"Something something put on a sweater something something. You gay old woman."
--Carter
Printable View
"Something something put on a sweater something something. You gay old woman."
--Carter
"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?" - Gov. Ronald Reagan, opposing expansion of Redwood National Park, California, as quoted in the Sacramento Bee (March 3, 1966)
"In every age there have been people who considered that an individual had one overriding affiliation so much more important in every circumstance to all others that it might legitimately be called his " identity." For some it was the nation, for others religion or class. But one has only to look at the various conflicts being fought out all over the world today to realise that no one allegiance has absolute supremacy."
--Amin Maalouf, *On Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong* (no, I don't agree with the corruption of the title in English, IMHO, but it's better to read the book one has found than not at all).
"I never knew, I never knew that everything was falling through
That everyone I knew was waiting on a queue
To turn and run when all I needed was the truth
But that's how it's got to be
It's coming down to nothing more than apathy
I'd rather run the other way than stay and see
The smoke and who's still standing when it clears and
Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head, over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She's on your mind, she's on your mind
Let's rearrange
I wish you were a stranger I could disengage
Just say that we agree and then never change
Soften a bit until we all just get along
But that's disregard
You find another friend and you discard
As you lose the argument in a cable car...."
The Fray, "Over My Head (Cable Car)"
"Elsewhere, far from here! too late! never maybe!
I didn't know to where your flight, you don't know where I'm headed,
Ye whom I should have loved, ye who knows it."
--Baudelaire, "A une passante"
"There is no higher honor than to serve free men and women, no greater privilege than to labor in government beneath the Great Seal of the United States and the American flag. There is nothing more fulfilling than to serve your country and your fellow citizens and to do it well. And that's what our system of self-government depends on." - George H.W. Bush (1989)
"*Polyeucte*...It's the story of a religious partisan, fully convinced of the righteousness of his convictions, who abandons his pals in order to try a suicidal action against the symbolic values of the opposing religion. Arrested, subject to an interrogation, he does not weaken in his determination and accepts, without renouncing his act, the death which is promised to him."
--Claude Bourqui and Simone de Reyff, "Introduction" to *Pocket Theater* edition of Corneille, *Polyeucte* Here's my eurocentric piece of hate speech of the day: grumble grumble academic journals regularly print articles in the standard languages of English, German, and French (and very occasionally Italian, but I don't care about that, because nobody reads Italian, really, except for the dagos) and I think it was only recently that translating citations in Latin went out of fashion. Grumble grumble, kids these days. Well, that's my excuse -- I've spent my whole adult life reading these types of publications and, for me, that's just the way it is and the way I like it. White male of European descent OUT! :)
"Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America." - Bill Clinton, First Inaugural Address (1993)
"Rather, [Democrats] go back to the ancient Aristotelian tradition in which humans can achieve moral standing only in the context of a political community. In short, whereas for liberals the individual is prior and the community derived, for democrats it is the community that has priority, and individuality is realizable only in that context: it is this original (nonderived) entity—the 'people'—that can and should impose legitimate limits on the potentially endless desires of its component individuals, thus endowing them with moral status and dignity."
--Karol Berger, *Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity* (I don't know why I was reading that -- it's a pretty amusing read, but it seems like someone was regurgitating material from a dissertation at times, also, I think the author is probably a royal cunt IRL, for some reason. His tone is unacceptably pedantic and 'lofty,' so I'd recommend punching him in the nads a few times).
"The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet [of Beowulf] has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected." - J.R.R. Tolkien (1936)
"In the last years of the century, Dante was prompted by his ardent temperament and also by religious zeal to take an active role in the political life of his town."
--The New Catholic Encyclopedia, "Dante Alighieri"
"I've been here before
But always hit the floor
I've spent a lifetime runnin'
And I always get away
But with you I'm feeling something
That makes me want to stay
I'm prepared for this
I never shoot to miss
But I feel like a storm is coming
If I'm gonna make it through the day
Then there's no more use in runnin'
This is something I gotta face
If I risk it all
Could you break my fall?
How do I live? How do I breathe?
When you're not here I'm suffocating
I wanna feel love, run through my blood
Tell me, is this where I give it all up?
For you I have to risk it all
'Cause the writing's on the wall...."
