in Manchester (25 September 1866), quoted in The Times (26 September 1866), p. 9.
1860s

Love , Men , People , Peace

“The artist is the only one who detaches himself from life, opposes his personality against it, he is the only one who orders things as he wishes them to be in place of things as they are. Thus for him life is not a fait accompli, it is something to remake, to do again. He takes possession of his gifts in order to continue, to change, He makes his choice, it is he who creates the conceptions of beautiful and ugly, those are the things to preserve, the things to change. At the seat of the things that it is necessary to change he puts his desires, his aspirations, in one word, his personality…”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

Vol. 1: 'My beautiful One, My Unique!', pp. 130-140
1895 - 1905, Lettres à un Inconnu, 1901 – 1905; Museo Communale, Ascona

Life , Beauty , Change , Personality

“Beware! By Allah the son of Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr) dressed himself with it (the caliphate) and he certainly knew that my position in relation to it was the same as the position of the axis in relation to the hand-mill. The flood water flows down from me and the bird cannot fly upto me. I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.
Then I began to think whether I should assault or endure calmly the blinding darkness of tribulations wherein the grown up are made feeble and the young grow old and the true believer acts under strain till he meets Allah (on his death). I found that endurance thereon was wiser. So I adopted patience although there was pricking in the eye and suffocation (of mortification) in the throat. I watched the plundering of my inheritance till the first one went his way but handed over the Caliphate to Ibn al-Khattab after himself.
(Then he quoted al-A`sha's verse):
My days are now passed on the camel's back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir's brother Hayyan.
It is strange that during his lifetime he wished to be released from the caliphate but he confirmed it for the other one after his death. No doubt these two shared its udders strictly among themselves. This one put the Caliphate in a tough enclosure where the utterance was haughty and the touch was rough. Mistakes were in plenty and so also the excuses therefore. One in contact with it was like the rider of an unruly camel. If he pulled up its rein the very nostril would be slit, but if he let it loose he would be thrown. Consequently, by Allah people got involved in recklessness, wickedness, unsteadiness and deviation.
Nevertheless, I remained patient despite length of period and stiffness of trial, till when he went his way (of death) he put the matter (of Caliphate) in a group and regarded me to be one of them. But good Heavens! what had I to do with this "consultation"? Where was any doubt about me with regard to the first of them that I was now considered akin to these ones? But I remained low when they were low and flew high when they flew high. One of them turned against me because of his hatred and the other got inclined the other way due to his in-law relationship and this thing and that thing, till the third man of these people stood up with heaving breasts between his dung and fodder. With him his children of his grand-father, (Umayyah) also stood up swallowing up Allah's wealth like a camel devouring the foliage of spring, till his rope broke down, his actions finished him and his gluttony brought him down prostrate.
At that moment, nothing took me by surprise, but the crowd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like the herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:
That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur'an, 28:83)
Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Known as the Sermon of ash-Shiqshiqiyyah (roar of the camel), It is said that when Amir al-mu'minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu'minin began looking at it, when Ibn `Abbas said, "O' Amir al-mu'minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it." Thereupon he replied, "O' Ibn `Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided." Ibn `Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu'minin could not finish it as he wished to.
Nahj al-Balagha

Death , Hunger , Children , People

“Both Socrates and Christ taught economic man to be at least slightly ashamed of himself when he failed to sacrifice the lower capacity to the higher. Freud is America’s great teacher, despite his ardent wish to avoid that fate. For it was precisely the official and parental shams of high ideals that Freud questioned. In their stead, Freud taught lessons which Americans, prepared by their own national experience, learn easily: survive, resign yourself to living within your moral means, suffer no gratuitous failures in a futile search for ethical heights that no longer exist—if they ever did.”

Philip Rieff (1922–2006) American sociologist

The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966)

Fate , Search , Failure , Question

“I wanna bite the hand that feeds me.
I wanna bite that hand so badly.
I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Radio Radio
Song lyrics, This Year's Model (1978)

“Turning away from the computer I saw through my own narrow window (at least it opened) the green, the blue, the flashes. I looked to the clock, the screen, the window. An hour passed, then two. I looked again at the clock and saw it had been only twenty minutes. I willed the second-hand, the minute-hand, the hour-hand to move faster, to deliver me to five o'clock when I would be released as from my prison term. Then suddenly I stopped, struck by the absurdity of wishing away the only thing I've got. Eight hours, eighty years, it was all too similar. Would I wish away the years until the day of my retirement, until my time was once again my own? At work I tried to keep busy to make the hours pass quickly. It was no different when watching television, socializing, moving frenetically--there are so many ways to kill time.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

A Language Older Than Words (2000)

