Quotes about working
page 65

“I want to prove that the system is not working..... You can’t simply say that the system is not working. You have to work through it”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Osnos, Evan. “ It’s Not Beautiful: An Artist Takes On the System http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/24/100524fa_fact_osnos?currentPage=all.” New Yorker, May 24, 2010, 54–63. 2010-, 2010

“If a king is energetic, his subjects will be equally energetic. If he is reckless, they will not only be reckless likewise, but also eat into his works. Besides, a reckless king will easily fall into the hands of his enemies. Hence the king shall ever be wakeful.”

Chanakya book Arthashastra

Book I : "Concerning Discipline" Chapter 19 "The Duties of a King"
Arthashastra

“I became aware of Louise Bourgeois in my first or second year at Brighton Art College. One of my teachers, Stuart Morgan, curated a small retrospective of her work at the Serpentine, and both he and another teacher, Edward Allington, saw something in her, and me, and thought I should be aware of her. I thought the work was wonderful. It was her very early pieces, The Blind Leading the Blind, the wooden pieces and some of the later bronze works. Biographically, I don't really think she has influenced me, but I think there are similarities in our work. We have both used the home as a kind of kick-off point, as the space that starts the thoughts of a body of work. I eventually got to meet Louise in New York, soon after I made House. She asked to see me because she had seen a picture of House in the New York Times while she was ironing it one morning, so she said. She was wonderful and slightly kind of nutty; very interested and eccentric. She drew the whole time; it was very much a salon with me there as her audience, watching her. I remember her remarking that I was shorter than she was. I don't know if this was true but she was commenting on the physicality of making such big work and us being relatively small women. When you meet her you don't know what's true, because she makes things up. She has spun her web and drawn people in, and eaten a few people along the way.”

Rachel Whiteread (1963) British sculptor

Rachel Whiteread, " Kisses for Spiderwoman http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/oct/14/art2," The Guardian, 14 Oct. 2007: on Louise Bourgeois

Women, People, Art, Way

“I've worked with a lot of living composers recently. It drives me nuts, though, that they like to change things at the last minute. For example, two years ago I played a piece that had been completed only the day before, in front of thousands of people in a huge stadium in Taejon, South Korea.”

Sarah Chang (1980) violinist

NEWSWEEK 1999 http://www.jeremycaplan.com/SarahChangInterview.htm

People, Change

“I would have the musicians keep playing over and over again till the sound made sense. I worked overtime on that; I worked hours to get it right. If the sound didn't make any sense, then I wouldn't know what to do — I'd be lost! It's instinct that tells me. I have an instinct for music, or a feeling about it, and I'll have my feelings guide my hands.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

Bassics interview (1999)

Music, Feeling, Sense

“There is no study more difficult than that of physic: it exceeds, as a science, the comprehension of the human mind: and those who blunder onwards, without attempting to understand what they see, are often very nearly on a level with those, who depend too much on imperfect generalisations, applied to facts, which can scarcely be subjected to any well marked analogy. Hence it may happen, that talents and labour may become useless for want of a proper direction… To assist in furnishing the student with a sufficient direction… is the principal object of this work.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Source: An Introduction to Medical Literature, Including a System of Practical Nosology (1823), p. 2

Understanding, Study, Science, Dependency

“Honest pioneer work in the field of science has always been, and will continue to be, life's pilot. On all sides, life is surrounded by hostility. This puts us under an obligation.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

The Function of the Orgasm (1927)

Life, Hostility, Science

“Sharing horizons that are new to us,
Watching the signs along the way,
Talking it over just the two of us,
Working together day to day
Together.”

Paul Williams (songwriter) (1940) American composer, singer, songwriter and actor

"We've Only Just Begun" (1970).

Way

“Undershaft: You have made for yourself something that you call a morality or a religion or what not. It doesn't fit the facts. Well, scrap it. Scrap it and get one that does fit. That is what is wrong with the world at present. It scraps its obsolete steam engines and dynamos; but it wont scrap its old prejudices and its old moralities and its old religions and its old political constitutions. Whats the result? In machinery it does very well; but in morals and religion and politics it is working at a loss that brings it nearer bankruptcy every year.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

World, Religion, Loss

“Analytical philosophy was very interesting. It always struck me as being very interesting and full of tremendous intellectual curiosities. It is wonderful to see the mind at work in such an intense manner, but, for me, it was still too far removed from my own issues.”

Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist

Interview in African-American Philosophers: 17 Conversations (1998) edited by George Yancy, p. 35

“I was once — and only once — asked if I could have had a writing career without the movies. That stopped me, and I was very happy to have to think about it, and decide I knew the answer. Yes; not this career, but a career. Without movie money, either from writing screenplays or selling rights to novels, I could still have enough of a career that I could support myself and not have to work at some other job, but it would be, shall we say, a less lavish lifestyle.”

Donald E. Westlake (1933–2008) American novelist

Blogcritics interview (2007)

Money, Support, Thinking, Happiness

“As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) pointed out, many Jewish refugees fled from Russia in 1905 and from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. If the Bill had been law at that time, they could not have come here. There are also the victims of the Iran-Iraq war, the Fascist junta in Chile, and so on. The list is endless. The Minister should come clean about it. He should be honest enough to say that he is turning his back on all the asylum problems in the world. The racist connotations of not having anything to do with the problems of the Third world show that the Minister is working in concert with other European Governments to turn their backs on problems which in many cases were created by west European Governments in the first place…All that the Minister is trying to do is to appeal to the basic sense of xenophobia in the media, in the country and throughout Europe. They want to turn their backs on the problems of the rest of the world. I hope that there will be a greater sense of civilised values on this side of the House when we come to vote against the Bill than has ever been shown by the Tory party.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1987/mar/16/immigration-carriers-liability-bill in the House of Commons (16 March 1987). 1980s

War, World, Law, Hope

“I wanted work that didn't involve incredible assumptions about everything. I couldn't begin to think about the order of the universe or, the nature of American society. I didn't want work that was general or universal in the usual sense. I didn't want it to claim too much. Obviously the means and the structure couldn't be separate and couldn't even be thought of as two things joined. Neither word meant anything. A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It shouldn't be concealed as part of a fairly different whole. The shapes and materials shouldn't be altered by their context.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd (1967), in: Perspecta 11 (1967), p. 44; Quoted in: James Fitzsimmons (1979) Art International. Vol 23. p. 69
1960s

Color, Nature, Thinking, Sense

“There are two great uses of antiquarian studies. One of them is to enable us to conjure up as if by the magician's wand the dress, furniture, architecture, &c., of past ages, so that we can live, as it were, in many centuries almost at the same moment. This is a very great and a very pleasant species of knowledge, but it is not particularly useful in this work-a-day world; and it sometimes, like other knowledge, renders its possessor far from happy, more especially when he goes to the theatre, and sees all sorts of anachronisms and impossibilities a. The other use of antiquarian studies is to restore disused arts, and to get all the good we can out of them for our own improvement.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

Source: Art applied to industry: a series of lectures, 1865, p. 13

Age, World, Art, Knowledge

“I know some people say I can be funny. But there is always a deeper meaning to what I say. I am a socialist at heart and have the interests of the poor in mind. When people see how I manage to work my way out of tough situations, it gives them hope in their own life”

Lalu Prasad Yadav (1948) Indian politician

In an interview to Siddharth Srivastava ( India's man for all seasons, Asia Times, September 29, 2004, 2006-05-29 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FI29Df02.html,).

Life, People, Hope, Way

“Universal-suffrage democracy may have been a good idea 120 years ago, when most adults did productive work into their sixties, then died. In today’s top-heavy welfare states, it just empowers tax-eaters to loot the national wealth.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Two Bad Answers http://takimag.com/article/two_bad_answers_john_derbyshire/print#axzz33lq12wO9, Taki's Magazine, June 5, 2014.

Democracy, Idea, Universe, Wealth

“When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian

Source: What is Man? (1938), p. 180
Context: When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick. He overreaches himself, the work denies itself to him, the incarnation of the spirit no longer takes place, and to avoid the threat of senselessness he snatches after empty power. This sickness casts the genius on to the same level as those hysterical figures who, being by nature without power, slave for power, in order that they may enjoy the illusion that they are inwardly powerful, and who in this striving for power cannot let a pause intervene, since a pause would bring with it the possibility of self-reflection and self-reflection would bring collapse.

“If you want work well done, select a busy man ‚ the other kind has no time.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

The Note Book (1927).

