Quotes about year
page 41

“The use of the term institution has become widespread in the social sciences in recent years, reflecting the growth in institutional economics and the use of the institution concept in several other disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, politics, and geography. The term has a long history of usage in the social sciences, dating back at least to Giambattista Vico in his Scienza Nuova of 1725. However, even today, there is no unanimity in the definition of this concept. Furthermore, endless disputes over the definitions of key terms such as institution and organization have led some writers to give up matters of definition and to propose getting down somehow to practical matters instead. But it is not possible to carry out any empirical or theoretical analysis of how institutions or organizations work without having some adequate conception of what an institution or an organization is. This paper proposes that those that give up are acting in haste; potentially consensual definitions of these terms are possible, once we overcome a few obstacles and difficulties in the way. It is also important to avoid some biases in the study of institutions, where institutions and characteristics of a particular type are overgeneralized to the set”

Geoffrey Hodgson (1946) British economist

Source: Economics and institutions." 1988, p. 1; Abstract

Way, History, Study, Science

“I had tasted the bait and knew that there was nothing more attractive and more subtle on earth than the Game. I had also observed fairly early that this enchanting Game demanded more than naive amateur players, that it took total possession of the man who had succumbed to its magic. And an instinct within me rebelled against my throwing all my energies and interests into this magic forever. Some naive feeling for simplicity, for wholeness and soundness, warned me against the spirit of the Waldzell Vicus Lusorum. I sensed in it a spirit of specialism and virtuosity, certainly highly cultivated, certainly richly elaborated, but nevertheless isolated from humanity and the whole of life — a spirit that had soared too high into haughty solitariness. For years I doubted and probed, until the decision had matured within me and in spite of everything I decided in favor of the Game. I did so because I had within me that urge to seek the supreme fulfillment and serve only the greatest master.”

Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Life, Feeling, Game, Decision

“There is no reason why the U. S. cannot achieve our objectives in Iraq. Our aim must be to create a viable federal state under the rule of law which does not: enslave its own people, threaten its neighbors, or produce weapons of mass destruction. This is a 10-year task. We should be able to draw down most of our combat forces in 3–5 years. We have few alternatives to the current U. S. strategy, which is painfully but gradually succeeding. This is now a race against time. Do we have the political will, do we have the military power, will we spend the resources required to achieve our aims?”

Barry McCaffrey (1942) United States Army general

As quoted in "The Bottom Line – Observations from Iraqi Freedom" http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/Iraqreport.html (4 May 2006), Chaos Manor Special Reports

People, Law, Time, Drawing

“There were other Batman writers throughout the years but they could never capture the style and flavor of Bill's scripts. Bill was the best writer in the business and it seemed that he was destined to write Batman.”

Bob Kane (1915–1998) American comic book artist, the creator of Batman

[Bob Kane and Tom Andrae, Batman & Me, Eclipse Books, Forestville, CA, 1989, 1-56060-017-9, 44]

Business

“I am also grateful that I live in a country whose people have learned how to go on living in a sea of hatred without hating those who want to destroy them and without abandoning their own vision of peace. To have learned this is a great art, the prescription for which is not written down anywhere. It is part of our way of life in Israel. Finally, I wish to say that from the time I came to Palestine as a young woman, we have been forced to choose between what is more dangerous and what is less dangerous for us. At times we have all been tempted to give in to various pressures and to accept proposals that might guarantee us a little quiet for a few months, or maybe even for a few years, but that could only lead us eventually into even greater peril.”

Golda Meir book My Life

My Life (1975), p. 459

Life, Hate, People, Peace

“But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me.”

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

12/21/2001 White House release: President Highlights Administration's First-Year Accomplishments http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011221-2.html 2000s, 2001

“You can always tell an old battlefield where many men have lost their lives. The next spring the grass comes up greener and more luxuriant than on the surrounding countryside; the poppies are redder, the corn-flowers more blue. They grow over the field and down the sides of the shell holes and lean, almost touching, across the abandoned trenches in a mass of color that ripples all day in the direction that the wind blows. They take the pits and scars out of the torn land and make it a sweet, sloping surface again. Take a wood, now, or a ravine: In a year's time you could never guess the things which had taken place there.”

William March book Company K

Company K (1933)

Men, Color, Spring, Flowers

“Since I expressed my views…in July last year, I have sought to negotiate a position which would allow me to defend my stance in public, especially when it is questioned. The BBC has required that I do not speak on matters on which my stance is already known. That is not acceptable to me. I have therefore asked the corporation to accept my resignation as South Asia correspondent.”

Mark Tully (1935) British journalist

When he quit BBC due to differences with John Birt, the Director General of BBC. Source: Peter Victor, " Tully quits BBC http://www.independent.co.uk/news/tully-quits-bbc-1412865.html," The Independent, 10 July 1994

Question

“The status quo is not good for the ordinary Fijians. It is good for the elites in society but not for the ordinary Fijians. This is why you have not seen the ordinary Fijians progress much in the last 35 years since independence. It needs a change in policy and strategies for the development of the grassroots Fijian people.”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

Interview with Fiji Live, 22 August 2005

People, Change

“There is a great danger for the United States of America. This great danger is the Jew. Gentlemen, in whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion, have built up a state within a state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially.
If you do not exclude them from the United States in the Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government.
If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will or how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Claimed by American Fascist William Dudley Pelley in Liberation (February 3, 1934) to have appeared in notes taken at the Constitutional Convention by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; reported as debunked in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 26-27, noting that historian Charles A. Beard conducted a thorough investigation of the attribution and found it to be false. The quote appears in no source prior to Pelley's publication, contains anachronisms, and contradicts Franklin's own financial support of the construction of a synagogue in Philadelphia. Many variations of the above have been made, including adding to "the Christian religion" the phrase "upon which this nation was founded, by objecting to its restrictions"; adding to "strangle that country to death financially" the phrase "as in the case of Spain and Portugal". See Michael Feldberg, "The Myth of Ben Franklin's Anti-Semitism, in Blessings of Freedom: Chapters in American Jewish History (2003), p. 134.
Misattributed

Death, Children, Religion, Change

“China, up to 50 years ago, was completely non-homogenous, being compartmented into groups divided against each other. The war-making tendency was almost non-existent, as they still followed the tenets of the Confucian ideal of pacifist culture. At the turn of the century, under the regime of Chang Tso Lin, efforts toward greater homogeneity produced the start of a nationalist urge. This was further and more successfully developed under the leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek, but has been brought to its greatest fruition under the present regime to the point that it has now taken on the character of a united nationalism of increasingly dominant, aggressive tendencies.”

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

1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)

War, Effort, Change

“There is a simpler, finer way to organize human endeavor. I have declared this for many years and seen it to be true in many places. This simpler way is demonstrated to us in daily life, not the life we see on the news with its unending stories of human grief and horror, but what we feel when we experience a sense of life's deep harmony, beauty, and power, of how we feel when we see people helping each other, when we feel creative, when we know we're making a difference, when life feels purposeful.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time (2005)

Life, People, Beauty, Way

“For days I have seen nothing but the most awful scenes that the human mind can imagine... Stay calm and don't worry: I will come back to you – the war will end this year. I must stop; the transport of the wounded, which will take this letter along, is leaving. Stay well and calm as I do.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

from the battlefield at Verdun
In a letter to his wife Maria (2 March 1916), from the battlefield at Verdun; as cited in Letters from the war: Franz Marc, new edition by Klaus Lankheit & Uwe Steffen, American University Studies, Vol. 16, p. 113
1915 - 1916

War, Imagination

“We have had eight years of consistent and persistent attacks on those four years in government - and on me, personally, but that does not matter - by people who were collectively responsible for those four years.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Interviewed in 1982 about Margaret Thatcher's attitude towards him and his government.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

People, Personality

“I have worked like a galley slave throughout these eight years, morning till night, and I have given all I could to this work. I am happy with the results.”