Way , Business , Time

“I read your letters with my sister, and they give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please us two, when you talk in a religious strain,—not but we are offended occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of mysticism, more consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter—you say, “it is by the press [sic], that God hath given finite spirits both evil and good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and good men), a portion as it were of His Omnipresence!” Now, high as the human intellect comparatively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge, a distance between the Divine Mind and it, which makes such language blasphemy? Again, in your first fine consolatory epistle you say, “you are a temporary sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature.” What more than this do those men say, who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the second person of an unknown Trinity,—men, whom you or I scruple not to call idolaters? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily remind him of dependence; man, a weak and ignorant being, “servile” from his birth “to all the skiey influences,” with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a head generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the pride of speculation, forgetting his nature, and hailing in himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge; I wish not to cavil; I know I cannot instruct you; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New Testament (our best guide), is represented to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent: and in my poor mind ’tis best for us so to consider of Him, as our heavenly Father, and our best Friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of His nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of “dear children,” “brethren,” and “co-heirs with Christ of the promises,” seeking to know no further… God love us all, and may He continue to be the father and the friend of the whole human race!”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Lamb's letter to Coleridge in Oct. 24th, 1796. As quoted in Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (1905). Letter 11.

Love , Men , God , Children

“But, very well, I believe I know you very well,
Wish that you knew me too, very well,
And I think I can deal with everything going through your head.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)
Song lyrics, Music of My Mind (1972)

Thinking

“If I leave the Quarter-master's department, I should be glad of the South Carolina appointment. How ever, I shall wish to consult your Excellency upon the affair.”

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

Letter to George Washington (26 April 1779)

“So this is me swallowing my pride,
Standing in front of you
Saying I'm sorry for that night.
And I go back to December all the time.
Turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you,
Wishing that I realized what I had when you were mine.
I go back to December, turn around and make it all right.
I go back to December all the time.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Back to December.
Song lyrics, Speak Now (2010)

Freedom , Time , Night

“All that the conscious ego can do is to formulate wishes, which are then carried out by forces which it controls very little and understands not at all.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception (1954)

Understanding

“I love my gay male friends, but when I was a little girl, I always used to wish that I would be constantly surrounded by gorgeous guys, and I am, and I should have been more specific.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

Love , Guy , Girl

“"God is love"
"Love is blind"
If these be true, then God is blind: Simple logic would appear to have escaped the theologians. Res ipsa loquitur, love is not blind, neither God's love nor man's, though we all wish at times to escape God's eye, and though it must at times appear that the lover cannot see what we see—unless, of course, we are ourselves that lover.
Like God, the lover sees but forgives.”

Gene Wolfe book Home Fires

Home Fires (2011), Reflection 2
Fiction

Love , God , Lovers , Forgiveness

“Banda Singh was impelled by the purest of motives in consecrating himself for the liberation and independence of his people and was an embodiment of selflessness. He always lived up to the principles: ‘Wishing the advancement of the Panth, walking in the path of dharma, fearing sin, living up to truth,’ as enjoined by Guru Govind Singh, who never considered lying, intrigue and treachery as part and parcel of politics.”

Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716) Sikh military commander

Life Of Banda Singh Bahadur Based On Contemporary And Original Records Dr. Ganda Singh" https://archive.org/stream/LifeOfBandaSinghBahadurBasedOnContemporaryAndOriginalRecordsDr.GandaSingh/Life+of+Banda+Singh+Bahadur+Based+on+Contemporary+and+Original+Records+-+Dr.+Ganda+Singh_djvu.txt

People , Truth , Fear , Lying

“Time and persistence has shown me that I can succeed at sharing my art with others as a musician while running my own music business. And that kind of success is as good as I could have ever wished for.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

[Janus, Cicily, Radinsky, Ned, http://newfaceofjazz.com/?page_id=594, New Faces of Jazz: Bradley Joseph, (newfaceofjazz.com), 2010-08-01]

Art , Music , Business , Time

“The Muslim Mashaikh were as keen on conversions as the Ulama, and contrary to general belief, in place of being kind to the Hindus as saints would, they too wished the Hindus to be accorded a second class citizenship if they were not converted. Only one instance, that of Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangoh, need be cited because he belonged to the Chishtia Silsila considered to be the most tolerant of all Sufi groups. He wrote letters to Sultan Sikandar Lodi, Babur and Humayun to re-invigorate the Shariat and reduce the Hindus to payers of land tax and Jiziyah. To Babur he wrote,
“Extend utmost patronage and protection to theologians and mystics… that they should be maintained and subsidized by the state… No non-Muslim should be given any office or employment in the Diwan of Islam. Posts of Amirs and Amils should be barred to them. Furthermore, in confirmity with the principles of the Shariat they should be subjected to all types of indignities and humiliations. The non-Muslims should be made to pay Jiziyah, and Zakat on goods be levied as prescribed by the law. They should be disallowed from donning the dress of the Muslims and should be forced to keep their Kufr concealed and not to perform the ceremonies of their Kufr openly and freely… They should not be allowed to consider themselves equal to the Muslims.””

