Quotes about wording (9378 quotes, page 37)

“We teach them that there are so many words like colors and that there are so many thoughts because within them is the world where words are born. That there are different thoughts and we should respect them. That there are those who pretend their way of thinking should be the only way and they persecute, jail, and kill (always hidden behind the reasons of the State, illegitimate laws, or "just causes") thoughts that are different then their own. And we teach them to speak the truth, that is to say, to speak with their hearts. Because the lie is another form of killing words.”

Subcomandante Marcos (1957) Mexican activist

"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet" http://www.csuchico.edu/zapatist/HTML/Archive/Communiques/etaJAN.html January, 2003

Truth , Lie , World , Law

“Life as we live it is obviously very brutal, and makes us insensitive, dull, heavy, stupid, and so we may hope through ideas, through ideational mentation, to bring about a certain quality of sensitivity.… But even when we are sharpened and quickened intellectually by argument, by discussion, by reading, this does not actually bring about that quality of sensitivity. And you know all those people who are erudite, who read, who theorize, who can discuss brilliantly, are extraordinarily dull people. So I think sensitivity, which destroys mediocrity, is very important to understand. Because most of us are becoming, I am afraid, more mediocre. We are not using that word in any derogative sense at all, but merely observing the fact of mediocrity in the sense of being average, fairly well educated, earning a livelihood and perhaps capable of clever discussion; but this leaves us still bourgeois, mediocre, not only in our attitudes but in our activities.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Part V, Ch. 3 : 3rd Public Talk Madras 14th January 1968 "The Sacred" http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/awakening-of-intelligence/1968-01-14-jiddu-krishnamurti-awakening-of-intelligence-the-sacred
1970s, The Awakening of Intelligence (1973)

Life , People , Stupidity , Education

“In country places a single word is inflected to mean a hundred things, so that only a recording of the sounds gives an idea of the speech of these people.”

Patrick Kavanagh (1904–1967) poet

p23
Prose, Tarry Flynn (1948)

People , Idea , Country

“Real learning… is a thing in which the learner is not a receiver only of words written or spoken: he must be a doer.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

Learning

“What [Obama] is talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don't want this to work. So I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "Okay, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails."”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails
The Rush Limbaugh Show
2009-01-16
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2009/01/16/limbaugh_i_hope_obama_fails

Health , Hope , Guy , Business

“The story of the English writing system is so intriguing, and the histories behind individual words so fascinating, that anyone who dares to treat spelling as an adventure will find the journey rewarding.”

David Crystal (1941) British linguist and writer

David Crystal. Spell It Out: The singular story of English spelling. 2012. p. 277-8

History

“The transformation of our desires happens like all spiritual transformation - by following in the steps of Jesus. In a word, I believe the answer is suffering.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

Suffering

“When recalling historical experience, the testimony of ancient times, the proofs of the present reality, and the things that we are experiencing today, we begin to truly understand God's words: "They are the enemies; so beware of them. The curse of Allah be on them!" Ibn Taymiyyah was right in his description of these people when they repudiated the people of Islam. He said: This is why they cooperated with the infidels and the Tartars… They were the main cause of the invasion of Muslim countries by Genghis Khan… Some of them cooperated with the Tartars and Franks (European Crusaders)… some of them (Shiites) backed the Christians….. They (Shiites) harbor more evil and rancor against Muslims, big and small, devout and non-devout, than anyone else…. They enjoy repudiating and cursing Muslim leaders, especially the orthodox caliphs and the ulema (clerics). To them, anyone who does not believe in the infallible Imam (Al-Mahdi) is a nonbeliever in God and the prophet… whenever Christians and infidels triumphed over, it was a day of jubilation… This is the end of what Shaykh-al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said about them. It is as if he is living among us today, an eyewitness of what is taking place, and saying… They always support infidels, including Jews and Christians. They help them in killing Muslims.”

Abu Musab Zarqawi (1966–2006) Jordanian jihadist

Zarqawi Letter February 2004 Coalition Provisional Authority English translation of terrorist Musab al Zarqawi letter obtained by United States Government in Iraq https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm, (April 6, 2004)

God , People , Understanding , Support

“As part of my current charge I have been instructed to provide an occasional journal of my recent activities*.
* I avoid the term blog, since coincidentally this word is also the name of a repulsive sub-caste of foliots, characterised by ooze, fleshy folds and gills of blue-grey gristle. Think slugs, but with worse personalities.”

Jonathan Stroud (1970) British writer of fantasy fiction

The Bartimaeus Trilogy Official Website, Bart's Journal

Thinking , Parting , Personality

“The writer is of service to humankind only insofar as the writer uses the word even against his or her own loyalties, trusts the state of being, as it is revealed, to hold somewhere in its complexity filaments of the cord of truth, able to be bound together, here and there, in art: trusts the state of being to yield somewhere fragmentary phrases of truth, which is the final word of words, never changed by our stumbling efforts to spell it out and write it down, never changed by lies, by semantic sophistry, by the dirtying of the word for the purposes of racism, sexism, prejudice, domination, the glorification of destruction, the curses and the praise-songs.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

Writing and Being (1991)

Truth , Art , Effort , Change

“By my monastic life and vows I am saying No to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials, the judicial murders, the racial injustices, the economic tyrannies, and the whole socio-economic apparatus which seems geared for nothing but global destruction in spite of all its fair words in favor of peace.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation, pp. 81-82