Business, Time

“In titling this work The Second Coming of Christ, I am not referring to a literal return of Jesus to earth. He came two thousand years ago and, after imparting a universal path to God's kingdom, was crucified and resurrected; his reappearance to the masses now is not necessary for the fulfillment of his teachings. What is necessary is for the cosmic wisdom and divine perception of Jesus to speak again through each one's own experience and understanding of the infinite Christ Consciousness that was incarnate in Jesus. That will be his true Second Coming.”

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

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

Wisdom, God, Understanding, Universe

“The philosophy which underlines my work is based on change, continuity and the search for measures in natural order. The value of a sculpture relies on its own existence through time, independent of its creator and should usually speak for itself. It should beckon you to walk into its space, to travel its surface and edge, to sense, to touch, to peer into and ponder. As you leave it should invite you to return another time so that it can communicate further.”

Fred Conlon (1943–2005) Irish sculptor

citation needed
Attributed

Travel, Search, Communication, Nature

“I think fiction comes from everything you've ever done, and said, and dreamed, and imagined. It comes from everything you've read and haven't read…I think my work comes out of the culture of the world around me. I think that's where my language comes from.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

'Exile on Main Street: Don DeLillo's Undisclosed Underworld' by David Remnick, The New Yorker, September 15, 1997

World, Dreams, Imagination, Thinking

“Matthew's response: To me the conception of this law of Nature came intuitively as a self-evident fact, almost without an effort of concentrated thought. Mr Darwin here seems to have more merit in the discovery than I have had; to me it did not appear a discovery. He seems to have worked it out by inductive reason, slowly and with due caution to have made his way synthetically from fact to fact onwards; while with me it was by a general glance at the scheme of Nature that I estimated this select production of species as an a priori recognisable fact – an axiom requiring only to be pointed out to be admitted by unprejudiced minds of sufficient grasp.”

Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) British scientist

Gardeners' Chronicle

Law, Way, Nature, Effort

“But the cruellest thing you can do to an artist is tell them their work is flawless when it isn't.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

23 March 2008
Fully Ramblomatic

“If I had not become a painter,
I would surely have become a clown..
.. because I make people laugh..
.. Faces deformed
by suffering, humour or work.
Often crazy. They then became imaginary,
when I adorned them with movements
free colours depending on the head. The
colour too become clown-like”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

AF, 73; p. 161
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

People, Suffering, Dependency

“The mind is its own place and in his inner life each of us lives the life of a ghostly Robinson Crusoe. People can see, hear and jolt one another’s bodies, but they are irremediably blind and deaf to the workings of one another’s minds and inoperative upon them.”

Gilbert Ryle book The Concept of Mind

Source: The Concept of Mind (1949), Ch. I: Descartes' Myth, (1) The Official Doctrine

Life, People

“.. Now there is in the South of Belgium, in Hainault, in the neighborhood of Mons.... a district called the Borinage, that has a peculiar population of laborers who work in the numerous coal mines... I should very much like to go there as an evangelist.... St. Paul was three years in Arabia before he began to preach..”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In his letter to brother Theo, from Laeken, near Brussels, 15 Nov. 1878, (letter 126); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 18 1870s

“The working of great administrations is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self-interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.”

Giorgio De Santillana (1902–1974) American historian and philosopher

The Crime of Galileo http://books.google.com/books?id=34uQ6tlYHRgC&q=%22The+working+of+great+administrations+is+mainly+the+result+of+a+vast+mass+of+routine+petty+malice+self-interest+carelessness+and+sheer+mistake+Only+a+residual+fraction+is+thought%22&pg=PA290#v=onepage (1958)

“So I feel that this is an encouragement to other writers in the region to persist in the their work, even if they feel that what they are doing is not popular, because in the long run it may tell on their behalf.”

Wilson Harris (1921–2018) Guyanese writer

Interview with Wilson Harris (2010) on being Knighted at Queen Elizabeth II Birthday Honours

Feeling

“St. Paul says, that God commendeth his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: and that when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. St. Paul was in a peculiar manner a child of grace: with gratitude, therefore, he honours and extols its efficacy in all his epistles; and particularly in his epistle to the Romans throughout he defends his doctrines with great precision and copiousness. 'Every mouth,' says he, 'must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. By the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified. Man must be justified freely by his grace. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

De causa Dei contra Pelagium

Love, Death, God, World

“What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and, by cautious experimentation, to prove how it works? What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on one's own land?”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Grand-Opera Game" [1932]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 172.
1930s

“The rise of National Socialism is the protest of a people against a State that denies the right to work. If the machinery for distribution in the present economic system of the world is incapable of properly distributing the productive wealth of nations, then that system is false and must be altered. The important part of the present development is the anti-capitalist sentiment that is permeating our people.”

Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Psrty

At the Reichstag (May 1934) "The Mind and Face of Nazi Germany" p. 165 - by Nagendranath Gangulee - National socialism (1942)

People, World, Parting, Falseness

“The word grace evidently implies that there is no antecedent merit. And in this way the apostle to the Romans appears to argue, when he says, 'And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.' All this is perfectly intelligible, even in the conduct of liberal and magnificent human characters. They frequently bestow their gifts from a pure spirit of liberality, without the smallest previous claim on the score of merit. And shall not God, whose perfections are infinite, do more than this?”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

De causa Dei contra Pelagium

God, Way, Intelligence, Appearance

“I can well imagine some circles of smart society, some groups of wealthy financiers, and the elements in this country which are attracted by the idea of a Government strong enough to keep the working classes in order; people who hate democracy and freedom, I can well imagine such people accommodating themselves fairly easy to Nazi domination. But the Trade Unionists of Britain, the intellectuals of Socialism and Radicalism, they could no more bear it than the ordinary British Tory. It would be intolerable.”

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

Speech in Horsham (23 July 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 768
The 1930s

Hate, People, Democracy, Imagination

“Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

Source: The Last Lecture (2008), Chapter 32: Don't Complain, Just Work Harder, p. 139

Time, Help

“The more I reflect on it, the more I must admire how completely nature had taught him; how completely he was devoted to his work, to the task of his life, and content to let all pass by unheeded that had not relation to this. It is a singular fact, for example, that though a man of such openness and clearness, he had never, I believe, read three pages of Burns's poems. Not even when all about him became noisy and enthusiastic, I the loudest, on that matter, did he feel it worth while to renew his investigation of it, or once turn his face towards it. The poetry he liked (he did not call it poetry) was truth, and the wisdom of reality. Burns, indeed, could have done nothing for him. As high a greatness hung over his world as over that of Burns — the ever-present greatness of the Infinite itself. Neither was he, like Burns, called to rebel against the world, but to labor patiently at his task there, uniting the possible with the necessary to bring out the real, wherein also lay an ideal.”

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

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Life, Wisdom, Truth, World

“Madness and insanity are two terms that are so vague and relative that you can’t really apportion proper values to them. The only thing I can think of that has any use it functional and dysfunctional. Are you working as well? In which case, it doesn’t matter if you are mad.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Thinking, Madness

“Anybody who picks up a guitar and tells you that there's some inner message that they're trying to convey... it's nonsense. They're not being honest. The reason they're doing this is they wanna get lots of chicks and they don't want to work for a living.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

What I've Learned (July 2002)

“Expressed egotism is, of course, no reason necessarily to disregard someone’s work, but it is a warning signal. If someone can evaluate his work so poorly, is the work itself likely to be better? In many of his areas of intellectual interest, Popper’s work is wanting.
Hayek did more to advance Popper professionally early in his career than anyone else, and Popper remembered his personal debt to Hayek. Over the years, he wrote him a number of appreciative letters.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Personality

“Basically, at this time, I viewed any work of art as an imposition of another persons taste and saw the individual making this imposition as a kind of dictator.”

Henry Flynt (1940) American musician

Henry Flynt talks to Stewart Home, New York 8 March 1989

Art, Time, Personality

“Capitalism subordinates men to machines instead of using machines to liberate men from the burden of mechanical and repetitive work. it subordinates all, inherent in every commodity, fully unfolds itself in this contradictory nature of capitalist machinery. When capitalism is not overthrown once it has created the material and social preconditions for a classless society of associated producers, this contradiction implies the possibility of a steadily increasing transformation of the forces of production into forces of destruction, in the most literal sense of the word: not only forces of destruction of wealth (crises and wars), of human wealth and human happiness, but also forces of destruction of life tout court.”

Ernest Mandel (1923–1995) Belgian economist and Marxist philosopher

Introduction to Capital. Introduction to volume 1 (1976)

Life, Men, War, Nature

“Pacifism simply is not a matter of calm looking on; it is hard work.”