Abdul Quddus Gangohi (1456–1537) Sufi poet

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6

Law

“The Beer Shops licensed to have the Beer drunk on the Premises, are a Pest to the Community. They are Haunts of Thieves and Schools for Prostitutes. They demoralize the lower Classes. I wish you would turn your mind to consider Whether this Evil could not be abated. That Beer should be sold like anything Else, to be taken away by the Purchaser to be consumed at Home is most reasonable and the more People are enabled so to supply the labouring Classes the better, but the words “licensed to be drunk on the Premises” are by the common People interpreted as applicable to the Customers as well as to the Liquor, and well do they avail themselves of the License.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (20 October 1853), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 95-96.
1850s

People , School , Home , Communication

“The thought came and went, more wish than thought. Maria wasn’t good at considering her own emotions. Most of the time the girl found it hard to believe that what she felt might matter.”

Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer

Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 50 (p. 308)

Girl , Time

“The Jews must realize that their influence in Germany has disappeared for all time. We wish to keep our people and our culture pure and distinctive, just as the Jews have always demanded this of themselves.”

Hjalmar Schacht (1877–1970) German politician

Speech in Koenigsberg (18 August 1935), as quoted in The Trial of the Germans : An Account of the Twenty-Two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1997) by Eugene Davidson, p. 235.

People , Time

“You may choose, if you wish, to parrot the line that Watergate was a "long national nightmare," but some of us found it rather exhilarating to see a criminal President successfully investigated and exposed and discredited. And we do not think it in the least bit nightmarish that the Constitution says that such a man is not above the law. Ford's ignominious pardon of this felonious thug meant, first, that only the lesser fry had to go to jail. It meant, second, that we still do not even know why the burglars were originally sent into the offices of the Democratic National Committee. In this respect, the famous pardon is not unlike the Warren Commission: another establishment exercise in damage control and pseudo-reassurance (of which Ford was also a member) that actually raised more questions than it answered. The fact is that serious trials and fearless investigations often are the cause of great division, and rightly so.”

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

2006-12-29
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/12/our_short_national_nightmare.html
Our Short National Nightmare
Slate
1091-2339
referencing a quote by Gerald Ford
2000s, 2006

Law , Exercises , Question , Thinking

“A cure for old age is a very common wish,” Kurtz observed. “Dashed slug-a-beds want to be shot by a jealous husband, not a nurse bored with emptying the bedpan.”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 15, “Delivery Service” (p. 317)

Age

“No attack yet by Archmage. Wish he'd hurry up.”

Jonathan Stroud (1970) British writer of fantasy fiction

The Bartimaeus Trilogy Official Website, Bart's Journal

“'BUT science and art! You are denying science and art: that is you are denying that by which humanity lives.' People constantly make this rejoinder to me, and they employ: this method in order to reject my arguments without examination. 'He rejects science and art, he wishes man to revert to a state of savagery - why listen to him or discuss with him?' But this is unjust. Not only do I not repudiate science, that is, the reasonable activity of humanity, and art - the expression of that reasonable activity - but it is just on behalf of that reasonable activity and its expression that I speak, only that It may be possible for mankind to escape from the savage state into which it is rapidly lapsing thanks to the false teaching of our time. It is only on that account that I speak as I do.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What then must we do? (1886)

People , Art , Science , Time

“How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Claimed http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A668&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 by the evangelist Lady Hope; Reported in [They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions, 1989, Paul F., Jr., Boller, John, George, Oxford University Press, New York; Oxford, isbn - 978-0195064698, 88022115, [PN6081.B635 1989], 19] Darwin's daughter Henrietta refuted the claim, stating "I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. The whole story has no foundation whatever."
Misattributed

“My dear Sensier, - I shall be greatly obliged if after reading and sealing the enclosed letter, you will take it to Rue du Delta, No. 8. [Paris].... Jaque [common friend and painter] and I have settled to stay here [ Barbizon ] for some time, and have accordingly each of us taken rooms. The prices are excessively low compared to those in Paris; and as it is easy to get to town if necessary, and the country is superbly beautiful, we hope to work more quietly here, and perhaps do better things. In fact, we intend to spend some time here... I wish you good-bye, with many hearty embraces. Jacque sends you warm remembrances, and will answer your letter tomorrow.”