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

Quoted in The Truth About Putin and Medvedev http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21353, last annual press conference. 2006- 2010

Night, Happiness

“We are organization watchers in our role as citizens. Increasing attention has been ﬁxed in recent years upon the functioning of society’s organizations: its large corporations and its governments. Hence this could also be described as a book for Everyman–for it proposes a way of thinking about organizational issues that concern us all.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Simon (1975, p. ix); As cited in Stefano Franchi(2006) " Herbert simon, anti-philosopher http://cleinias.org/sites/default/files/Simon-anti-Philosopher-preprint.pdf." Computing and Philosophy. p. 34. 1960s-1970s

Books, Way, Thinking

“I swear again, I had been told that they came to rule for 500 years. but how? you would rule as long as the people are satisfied with your rule, as long as they want you only.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during a military conference (28 April 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC93fn9s3-c. 2013

People

“There is no business like show business, Irving Berlin once proclaimed, and thirty years ago he may have been right, but not anymore. Nowadays almost every business is like show business, including politics, which has become more like show business than show business is.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"The Face Game" (p.215)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Business

“If I could give advice to the planet, it would be; don't marry for looks alone, going either way, and I'll tell you why. In a few years, if Barbara's boobs start to sag too much, there's a place you can go where they can just lift 'em right back up to where they were. And they can point the nipple wherever they want 'em. You can actually go to a titty bar, pick out a set of titties and say, "I want those titties on that woman right there." If her belly gets too big and she don't wanna work it off, you can go get a tummy tuck- they'll give you a belly that looks like a cheerleader. You know, if your eyes start to go bad, you can have Lasik surgery and they can give you 20/20 vision at any age. If your hearing starts to fail, they can put a device in your ear that'll make you able to hear as good as you could the day you were born. But let me tell you something, folks… you can't fix stupid. There's not a pill you can take, there's not a class you can go to. Stupid is fo-evah.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

You Can't Fix Stupid

Age, Stupidity, Way

“We Germans will never forget what the Soviet Army has accomplished for Germany during the past 10 years. I hope that in spite of all present existing difficulties our thanks will be expressed in deed. I drink a toast to the well-being and the future of the great and glorious Soviet Army and of loyal comradeship in arms for today and in the future.”

Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946) German field marshal

Quoted in "Germany plots with the Kremlin" - Page 49 - by Tete Harens Tetens - 1953

Hope, Drink, Past, Future

“May I be perfectly candid? I also am still a Unionist in this sense. If I were certified of twenty years of unbroken power in this country, I am still most clearly of opinion that the solution of the Irish question which would be best for England and best for Ireland would be the prosecution during that period of the policy which, in our opinion at least, had attained so large a measure of success in the year 1906. In saying this I make it quite plain that I am conscious that there are many of my colleagues—there must be many of my colleagues—who would not take that view. You must make the reservation that you are given that power and that you are given that power for the requisite period. The late Lord Salisbury spoke of "twenty years of resolute government." The Unionist Party, in the period to the close of which I refer, had been given some ten years, and it was only given those ten years by what many members of this House would describe as the accident of the issue, with its repercussion on the Election, of the war in South Africa. That accident and that Election gave the Unionist Party some ten years of office. Is it not evident, in trying to descry what lies in front of us through the mists of the future, that no man living can claim that twenty years, or anything like twenty years, lie in front of any Party that believes in the maintenance of the relations between Ireland and this country on the lines that have existed since the passing of the Act of Union?”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

Speech in the House of Lords http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1920/nov/23/government-of-ireland-bill on the Government of Ireland Bill (23 November 1920).

War, Lie, Question, Sense

“Nolan Ryan is simply a flame-thrower. They call him The Express. Get it? Ryan's Express. Harmon Killebrew says if he ever gets hit by Ryan's express, he'll have the pitcher arrested for manslaughter. Oakland slugger Reggie Jackson says Ryan is the only pitcher he's afraid of, down-deep-in-the-guts afraid of. "If a pitch ever gets away from him, he will kill someone." Nolan Ryan pitches for the California Angels, in Anaheim, which you also wouldn't confuse with New York. Thus, few people really know what an exciting young man this is, perhaps the most exciting single performer in baseball today. Yes, I've heard of Hank Aaron. For years I beat the drums, by myself, for Roberto Clemente. I like the cool gall of Vida Blue, the hot moxie of Pete Rose. They all excite me. But not down deep in the guts, the way this kid does. He excites me. He frightens me. He puts me on that double-pronged fork of attraction and revulsion. When you watch Nolan Ryan rear and throw that screaming blur of white toward the plate, you don't know whether to watch or cover your eyes. Will he strike out the hitter, or will he strike him dead?”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Nolan Ryan: The Untouchable," in Baseball Stars of 1973 (March 1973), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 92
Sports-related

People, Angels, Way, Dead

“I look back with pride to the great measures of social reform—Unemployment Insurance, Labour Exchanges, Safety in the Coalmines, bringing Old Age Pensions down from seventy to sixty-five years of age, the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions—for which I have been responsible both as a Liberal and a Conservative Minister. I find comfort in the broad harmony of thought which prevails between the modern Tory democracy and the doctrines of the famous Liberal leaders of the past. I am sure that in accord with their speeches and writings, men like Asquith, Morley and Grey, whom I knew so well in my youth, would have regarded the establishment of a Socialist State and the enforcement of the collectivist theory as one of the worst evils that could befall Britain and her slowly-evolved, long-cherished way of life.”

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

Speech at Huddersfield Town Hall (15 October 1951), quoted in Winston Churchill, Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (London: Cassell & Co, 1953), p. 149
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Life, Men, Youth, Age

“Economic theory makes a fundamental assumption that maximizing profits is the basic objective of every firm. But in recent years, profit maximization has been extensively qualified by theorists to refer to the long run; to refer to management’s rather than to owners’ income; to include non-financial income such as increased leisure for high-strung executives and more congenial relations between executive levels within the firm; and to make allowance for special considerations such as restraining competition, maintaining management control, warding off wage demands, and forestalling anti-trust suits. The concept has become so general and hazy that it seems to encompass most of men’s aims in life.
This trend reflects a growing realization by theorists that many firms, and particularly the big ones, do not operate on the principle of profit maximizing in terms of marginal costs and revenues…”

Joel Dean (1906–1979) American economics wrtier

Source: Managerial Economics, 1951, p. 28; Cited in: Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

Life, Men

“The course of reform is in progress thanks to Decree No. 6 of the Revolutionary Council-one of the monumental achievements in the eyes of the regime. Under this decree, farmers with little or no land have been freed of the debts they had incurred to landlords and moneylenders. You have sharpened the class struggle in Afghanistan. The class struggle which we awaited for many long years is now gaining in intensity. Previously, nothing material existed for our people to awaken their political awareness and to make them rise against the feudal lords.”

Nur Muhammad Taraki (1917–1979) Prime Minister of Afghanistan

Speech August 1, 1978 http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1978/eirv05n35-19780912/eirv05n35-19780912_061-who_are_afghanistans_new_leaders.pdf.

People

“There were two good fellows I used to know.
--How distant it all appears!
We played together in football weather,
And messed together for years:
Now one of them's wed, and the other's dead
So long that he's hardly missed
Save by us, who messed with him years ago:
But we're all in the old School List.”

James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892) English poet, tutor to Prince Albert Victor

The Old School List.