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) German artist

Diary entry (21 February 1944).
The Diary and Letters of Käthe Kollwitz (1955)

“.. the moving whirlwind of modernity through its crowds, its cars, its telegraph poles, its bare, working-class neighbourhoods, its noises, its squeals, its violence, its cruelty, its cynicism, and its relentless pushiness.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

In Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.
1914 - 1916, Pittura e scultura futuriste' Milan, 1914

Cars

“On balance, the Islamic media's taste for what the West terms sensationalizing and conspiracy mongering is less than meets the eye. Based on my research, it is apparent that the Islamic media's correspondents and editors work harder, dig deeper, and think more than most of their Western counterparts. This is not to say that the Islamic media do not suffer from sensationalized conspiracy theories, but they probably are no more prone to those faults than their Western colleagues.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

Through Our Enemies' Eyes (p. 280)
2000s

Thinking, Suffering

“‘ There are three kinds of soldier, Sharpe […] There are the damned useless ones, and God knows there's an endless supply of those. Then there are the good solid lads who get the job done, but would piss in their breeches if you didn't show them how their buttons worked. And then there's your and me. Soldiers' soldiers, that's who we are.’”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Prey (2001)

God

“Amice, be so good, if it is not too late, to scrape the title 'l'Aprês-Midi' ['Afternoon', title of the work submitted for the exhibition] and simply put on it 'Paysage', for the simple reason.... because I chose the moment [in the work] that the sun starts to color and (sic) because there is vapor - many people will wrongly see it as a 'morning'. Mauve will send another aquarelle..”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Amice, Wees zoo goed, indien het niet te laat is, de titel 'l'Aprês-Midi' ['Namiddag' titel van een ingezonden werk voor een expositie] uit te schrabben en eenvoudig maar Paysage te zetten om den eenvoudige reden.. ..daar ik het moment genomen heb [in het werkje] dat de zon begint te kleuren en (sic) doordien er damp is - door velen voor een morgen aangezien zal worden. Mauve zal een anderen aquarelle zenden.. Quote of Gabriël, in his letter to Henry Hymans (Secr. de Societé des Aquarellistes Bruxelles, from Schaerbeek 14 April, 1867; taken from an excerpt in the Collection RKD: Letters, Manuscripts and small Archives https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/158, The Hague 1860's + 1870's

People, Color, Sun

“Ashtadhyayi Sanskrit treatise on grammar was written in the 6th to 5th century BCE by the Indian grammarian Panini. This work set the linguistic standards for Classical Sanskrit. It sums up in 4,000 sutras the science of phonetics and grammar that had evolved in the Vedic religion. Panini divided his work into eight chapters, each of which is further divided into quarter chapters, beyond defining the morphology and syntax of Sanskrit language.”

Pāṇini ancient Sanskrit grammarian

Encyclopedia Britannica in: Panini Indian grammarian http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441324/Panini, britannica.com.

Religion, Science

“I make the most outrageous demands on my imagination and leave aside everything else, theory and nature study, as other people understand them. This is the only way I can work, drawing on nothing but my own faculty of imagination with I feed without stint – except in working hours.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

Quote in Marc's letter to August Macke, 1910; as cited by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, pp. 127-28
1905 - 1910

People, Way, Imagination, Understanding

“The critic does not pass judgment on the work; rather, art itself passes judgment, either by taking up the work in the medium of criticism or by rejecting it and thereby appraising it as beneath all criticism.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism (1919), p. 161

Art

“It is in this way that all my books have been composed. They were always written at least twice over; a first draft of the entire work was completed to the very end of the subject, then the whole begun again de novo; but incorporating, in the second writing, all sentences and parts of sentences of the old draft, which appeared as suitable to my purpose as anything which I could write in lieu of them. I have found great advantages in this system of double redaction. It combines, better than any other mode of composition, the freshness and vigour of the first conception, with the superior precision and completeness resulting from prolonged thought. In my own case, moreover, I have found that the patience necessary for a careful elaboration of the details of composition and expression, costs much less effort after the entire subject has been once gone through, and the substance of all that I find to say has in some manner, however imperfect, been got upon paper.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/222/mode/1up p. 222