Life , Peace

“You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Preguntaréis: ¿Y dónde están las lilas?
¿Y la metafísica cubierta de amapolas?
¿Y la lluvia que a menudo golpeaba
sus palabras llenándolas
de agujeros y pájaros?
Explico Algunos Cosas (I'm Explaining a Few Things or I Explain a Few Things), Tercera Residencia (Third Residence), IV, stanza 1.
Alternate translation by Donald D. Walsh:
You will ask: And where are the lilacs?
And the metaphysical blanket of poppies?
And the rain that often struck
your words filling them
with holes and birds?
Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1933)

Bird

“Verse no longer stands at the centre of communicative discourse. It is no longer, as it was from Homer to Milton, the natural repository of knowledge and traditional sentiment. It no longer gives to society its main record of past grandeur or its natural setting for prophecy, as it did in Virgil and Dante. Verse has grown private. It is a special language which the individual poet insinuates, by force of personal genius, into the awareness of his contemporaries, persuading to learn and perhaps hand on his own uses of words. Poetry has become essentially lyric — that is to say, it is the poetry of private vision rather than of public or of national occasion.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Source: The Death of Tragedy (1961), Ch. IX (p. 309).

Communication , Nature , Knowledge , Learning

“Words are but empty thanks.”

Colley Cibber (1671–1757) British poet laureate

Woman's Wit, Act V (1697).

“For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty, I should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under that. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were distinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a man's "intellectual nature," and of his "moral nature," as if these again were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all. But words ought not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but names; that man's spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a man, what is this but another side of the one vital Force whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiognomical of him. You may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings; his courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is one; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Way , Error , Imagination , Courage

“Remember when the British were defeated at Dunkirk during the Second World War? Well, in 1945 they were in Berlin. In other words, the fall of Puerto Argentino will not mean the end of conflict or our defeat. I therefore have no regrets. Indeed, I am not alone in believing that what we did on April 2 was right. All the Argentine people believe this.”

Leopoldo Galtieri (1926–2003) Argentine military dictator

Reportaje de Oriana Fallaci a Leopoldo F. Galtieri http://archivohistorico.educ.ar/content/reportaje-de-oriana-fallaci-leopoldo-f-galtieri#sthash.ZQrMQt2O.dpuf, Revista El porteño, August 1982

War , People , World

“Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother’s, when she feels
For the first time her first-born’s breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke!
Come in consumption’s ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm!
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song, and dance, and wine!
And thou art terrible!—the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know or dream or fear
Of agony are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet’s word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.”

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867) American writer

Marco Bozzaris.

Death , Fear , Dreams , Art

“Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.”

Ernest Hemingway book Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 7

Understanding

“Have you ever seen Spode eat asparagus?'
'No.'
'Revolting. It alters one's whole conception of Man as Nature's last word.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

Nature

“Since I was a child, I’ve used my imagination to escape from life. At the same time, my imagination has plagued me with both reality-based anxieties as well as anxieties based entirely in the imagination, such as the fear of Hell I was taught to have by the Catholic Church. Paired with a talent for literary composition, a talent that it took me over ten years to refine, I became a writer of horror stories. To my mind, writing is the most important form of human expression, not only artistic writing but also philosophical writing, critical writing, etc. Art as such, especially programmatic music such as operas, seems trivial to me by comparison, however much pleasure we may get from it. Writing is the most effective way to express and confront the full range of the realities of life. I can honestly say that the primary stature I attach to writing is not self-serving. I’ve been captivated to some degree by all forms of creativity and expression—the visual arts, film, design of any sort, and especially music. In college I veered from literature to music for a few years, which is the main reason it took me six years to get an undergraduate degree in liberal arts. I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. Since my instrument is the guitar, I know every form and style in its history and have written the classical, acoustic, and electric forms of this instrument. I think because I have had such a love and understanding of music do I realize, to my grief, its limitations. Writing is less limited in the consolations it offers to those who have lost a great deal in their lives. And it continues to console until practically everything in a person’s life has been lost. Words and what they express have the best chance of returning the baneful stare of life.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Wonderbook Interview with Thomas Ligotti http://wonderbooknow.com/interviews/thomas-ligotti/

Love , Life , Pleasure , Fear

“I have undertaken to say a few words to you on the "Art of Questioning". It is a subject of great importance to all of you who desire to become good teachers; for, in truth, the success and efficiency of our teaching depend more on the skill and judgment with which we put questions than on any other single circumstance.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Joshua G. Fitch. The art of questioning https://archive.org/stream/artofquestioning00fitcrich#page/n7/mode/2up. 9th edition. Published 1879. pp. 78

Truth , Art , Question , Teachers

“The political prisoner’s words or deeds have in one form or another embodied political protests against the established order and have consequently brought him into acute conflict with the state. In light of the political content of his act, the “crime” (which may or may not have been committed) assumes a minor importance. In this country, however, where the special category of political prisoners is not officially acknowledged, the political prisoner inevitably stands trial for a specific criminal offense, not for a political act.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

If They Come in The Morning (1971)

Light , Country

“Here's why I think there's something a little odd with George [Bush]. Because a lot of the times when he speaks, his words don't match his face. Something is askew. You can't talk about the war with a smile on your face. He does it constantly. If you're the President, you should go "We're going to talk about the war, I must have a frowny face." The only time you can smile when you're talking about the war in Iraq is when you go, "Well, two Iraqis walk into a bar, hahaha."”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

Red, White, and Screwed (2006)

War , Smile , Thinking , Time

“Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams,
Words!”