Sam Smith, "Writing's on the Wall"
"One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died. I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand - he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like an infantile retard."
--Mike Tyson
"We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" - they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty." - George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address (2005)
"even though I prefer it to the grandness of the empire, as the supreme good, and the only one to which I aspire, I believe, to satisfy a just and holy love to be able to put it off a little, and do so for a day."--Corneille, *Polyeucte*, I.1. Did I mention I fucking think it's ridiculous to have to translate? Woman's work.
"One of the amazing things about the way we celebrate the key mysteries of our faith is that we don’t just celebrate it for a day, but we celebrate them in “seasons.” Easter for us is not just the day Christ resurrected from the dead, but it is the continuous fifty days after the resurrection day, culminating next Sunday with theSolemnity of the Pentecost. Yes, we are still in Easter! Today, within this season of Easter, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. Traditionally, this Solemnity is celebrated on Thursday of the 6 th Sunday of Easter but, in most of the dioceses in the US just like ours, it is moved to the 7 th Sunday of Easter to ensure greater participation among the faithful and to underscore the theological importance of this solemnity. " -- homily, St Cecilia ( a new parish to me, which I'm glad to encounter this morning)
"I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President, John Adams, wrote, 'The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.' And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library." - Barack Obama, speech in Cairo (2009)
"One could ask oneself the question: have French intellectuals gone massively right-wards and become reactionary? [...] This swerve to the right is not so clean. The truth in my opinion is that they have abandonned the left without having gone so far as to join the right. They have found something whose memory, and even the very notion, they have completely lost, namely freedom of thought." -- Michel Houellebecq, "The Elites Hate The People," 18-ii-2017 opinion piece in *Valeurs actuelles*
"Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there...the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted." - Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
"You can’t be disturbed by anything. There’s no emotion involved. You can’t feel sorrow, you can’t feel pity, there’s nothing you feel. The job has to be done.” -- Mike Tyson
Or, from a slightly more respectable source, IgnatiusL: "Pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you." I see some word pussies on the internet think it is not from Ignace, but it is quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with a footnote attributing to Ignatius, so that's good enough, as though it matters.
"Lying here with you
Listening to the rain
Smiling just to see the smile upon your face
These are the moments I thank God that I'm alive
These are the moments I'll remember all my life
I found all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more
Looking in your eyes
Seeing all I need
Everything you are is everything to me
These are the moments
I know heaven must exist
These are the moments I know all I need is this
I have all I've waited for
And I could not ask for more
I could not ask for more than this time together
I could not ask for more than this time with you
Every prayer has been answered
Every dream I have's come true
And right here in this moment is right where I'm meant to be
Here with you, here with me...."
Edwin McCain, "I Could Not Ask for More"
"Thus by the time he arrived at Congress, [Andrew] Jackson understood that his Federalist colleagues had revealed 'their wish to Cultivate a close friendship with Britain at the Expence of awar with the French Republick [sic].' He wrote to his trusted friend, his wife's brother-in-law, Robert Hays, and bemoaned the course of events."
--Andrew Burstein, *The Passions of Andrew Jackson*
"...That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away:
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.
For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure."
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"
Good choice. I don't know if it's by suggestion or by aptitude, but that's always been one of my favorites of Shelley.
"Whether we know it or not, most of us are influenced by ancient Greek philosophy. The Greeks draw a sharp distinction between the material and spiritual, between heaven and earth, between the body and the soul. Body bad. Soul good."
--Msgr. Pat's published homily on Ascension Day, from my own parish.
“I’m not insane, sir,” I said. “I have a finely calibrated sense of acceptable risk.” - John Scalzi, Old Man's War (2005)
"Read the TV guide, you don't need to watch TV." -- crazy grandpa in the motion picture *The Lost Boys*
"I was the third brother of five
Doing whatever I had to do to survive
I'm not saying what I did was alright
Trying to break out of the ghetto was a day to day fight
Been down so long, getting up didn't cross my mind
I knew there was a better way of life that I was just trying to find
You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure
Across 110th Street is a hell of a tester
Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free
Across 110th Street
Woman trying to catch a trick on the street
Across 110th Street
You can find it all in the street...."