School, Wedding, Distant, Appearance

“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

The earliest version of this seems to be from Savings and Loan Annual 1963, p. 56 http://books.google.com/books?id=RckuAQAAIAAJ&q=%22hold+on+my+friends+to+the+constitution%22&dq=%22hold+on+my+friends+to+the+constitution%22&hl=en&ei=yCxETrWOLMn10gHCm5TbDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwATgU published by the United States Savings and Loan League. Variants of it were quoted by President Ronald Reagan, here http://books.google.com/books?id=tfgIGkforucC&q=%22what+has+happened+once+in+6,000+years+may+never+happen+again%22&dq=%22what+has+happened+once+in+6,000+years+may+never+happen+again%22&hl=en&ei=ejxEToOHMsP20gGI8KHACQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwADgK, here http://books.google.com/books?id=BOzui4UB1xEC&q=%22American+Constitution+shall+fall%22&dq=%22American+Constitution+shall+fall%22&hl=en&ei=Fz1ETvSWAeu80AH3jOHwCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA, and here http://books.google.com/books?id=tfgIGkforucC&q=%22miracles+do+not+cluster%22&dq=%22miracles+do+not+cluster%22&hl=en&ei=3D9ETs7ZNMXj0QHxkcn8CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBjgo, for example. A similar quote can be found in a speech by Edwin Meese, a longtime associate of Reagan, part of a 1986 book (pamphlet?), The Great debate: interpreting our written Constitution, page 56 http://books.google.com/books?id=HmVDAQAAIAAJ&q=%22miracles+do+not+cluster%22&dq=%22miracles+do+not+cluster%22&hl=en&ei=3D9ETs7ZNMXj0QHxkcn8CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAzgo Webster did say, in two different places and times, words that are similar enough to be the presumable basis of this misquote, though the phrase "the Republic for which it stands" is best known from its presence in The Pledge of Allegiance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance, written in 1892, about 40 years after Webster died. These are Webster's words: Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution of your country and the government established under it. Leave evils which exist in some parts of the country, but which are beyond your control, to the all-wise direction of an over-ruling Providence. Perform those duties which are present, plain and positive. Respect the laws of your country." (1851 letter from Daniel Webster to Dr. William B. Gooch of West Dennis, Massachusetts, quoted in an 1898 publication of the Bay State Monthly http://books.google.com/books?id=LNwXAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA326&dq=%22hold+on+my+friends+to+the+constitution%22&hl=en&ei=_BxEToOjI-Lb0QGewPnACQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22hold%20on%20my%20friends%20to%20the%20constitution%22&f=false) We live under the only government that ever existed, which was formed by the deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years, cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once destroyed, would have a void to be filled, perhaps for centuries, with evolution and tumult, riot and despotism. (From an 1882 book http://books.google.com/books?id=DoCdsVIZzFMC&pg=PA14&dq=%22once+in+six+thousand+years%22+Webster&hl=en&ei=NjhETvblI9K_tgeU-PHDCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ, which says it is printing an oration given by Webster in 1802; similar but not exactly the same wording can be found in The Granite monthly: a magazine of literature, history and state ...: Volume 5 - Page 7 http://books.google.com/books?id=wRYXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7&dq=%22miracles+do+not+cluster%22&hl=en&ei=6xhETtL9NuT30gGvo834CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22miracles%20do%20not%20cluster%22&f=false, 1882, which said that it was printing an 1805 address given by Webster in Concord, Massachusetts.) [That Webster would use similar wording in separate orations could be expected, of course.] The misquote is notable for the emphasis on the Constitution rather the government of the United States; for using the word "fail" (sometimes, "fall"), rather than "destroyed", which opens up a line of argument that Webster was concerned about the Constitution being misinterpreted, in legal cases; and that worldwide anarchy could result from something happening in the United States, something fairly unthinkable in the first half of the 19th century, when the United States was in no way an important country in international matters. Misattributed

World

“It was so much like having sex with the wind. It complicated things and blew away and softly separated and slid back around him. The wire was about pain too: it would always be there, jutting into his feet, the weight of the bar, the dryness of the throat, the throb of his arms, but the joy was losing the pain so that it no longer mattered. So too with his breathing. He wanted his breath to enter the wire so that he was nothing. This sense of losing himself. Every nerve. Every cuticle. He hit it on the towers. The logic became unfixed. It was the point where there was no time. The wind was blowing and his body could have experienced it years in advance.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), The Ringing Grooves of Change

Pain, Sex, Sense, Time

“The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech at Students for a Labour Victory rally, referring to Enoch Powell who was MP for Wolverhampton South West, Methodist Central Hall, London (3 June 1970), as quoted in "Onslaught on Powell by Wedgwood Benn" by Denis Taylor in The Times (4 June 1970), p. 1
1970s

“The struggle over the U. N.'s role foreshadowed the American determination a year later to oppose Boutros-Ghali's quest for a second term as Secretary-General. More than any other issue, it was his performance on Bosnia that made us feel he did not deserve a second term - just as Kofi Annan's strenght on the bombing in August had already made him the privte favourite of many American officials. Although the American campaign against Boutros-Ghali, in which all our key allies opposed us, was long and difficult - especially for Allbright, who bore heavy and unjust criticism for her role - the decision was correct, and may well have saved America's role in the United Nations.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 202

Feeling, Decision

“The Success. The German Bible of Luther was saluted with the greatest enthusiasm, and became the most powerful help to the Reformation. Duke George of Saxony, Duke William of Bavaria, and Archduke Ferdinand of Austria strictly prohibited the sale in their dominions, but could not stay the current. Hans Lufft at Wittenberg printed and sold in forty years (between 1534 and 1574) about a hundred thousand copies,—an enormous number for that age,—and these were read by millions. The number of copies from reprints is beyond estimate.
Cochlaeus, the champion of Romanism, paid the translation the greatest compliment when he complained that "Luther's New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity."”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's Bible club

Women, People, Truth, Age

“Manifestly, in any organization men should move from the bottom up to the top. That develops loyalty, ambition and talent, because there is a chance for promotion. Never inject a man into the top if it can be avoided. In a big organization to have to do that, I think, is a reflection on management. Of course there are always exceptional cases. As the years have passed, developing, as they naturally have, emergencies at times, I have been gratified to find that we have, with very few exceptions, been able to find right within ourselves some individual capable of assuming a greater responsibility, and he has always been given the opportunity.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: Adventures of a White-Collar Man. 1941, p. 137

Men, Nature, Thinking, Chance

“I was planning on writing a detailed review of several books on web security tonight, but the Obama collapse has superseded my best-laid plans. Here’s another open thread for this important topic, as America wrestles with the issue of whether it would be a good idea to elect a President with a 20-year history of associating with people who hate America.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

March 14, 2008 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=29285_Should_America_Have_a_President_Who_Associates_with_America-Haters&only

Hate, People, Books, History

“I had been journeying to and fro on the face of a fine broad bit of English earth, seeking what wages I could earn, what work I could get, and what facts I could devour. I found, I got, I devoured, every morsel which came in my way. I read, marked, learned and inwardly digested, as the prayer book says somewhere, all I could lay my hands or ears or eyes on. At the same time I was taking in a supply of facts which would not be digested—tough facts about the land and the labourer, that accumulated and lay within my mind, heavy as a lump of lead, and hard as a stone. No matter what I did, whether I was working with my hands or my head, that mass of indigestible facts was always in the background, worrying and bothering me. I got no peace; it worried and bothered me more and more as each year went by.”

Joseph Arch (1826–1919) British politician

Source: The Story of his Life Told by Himself (1898), pp. 42-43

Books, Peace, Way, Learning

“This isn’t the first. People have been making malware that does this for a few years now. There’s a word for it: ‘ransomware.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 1
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

People

“Scum, nazi, filth, trash, garbage, maggots. We're all ruled by little chicken-neck nellies, going "Kill everybody! I get off when I talk about cutting people's power off! I'm a nelly!" RAARGH! Just simpering control freaks, in big nerd packs, taking everything over, ruling everything. Becoming police officers with weapons, tasering us for fun. I've had it with control freaks and scum! You people are cancer! Ugh! Alright, I'm not in a good mood now. I start thinking about Bill Gates, that little chicken-neck, hopping around, little murdering eugenicist. You know how he walks, like a demonic elf. "I'm Bill Gates! I'm gonna shoot you up with something that's gonna kill you deader than a hammer. How's a 30 year death from gut disease sound, African children? Roll up the sleeves! I'm a little chicken-neck bastard, and nobody's got the will to see what I am!"”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Alex's Bill Gates Chicken-Neck Bastard 'Rant' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-5WgcMV_o, September 2011.