Charles Baudelaire Le Gouffre

Hélas! tout est abîme, — action, désir, rêve,
Parole!
"Le Gouffre" [The Abyss], Nouvelles Fleurs du Mal (1862) http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Gouffre

Dreams

“Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 170

Love

“Remember the words George Carlin said could not be said on TV? There's now a kind of movie that cannot be made without using all of them except one. Even the online trailer may startle you. It's one of those adults-only Red Band Trailers which you have to give your age in order to view. I lied about my age. Nobody under 17 would ever do that.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sitter-2011 of The Sitter (7 December 2011)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Age

“Scientific information is faced with the following problem. On the one hand, we have the world’s literature of science and technology, past and present, in many languages; on the other, and enquirer with a question. How to select, from a vast mass of words, the few that are the most closely relevant to an enquiry? It is this selection process that makes use of classification.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Classification and indexing in science (1958), Chapter 1: The need for classification, p. 3.

World , Literature , Question , Problem

“And Hindu society which constitutes the nation has been driven into a corner. Hindu leaders have been made to cry that they are not communalists, that they have renounced revivalism, that they cherish Islam as a great religion, that they regard Islamic heroes as their own heroes, that they have no use for people who regard the prevalent mode of secularism as perverse, and that they are fed up with that ‘lunatic fringe’ which still continues to take pride in the national heritage. …. The nation will never be able to get out of this tight corner till it clears up the terminological confusion, stops making use of meaningless words like communalism and revivalism, and rewrites its books of history, politics, and sociology in an exact and appropriate language. This exact language will substitute Nationalism for Hindu Communalism, National Resurgence for Hindu Revivalism, Islamic Atavism for Muslim Revivalism, and Islamic Imperialism for Muslim Communalism. Then alone the various elements and forces struggling for supremacy in the country at present will fall into their proper places, and come out in their true colours.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

People , Books , Religion , History

“Having faith in the future starts with building confidence in one's self, being honest with one's self, and having the courage to live one's life, not perfectly, but authentically. Each one of us matters. Our choices matter. Our thoughts, words and deeds matter. Live each day with joy, and embrace the opportunities that will enable you and your community to grow and blossom.”

Elizabeth Kucinich (1977) British activist

"Stand up, Embrace your power, Be your greatest you", in ElizabethKucinich.com (2016) https://www.elizabethkucinich.com/.

Life , Faith , Confidence , Communication

“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 4 : Public Enemy

Way , Memory

“O Christians! are you willing to walk the streets of heaven, and have no one greet you there? Would you be willing to go yourselves inside the gates and never have a soul to greet you and say, " I thank God for the kind words of sympathy and love you spoke on earth?"”

Joseph Cummings

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 561.

Love , God , Soul

“The idea has grown up that the scientific approach can alone properly be said to be intellectual, whereas the approach of religion cannot, and that therefore the tendency of religion is to impede intellectuality. This is not to be wondered at in people for whom the word "intellectuality" implies no more than conformity to the scientific approach; but if the goal of intellectuality is not a better understanding of the origin, nature and end of man and of the universe, what is it? It is just such an understanding that religion claims to offer, and in so far as that claim is justified, religion, very far from impeding intellectuality, is an essential part of it.”

Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne (1896–1982) British rower, agriculturalist and translater

Intellectual Freedom (1971)

People , Religion , Idea , Understanding

“Narrated Abu Bakra: During the battle of Al-Jamal, Allah benefited me with a Word (I heard from the Prophet). When the Prophet heard the news that the people of the Persia had made the daughter of Khosrau their Queen (ruler), he said, "Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

[9, 88, 219]
Sunni Hadith

People , Daughters

“The reconciliation, tolerance and unity already entrenched in the Bible is more than enough for us to do the only thing left for us to do - to be doers of the Word and not only hear it and deceive ourselves.”

Esala Tuibua

Comments on the government's proposed Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Unity Bill, 2 August 2005

“You never read about the real pain. It lives where no word can travel.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

"Where No Word Can Travel"
Rewards of Passion (Sheer Poetry) (1981)

Pain , Travel , Reading

“One simple word: ugh. Is something still considered a conspiracy if it's played out right under our noses?”

Moby (1965) Activist, American musician, DJ and photographer

"oil industry", journal entry (21 January 2003) at moby.com http://www.moby.com/journal/2003-01-21/oil_industry.html

“In other words…you can't be a misogynist and expect women to appreciate you.”

Brian Keith (1921–1997) actor

Born-Today.com

Women

“The word "restraint" implies the asking of an essential question, one that is more important now than ever, and is antithetical both to capitalism and to science as we practice them: Because we can do something, must we do it?”

Fenton Johnson (1953) American novelist

"Going it alone" (2015)

Question , Science

“Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient trees.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Introduction, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Tree , Past , Future

“Any education that matters is liberal. All the saving truths, all the healing graces that distinguish a good education from a bad one or a full education from a half-empty one are contained in that word.”