Bobby Womack, "Across 110th Street"
“Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t have fun accomplishing your goals. Sometimes people don’t have the determination, the will, the steadfastness, the tenacity, they give in under the slightest struggle.” --Mike Tyson
"I still hang around, neither lost nor found
Hear the lonely sound of music in the night
Nights are always bright
That's all that's left for me, yeah
I play the street life
Because there's no place I can go
Street life, it's the only way I know
Street life, and there's a thousand cards to play
Until you play your life away
You dress and walk and talk
You're who you think you are
Street life, you can run away from time
Street life, for a nickel, for a dime
Street life, but you better not get old
Or you're gonna feel the cold...."
Randy Crawford and Joe Sample, "Street Life"
"[Schoenberg] said, 'Play it at the proper tempo and do not make mistakes.' She began again, and he stopped her immediately to say that she was making mistakes. She then burst into tears and between sobs explained that she had gone to the dentist earlier that day and that she'd had a tooth pulled out. He said, 'Do you have to have a tooth pulled out in order to make mistakes?'"
--John Cage, "Indeterminacy," from *Lectures and Writings by John Cage*
oh you protestant alternative sectarians will like this, I notice on the back of the book published by Wesleyan UP. Hardehar.
"Let me ask you something. Why don't people trust their instincts? They sense something is wrong, someone is walking too close behind them... you knew something was wrong but you came back into the house. Did I force you, did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain. But you know what? It is. And they always come willingly. And then they sit there. They know it's all over just like you do but somehow they still think they have a chance. Maybe if I say the right thing? Maybe if I'm polite. If I cry, if i beg. And when I see the hope draining from their face like it is from yours right now, I can feel myself getting hard. You know, we're not that different, you and I. We both have urges. Satisfying mine requires more towels." - The villain in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (name withheld because spoilers)
"The artist pours out his creative spirit into a work; the philosopher measures his knowing spirit by the real."--jacques MARITAIN
"You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on." - Donald Trump, Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987)
Fine, since u quote a Trump, i feel no need to translate from the language of Europe
"La vengeance du dieu, ou sa pudeur, en tout cas sa Némesis, est alors de *manquer* à la prise même qui le déchire"--gérard GRANEL, an essay from Écrits logiques et politiques
"Wake up kids
We've got the dreamers disease
Age fourteen we got you down on your knees
So polite, you're busy still saying please
Frenemies, who when you're down ain't your friend
Every night we smash their Mercedes-Benz
First we run, and then we laugh 'til we cry
But when the night is falling
You cannot find the light
You feel your dreams are dying
Hold tight
You've got the music in you
Don't let go
You've got the music in you
One dance left
This world is gonna pull through
Don't give up
You've got a reason to live
Can't forget
We only get what we give...."
New Radicals, "You Get What You Give"
I think that periods when you have an oppressive, right-wing government in power tend to be very conducive for rebel music from the underground.
--interview w Thomas Dobly in latest TapeOp Magazine
I doubly appreciate Thomas Dobly. ;-)
"The sun can't remember how to shine
And the colors all have faded into shades of grey
There's no life in this hollow heart of mine
Ever since you went away
...If time could find a way to turn around
I would walk along the stars 'till I was back at your door
Every word, every word
Was spoken but without a sound
And I found out what my heart is for
Close your eyes and feel me hold you
Can you lead me through this ordinary world
Let the sky cry restless rain
To wash away the miles between us
'Cause without you it's just an ordinary world...."
"Ordinary World," Katharine McPhee
now that I'm at a computer, not a tardPhone, explains my dumb-ass joke. The quote was real, though -- grabbed from the back of my toilet, noticed a few moments earlier. Not being a fan of pinkeye or fecal matter in my eyes, I waited until I'd washed my hands as usual after any anal or genital contact. Eh, whatever.
ETA that was a simulpost -- I'll have to wait until I'm actually reading something to do a good reply. I confess, I don't really understand many of these song lyrics, except in a vague way, but sometimes I get ideas that resonate with something I'm reading the moment.