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) French painter

Quote from Millet's first letter to fr:Alfred_Sensier, from Barbizon, 28 June 1849; as cited by Julia Cartwright in Jean Francois Millet, his Life and Letters, Swan Sonnenschein en Co, Lim. London / The Macmillian Company, New York; second edition, September 1902, p. 95
1835 - 1850

Beauty , Hope , Time , Reading

“There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

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

Letter to Henry Lee (15 May 1826)
1820s

Truth , World , Fear

“I wish the Queen had died the night before the Royal Jubilee – I wish she’d just fucking died. But they wouldn’t have been able to tell us that she’d died. They would have had to hollow out her body and get that guy who plays Gollum to wear it.”

Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian

Give It Up for Comic Relief

Guy , Night

“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Coolidge's Inaugural Address (4 March 1925).
1920s

Life , Women , Men , Money

“On a long, lonesome highway east of Omaha
You can listen to the engine moanin' out its one-note song.
You can think about the woman or the girl you knew the night before.
But your thoughts will soon be wandering the way they always do,
When you're ridin' sixteen hours and there's nothin' much to do.
And you don't feel much like ridin', you just wish the trip was through.”

Bob Seger (1945) American singer-songwriter

Turn the Page.
Song lyrics, Back in '72 (1973)

Way , Feeling , Girl , Thinking

“I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

"National Animal Rights Convention", 1997 June 27.
On animal research and activism against it

Animals

“Wish I had concentrated; they said love was complicated.
But it was something I just fell into.
And it was overrated, but just look what I created!”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

I Heart ?, Beautiful Eyes (2008).
Song lyrics

Love

“It is not likely," remarked Joséphin Leclerc, "that the future will be such as you have seen it. I do not wish for the coming of socialism, but I dread it not. Collectivism at the helm would be quite another thing than is imagined. Who was it who said, carrying back his thoughts to the time of Constantine and of the Church's early triumphs : 'Christianity is triumphant, but its triumph is subject to the conditions imposed by life on all political and religious parties. All of them, whatever they may be, undergo so complete a transformation in the struggle that after victory there remains of themselves but the name and a few symbols of the last idea'?”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Source: The White Stone (1905), Ch. VI, p. 238

Life , Imagination , Idea , Time

“Yet, what is their violence compared to mine, which was to accept theirs, to make it mine, to wish it for myself, to intercept it, to utilize it, to force it upon myself, to know it, to premeditate it, to discern and assume its perils? But what was mine, willed and necessary for my defense, my toughness, my rigor, compared to the violence they underwent like a malediction, risen from an inner fire simultaneously with an outer light which sets them ablaze and illuminates us?”

Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal (1949)

Light

“We Neopagans … could even be mistaken for Christians, if our deeds did not differ so entirely from those of our more religious brethren. For we forgive those who have hurt us, we thank them for their neglect, we return good for evil, always supposed that the publication of an additional book is not an evil in itself. We even adapt ourselves to their wishes and tastes— we talk to them as they like to be talked to— we do not disdain to don the garment of Punchinello and make them laugh, where we perhaps have wept.”

Oscar Levy (1867–1946) German physician and writer

Preface, p. xiii.
The Revival of Aristocracy (1906)

Books , Forgiveness , Evil , Hurt

“I have such faith in Linton's love that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. X).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Love , Faith

“Your Excellency, I went without delay to the well of which Y. E. had written, and made a sketch of it, from which Y. E. will see how the matter stands; but I wish that sketch not to go alone, so send another with it of a well after the fashion of this country. Should these drawings appear to have been done in a manner not agreeable to the greatness of your illustrious Signorina, or in accordance with my humble desire to serve Y. E., I hope to be excused; and that Y. E. will ascribe, the cause to an earnest longing that the work should be done rapidly. I am entirely at command should the drawings be considered unsatisfactory, and am ready to furnish others..”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

Quote from Titian's letter to the Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, From Venice, Feb. 19, 1517; from the original in Marquis Campori's Tiziano e gli Estensi, p. 5; as quoted by J.A.Y. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle in Titian his life and times - With some account ..., publisher John Murray, London, 1877, p. 178-79
1510-1540

Hope , Fashion , Appearance , Drawing

“…it is already clear that the policies that we have been pursuing have brought about a profound cultural change in this country. That, indeed, is what it is all about. For that cultural change is the only route to the economic success that we all wish to see, and which is no longer promise but reality. No longer do people accept that economic policy should be about regulating everyone's lives and imposing penal tax rates, in the illusion that that will benefit those on lower incomes. Instead, it is now widely recognised except on the Opposition Benches that one cannot make the poor rich by making the rich poor and that there are enormous benefits in getting the state off people's backs, in transferring decision-making from the state to the people. And it is now abundantly clear that giving greater freedom and greater incentives has removed the shackles that have held back Britain for so many years and has liberated a great surge in enterprise.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1988/mar/21/budget-resolutions-and-economic-situation in the House of Commons (21 March 1988)

People , Reality , Decision , Freedom

“If they do not wish to confer the honour, I am the last person who would wish to receive it.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Remarks after Oxford University voted not to award her an honorary degree. Mail on Sunday (3 February 1985), quoted in John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady (London: Jonathan Cape, 2003), p. 399.
Second term as Prime Minister

Personality

“The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. It marks the end of the road for him, and for all who bullied and killed in his name. For the Baathist holdouts largely responsible for the current violence, there will be no return to the corrupt power and privilege they once held. For the vast majority of Iraqi citizens who wish to live as free men and women, this event brings further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever.”