Effort, Parting, Books, Way

“What has caused confusion and misunderstanding about his Hinduism is the concept of sarva-dharma-samabhAva (equal regard for all religions) which he had developed after deep reflection. Christian and Muslim missionaries have interpreted it to mean that a Hindu can go aver to Christianity or Islam without suffering any spiritual loss. They are also using it as a shield against every critique of their closed and aggressive creeds. The new rulers of India, on the other hand, cite it in order to prop up the Nehruvian version of Secularism which is only a euphemism for anti-Hindu animus shared in common by Christians, Muslims, Marxists and those who are Hindus only by accident of birth. For Gandhiji, however, sarva-dharma-samabhAva was only a restatement of the age-old Hindu tradition of tolerance in matters of belief. Hinduism has always adjudged a man’s faith in terms of his AdhAra (receptivity) and adhikAra (aptitude). It has never prescribed a uniform system of belief or behavior for everyone because, according to it, different persons are in different stages of spiritual development and need different prescriptions for further progress. Everyone, says Hinduism, should be left alone to work out one’s own salvation through one’s own inner seeking and evolution. Any imposition of belief or behaviour from the outside is, therefore, a mechanical exercise which can only do injury to one’s spiritual growth. Preaching to those who have not invited it is nothing short of aggression born out of self-righteousness. That is why Gandhiji took a firm and uncompromising stand against proselytisation by preaching and gave no quarters to the Christian mission’s mercenary methods of spreading the gospel.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Age, Faith, Religion, Behavior

“The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated again and again by her controversialists and historians.
In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions.
The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther's version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness. But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art").
He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,
The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther's New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation. It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17). The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.
There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand in hand with the progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome's Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in accuracy and Latinity; the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon the Vulgate, in spirit and in idiomatic reproduction; the revisions of the nineteenth century are an advance upon the versions of the sixteenth, in philological and historical accuracy and consistency. A future generation will make a still nearer approach to the original text in its purity and integrity. If the Holy Spirit of God shall raise the Church to a higher plane of faith and love, and melt the antagonisms of human creeds into the one creed of Christ, then, and not before then, may we expect perfect versions of the oracles of God.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

How Luther's theology may have influenced his translating

Love, God, Books, Faith

“We communicate with each other to inform, to instruct, to persuade, to amuse, to annoy. Informing and instructing aim to alter the receiver's concepts, whereas persuading, amusing or annoying aim to change his preferences or feelings. In a work situation people do make jokes and enemies, and use the arts of persuasion, but much of their communication has an informal or instructional aspect.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Information Systems (1973), p. 1.

People, Art, Feeling, Communication

“I want to thank some very special people without whom I would not be here today. George Bush, Sarah Palin and the Pope. When I came to Hollywood in 1983, I had one dream— to sleep with Jodie Foster. That didn't work out, but this is nice, too.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

On getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (14 September 2010), as reported on Larry King Live (14 September 2010)

People, Dreams, Sleep

“It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

The Progress of Religious Ideas Through Successive Ages http://books.google.ca/books?id=mGmQMdHqj9AC&pg=PA451&dq=It+is+impossible+to+exaggerate+the+evil+work+theology++Lydia+Maria+Child&hl=en&sa=X&ei=At4QUYLKOrOM0QGp34DIBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=It%20is%20impossible%20to%20exaggerate%20the%20evil%20work%20theology%20%20Lydia%20Maria%20Child&f=false, 1855, p. 451, vol. 3 1850s

World, Evil

“Men always seem to refuse to admit they are sick until they’re sick enough to make twice as much work for women. Then they claim they’re well too soon, with the same result.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Siuan Sanche
(15 October 1991)

Women, Men

“The working-class woman shows me much more than the ladies who are totally limited by conventional behavior. The working-class woman shows me her hands, her feet, and her hair. She lets me see the shape and form of her body through her clothes. She presents herself and the expression of her feelings openly, without disguises.”

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) German artist

Quoted in Käthe Kollwitz: Woman and Artist (1976) by Martha Kearns The Feminist Press, ISBN 0-912-67015-0, p. 82.
Other Quotes

Behavior, Feeling, Clothes

“Expertise now resides in fanatical customers. The world's best experts on your product or service, don't work for your company. They are your customers, or a hobby tribe.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

World

“Doctors, lawyers and even accountants have always understood that they would have to stand firm, functioning as a solid group protecting its own expertise and hence its earning capacity, from the tendency of all merchants to buy cheap and sell dear. They made of their special knowledge a rare and valuable commodity, insisted on a mystique and protected each other by an immovable professional code. They were cynical enough to know that if they were once cast in the role of public martyrs, working harder and more generously than most other groups of workers, they would be left with nothing but masochism, exhaustion and despair to show for it. Like successful trade unions, who have always worked on the principle that the job is worth whatever you can force the employer to pay for it and not a penny more or less, they understood that nobody was going to pay them their fees out of gratitude, that if they left it to the man whose life they had saved to pay them what he thought fit, they would wind up with half an old penny.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