Alan Simpson (1931) American politician

Alan Simpson (b. 1912), an English born educator who became a U.S. citizen in 1954, in "The Marks of an Educated Man" in Readings for Liberal Education (1962), edited by by Louis Glenn Locke, William Merriam Gibson, and George Warren Arms, p. 47.
Misattributed

Truth , Education

“As regards Ramakrishna’s “practice of Islam and Christianity” of which the Mission makes so much, it finds no mention in the Gospel, the earliest and most authentic account of Ramakrishna’s thoughts and experiences in his own words. In this work we find that though Ramakrishna reminisces often about his experiences and God-filled states, there is hardly a word about his so-called practice of Islam and Christianity…. It also seems that the practice of Islam and Christianity made a less than deep impression on Ramakrishna, for subsequently he does not mention on his own initiative either Muhammad or the Koran, neither Jesus nor the Bible. Not even once! Nor did he draw from” his practice such excessive and indiscriminate conclusions as Mission monks now do.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Ramakrishna Mission. (1986). Ramakrishna Mission: In search of a new identity.

God , Drawing

“I observed, "Love is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment." It is not only "the first and great" command, but all the commandments in one. "Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," they are all comprised in this one word, love.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Wesley quoting his own sermon on "The Circumcision of the Heart" (1 January 1733) in the work A Plain Account Of Christian Perfection (Edition of 1777)
General sources

Love , Law

“Every set is a man's world. Even on 'The L Word,' the crew was primarily men. The whole world is a man's world, unless you're in a nunnery. And even that is colored by what you're allowed, what doctrine you're allowed to practice.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview at Reading Eagle (13 February 2011) http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=286772.

Men , World , Color

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

David Whitmer (1805–1888) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

Men , God , People , Faith

“Words take their meaning from the original word.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All Will be Well (2004)

“The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men, the shock troops of a hateful ideology, gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the beginning of the end of America. By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.”

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

2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)

Men , Hate , War , World

“People use the word "natural" … What is natural to me is these botanical species which interact directly with the nervous system. What I consider artificial is four years at Harvard, and the Bible, and Saint Patrick's cathedral, and the sunday school teachings.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

LSD: Methods of Control (1966)

People , School , Nature

“I have to acknowledge what I need in my life. If I want peace, I have to acknowledge it. I have to say to myself, in the simplest of words, 'Yes. I feel the thirst for peace.' I can use fancy words to impress other people, but I cannot use fancy words to impress me. If I want to impress me, I have to speak the truth. Maybe to the world, truth is a scary word, but truth is what the heart wants to hear. That thirst needs to be quenched. Peace is what the heart needs to feel.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Address by Prem Rawat to members of the Italian Parliament (July 2004)
2000s

Life , People , Truth , World

“Socrates is not using dialectic to understand rhetoric, he is using it to destroy it, or at least to bring it into disrepute, and so his questions are not real questions at all—they are just word-traps which Gorgias and his fellow rhetoricians fall into.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29

Understanding , Question

“Words rich in meaning can be cheap in sound effects.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Simplicity http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21390/Simplicity
From the poems written in English

“How would your life be different if… You stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 119
Context: How would your life be different if… You stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day … You stand strong in the truth of your beauty and journey through your day without attachment to the validation of others.

Life , People

“My mother doesn't like sex. She doesn't like the word, she doesn't like act, and I'm not entirely sure she's too impressed with the results. Ah well, you get out what you put in.”

Hannah Gadsby (1978) Australian comedian

Youtube: 'So You Think You're Funny' winner at the Press launch of the Gilded Balloon's programme for the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORUdvdGC8Q&feature=PlayList&p=95BEE1BC92B7F8BB&index=0&playnext=1

Sex

“If you talk to the shadows,
at least you know them well
and the words, all of them,
unfold themselves with ease
on muddled walls and streets,
when dusk comes on.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Adagio (2004)
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004)

“I'm a Nolan. I could dazzle you in dialect, because the words do not make the same sense to different men.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

The Heretic (1968)

Men , Sense

“The precise reason why abstinence from animal food will be the first act … of a moral life is admirably explained in the book, The Ethics of Diet [by Howard Williams]; and not by one man only, but by all mankind in the persons of its best representatives during all the conscious life of humanity. … the moral progress of humanity — which is the foundation of every other kind of progress — is always slow; but … the sign of true, not casual, progress is its uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration. And the progress of vegetarianism is of this kind. That progress, is expressed both in the words of the writers cited in the above-mentioned book and in the actual life of mankind, which from many causes is involuntarily passing metre and more from carnivorous habits to vegetable food, and is also deliberately following the same path in a movement which shows evident strength, and which is growing larger and larger — viz., vegetarianism.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The First Step (1892), Ch. X

Life , Books , Food , Animals

“I learned the right way to live from my parents. I never heard any hate in my house. I never heard my father say a mean word to my mother, or my mother to my father, either. During the war, when food was hard to get, my parents fed their children first and they ate what was left. They always thought of us.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente, 32, Pays Tribute to Parents" by Les Biederman, in The Sporting News (September 3, 1966), p. 12
Other, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

Hate , War , Children , Food

“Women are going to lead the democracy movement, mark my words.”