Death, Children, People, Disease

“The domination of France in the plastic arts has been almost complete for the last thirty years or more in this country [America]. If an apprenticeship to a master has been necessary, I think we have served it. Any further relation of such a character can only mean humiliation to us. After all, we are not French and never can be, and any attempt to be so is to deny our inheritance and to try to impose upon ourselves a character that can be nothing but a veneer upon the surface.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1911 - 1940, Notes on Painting - Edward Hopper (1933)

Art, Thinking, Country

“Chicago 1968 taught one how close any civilized country is to berserkness at all times; also how terrorism, even silly terrorism, strengthens the cops more than anyone. Yet already this European-style history lesson has been watered down by consensus into something crazy we did in the sixties, just as we "did" McCarthyism in the fifties. As if a nation changes its nature completely every ten years; as if social forces were as evanescent as hula hoops or skateboards, instead of as remorseless as glaciers.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"Chicago on My Mind" (1973), p. 266
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

History, Nature, Water, Change

“So, all through the medieval period, Foreign and Indian Muslims strove hard to make India a Muslim country by converting and eliminating the Hindus. They killed and converted, and converted and killed by turns. In the earlier centuries of their presence here, the picture was sombre indeed. Turkish rule was established in northern India at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Within fifteen years of Muhammad Ghori’s occupation of Delhi, the Turks rapidly conquered most of the major cities of northern India. Their lightening success, as described by contemporary chroniclers, entailed great loss of life. Qutbuddin Aibak’s conquests during the life-time of his master and later on in the capacity of king (c.1200-1210) included Gwalior, parts of Bundelkhand, Ajmer, Ranthambhor, Anhilwara, as well a parts of U. P. and Malwa. In Nahrwala alone 50,000 persons were killed during Aibak’s campaign.8 No wonder, he earned the nickname of killer of lacs.9 Bakhtiyar Khalji marched through Bihar into Bengal and massacred people in both the regions. During his expedition to Gwalior Iltutmish (1210-36) massacred 700 persons besides those killed in the battle on both sides. His attacks on Malwa (Vidisha and Ujjain) were met with stiff resistance and were accompanied by great loss of life. He is also credited with killing 12,000 Khokhars (Gakkhars) during Aibak’s reign.10 The successors of Iltutmish (Raziyah, Bahram, etc.) too fought and killed zealously. During the reigns of Nasiruddin and Balban (1246-86) warfare for consolidation and expansion of Turkish dominions went on apace. Trailokyavarman, who ruled over Southern U. P., Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand, and is called “Dalaki va Malaki” by Persian chroniclers, was defeated after great slaughter (1248). In 1251, Gwalior, Chanderi, Narwar and Malwa were attacked. The Raja of Malwa alone had 5,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry and would have been defeated only after great loss of life. The inhabitants of Kaithal were given such severe punishment (1254) that they ‘might not forget (the lesson) for the rest of their lives.’ In 1256 Ulugh Khan Balban carried on devastating warfare in Sirmur, and ‘so many of the rebellious Hindus were killed that numbers cannot be computed or described.’ Ranthambhor was attacked in 1259 and ‘many of its valiant fighting men were sent to hell.’ In the punitive expedition to Mewat (1260) ‘numberless Hindus perished under the merciless swords of the soldiers of Islam.’ In the same year 12,000 men, women and children were put to the sword in Hariyana.”

K. S. Lal book Indian Muslims: Who Are They

Indian Muslims: Who Are They (1990)

Life, Women, Men, Children

“Last year when I hurt my shoulder, I couldn't hit high pitches, but they kept throwing me low and away, and I could hit that pitch without much pain. "Look, he gets three hits, but he says he's in pain," they say, but they don't know that I can't go for the high pitch, and I'm not about to tell them!”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with the San Juan Star in September 1970, as quoted in Clemente! (1973) by Kal Wagenheim, p. 178
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1970</big>

Pain, Hurt

“In use of the broad powers with which I have been invested, I have found it proper to declare that
1. Priests of any cult who, abusing their ministry, excite hate or disrespect for our laws, our government, or its rights, will be punished by three years’ imprisonment or deportation.
2. Because of the present crisis all cathedral chapters are suppressed, except for that of Guadalajara because of its patriotic behavior.
3. Priests of all cults are forbidden from wearing their vestments or any other distinguishing garment outside of the churches… All violators will be punished with fines of ten to one hundred pesos or imprisonment from fifteen to sixty days.”

Benito Juárez (1806–1872) President of Mexico during XIX century

Proclamation in response to church officials openly encouraging support for French forces. (30 August 1862)

Hate, Law, Behavior

“Tis possible, young sir, that some excess
Mars youthful judgment and old men’s no less;
Yet we must take our counsel as we may
For (flying years this lesson still convey),
’Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise,
And not to use, but still correct one’s eyes.”

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) English poet

Thesis and Antithesis http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CloughArthurHugh/verse/poemsproseremains/antithesis.html, st. 4.

Men, Youth, Flying

“I think the enemy is here before us, too. But I think we know the forms and faces of the enemy, and in the knowledge that we know him, and shall meet him, and eventually must conquer him is also our living hope. I think the enemy is here before us with a thousand faces, but I think we know that all his faces wear one mask. I think the enemy is single selfishness and compulsive greed. I think the enemy is blind, but has the brutal power of his blind grab. I do not think the enemy was born yesterday, or that he grew to manhood forty years ago, or that he suffered sickness and collapse in 1929, or that we began without the enemy, and that our vision faltered, that we lost the way, and suddenly were in his camp. I think the enemy is old as Time, and evil as Hell, and that he has been here with us from the beginning. I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and ravaged and despoiled our land. I think he took our people and enslaved them, that he polluted the fountains of our life, took unto himself the rarest treasures of our own possession, took our bread and left us with a crust, and, not content, for the nature of the enemy is insatiate--tried finally to take from us the crust.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Book VII, Ch. 48: Credo
You Can't Go Home Again (1940)

Life, People, Hope, Way

“This year I’m planning on hibernating from October until the Olympics next August. It’s that important to me. It drives me. And it’s very addictive. One of the cruellest things about the sport is that you’re never fulfilled or completely happy with your performance. You’re running against a clock so you always want to go faster and think that you can. That becomes an addiction.”

Jo Ankier (1982) British athlete and television personality

Jewish Chronicle, 17 August 2007, p. 11-12: "The calendar girl who's going for gold"

Thinking, Sport, Happiness

“We're not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn't cute or something to do for lack of something better. The whole agonized future of this planet, every Man, Woman and Child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.”

L. Ron Hubbard Keeping Scientology Working

"Keeping Scientology Working" (7 February 1965).
Scientology Policy Letters

Game, Future, Dependency

“The argument of the “long view” may be correct in some meaninglessly abstract sense, but it represents a fundamental mistake in categories and time scales. Our only legitimate long view extends to our children and our children's children's children—hundreds or a few thousands of years down the road. If we let the slaughter continue, they will share a bleak world with rats, dogs, cockroaches, pigeons, and mosquitoes. A potential recovery millions of years later has no meaning at our appropriate scale.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"The Passion of Antoine Lavoisier", p. 365
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

Children, World, Dogs, Sense

“Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. God appointed the Afghanistan veteran to avenge himself on this evil nation. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist Church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living that you can still repent and obey. This is ultimatum time with God. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:3. This nation unleashed criminal violent veterans on Westboro Baptist Church for telling you to obey God. We told you at your soldiers' funerals that they are dying for your sins. You hate those words and you will not stop sinning. So you sent violent veterans, so-called patriot guard riders, to attack and try to silence Westboro Baptist Church. Then you sent violent crippled veteran Ryan Newell with 90 rounds of ammunition, planning to shoot five Westboro Baptist Church members while picketing. God restrained the hand of them all, then he turned the violent veteran on you. 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire outside a Tucson, Arizona grocery store, shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John M. Roll, and sixteen others. At least six are dead and counting. Congress passed three laws against Westboro Baptist Church. Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby-killing, was shot for that mischief. A federal judge in Baltimore, part of the massive military community in Maryland and in the District of Columbia, put Westboro Baptist Church on trial for faithful words from God. Federal Judge Roll paid for those sins with his life. Today, mouthy witch Sarah Palin had Representative Giffords in her crosshairs on her website. She quick took it down, however, because she is a cowardly brute like the rest of you. The crosshairs to worry about are God's and he's put you in his and your destruction is upon you. You should have obeyed. This nation of violent murderers is in full rebellion against God. God avenged himself on you today by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you in your affliction. Westboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise God for his righteous judgments in this Earth. Amen.”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

Fred Phelps, on the 2011 Tucson shooting. As quoted in Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Christina Green’s Funeral http://www.anorak.co.uk/270124/media/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-christina-greens-funeral.html. Anorak News. January 10, 2011. 2010s, Thank God for the Violent Shooter (2011)

Life, God, Hate, Faith

“Regardless of the extent to which the media promote "politically correct," but scientifically wrong, resolutions from professional societies such as the American Anthropological Association, facts remain facts and require appropriate scientific, not political or ideological, explanation. None of this should be construed as meaning that environmental factors play no part in individual and group differences. But with each passing year and each new study, the evidence for the genetic contribution to these differences becomes more firmly established than ever.”