"You can't catch me, boy
I'm overseas at about a hundred Gs, for sure
Don't test me boy, 'cause I rap with the best
Fo' sho three oh five to the death of me
Cremate my body, let the ocean have what's left of me
But for now, forget about that
Blow the whistle, baby you're the referee
You put it down like New York City (I never sleep)
Wild like Los Angeles (my fantasy)
Hotter than Miami (I feel the heat)
Oh oh oh oh it's international love
Oh oh oh oh it's international love
I don't play football
But I've touched down everywhere (everywhere?) everywhere
I don't play baseball
But I've hit a home run everywhere, everywhere
I've been to countries and cities I can't pronounce
And the places on the globe I didn't know existed...."
Pitbull, "International Love"
"in his pteface to *The Golden Bowl* Henry James describes the aithor's selection of apprppriate terms and sentences, using two metaphors. One is a metaphor of plant growth
Nussbaum, intro to collection *love's knowledge* oxford up i cant tupe the patagraph pn a yardphone
"in his pteface to *The Golden Bowl* Henry James describes the aithor's selection of apprppriate terms and sentences, using two metaphors. One is a metaphor of plant growth
Nussbaum, intro to collection *love's knowledge* oxford up i cant tupe the patagraph pn a yardphone
"Easy come, easy go, that's just how you live, oh
Take, take, take it all, but you never give
Should have known you was trouble from the first kiss
Had your eyes wide open, why were they open?
Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash
You tossed it in the trash, you did
To give me all your love is all I ever asked 'cause
What you don't understand is:
I'd catch a grenade for ya (yeah, yeah)
Throw my head on a blade for ya (yeah, yeah)
I'd jump in front of a train for ya (yeah, yeah)
You know I'd do anything for ya (yeah, yeah)
Oh oh, I would go through all this pain
Take a bullet straight through my brain
Yes, I would die for ya baby
But you won't do the same...."
Bruno Mars, "Grenade"
"i'll never regret, the years i'm giving,
They're easy to give, when you're in love
And happy to do whatever ı do for you"
--robin & rainger 'easy living' (best in Eb, but F will do in a pinch)
"What do I do... stop, go, fail, succeed?
Live or die? I just got to believe
Believe it's worth saving
And to get lost, lost in a daydream
So why hesitate?
Take me to another place
So far, far away
So I can get out of the dark
High speed, like I'm racing
It's like lighting, sky is blazing
But you've lost your way, you've been led astray
Are there better days for my fallen dreamer?
Calling a dreamer
Calling a dreamer
You don't sleep no more
You don't even dream no more
Dreamer, why don't you just dream again?
Believe in you
You got something to prove
You're a star
Watch you shine bright, on your way to the limelight
Finish line
The sweat and tears
You can channel all of your fears
Open your eyes
Your eyes
And it will be all right...."
Chris Brown, "Dreamer"
Pater noster, qui es in caelis
Sanctificetur nomen tuum,
adveniat regnum tuum,
fiat voluntas tua, sicut caelo, et in terra
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie
et dimitte nobis debite nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris
et ne inducas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.
--Anonymous, "Wishful thinking"
As I've said before, translations of non-English postings are much appreciated.
"There are certain people you just keep coming back to
She is right in front of you
You begin to wonder, could you find a better one
Compared to her, now she's in question
And all at once the crowd begins to sing
Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same
Maybe you want her, maybe you need her
Maybe you started to compare to someone not there
Looking for the right one, you line up the world to find
Where no questions cross your mind
But she won't keep on waiting for you without a doubt
Much longer for you to sort it out
And all at once the crowd begins to sing
Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same...."
The Fray, "All At Once"
Ah, thanks.
"Well, there's a little boy waitin' at the counter of a corner shop
He's been waitin' down there, waitin' half the day
They never ever seem to have the time
He gets pushed around, knocked to the ground
He gets to his feet and he says
'What about me, it isn't fair
I've had enough now I want my share
Can't you see? I want to live!
But you just take more than you give...'
Well, there's a pretty girl servin' at the counter of a corner shop
She's been waitin' back there, waitin' for her dream
And dreams walk in and out, they never stop
Well, she's not too proud to cry out loud
She runs to the street and she screams
'What about me, it isn't fair
I've had enough now I want my share
Can't you see? I want to live!'...."
Moving Pictures, "What About Me?"
"Boxing as we know it today tends to foster the brutish tendencies in man by provoking him to take pleasure in the sufferings of another."
--"Prize-fighting," *The New Catholic Encyclopedia*
"Human beings in a mob
What's a mob to a king?
What's a king to a god?