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

2010s, 2011, Speech at the Gerald R. Ford Foundation (2011)

Women , Democracy

“The charge of "sentimentalism" is frequently brought against those who plead for animals' rights. Now "sentimentalism," if any meaning at all can be attached to the word, must signify an inequality, an ill balance of sentiment, an inconsistency which leads men into attacking one abuse, while they ignore or condone another where a reform is equally desirable. That this weakness is often observable among "philanthropists" on the one hand, and "friends of animals" on the other, and most of all among those acute "men of the world," whose regard is only for themselves, I am not concerned to deny; what I wish to point out is, that the only real safeguard against sentimentality is to take up a consistent position towards the rights of men and of the lower animals alike, and to cultivate a broad sense of universal justice (not "mercy") for all living things. Herein, and herein alone, is to be sought the true sanity of temperament.”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

Source: Animals' Rights, Chapter 1

Men , World , Justice , Sense

“With Russia and America out of the League sanctions are a mistake. I've always thought so. You can't enforce them against a first-class power. The very people like Bob Cecil who have made us disarm, and quite right too, are now urging us forward to take action. But where will action lead us to? If we withdraw Ambassadors that's only the first step. What's the next? and the next? If you have economic boycott you'll have war declared by Japan and she will seize Singapore and Hongkong and we can't, as we are placed, stop her. You'll get nothing out of Washington but words, big words, but only words.”

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

Conversation with Thomas Jones (27 February 1932) after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 30.
1932

War , People

“The relation of the authority of Jesus Christ to the authority of culture is such that every Christian must often feel himself claimed by the Lord to reject the word and its kingdoms with their pluralism and temporalism, their makeshift compromises of many interests, their hypnotic obsession by the love of life and the fear of death.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: Christ and Culture (1951), p. 68

Love , Life , Death , Fear

“Yes, well I noticed that in your last issues' interviews with those Eastern teachers ["From light to Light," Jan. 1995], emptiness was mentioned a lot. I find that a wrong word. Because in God realisation and being one with God the Most High, the unspeakable one, there's no sense whatsoever of ever having done anything yourself. It is all done for you. It's by grace. And so it's not being empty, it's being emptied. There's a different emphasis or a different connotation to that.”

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

Response to the question "You write, "Enlightenment is to be emptied (not empty) of feelings and thus at one with the purest sensation of divine being." What's the distinction here between being "emptied" and being "empty" of feelings?"
Love is not a feeling ~ The Interview (1995)

God , Sense , Light , Teachers

“I try to catch every sentence, every word you and I say, and quickly lock all these sentences and words away in my literary storehouse because they might come in handy.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Act II
The Seagull (1896)

“Chairman Mao was the first in the world to use Twitter. All his quotations are within 140 words.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, The Bold and the Beautiful, 2009

World

“There isn't anyone else like Nathan. He is able to express more in a look or a word than most actors I've ever worked with.”

Nathan Lane (1956) American actor

Victor Garber — reported in Maureen Dezell (October 19, 2003) "Nathan Lane Goes Beyond Broadway", The Boston Globe, p. N1.
About

“A poet, qua poet, has only one political duty, namely, in his own writing to set an example of the correct use of his mother tongue, which is always being corrupted. When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

Source: Paris Review interview (1972), p. 251

“Zen is a form of liberation - being liberated from Yin and Yang elements, and enabling you to remain calm and cool when you are troubled. Zen is not something definite and tangible, it is a refuge for mental solace. Zen is about concentration of mind. It is a profound culture, enabling people to gain spiritual tranqulity and be awakened. Even though not a word is spoken, it enables one to gain a thorough understanding of the truth of life. This is what we call the harmony between Yin and Yang. It is like a substance deep in your soul, generating a kind of wisdom and energy in your mind. It is also a kind of energy of self-confidence, helping you to achieve self-emancipation, self-regulation and self-perfection, leading you to the path of success. As such, Buddhism talks about ‘Faith, Commitment, and Action’. The theory, when applied in the human realm, is all about Zen. Concentration gives rise to wisdom. With concentration, the mind will be focused and it will not be drifting apart. Hence, the problem of schizophrenia will not arise. Zen culture is about the state of mind. It is a kind of positive energy! Positive energy is a kind of compassion, which enables people to understand each other when they encounter problems, to understand the country and society at large, and to understand their family and children, colleagues and friends. In this way, people will be able to live in peaceful co-existence and remain calm when they are faced with problems. When you see things in perspective using rationality and positive energy, you are able to change your viewpoint pertaining to a certain issue. This is the moment Zen arises in your mind! In fact, Zen is within you. This theory is very profound.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

10 October 2013
Special Interview by People' Daily, Europe Edition

Life , Wisdom , Children , People

“Nonmathematical people sometimes ask me, “You know math, huh? Tell me something I’ve always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?” I can only reply, “The words you just uttered do not make sense. That was not a mathematical sentence. You spoke of ‘infinity’ as if it were a number. It’s not. You may as well ask, 'What is truth divided by beauty?’ I have no clue. I only know how to divide numbers. ‘Infinity,’ ‘truth,’ ‘beauty’—those are not numbers.””