J. Philippe Rushton (1943–2012) Canadian psychology professor

Mankind Quarterly, Winter98, Vol. 39 Issue 2, p231

Study, Parting

“In the Far West, the United States of America openly claimed to be custodians of the whole planet. Universally feared and envied, universally respected for their enterprise, yet for their complacency very widely despised, the Americans were rapidly changing the whole character of man’s existence. By this time every human being throughout the planet made use of American products, and there was no region where American capital did not support local labour. Moreover the American press, gramophone, radio, cinematograph and televisor ceaselessly drenched the planet with American thought. Year by year the aether reverberated with echoes of New York’s pleasures and the religious fervours of the Middle West. What wonder, then, that America, even while she was despised, irresistibly moulded the whole human race. This, perhaps, would not have mattered, had America been able to give of her very rare best. But inevitably only her worst could be propagated. Only the most vulgar traits of that potentially great people could get through into the minds of foreigners by means of these crude instruments. And so, by the floods of poison issuing from this people’s baser members, the whole world, and with it the nobler parts of America herself, were irrevocably corrupted.
For the best of America was too weak to withstand the worst. Americans had indeed contributed amply to human thought. They had helped to emancipate philosophy from ancient fetters. They had served science by lavish and rigorous research. In astronomy, favoured by their costly instruments and clear atmosphere, they had done much to reveal the dispositions of the stars and galaxies. In literature, though often they behaved as barbarians, they had also conceived new modes of expression, and moods of thought not easily appreciated in Europe. They had also created a new and brilliant architecture. And their genius for organization worked upon a scale that was scarcely conceivable, let alone practicable, to other peoples. In fact their best minds faced old problems of theory and of valuation with a fresh innocence and courage, so that fogs of superstition were cleared away wherever these choice Americans were present. But these best were after all a minority in a huge wilderness of opinionated self-deceivers, in whom, surprisingly, an outworn religious dogma was championed with the intolerant optimism of youth. For this was essentially a race of bright, but arrested, adolescents. Something lacked which should have enabled them to grow up. One who looks back across the aeons to this remote people can see their fate already woven of their circumstance and their disposition, and can appreciate the grim jest that these, who seemed to themselves gifted to rejuvenate the planet, should have plunged it, inevitably, through spiritual desolation into senility and age-long night.”

Olaf Stapledon book Last and First Men

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter II: Europe’s Downfall; Section 1, “Europe and America” (p. 33)

Fate, People, Pleasure, Youth

“The Indian community in Fiji have been here over 120 to 130 years and would be the largest potential field of harvest to proselytize in, but we have not a show because of our examples and behaviours towards them. We need to show them the love of Christ first … before they can respond to Him.”

James Ah Koy (1936) Fijian politician

Maiden speech in the Senate http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID=165&viewtype=full, 8 December 2003 (excerpts), Speech in the Senate http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID=245&viewtype=full, 26 August 2004 (excerpts)

Love, Communication, Christ

“So, whether or not how dramatic this change will be, or is, what it’s caused by, are things that honest people, I think, can disagree with, and I really personally, having been a journalist, the first thing I was always cautioned by when someone was claiming, well, everybody is on my side, or everybody says this, or there is a total consensus, almost always when people said that to me over my years as a journalist, it wasn’t true. It was that there were honest people who disagreed and significant disagreement on such issues. We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows? We do know the CO2 in the past had its time when it was greater as well. And what happened when the CO2 was greater since then and now? There have been many cycles of up and down warming. So with that said, I think that we’ve had a great discussion today.”

Dana Rohrabacher (1947) American politician

Thoughts on global warming on C-SPAN 2 (February 15, 2007) http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/10/dino-flatulence.

People, Thinking, Change, Time

“Tis something, if in absence we can see
The footsteps of the past: it soothes the heart
To breathe the air scented in other years
By lips beloved; to wander through the groves
Where once we were not lonely”

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

The Guerilla Chief
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Past, Heart

“So in the heart,
When, fading slowly down the past,
Fond memories depart,
And each that leaves it seems the last;
Long after all the rest are flown,
Returns a solitary tone,—
The after-echo of departed years,—
And touches all the soul to tears.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The After-Echo, st. 2 (1871).

Soul, Tear, Memory, Past

“The annual Sexpo exhibition comes but once a year, and is not always memorable but this year one of our scouts discovered a truly unique talent at the show - a man who paints portraits with his, errm, manhood. Yes, Pricasso, as he calls himself, took Darling Harbour by storm last week.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Annette Sharp, The Diary: Painting by members, The Sun-Herald, Sydney, Australia, 29 July 2007, 2, Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited]
About

Painting, Scouting

“Whoever enters the Way without a guide
will take a hundred years to travel a two-day journey.
The Prophet said "In this way you have no more
faithful companion than your works."
How can these works and this earning in the way of righteousness
be accomplished without a master, O father? Can you practice the meanest profession in the world
without a master's guidance?
Whoever undertakes a profession without a master
becomes the laughingstock of city and town.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Mathnavi translated by William Chittick pp. 122-123 as quoted in Classical Islam and Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition by Muhammad Hisham Kabbani p. 153

World, Faith, Way, Travel

“He had spent seven years of his life with Tereza, and now he realised that those years were more attractive in retrospect than they were when he was living them.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

pg 28
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part One: Lightness and Weight

Life

“I believe that shortly after LSD was discovered, it was recognized as being of great value to psychoanalysis and psychiatry. It was not considered to be an escape. It was a very important discovery at that time, and for fifteen years it could be used legally in psychiatric treatment and for scientific study in humans. During this time, Delysid, the name I gave to LSD, was used safely, and was the subject of thousands of publications in the professional literature. Actually, just last week, I had visitors from the Albert Hofmann Foundation, to whom I gave all of the original documentation, which had been stored at the Sandoz Laboratories. This early work was very well documented, and shows how well research with LSD went until it became part of the drug scene in the 1960s. So, from originally being part of the therapeutic pharmacopeia, LSD became a drug of the street and inevitably it was made illegal. Because of this reputation, it became unavailable to the medical field, and so the research, which had been very open, was stopped. Now it appears that this research may start again. The importance of such investigations appears to be recognized by the health authorities, and so it is my hope that finally the prohibition is coming to an end, and the medical field can return to the explorations which were forced to stop thirty years ago.”

Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) Swiss chemist

MAPS interview (1998)

Health, Hope, Literature, Study

“One day early last year she called me and suggested that I needed to hear from some of the women whose experiences she had been collating. I agreed, not reluctantly but certainly with some trepidation. Not long after I was sitting very uncomfortably, and with mounting disbelief, through lengthy face-to-face meetings with three women who had endured appalling physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their fellow soldiers; so much for our pride in looking after our mates. These women had been let down by their leaders and their comrades. They had been robbed of that irreplaceable component of their individual human personal identity – their dignity and self respect. This was not the Army that I had loved and thought I knew.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Love, Women, Personality

“Rudy gets horribly excited when I say this, but I do declare that if they keep him from working two years more, then I will work and support us both. There are many things that I can do. I can dance. I can go back to my designing, but I don't care what it is if it only brings in enough money for him to be able to go on fighting for decent treatment and good material.”