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

2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)

Women , Men , Secret

“If we are to select our subjects or arrange our groups with a pictorial motive we must absolutely and entirely sacrifice every other consideration, and be prepared to cut out of our composition the prettiest and most interesting item, if by so doing composition pure and simple is improved. And if some subject you are attached to will not admit of composition or will not admit of your treating it pictorially, then photograph it if you wish, but never suppose that it will form a picture.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Methods - The practical application of means to end, p. 29

Motivation

“In the game of Dawn Card-Castles, fifty-two playing cards are stacked up into a castle in a draught-free space: the player can determine the dreams of the next night if he awakes before the castle collapses. Those players who wish to dream of Romance build their castle with the seven of hearts.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Drowning By Numbers

Dreams , Game , Heart , Night

“I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less in an all-knowing government.”

Robert A. Hall (1946) American politician

I'm Tired (February 19, 2009)

Thinking , Freedom

“I got shot in the guts at the Beaumont-Hamel show. It hurt like hell, let me tell you. They took me down to the field-hospital. I was busy dying, but a company-sergeant major had got it in the head, and he was busy dying, too; and he did die. Well, as soon as ever the sergeant-major died, they took out that long gut… and they put it into me, grafted it on somehow. Wonderful chaps, these medicos! … Well, this sergeant-major seems to have been an abstemious man. The lining of the new gut is much better than my old one; so I'm celebrating it. I only wish I'd borrowed his kidneys, too.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch.21.

Hell , Business , Hurt

“I wish I had a twin, so I could know what I'd look like without plastic surgery.”

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American comedian, actress, and television host

As quoted in On Being Blonde (2004), by P. Munier, p. 84

“So, too, when it is recorded that he drove the money changers from the temple. This, had it happened, would have been the act simply of one who had respect for this temple and not for the religion taught in it. It would seem that, at first, Christ believed substantially in the religion of his time; that afterward, seeing its faults, he wished to reform it; and finally, comprehending it in all its enormity, he devoted his life to its destruction.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

Life , Money , Religion , Time

“Everyone who wishes to help bring the world out of the economic woes will line up to get a chip implanted! It's safe, simple and already available. It's been tested on animals for years. One little chip under the skin and everyone can be identified and conduct business electronically! No more theft, bad checks, waiting for checks to clear, stolen credit cards, armored cars, stolen ID, waiting lines at stores or airports, etc. Just little archways to walk through that can quickly scan who you are and automatically deduct the “cash” from your account or verify your identity! Simple! Anyone who resists this “obvious solution” will be an enemy of the state. Oh, and one more minor insignificant thing. No more privacy or independence. Big brother will be watching everything.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 140

World , Cars , Business , Waiting

“I wish I had as much athleticism as she has to hop from sport to sport and win everything. Unfortunately I'm only good at ski racing and she still beat me!”

Lindsey Vonn (1984) American alpine skier

About Ester Ledecká in 2018; * Winter Olympics: Ester Ledecka - the snowboarder who won gold on borrowed skis
BBC
2018-02-17
Katie
Falkingham
http://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-olympics/43095089

Sport

“The atmosphere in [the last twenty] years has been, in many parts of the country, poisoned. I do not wish to say anything here about where the faults may lie. But I do want to say that I realise, as you do, that a great deal of the propaganda which has been done during the last twenty years—the propaganda of a kind that teaches class hatred—has in many places done its evil and its poisonous work…the work that has been done in that direction cannot be undone in a moment. And it will mean the utmost goodwill, the utmost force of example to bring about, to any great extent, something better and something on which we may erect a permanent and stable building.”

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

Speech in Leeds (13 March 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 66-67.
1925

Lie , Evil , Parting , Country

“I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me..”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

As quoted by Theodore F. Wolff in The Christian Science Monitor (25 March 1985)
Posthumous quotes

Effort , Light

“Those whose inclinations are at variance with the justice of God, knowing that his tribunal has been erected for the punishment of transgression, earnestly wish that that tribunal were overthrown. Under the influence of this feeling they are actually warring against God.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 4, p. 55
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , War , Justice , Feeling

“Sometimes I wish I had more people to relate to and refer to and talk to, but there are very few artists whose work I want to see. It all makes for a kind of loneliness.”