John Derbyshire book Prime Obsession

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics (2003)

People , Truth , Beauty , Mathematics

“The second proposition admits and encourages the very practice we censure so justly, for which the saint [ Augustine of Hippo ] was so famous, and by which he contributed so much to promote contentions in his own days, and to perpetuate them to ours. The practice of deducing doctrines from the scriptures that are not evidently contained in them… Who does not see that the direct tendency of this practice is exactly the same as the event has proved it to be? It composes and propagates a religion, seemingly under the authority of God, but really under that of man. The principles of revelation are lost in theology, or disfigured by it: and whilst some men are impudent enough to pretend, others are silly enough to believe, that they adhere to the gospel, and maintain the cause of God against infidels and heretics, when they do nothing better, nor more, than espouse the conceits of men, whom enthusiasm, or the ambition of forming sects, or of making a great figure in them, has inspired. If you ask now what the practice of the christian fathers, and of other divines, should have been, in order to preserve the purity of faith, and to promote peace and charity, the answer is obvious… They should have adhered to the word of God: they should have paid no regard to heathen philosophy, jewish cabala, the sallies of enthusiasm, or the refinements of human ingenuity: they should have embraced, and held fast the articles of faith and doctrine, that were delivered in plain terms, or in unequivocal figures: they should not have been dogmatical where the sense was doubtful, nor have presumed even to guess where the Holy Ghost left the veil of mystery undrawn.”

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) English politician and Viscount

Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophical Works http://books.google.com/books?id=E6ATAAAAQAAJ (1754) Vol.III, Essay IV, Sect XVI

Men , God , Peace , Faith

“The Jew can take the credit for having corrupted the Graeco-Roman world. Previously words were used to express thoughts; he used words to invent the art of disguising thoughts. Lies are his strength, his weapon in the struggle. The Jew is said to be gifted. His only gift is that of juggling with other people's property and swindling each and everyone. Suppose I find by chance a picture that I believe to be a Titian. I tell the owner what I think of it, and I offer him a price. In a similar case, the Jew begins by declaring that the picture is valueless, he buys it for a song and sells it at a profit of 5000 per cent. To persuade people that a thing which has value, has none, and vice versa—that's not a sign of intelligence. They can't even overcome the smallest economic crisis!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

5 November 1941.
Disputed, Hitler's Table Talks (1941-1944) (published 1953)

People , World , Art , Intelligence

“You know the word master, teacher? When you go to schools, you say, Master, I have got this, this, and this question. Master, can you solve this problem for me? In India, instead of saying Master, we say Guru. Same thing. Master teaches you something. Master takes off your ignorance and puts some knowledge into your mind. Same way, a true Guru does that. He takes off all the ignorance, egos, from our mind and puts Knowledge. And peace he gives.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 2, 1971
1970s

School , Peace , Way , Question

“In other words, the fact that the criterion we happen to use has a fine ancestry of highbrow statistical theorems does not justify its use. Such justification must come from empirical evidence that it works.”

Walter A. Shewhart (1891–1967) American statistician

Source: Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product,1931, p. 18

“For decades, Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped and murdered the Iraqi people; invaded neighboring countries without provocation; and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rest the hopes of mankind. When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them. Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam’s oppression. Chemical attack, treachery, and use of the innocent as human shields can be expected, as can other unethical tactics. Take it all in stride. Be the hunter, not the hunted: never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down. Use good judgment and act in best interests of our Nation. You are part of the world’s most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit. For the mission’s sake, our country’s sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division’s colors in the past battles-who fought for life and never lost their nerve-carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Demonstrate to the world there is "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" than a U.S. Marine.
Mattis' words in a message to the 1st Marine Division in March 2003, on the eve of the Iraq War, as quoted in "Eve of Battle Speech" in The Weekly Standard (1 March 2003); also quoted in War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) by Oliver North, p. 53

Life , Men , People , World

“The conflation of faith as “unevidenced belief” with its vernacular use as “confidence based on experience” is simply a word trick used to buttress religion.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 208

Faith , Religion , Confidence

“…'SummerGrl19?' Very clever handle by the way, the only way you could make it any more unoriginal or cliche would be to add the words 'happy, cute' or 'princess' to the name.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Bullshit Hate Mail http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1#MARATHON.
The Best Page in the Universe

Way , Princess , Happiness

“The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Source: Solaris (1961), Ch. 8 "The Monsters", p. 120

Men , Fate , History , Sense

“Words are good servants but bad masters.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

As quoted by Laura Huxley, in conversation with Alan Watts about her memoir This Timeless Moment (1968), in Pacifica Archives #BB2037 [sometime between 1968-1973])

“Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Sex Is Politics" (1979)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)

People , Personality

“Only one conclusion appears to me possible. We shall not promote our welfare by a narrow and shortsighted policy. We can gain nothing by any destruction of govern- ment or society. That action which in the long run is for the advantage of the individual, as it is for the support of our Union, is best summed up in a single word — renunciation. It is only by surrendering a certain amount of our liberty, only by taking on new duties and assuming new obligations, that we make that progress which we characterize as civilization. It is only in like manner that the become partakers of its glory. That is the answer to every herald of discontent and to every preacher of destruction. While this is understood, American institutions and the American Union are secure.”

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

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)

Support , Appearance

“Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Letter purportedly written to his son, G. W. Custis Lee (5 April 1852); published in The New York Sun (26 November 1864). Although the “Duty Letter” was presumed authentic for many decades and included in many biographies of Lee, it was repudiated in December 1864 by “a source entitled to know.” This repudiation was rediscovered by University of Virginia law professor Charles A. Graves who verified that the letter was inconsistent with Lee's biographical facts and letter-writing style. Lee's son also wrote to Graves that he did not recall ever receiving such a letter. “The Forged Letter of General Robert E. Lee”, Proceedings of the 26th annual meeting of the Virginia State Bar Association 17:176 http://books.google.com/books?id=EMkDAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA176 (1914)
Misattributed

“Manufacture is a word, which, in the vicissitude of language, has come to signify the reverse of its intrinsic meaning, for it now denotes every extensive product of art, which is made by machinery, with little or no aid of the human hand; so that the most perfect manufacture is that which dispenses entirely with manual labour.”