"'Unhelpful to the workers' cause'" [undated], p. 175
The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986)

Life, Knowledge, Success, Despair

“In all base schools of art, the craftsman is dependent for his bread on originality; that is to say, on finding in himself some fragment of isolated faculty, by which his work may be distinct from that of other men. We are ready enough to take delight in our little doings, without any such stimulus; — what must be the effect of the popular applause which continually suggests that the little thing we can separately do is as excellent as it is singular; and what the effect of the bribe, held out to us through the whole of life, to produce — it being also in our peril not to produce — something different from the work of our neighbors?”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Lecture II, section 32.
The Eagle's Nest (1872)

Life, Men, School, Art

“The hope of the nation and of Christendom, and of the lands called heathen, alike is to be found in the indoctrination of little children in the knowledge of God's truth; for the missionaries will tell you that the adult heathen population of to-day are to die heathen; the minister will tell you that the adult, virtually heathen population of Christian lands to-day are to die in that condition, unless God showers down altogether unprecedented grace — with only such occasional exceptions as confirm this general and terrible law. If this be so, the hope of Christianity is in childhood. Towards childhood must be directed the work of the sappers and miners of the church. Here is the weak point of the enemy's fortress. Here let the breach be made, and his topmost turret shall be laid low.”

Cyrus David Foss (1834–1910) American bishop

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 570.

God, Children, Truth, Law

“Anita: My life works for me right now, but it wouldn't work for a child.
Ronnie: Why, because you don't have a husband?
Anita: No, because people try to kill me on a semiregular basis.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Source: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Incubus Dreams (2004), p. 198

Life, People

“At any given time, there are only about ten or twenty places where hackers most want to work, and if you aren't one of them, you won't just have fewer great hackers, you'll have zero.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Great Hackers" http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html, July 2004

Time

““Most of my business comes from picking up the pieces when people get things wrong.” She grinned. “I’ll never lack for work.””

Jack McDevitt book Ancient Shores

Source: Ancient Shores (1996), Chapter 10 (p. 99)

People, Business

“Also to prayer belongeth thanking. Thanking is a true inward knowing, with great reverence and lovely dread turning ourselves with all our mights unto the working that our good Lord stirreth us to, enjoying and thanking inwardly.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 41

Love

“At first I did not feel much inclined to agree [ Willem Maris had asked Mauve to paint together in open air, around the village Oosterbeek, c. 1863 ], but I did not like to refuse the little fellow flatly, so we went off together. My companion did not suffer from loquacity; and, coming to a field with cows in it, I sat down to go on with a drawing which I had begun that morning. The little chap strolled around a bit and then settled down to work himself. We sat there for hours under the pollards, until I grew curious to see what the little fellow was at. He sat sketching with a bit of chalk; but, oh! I stood astounded. I seized him by the hand and stammered in my turn, 'My boy, what an artist you are! You stagger me! It's magnificent!”

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

Quote of Anton Mauve, c. 1863-65; as cited in Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century – 'The Hague School; Introduction' https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dutch_Art_in_the_Nineteenth_Century/The_Hague_School:_Introduction, by G. Hermine Marius, transl. A. Teixera de Mattos; publish: The la More Press, London, 1908 1860's

Feeling, Boy, Suffering, Drawing

“For war is never some cosmic accident descending upon a people with all the chance and inevitability of asteroids falling like fire out of the heavens, but only the will and work of man.”

David Zindell (1952) American writer

Source: The Wild (1995), p. 523

War, People, Chance

“Your phrase: 'I am working hard at growing old', is absolutely me. What if you were always to speak in my place..”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

Quote from her letter to her friend Mallarmé, 14 July 1891; as cited in The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot, ed. Denis Rouart; Camden, London 1986 / Kinston, R. I. Moyer Bell, 1989, p. 160
1881 - 1895

“You who represent the more recent accretions to our population, know how generously you have been received. You know how free and unquestioned has been your access to the opportunities of this land. You have been expected to do your honest share of the day's work in a community which ranked productive toil as a distinction rather than a degradation. We have all taken our chance on that condition. Because we have been willing to do so, we have been prospered in material things and, what is ever more worth while, in the things of the spirit. Generation after generation, from the beginnings of permanent settlement here, the country has been able to receive and absorb a great number of newcomers from the older countries. That was possible so long as there was cheap land for settlement, and the assurance that industry could put value into it.”