Natacha Rambova (1897–1966) American film personality and fashion designer

On working and supporting herself and Valentino, p. 118
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

Money, Support, Dance, Fight

“You ever see guys with nothing on their desk? They always fail. I don't know what it is. I've seen it for years.”

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

Explaining his messy desk, NY Times Magazine interview. * 2015-09-21
Donald Trump is not going anywhere
Mark Leibovich
The New York Times Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/magazine/donald-trump-is-not-going-anywhere.html
2010s, 2015

Guy

“O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,
Our own beloved native land!
Our True North, strong and free!”

Robert Stanley Weir (1856–1926) Canadian judge and poet

O Canada (1908)

Strong, Sea

“35 Proposition. The Devils bondage a thousand yeares (cap. 20) is no waies els, but from stirring up of universall warres among nations.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

Way

“No, I don’t think it’s correct to define my writing as fables. There are themes, yes, but I’m not trying to offer some categorical cure-it-all to the problematic situation of Man. I’m neither theologian nor a politician. My concern in my first novel, The Zoo, was loss of inner life. After long years of writer’s block, the novel just exploded out of me. Thirty days. All too quickly to really do it justice. With my second novel, The Nihilesthete, I was taken by the spiritual diminishment and the all-pervasive powerlessness that I felt was taking over our culture which in turn prevented and inverted my lead character’s full expression. Such is the motive-force behind almost banal, cerebralized cruelties he harbours upon his arch-enemy, the artist, Brodski.”

Richard Kalich novelist

Richard Kalich in conversation with Lucy Sweeney Byrne - Books Go Social http://booksgosocial.com/2015/01/13/richard-kalich-in-conversation-with-lucy-sweeney-byrne/ January 13, 2015.

Life, Justice, Motivation, Thinking

“I found myself at the top of the the ladder, with everything, but with one thing missing: that one thing was a companion. Because, it's cliché to say, but nothing really means anything in the end unless you're really doing what you want to do, and… I walked off a huge world tour, with a yacht and television specials, and record deals, and film deals. I walked away and my whole thing collapsed. I shocked my business world and walked back to my cottage, which I had been renting to two American girls. One of them was Cynthia, and I stayed with her for two days, then her friend Lori came back from Clapton's house, where there had been a party going on for almost a week. Lori came in with another friend, and it was Linda, my Sunshine Supergirl from 1965 whom I'd written all my songs for. We hadn't married then, because she had a child with Brian Jones and wasn't ready for another relationship. And it was good that we didn't marry back then, because my four years of '60's fame would have wrecked the marriage. But we met again, and I went away from fame and into the arms of my muse, my lover, and then my wife, and then the mother of my children.”

Donovan (1946) Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist

Grip interview (1997)

Marriage, Children, World, Girl

“Three and a half million years separate the individual who left these footprints in the sands of Africa from the one who left them on the moon. A mere blink in the eye of evolution. Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever-increasing population. In spite of disasters when civilisations have over-reached themselves, that process has continued, indeed accelerated, even today. Now mankind is looking for food, not just on this planet but on others. Perhaps the time has now come to put that process into reverse. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Closing lines
The Life of Mammals (2002)

Food, Intelligence, Time, Success

“What are the ingredients of the most creatively meaningful image of human existence that the mind can conceive? Remove human frailty--as grass, as a sigh, as dust, as moth-crushed--and the estimate becomes romantic. Remove grandeur--a little lower than God--and aspiration recedes. Remove sin-the tendency to miss the mark--and sentimentality threatens. Remove freedom--choose ye this day!--and responsibility goes by the board. Remove, finally, divine parentage and life becomes estranged, cut loose and adrift on a cold, indifferent sea. With all that has been discovered about human life in the intervening 2,500 years, it is difficult to find a flaw in this assessment.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

On the Torah's take on human existence.
The World's Religions (1991)

Life, God, Freedom, Grass

“Our meeting with Admiral Leighton Smith, on the other hand, did not go well. He had been in charge of the NATO air strikes in August and September [1995], and this gave him enormous credibility, especially with the Bosnian Serbs. Smith was also the beneficiary of a skillful public relations effort that cast him as the savior of Bosnia. In a long profile, Newsweek had called him "a complex warrior and civilizer, a latter-day George C. Marshall." This was quite a journalistic stretch, given the fact that Smith considered the civilian aspects of the task beneath him and not his job - quite the opposite of what General Marshall stood for.
After a distinguished thirty-three-year Navy career, including almost three hundred combat missions in Vietnam, Smith was well qualified for his original post as commander of NATO's southern forces and Commander in Chief of all U. S. naval forces in Europe. But he was the wrong man for his additional assignment as IFOR commander, which was the result of two bureaucratic compromises, one with the French, the other with the American military. General Joulwan rightly wanted the sixty thousand IFOR soldiers to have as their commanding officer an Army general trained in the use of ground forces. But Paris insisted that if Joulwan named a separate Bosnia commander, it would have to be a Frenchman. This was politically impossible for the United States; thus, the Franh objections left only one way to preserve an American chain of command - to give the job to Admiral Smith, who joked that he was now known as "General" Smith. (…)
On the military goals of Dayton, he was fine; his plans for separating the forces along the line we had drawn in Dayton and protecting his forces were first-rate. But he was hostile to any suggestions that IFOR help implement any nonmilitary portion of the agreement. This, he said repeatedly, was not his job.
Based on Shalikashvili's statement at White House meetings, Christopher and I had assumed that the IFOR commander would use his authority to do substancially more than he was obligated to do. The meeting with Smith shattered that hope. Smith and his British deputy, General Michael Walker, made clear that they intended to take a minimalist approach to all aspects of implementation other than force protection. Smith signaled this in his first extensive public statement to the Bosnian people, during a live call-in program on Pale Television - an odd choice for his first local media appearance. During the program, he answered a question in a manner that dangerously narrowed his own authority. He later told Newsweek about it with a curious pride: "One of the questions I was asked was, "Admiral, is it true that IFOR is going to arrest Serbs in the Serb suburbs of Sarajevo?" I said, "Absolutely not, I don't have the authority to arrest anybody"."”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

This was an inaccurate way to describe IFOR's mandate. It was true IFOR was not supposed to make routine arrests of ordinary citizens. But IFOR had the authority to arrest indicted war criminals, and could also detain anyone who posed a threat to its forces. Knowing what the question meant, Smith had sent an unfortunate signal of reassurance to Karadzic - over his own network.
Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p.327-329

Hostility, War, People, Hope

“In considering our traditional ties with the Commonwealth we should remember that it now differs greatly from the entity which existed 20 or 30 years ago. Many of us do not feel quite the same allegiance to Archbishop Makarios or Doctor Nkrumah or to people like Jomo Kenyatta as we do towards Mr. Menzies of Australia.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (14 August 1961) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=101105 Backbench MP

People, Feeling

“As a little child, I remember having conflicts with other people over religion at 5-years-old, at 8-years-old, and without realising it. Certainly, not realising my whole life would be this whole argument. I would ask simple questions to my babysitter when I was a little boy, like, “How does Jesus turn water into wine? I know water is H2O. I know that wine is alcohol and fruit juice, and I don’t know what the chemical components of that are.” But as it turned out, when I grew up I looked it up. It is only the difference of a carbon atom. The molecules are much more complex. But they involve oxygen, hydrogen, and some additional carbons. That’s it. But all I knew at the time, water is H2O, and alcohol and fruit juice are something else. How does Jesus turn water from H2O into H2O and whatever else? I thought someone would give me some kind of intelligible answer. Like how Jesus does that, whether he uses telekinesis or whatever he does… But they don’t come up with explanations like that, they didn’t want explanations. They didn’t even want to believe people had explanations. When I was growing up, I found believers not only hated accurate scientific answers, but they hated any answer that sounded scientific. It was a funny thing. I was told all of the time that “sceptics were cynics” because we miss out on the big picture that only the believers can see.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

Life, Hate, People, Alcohol

“The purpose of spending years developing an organizational theory is the hope that it will lead to improvements in organizations.”