Andrew Ure (1778–1857) Scottish doctor and chemist

Source: The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, p. 1

Art , Perfection

“Whoever invented the word ‘grace’ must have seen the wing-folding of the plover.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“May: Back from the Argentine”, p. 34-35.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "May: Back from the Argentine," "June: The Alder Fork," "July: Great Possessions," and "July: Prairie Birthday"

“In classical Arabic and in the other classical languages of Islam there are no pairs of terms corresponding to lay and ecclesiastical, spiritual and temporal, secular and religious, because these pairs of words express a Christian dichotomy which has no equivalent in the world of Islam.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Return of Islam (1976)

World

“We have a pretty witty king,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

About King Charles II of England, as quoted in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. XLIV (January - June 1857) p. 592; It is said to that this was written on the door of Charles II’s bedchamber, and that on seeing it, the king replied, “This is very true: for my words are my own, and my actions are my ministers’....”
Other

“The gods of all pagan faiths have been allied with the rich rulers. The priests of most religions are the employees of the landowners. But the God of Israel has always claimed to be with the poor—whether in the legislation of Deuteronomy, the words of the prophets, or the experiences of the New Testament. Our God is on the side of the poor.”

John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) 20th century American Mennonite theologian

Source: Radical Christian Discipleship (2012), p. 41

God , Faith , Religion

“but even if you struggle with the words you want to say, don't give up”

Ritsuko Okazaki (1959–2004) Japanese singer

Lyrics

“Since 1968, the Baath have been trashing the only idea that can hold the great social diversity of Iraq together: the idea of Iraq. Their answer to the question "Who am I?" was: You are either one of us, or you are dead. True to their word, they killed anyone who dared to say he was a Kurd or a Shiite or a leftist, or a democrat and a liberal. Contrary to what many Iraqi Shiites tend to think nowadays, the Baath never wanted to build a Sunni confessional state in Iraq. Anti-Shiite sectarianism was introduced on a large scale after the uprising of 1991. The state that the Baath built in Iraq up until the 1991 Gulf War was worse than sectarian. It thrived on the distrust, suspicion and fear that it went about inculcating in everyone. In this sense it was consistently egalitarian. Atomizing society by breeding hate and a thirst for revenge was the regime's highest ambition and principal tool of social control. Every Iraqi -- Kurd or Arab, Muslim or Christian, Shiite or Sunni -- became both complicit in the Baathist enterprise and its victim at the same time.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"The Shiite Obligation", Wall Street Journal (February 7, 2005)

Hate , War , Fear , Idea

“If this dogma be true, then God will never release a soul from hell—the pardoning power will never be exercised. How happy God will be and how happy all the saved will be, knowing that billions and billions of his children, of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, and children are convicts in the eternal dungeons, and that the words of pardon will never be spoken!”

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

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

God , Children , Exercises , Soul

“Mr. Soame Jenyns, a writer of verse and member of the Board of Trade… In twenty three very small pages he had disposed of the "Objections to the Taxation of Our American Colonies" in a manner highly satisfactory to himself and doubtless also to the average reading Briton, who understood constitutional questions best when they were "briefly considered," and when they were humorously expounded in pamphlets that could be had for sixpence…. The heart of the question was the proposition that there should be no taxation without representation; upon which principle it was necessary to observe only that many individuals in England, such as copyholders and leaseholders, and many communities, such as Manchester and Birmingham, were taxed in Parliament without being represented there. "… are they only Englishmen when they solicit protection, but not Englishmen when taxes are required to enable this country to protect them?" As for "liberty," the word had so many meanings, "having within a few years been used as a synonymous term for Blasphemy, Bawdy, Treason, Libels, Strong Beer, and Cyder," that Mr. Jenyns could not presume to say what it meant.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Eve of the Revolution (1918)

Communication , Beer , Question , Strong

“It's extremely dangerous trying to resolve political problems outside the framework of the law — first the ‘Rose Revolution', then they'll think up something like blue. [word play here: "rose" having the colloquial sense of "lesbian" in modern Russian, and "blue" meaning "gay"]”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

On the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia, News conference http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/russia/article405454.ece, (23 December 2004).
On Ukraine

Law , Problem , Thinking , Sense

“[On what she learned from working on The L Word] I think that I learned the most clearly was how connected we all are. And that (does air quotation marks) "gay issues" are also women's issues because homophobia is a form of misogyny…And I feel much more motivated to speak out when I see something that I don't like or that just smells wrong…I see how all women are connected. You know, and that we are all either repressed or we repress ourselves in certain ways, and that's truly codified within the culture. And that I'm not so far removed from that woman in the Congo who's terrified to go out into the woods to look for firewood.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

New York Times Talks Panel (20 April 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeZgJ3EJrbE.

Women , Way , Feeling , Motivation

“Unlike Rachel, Player One has a complete overview both of the world and of time. Player One’s life is more like a painting than it is a story. Player One can see everything with a glance and can change tenses at will. Player One has ultimate freedom, the ultimate software on the ultimate hardware. That realm is also the one place where Player One feels, for lack of a better word, normal.”