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) American artist

1970s - 1980s, interview with Deborah Salomon in 'New York Times', 1989

People , Loneliness

“As a medical doctor, it is my duty to evaluate the situation with as much data as I can gather and as much expertise as I have and as much experience as I have to determine whether or not the wish of the patient is medically justified.”

Jack Kevorkian (1928–2011) American pathologist, euthanasia activist

Quoted in "Years of Minutes"‎ - by Andy Rooney - 2004
2000s, 2004

“As I was led to keep in my study during many months worms in pots filled with earth, I became interested in them, and wished to learn how far they acted consciously, and how much mental power they displayed.”

Charles Darwin book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Introduction, p. 2-3. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=17&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881)

Study , Learning

“When self-knowledge reveals the answer it will be a living fact in your own experience. At any time you wish to experience the answer it will be there, just as you can say 'It is night' or 'It is day'. You will know, while the rest of the world is arguing and speculating.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

World , Knowledge , Time , Night

“I love CGI when it’s done well. It may sound strange coming from me, because if you watch my stuff in movies it’s happening right in front of you, but I wish we had CGI back then to solve some problems. Getting rid of an edge or enhancing stuff, which is what they have today. I love it when it’s done well.”

Tom Savini (1946) American actor, stuntman, director and makeup artist

Love , Problem

“Have good thoughts in your lives. Have good manners, be polite, and have good actions. Be good, have love, and be patient. Never think of harming others. Only think of helping people. Think that others should be made better and that you should be made better. That is how your heart should be. Always wish for good things for other people. If you do, then your life will never be ruined, and you will progress higher and higher, and your brothers and sisters will also become exalted. Please think about this. Amin. May God give you His grace.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Love , Life , God , People

“I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;
For every man's a fool to that degree:
All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
Ev'n they would have the power who want the will.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Juvenal, Satire X (1693), lines 156–159.

Fools

“At home you can never know what it is to be alone – absolutely alone, amidst thousands, as you can in a Chinese city, without one friend, one companion, everyone looking on you with curiosity, with contempt, with suspicion or with dislike. Thus to learn what it is to be despised and rejected of men – of those you wish to benefit, your motives not understood... and then to have the love of Jesus applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit... this is worth coming for.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Two: Over the Treaty Wall. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982, 363).

Love , Men , Home , Motivation

“I had every reason to believe that my collection would be permanently established in Sussex, and serve as the foundation for a County Museum. In that expectation I have… been utterly disappointed. …after the death of my noble and lamented friend, the late Earl of Egremont, the munificent patron of the Institution, the proposed measure was abandoned… I have therefore, in compliance with the wishes of my scientific friends, disposed of my entire collection to the Trustees of the British Museum. …that collection, which would have been of tenfold importance if located in the district from whence it was derived, and whose physical structure it was designed to illustrate, is now broken up, and will be dispersed through the cabinets of our National Institution… a time will assuredly come, when their endeavours to promote a taste for scientific knowledge among the intelligent inhabitants of Sussex, and to direct attention to the investigation of its physical phenomena, will he properly appreciated, and the failure of their attempt to secure to the county a collection so rich in its peculiar fossil and mineral productions, be remembered with regret.”

Gideon Mantell (1790–1852) British scientist and obstetrician

Vol. 1
The Wonders of Geology (1839)

Death , Disappointment , Intelligence , Failure

“Just as the mother influence is formative with a man's anima, the father has a determining influence on the animus of a daughter. The father imbues his daughter's mind with the specific coloring conferred by those indisputable views mentioned above, which in reality are so often missing in the daughter. For this reason the animus is also sometimes represented as a demon of death. A gypsy tale, for example, tells of a woman living alone who takes in an unknown handsome wanderer and lives with him in spite of the fact that a fearful dream has warned her that he is the king of the dead. Again and again she presses him to say who he is. At first he refuses to tell her, because he knows that she will then die, but she persists in her demand. Then suddenly he tells her he is death. The young woman is so frightened that she dies. Looked at from the point of view of mythology, the unknown wanderer here is clearly a pagan father and god figure, who manifests as the leader of the dead (like Hades, who carried off Persephone). He embodies a form of the animus that lures a woman away from all human relationships and especially holds her back from love with a real man. A dreamy web of thoughts, remote from life and full of wishes and judgments about how things "ought to be," prevents all contact with life. The animus appears in many myths, not only as death, but also as a bandit and murderer, for example, as the knight Bluebeard, who murdered all his wives.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

Source: Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (1994), The Animus, a Woman's Inner Man, p. 319 - 320

Love , Life , Death , God

““Thanks, awfully,” said Thomas. “Now… uh… what do I owe you for this?”
Finney’s reaction made him feel as if he had uttered some indecency. “Don’t mention payment, my son! Money is wrong—it’s the means whereby man enslaves his brother.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Thomas apologized sincerely. “Nevertheless, I wish there were some way for me to do something for you.”
“That is another matter. Help your brother when you can, and help will come to you when you need it.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 2 (pp. 24-25)

Money , Way , Feeling , Help

““Could you punish a heretic?”
“Madam, I do not know what a heretic really is. The word is made much of, these days. It seems to describe anyone you wish dead.””