Kenneth D. Mackenzie (1937) American management consultant

Kenneth D. Mackenzie (2011). The Organizational Hologram. p. 11

Hope

“Defending our nation is just the beginning of our challenge. My third goal is to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity – given few nations in history – to extend the current peace into the far realm of the future. A chance to project America’s peaceful influence, not just across the world, but across the years.”

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

1990s, A Period of Consequences (September 1999)

World, Peace, History, Chance

“Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have allowed the conventions of expression available to them to become entirely too confining.”

David Mermin (1935) American physicist

[N. David Mermin, Boojums all the way through: communicating science in a prosaic age, Cambridge University Press, 1990, 0-521-38880-5, xi]

Past

“About a year ago, I started seeing these ads in the paper for 'Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation'. First it was a little ad. The next week, it was twice as big. And after a month, it was a full page-it just took over. Something in that triggered a bunch of associations and projections. Like, what kind of activities do you have to engage in to get to the point where you need to bring a laser into the equation?”

Beck (1970) American Musician (b.1970)

Spin magazine, December 1999

“Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
My own high-bosom'd beauty, who increase
Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way!
Through many years they toil; then on a day
They die not, — for their life was death, — but cease;
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator

The Choice

Life, Death, Beauty, Way

“When a novel department store called Gigantti was opened in the capitol area a year or two ago, which promised gadgets of many colors for the stinking cheap price of 9:90, 99:90, 999:90; the parking field's rafts of metal plated beetles reached the horizon, and the human lines wriggling midst them in tens of thousands surpassed all the records of the good old Soviet Union. As I looked at those newspaper pictures, a tormented scream erupted from my lips: no democracy, for heaven's sake, no democracy! No common voting right, never! No, no, no!”

Pentti Linkola (1932) Finnish ecologist

Thoughts And Memories About The Old Educated Class - A View Into The Century's Ideological History (2000)

Color, Democracy

“American corporations often say human resources are their most important asset. In our national discourse, everyone talks about jobs. Yet as a society we somehow tolerate persistent high unemployment, 30 years of stagnating wages and growing wage inequality, two decades of declining job satisfaction and loss of pension and retirement benefits, and continuous challenges from the consequences of unemployment on family life. If we really valued work and human resources, we would address these problems with the vigor required to solve them.”

Thomas A. Kochan (1947) American academic

Thomas A. Kochan in: "An interview with Thomas A. Kochan," in: Harvard Magazine, Sept. 2012. online at harvardmagazine.com.

Life, Family, Problem, Loss

“The two young men turned and they didn't smile because they were Woody Ballinger's two boys, Carl and Sammy, and for one brief instant, there was something in their faces that didn't belong in that atmosphere of joviality and the little move they instinctively made that shielded them behind the others in back of them was involuntary enough to stretch a tight-lipped grin across my face that told them I could know.
Could.
From away back out of the years I got that feeling across my shoulders and up my spine that said things were starting to smell right and if you kept pushing the walls would go down and you could charge in and take them all apart until there was nothing left but the dirt they were made of.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Survival...Zero! (1970)

Men, Smile, Feeling, Boy

“Is it dangerous to claim that parents have no power at all (other than genetic) to shape their child's personality, intelligence, or the way he or she behaves outside the family home? … A confession: When I first made this proposal ten years ago, I didn't fully believe it myself. I took an extreme position, the null hypothesis of zero parental influence, for the sake of scientific clarity. … The establishment's failure to shoot me down has been nothing short of astonishing.”

Judith Rich Harris (1938–2018) psychology researcher

The Edge Annual Question — 2006: WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA? http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_6.html#harris

Family, Way, Home, Intelligence

“Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

Quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson

Dead

“Scott quoted a famous geneticist, who said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." I would like to drop one word, so that the quote is true. It should read, "Nothing in biology makes sense in the light of evolution." For example, evolution has no explanation as to why and how around 1.4 million species of animals evolved as male and female. No one even goes near explaining how and why each species managed to reproduce (during the millions of years the female was supposedly evolving to maturity) without the right reproductive machinery.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

Referring to title of an essay by Theodosius Dobzhansky

Quotes, Sense, Light, Reading

“Many years before, I had left a beautiful country and a rich nation and I returned to that country six years later to find it fundamentally changed and in a state of upheaval, and in great spiritual and material need.”

Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946) German general

Quoted in "Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal" - Nuremberg, Germany - 1948.

Beauty, Change, Country

“The link between Communism and traditional Christianity is so close that when Communists lose their faith, they usually and naturally flop over into Roman Catholicism. Whittaker Chambers was only the best known of the Marxists who, when disillusioned, reverted to an earlier form of his ruling superstition. Would-be atheists who do not become converted to the Marxist cult often retain in their minds the Christian residue that makes them susceptible to drivel about "all mankind," "One World," and the "humanitarian" sentimentality of do-gooders and similar pests--all of which find no confirmation in the facts of nature and the real world. There are even self-styled atheists who evidently think that the god in whom they do not believe stopped the biological evolution of anthropoids a hundred thousand years ago to make all talking species equal in some mysterious way that transcends the obvious and great difference between extant races in intelligence, character, and instincts, perhaps because the non-existing god equipped the several species with exactly equal souls.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"The Bear in the Bush", Liberty Bell (September 1990)
1990s

God, World, Faith, Way

“Israel is different. In Israel the great temptation of modernity — assimilation — simply does not exist. Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity. It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

1990s, 1998, At Last, Zion (1998)

God, Time

“…the remarkable thing about management is that a manager can go on for years making mistakes that nobody is aware of, which means that management can be a kind of a con job.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 154.

“We’re now in the seventh year of a slump brought on by Wall Street excess; the wizardly job of “allocating the economy’s investment resources” consisted, we now know, largely of funneling money into a real estate bubble.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Iron Men of Wall Street" http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/iron-men-of-wall-street/, 16 February 2014 The Conscience of a Liberal blog

Money

“Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

1990s, 1994, Political Suicide (1994)

Country

“Pricasso, who has been painting with his penis for six years, said painting with his penis could be painful, but he had resorted to making his own non-toxic, washable paint.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Daily News staff, Daily News, South Africa, Portraiture painful for penile artist, 24 August 2011, 2, Independent Online]
About

Pain, Painting

“Many of my Hamptstead friends may remember this 'young lady' [an ash tree] at the entrance to the village. Her fate was distressing, for it is scarcely too much to say that she died of a broken heart. I made this drawing [Study of Trees, pencil on paper, circa 1821] when she was in full health and beauty; on passing some times afterwards, I saw, to my grief, that a wretched board had been nailed to her side, on which was written in large letters: 'All vagrants and beggars will be dealt with according to law.' The tree seemed to have felt the disgrace, for even then some of the top branches had withered. Two long spike nails had been driven far into her side. In another year one half became paralysed, and not long after the other shared the same fate, and this beautiful creature was cut down to a stump, just high enough to hold the board.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from Constable's Lecture, given at Hamptstead (July 1836), as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable, Tate Gallery Publications, London 1993, p. 391
1830s, his lectures History of Landscape Painting (1836)

Fate, Health, Law, Beauty

“In Denver, Nugget Coach Dan Issel said, "As I grew up, Wilt the Stilt was the player. Just the things he was able to do. I guess one year they told him he couldn't make as much money as he wanted because he couldn't pass the ball, so he went out and led the league in assists. "Watching Wilt, you always kind of got the idea he was just playing with people. That he was on cruise control and still 10 times better than anybody else that was playing at that time."”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

[Stewart, Larry, Giant Towered Over the Rest, The Los Angeles Times, 1999-10-13]
Scoring

Money, People, Idea, Time

“Providence shows no mercy to weak nations, but recognizes the right of existence-only of sound and strong nations…This Jewish bolshevist annihilation of nations and its western European and American procurers can be met only in one way: by using every ounce of strength with the extreme fanaticism and stubborn steadfastness that merciful God gives to men in hard times for the defense of their own lives…We have suffered so much that it only steels us to fanatical resolve to hate Our enemies a thousand times more and to regard them for what they are destroyers of an eternal culture and annihilators of humanity. Out of this hate a holy will is born to oppose these destroyers of our existence with all the strength that God has given us and to crush them in the end. During its 2,000-year history our people has survived so many terrible times that we have no doubt that we will also master our present plight.”