Douglas Coupland book Player One

Player One (2010)

Life , World , Feeling , Freedom

“The likeness of man above the throne is divided, the upper part being the colour of chashmal, the lower part like the appearance of fire. As regards the word chashmal, it has been explained to be the compound of two words chas and mal, including two different notions, viz., chash signifying "swiftness," and mal denoting "pause." The two different notions are here joined in one word in order to indicate figuratively the two different parts,—the upper part and the lower. We have already given a second explanation, namely, that chashmal includes the two notions of speach and silence; in accordance with the saying of our Sages, "At times they are silent, at times they speak."”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.7

Silence , Appearance , Time , Parting

“Free! The word and the thought alone were worth fifty blankets. He was warm from end to end as he thought of the jolly world outside, waiting eagerly for him to make his triumphal entrance, ready to serve him and play up to him, anxious to help him and to keep him company, as it always had been in days of old before misfortune fell upon him.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 10

World , Waiting , Help

“I wonder what would happen if you
Say what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I want to see you be brave”

Sara Bareilles (1979) American pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

"Brave"
Written by Bareilles and Jack Antonoff
Lyrics, The Blessed Unrest (2013)

“In my constituency there were a large number of privately rented flats and rooms occupied mostly by low-paid single people or by low-paid or unemployed families. Now those people are being persuaded—I use the word advisedly—to leave those places so that they can be converted into up-market flats or second or city homes for the wealthy. Those tenants are literally forced on to the street and come under the care of the local authority, if the local authority can provide anything. There is a great increase in homelessness, but there is no increase in the number of homes available at cheap rents. Decontrol has forced those people on to the streets and caused homelessness. It is the enemy of good housing and working-class people. We need much more money spent on local authority and social ownership schemes to provide cheap rented houses for the people who need them, not for the yuppies that the Conservative party wants to bring into central London.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1987/mar/03/local-government-bill in the House of Commons (3 March 1987).
1980s

Money , People , Family , Home

“In the pedagogical as in certain other spheres freedom is not allowed to erupt, the power of the opposition is not allowed to put a word in edgewise: they want submissiveness. Only a formal and material training is being aimed at and only scholars come out of the menageries of the humanists, only "useful citizens" out of those of the realists, both of whom are indeed nothing but subservient people. Our good background of recalcitrancy [sic] gets strongly suppressed and with it the development of knowledge to free will. The result of school is then philistinism.”

Max Stirner book The False Principle of our Education

Source: The False Principle of our Education (1842), p. 23

People , School , Knowledge , Freedom

“Character is the product of daily, hourly actions, and words, and thoughts; daily forgivenesses, unselfishness, kindnesses, sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others, struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial. Oh, it is these, like the blending colors in a picture, or the blending notes of music, which constitute the man.”

John Ross Macduff (1818–1895) Scottish religious writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 46.

Music , Color , Forgiveness

“In order to win this war, we need to understand that the terrorists and extremists are opportunists. They will grab onto any cause to incite hatred and to justify the killing of innocent men, women and children. If we weren't in Iraq, they would be using our relationship and friendship with Israel as a reason to recruit, or the Crusades, or cartoons as a reason to commit murder. They recruit based upon lies and excuses. And they murder because of their raw desire for power. They hope to impose their dominion over the broader Middle East and establish a radical Islamic empire where millions are ruled according to their hateful ideology. We know this because al-Qaeda has told us. The terrorist Zawahiri, number two man in the al-Qaeda team, al-Qaeda network, he said, we'll proceed with several incremental goals. The first stage is to expel the Americans from Iraq; the second stage is to establish an Islamic authority, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of caliphate; the third stage, extend the jihad wave to secular countries neighboring Iraq; and the fourth stage, the clash with Israel. This is the words of the enemy. The President of the United States and the Congress must listen carefully to what the enemy says in order to be able to protect you. It makes sense for us to take their words seriously if our most important job is the security of the United States. Mister Zawahiri has laid out their plan. That's why they attacked us on September the 11th. That's why they fight us in Iraq today. And that is why they must be defeated.”

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

As quoted in "FLASHBACK 2006: Media Elites Slam Bush For Predicting Rise Of Islamic Caliphate In Iraq" http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/24/flashback-2006-media-elites-slam-bush-for-predicting-rise-of-islamic-caliphate-in-iraq/ (24 May 2016), The Daily Caller
2000s, 2006, Remarks at Bob Riley for Governor Luncheon (2006)

Women , Men , Hate , Friendship

“In the Vienna of the late 1020s and 1930s there throve an internationally famous philosophical bunch called the logical positivists. …They said that a key ingredient of knowledge was "sense data," and proclaimed emphatically, in the words of… J. S. L. Gilmour, that sense data are "objective and unalterable."”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

…Good guess, but no cigar!
Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.7 A Trip Through the Perception Factory

Knowledge , Sense

“This concept of capital-rebuilding is so important that it may be desirable to digress for a moment. In the broadest sense of the word, capital means the sum total of the valuable things possessed by the individuals of a society, excluding "claims," that is, mere titles to property. The word is used to mean both the inventory of these valuable things; the houses, factories, machines, livestock, stocks of raw materials, and goods in all stages of completion; and also to mean the sum of the values of these things. It should generally be clear from the context which of these two meanings is intended.”

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

Source: 1940s, The Economics of Peace, 1945, p. 5

Sense , Housing

Quotes about wording page 37

Quotes about wording
page 37