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

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

Communication, Chance, Country

“The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world — and the most dangerous.”

James Clavell (1921–1994) American novelist

François Delambre (Vincent Price) to André's son, Philippe.
The Fly (1958)

Truth, World, Search

“We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1976, page 188.
Speech at the Labour Party Conference, 28 September 1976. This part of his speech was written by his son-in-law, future BBC Economics correspondent Peter Jay.
Prime Minister

War, Way, Thinking

“I was a kind of a one-man army. I could solder circuits together, I could turn out things on the lathe, I could work with rockets and balloons. I'm a kind of a hybrid between an engineer and a physicist and astronomer.”

James Van Allen (1914–2006) American nuclear physicist

On his early career, "Grounded in Space Science", Interview with Rushworth M. Kidder, The Christian Science Monitor, page 14, December 22, 1989.

“Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frightens you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it… or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right and wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilty, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster.”

Stephen L. Carter book The Emperor of Ocean Park

Source: The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 12, A Special Delivery, II

Love, Hate, Friendship, Marriage

“I'll tell you what the most important and enjoyable thing for me is: getting notes. A director that enhances my performance by seeing things onscreen and then telling me, "Why don't we do that? Why don't we do this?" Directors who understand a little bit more of the psyche of what he's looking for and can put that in words. I work great with notes. I really am able to elevate with getting notes from other people and hearing other people's opinion and I think that's for me the best thing about working with a great director.”

Oded Fehr (1970) Israeli-American actor

Interview: Oded Fehr http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/15/interview-oded-fehr?page=2 (August 15, 2007)

People, Understanding, Thinking

“101 Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.”

Alan Perlis Epigrams on Programming

Epigrams on Programming, 1982

Failure, Problem, Success

“I would not have taken off my coat and gone to work had I not known that we were laying the foundations by this movement for the recovery of our legislative independence.”

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891) Irish politician

Galway speech (1880)

“I am sure it would be sensible to restrict as much as possible the work of these gentlemen, who are capable of doing an immense amount of harm with what may very easily degenerate into charlatanry. The tightest hand should be kept over them, and they should not be allowed to quarter themselves in large numbers among Fighting Services at the public expense.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

On psychiatrists, in a letter to John Anderson, Lord President of the Council (December 19, 1942)
In The Second World War, Volume IV : The Hinge of Fate (1951), Appendix C.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Fight

“The invigorating air did them both good, and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down upon them saying, "Little children, love one another."”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 41 : Learning To Forget

Love, Life, Children, Hope

“Wallis was in sympathy with Greek mathematics and astronomy, editing parts of the works of Archimedes, Eutocius, Ptolemy, and Aristarchus; but at the same time he recognized the fact that the analytic method was to replace the synthetic, as when he defined a conic as a curve of the second degree instead of as a section of a cone, and treated it by the aid of coordinates.”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

History of Mathematics (1923) Vol.1

Mathematics, Time, Parting

“I am proud to be a GMB member and a former officer. I strive to ensure that my contributions continue to aid the historic constructive working relations between the Labour party and the trade union movement. The Warwick agreement, which was referred to in our manifesto, is another historic agreement which only the Labour party could achieve.”

Dawn Butler (1969) British politician

Maiden speech on 24 May 2005

“What does an instinctively popular poet do in contemporary America, where serious poetry is no longer a popular art? The public whose values and sensibility he celebrates is unaware of his existence. Indeed, even if they were aware of his poetry, they would feel no need to approach it. Cut off from his proper audience, this poet feels little sympathy with the specialized minority readership that now sustains poetry either as a highly sophisticated verbal game or secular religion. His sensibility shows little similarity to theirs except for the common interest in poetry. And so the popular poet usually leads a marginal existence in literary life. His fellow poets look on him as an anomaly or an anachronism. Reviewers find him eminently unnewsworthy. Publishers see little prestige attached to printing his work. Critics, who have been trained to celebrate complexity, consider him an amiable simpleton.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"The Anonymity of the Regional Poet: Ted Kooser" http://www.danagioia.net/essays/ekooser.htm, from Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture (1992) Essays

Life, Religion, Art, Feeling