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

Speech on the 25th Anniversary of the Announcement of the National Socialist Party's Program http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/adolf-hitler-speech-on-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-announcement-of-the-national-socialist-party-s-program-february-1945 (February 24, 1945) 1940s

Men, God, Hate, People

“When you’ve had something for ten years that you hold so precious, it’s the toughest thing in the world to hand it over. And the only advice I can give you is, find somebody better than you to hand it to.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2007)

World

“Now, what is the policy? It is, so far as we know, to interfere with the established fiscal policy of this country in order to promote the union of the Empire—that is to say, it is to affect gravely, if not to sap, the foundations of the edifice in order to promote the stability of the structure. (Laughter and cheers)…Had free trade failed us in the 57 years of experience we have had of it, had we found ourselves with a shrinking trade, a diminished revenue, a population on the verge of poverty, we should long ago have reviewed the whole system of free trade and reconsidered it. But we find ourselves, so far as all statistics can give us a clue, at a pinnacle of wealth such as no nation of the size has ever reached in the history of the world…The Empire is built up on free trade…your Empire is founded on the condition, and it could not have existed until now except on that condition, that every self-governing part of it shall have the right to work out its own prosperity by its own methods. I do not know why it should enter the heads of any statesman to deny that liberty to the United Kingdom.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Speech to the Liberal League on 12 June 1903, repudiating Chamberlain's proposals, reported in The Times (13 June 1903), p. 8.

World, History, Laughter, Parting

“Now my humble fear is that this double training, in language as well as in thought, imposes somewhat too heavy a burden upon the young, especially when, at the age of three years old, they are taken from the maternal care and taught to unlearn the old language — except for the purpose of repeating it in the presence of their Mothers and Nurses — and to learn the vocabulary and idiom of science. Already methinks I discern a weakness in the grasp of mathematical truth at the present time as compared with the more robust intellect of our ancestors three hundred years ago.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests

Truth, Age, Fear, Mathematics

“I remember one clear example of the problem of communicating what is to be learned. You may have heard of or gone through a similar experience with a student or your child. Years ago, the child of a friend whom I was visiting arrived home from his day at school, all excited about something he had learned. He was in the first grade and his teacher had started the class on reading lessons. The child, Gary, announced that he had learned a new word. "That's great, Gary," his mother said. "What is it?" He thought for a moment, then said, "I'll write it down for you." On a little chalkboard the child carefully printed, HOUSE. "That's fine, Gary," his mother said. "What does it say?" He looked at the word, then at his mother and said matter-of-factly, "I don't know."The child apparently had learned what the word looked like — he had learned the visual shape of the word perfectly. The teacher, however, was teaching another aspect of reading — what words mean, what words stand for or symbolize. As often happens, what the teacher had taught and what Gary had learned were strangely incongruent.As it turned out, my friend's son always learned visual material best and fastest, a mode of learning consistently preferred by a number of students. Unfortunately, the school world is mainly a verbal, symbolic world, and learners like Gary must adjust, that is, put aside their best way of learning and learn the way the school decrees. My friend's child, fortunately, was able to make this change, but how many other students are lost along the way?”

Betty Edwards (1926) American artist

Source: The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1979), p.237

World, School, Way, Home

“In the last 20 years, thanks to your hard work, polio has declined by 99 percent. In 1988, 350,000 people got polio. By 2008, the number was down to just a couple of thousand.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Speeches/2009/01/Bill-Gates-Rotary-International "Bill Gates - Rotary International" Bill & Melinda Gates foundation (21 January 2009)
Regarding Bill And Melinda Gates' Polio Efforts (2009)

People

“Who is it who is responsible for the scheme of things whereby one man is engaged through life in grinding labour to win a bare and precarious subsistence for himself, and when, at the end of his days, he claims at the hands of the community he served a poor pension of eightpence a day, he can only get it through a revolution, and another man who does not toil receives every hour of the day, every hour of the night, whilst he slumbers, more than his poor neighbour receives in a whole year of toil? Where did the table of that law come from? Whose finger inscribed it? These are the questions that will be asked. The answers are charged with peril for the order of things the Peers represent; but they are fraught with rare and refreshing fruit for the parched lips of the multitude who have been treading the dusty road along which the people have marched through the dark ages which are now merging into the light.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Newcastle (9 October 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), pp. 174-175.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Life, People, Age, Law

“Over the years, I have become convinced that Hellenism as a culture represents not a static condition of uniform sublimity mysteriously achieved and maintained as an effect of some racial advantage. Rather it should be understood as an evolving process, governed by a dynamic of change, as both language and thought underwent transformational alteration caused by a transition from orality to literacy. The instrument of change is discerned to be the invention of the Greek alphabet, at a quite late stage in the history of developing cultures.”

Eric A. Havelock (1903–1988) 1903-1988, British classical philologist

"Chinese Characters and the Greek Alphabet" in Sino-Platonic Papers, 5 (December 1987)

History, Change

“It is over twenty years since I first heard of Hong-lou meng and the great fascination it holds for its readers (despite the fact that there has never been a complete or definitive text). I was once lucky enough to borrow a copy from a friend. Reading it (in this incomplete state) was indeed a tantalizing experience.
In the spring of this year, my friend Cheng Weiyuan came to see me and showed me the complete text that he had purchased. 'This,' he said, 'is the fruit of my labours over several years. Bit by bit I have pieced it together, with a view to publishing it for fellow-lovers of the novel. As you are at a bit of a loose end, and in need of a restorative, will you share the labour [of preparing the manuscript for the press] with me?'
Although it was only a novel, the book contained nothing contrary to the tenets of Confucian teaching, and so I gladly accepted, and fell upon the task with the eagerness of the Persian slave when he saw his pearl! Now that the work is done, I have described these circumstances for the reader's information.”

Gao E (writer)

Preface (dated 27 December 1791) to the first Cheng-Gao edition of Dream of the Red Chamber, as translated by John Minford in The Story of the Stone: The Debt of Tears (Penguin, 1979), Appendix I, p. 386

Books, Spring, Lovers, Reading

“Why do they take the taxes and accept my manual labor for nine years? Why do they accept my taxes but cannot accept the fact that I have human rights?”

Elvira Arellano (1975) Mexican illegal immigrant and activist

Tram Nguyen, "No Sanctuary: Elvira Arellano Deported Without Son," RaceWire: The Colorlines Blog (2007-08-20) http://www.racewire.org/archives/2007/08/immigrant_mother_elivira_arell.html

“The Prosecution holds me responsible for the concentration camps, for the destruction of Jewish life, for Einsatzgruppen and other things. All of this is neither in accord with the evidence nor with the truth. The accusers as well as the accused are exposed to the dangers of a summary proceeding. It is correct that I had to take over the Reich Security Main Office. There was no guilt in that in itself. Such offices exist in governments of other nations too. However, the task and activity assigned to me in 1943 consisted almost exclusively in the reorganization of the German political and military intelligence service, though not as Heydrich's successor. Almost a year after his death I had to accept this post under orders and as an officer at a time when suspicion fell on Admiral Canaris of having collaborated with the enemy for years. In a short time I ascertained the treason of Canaris and his accomplices to the most frightful extent.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

8/31/46. Quoted in "Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal" - Nuremberg, Germany - 1947

Life, Death, Truth, Intelligence

Quotes about year page 41

Quotes about year
page 41