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 2 (p. 27)

Dead

“You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement; only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style. And refrain from insult as much as you are able. Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home. If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabel, I'd cut my throat!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XI).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Death , Home , Imagination

“I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter; for I have not in the least disguised my sentiments, but have written freely without any conscious knowledge of prejudice for, or against any man, sectary or party whatever; but wish that good sense, truth and virtue may be promoted and flourish in the world, to the detection of delusion, superstition, and false religion; and therefore my errors in the succeeding treatise, which may be rationally pointed out, will be readily rescinded.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

"Preface"
Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784)

Truth , World , Religion , Error

“Khamenei is not the first ruler of Iran with whom poets have run into trouble. For some 12 centuries poetry has been the Iranian people’s principal medium of expression. Iran may be the only country where not a single home is found without at least one book of poems. Initially, Persian poets had a hard time to define their place in society. The newly converted Islamic rulers suspected the poets of trying to revive the Zoroastrian faith to undermine the new religion. Clerics saw poets as people who wished to keep the Persian language alive and thus sabotage the ascent of Arabic as the new lingua franca. Without the early Persian poets, Iranians might have ended up like so many other nations in the Middle East who lost their native languages and became Arabic speakers. Early on, Persian poets developed a strategy to check the ardor of the rulers and the mullahs. They started every qasida with praise to God and Prophet followed by panegyric for the ruler of the day. Once those “obligations” were out of the way they would move on to the real themes of the poems they wished to compose. Everyone knew that there was some trick involved but everyone accepted the result because it was good. Despite that modus vivendi some poets did end up in prison or in exile while many others spent their lives in hardship if not poverty. However, poets were never put to the sword. The Khomeinist regime is the first in Iran’s history to have executed so many poets. Implicitly or explicitly, some rulers made it clear what the poet couldn’t write. But none ever dreamt of telling the poet what he should write. Khamenei is the first to try to dictate to poets, accusing them of “crime” and” betrayal” if they ignored his injunctions.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry, Ashraq Al-Awsat (Jul 11, 2015).

God , People , Books , Faith

“It was the great multiplicity of the hadrons that led to the formulation of the quark model. Without some organizing principle such a large collecton of particles seemed unwieldy, and the possibility that they might all be elementary offended those who hold the conviction, or at leas the fond wish, that nature should be simple.”

Yoichiro Nambu (1921–2015) American physicist

"The confinement of quarks." https://www.jstor.org/stable/24950482?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Scientific American 235, no. 5 (1976): 48–63.

Nature

“How are you doing, make a good, simple [and] true thing, for example… I believe I have found a good place for it. Namely, I spoke Mr. about you and he expressed his wish that you should show him something good..”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

(translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018, version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Hoe gaat het met je werk, maak vooral een goed eenvoudig [en] waar dingetje.. ..ik geloof er een goed plaatsje voor te hebben. namelijk ik sprak den Heer over jou en hij drukte de wensch uit dat je hem iets goeds moet laten zien..
Quote of Mauve in his letter to painter , 1866; as cited in Archive P.A. Scheen, collectie RKD Den Haag http://delamar.bntours.nl/!mad1832-bronnen.html
Like
1860's

“One of the most remarkable changes was the extent to which indifference had come to prevail in matters of religious opinion. With regard to freedom of action, there would have been a stronger objection then than there was now in allowing the great majority of persons engaged in any particular trade to coerce the minority into their wishes. On the question of non-interference, he pointed out that the difficulties of laissez faire were now far more generally recognized than they were 40 or 50 years ago. For one reason or another there was now far less disposition to accept the doctrines of laissez faire than there was then, and they played a much smaller part in the ideal we formed of what was good for a nation.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech to the Economic Students' Union at the School of Economics and Political Science, London (14 December 1900), quoted in The Times (17 December 1900), p. 13.
1900s

Question , Freedom , Change , Parting

“I'm not a career filmmaker and by that I'm not tearing down people who are, but I'm not Wes Anderson who can rent out a floor at the Chateau Marmont for a month to write my new screenplay--I have a life outside of filmmaking and after Buffalo '66, I genuinely thought I was done with making movies. But they pulled me back in. This Brown Bunny, it had something in it for me that I just had to say. I had to express it, it was in me and it ate its way out of me. I wished that it didn't, but it did and I was surprised to find myself shooting again.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Film Freak Central Interview

Life , People , Way , Tear

“The point I wish to make is that I became aware that we discipline our minds to see only certain aspects of the world; life is complicated, and we need all our wits about us to deal with its complexities. There would be no great point in having second sight or thaumaturgic powers for most of us. But it is worth observing that they can generally be developed where needed.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs (1964), p. 240

Life , World

“When setting out upon your way to Ithaca,
wish always that your course be long,
full of adventure, full of lore.”

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet

" Ithaka http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_17.htm", l. 1 (1911)

Way

“Trump won because he was forcing the media and politicians to talk about real problems facing the country, not recycling the same bromides the GOP has been pushing for the past thirty years. Those may be okay ideas for another time, but not when the country is about to be permanently transformed into a new country, know as "California" where all those zippy Republican ideas have less chance of becoming law than the wish list of the Wicca online community.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2016, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (2016)

Law , Communication , Idea , Problem

“And lastly, Chairman Khrushchev has compared the United States to a worn-out runner living on its past performance, and stated that the Soviet Union would out-produce the United States by 1970. Without wishing to trade hyperbole with the Chairman, I do suggest that he reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger's skin long before he his caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.”

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

President Kennedy's 13th News Conferences on June 28, 1961 John Source: F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/Press-Conferences/News-Conference-13.aspx
1961

Idea , Past

“The whole iconography of ancient science is simply the fruit of wishful thinking.”

George Sarton (1884–1956) American historian of science

Preface.
A History of Science Vol.2 Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C. (1959)

Thinking , Science

“As long as there is enough strength to reach out to those who come to me, to place my hand on a crying person’s shoulder, Amma will continue to give darsan. To lovingly caress people, to console and wipe their tears until the end of this mortal frame—this is Amma’s wish.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

The Timeless Path (2009)

People , Tear , Personality , Cry

“Mon ami, if you wish to catch a rabbit you put a ferret into the hole, and if the rabbit is there he runs. That is all I have done.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

“Clara:
Neighbours, dear friends, ye dream, ye dream : awake!
Gaze not on me with sadly wondering eyes,
I only bid you to your actual wish.
My voice is but the voice of your own hearts.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette (7th March 1835)
Translations, From the German

Dreams , Heart

“Christians today disagree on the sequence of these events but my 44-year study has convinced me that the historic position that the church held to for 2,000 years is right! They taught that the “rapture” (the catching away of living believers when the Lord returns) happens AFTER the tribulation but BEFORE the wrath of God falls IN the Day of the Lord as shown above. The majority of believers in the world today agree. The “pre-trib” rapture idea, started by a 15 year old Scottish girl in 1830, that I held to for 39 years and that is held to by a VERY vocal minority today is WRONG, wishful thinking and will disappoint MANY causing them to “fall away.””

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 114

God , World , Disappointment , Girl

“[In air power] so far from being half as strong again as Germany, so far from making up lee-way, we are already greatly inferior in numbers and falling further and further behind every month. … No doubt it is not popular to say these things, but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth. There ought to be a few members of the House of Commons who are in a sufficiently independent position to confront both Ministers and electors with unpalatable truths. We do not wish our ancient freedom and the decent tolerant civilisation we have preserved in this island to hang upon a rotten thread.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the City Carlton Club (26 September 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Churchill Documents, Volume 12: The Wilderness Years, 1929–1935 (Michigan: Hillsdale Press, 2012), p. 1268
The 1930s

Truth , Way , Freedom , Strong

“We do not wish to penalise the machine for its inability to shine in beauty competitions, nor to penalise a man for losing in a race against an aeroplane. The conditions of our game make these disabilities irrelevant.”

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

Beauty , Game

“In a democratic republic, where the mass of the people of all parties have the same interest at stake, some respect must be had to the feelings and wishes of the minority, especially when that minority is large and clamorous; otherwise, it will be impossible to avoid discord, and discord weakens the bonds of union.”

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

Account of a conversation with Col. Richard M. Johnson in 1809, as recounted in A Biographical Sketch of Col. Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, p.12 (Saxton & Miles, New York, 1843)
1800s, Post-Presidency (1809)

People , Feeling

“Yes. I think it’s just because I forgot to cut it, and it’s a slightly different colour, so it’s an object of affection or ridicule, depending on whether you’re Steve Mangan or anybody else on the planet. I think your shaved version is very distinguished, incidentally. I wish I could carry it off. Unfortunately all you’d find under here is the FA Cup. My ears are shocking. They can get satellite TV.”

Julian Rhind-Tutt (1968) British actor

An interview on the Green Wing microsite asking if he had a preoccupation with his hair.

Thinking , Dependency