What's a god to a non-believer?
Who don't believe in anything?
We make it out alive
All right, all right
No church in the wild
Tears on the mausoleum floor
Blood stains the Coliseum doors
Lies on the lips of a priest
Thanksgiving disguised as a feast
Rollin' in the Rolls-Royce Corniche
Only the doctors got this, I'm hidin' from police
Cocaine seats
All white like I got the whole thing bleached
Drug dealer chic
I'm wonderin' if a thug's prayers reach
Is Pious pious 'cause God loves pious?
Socrates asks, 'Whose bias do y'all seek?'
All for Plato, screech
I'm out here' ballin', I know y'all hear my sneaks...."
"No Church in the Wild," Kanye West and Jay Z
"In the history of all the arts, there exists a moment of happy equilibrium between the monumental powerfulness-capacity [puissance] and the refinement of form, between the density of beautiful impersonal masses which mean a higher and more peaceful order than our own, and the nuances, secrets, of our psychological life." -- H. Focillon, *The Middle Ages, Roman and Gothic*
"I wanna be a billionaire so fuckin' bad
Buy all of the things I never had
I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine
Smiling next to Oprah and the Queen
Oh, every time I close my eyes
I see my name in shining lights
Yeah, a different city every night, oh, right
I swear, the world better prepare
For when I'm a billionaire
Yeah, I would have a show like Oprah
I would be the host of, everyday Christmas
Give Travie a wish list
I'd probably pull an Angelina and Brad Pitt
And adopt a bunch of babies that ain't never had shit
Give away a few Mercedes, like, 'Here, lady, have this,'
And last but not least grant somebody their last wish...."
"Billionaire" by Travie McCoy
"he was raised in a swamp, back of the sluigh
Grew up eating rattlesnake, drinking homemade brew
Folks bout here call him gator, and everybody knows him well
Meanest man ever come out a swamp, folks swear he come straight out of hell,
Well gator mccluskey sitting on a stump (unintelligible) twelve guage pump,
Sitting on the stump watching out for the law, while they make the best corn liquor you ever saw.'
Anon., trad.
"Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He doesn't want to sign His name." - Anatole France
"A functor which simply 'forgets' some or all of the algebraic structure of an algebraic object is commonly called a *forgetful* functor (or an *underlying* functor)."
-- mac Lane *categories for the working mathematician*
"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins." - William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham
"(no smoking) IT'S A FUCKING MORGUE! Fucking pansies." --Diane in *Twin Peaks*
"If it had unfortunately happened that by the circumstances of birth and education, a Nelson, a Wellington, a Burke, a Fox, or a Pitt, had belonged to this class of the community, of what honours and what glory might not the page of British history have been deprived? To what perils and calamities might not this country have been exposed? The question is not whether we would have so large a part of the population Catholic or not. There they are, and we must deal with them as we can. It is in vain to think that by any human pressure, we can stop the spring which gushes from the earth. But it is for us to consider whether we will force it to spend its strength in secret and hidden courses, undermining our fences, and corrupting our soil, or whether we shall, at once, turn the current into the open and spacious channel of honourable and constitutional ambition, converting it into the means of national prosperity and public wealth." - Lord Palmerston, speech in favor of Catholic emancipation (1813)
"Later, when he could no longer accept the Church’s dogma, [Berlioz] never lost his aesthetic sympathy and respect for [the Church's] forms or his humility before its wisdom. All his works, sacred and secular, are characterized by dazzling variety in atmosphere, structure, and orchestral texture. His method of development and his harmonic progressions bewildered most of his contemporaries"
--"Louis Hector Berlioz," in *The New Catholic Encyclopedia*
"Those men all have their prices." - Sir Robert Walpole, first British Prime Minister (c. 1721)
"Object tracking supports high availability through stateful restarts." -- *Cisco Nexus 7000 Series NX-OS Unicast Routing Configuration Guide*
"There are two supreme pleasures in life. One is ideal, the other real. The ideal is when a man receives the seals of office from the hands of his Sovereign. The real pleasure comes when he hands them back." - the Earl of Rosebery (c. 1895)
"Passing Score: 811[ASCII 10 "line break"]Your Score: 941" --some undisclosed prominent company which offers prestigious industry certifications.
"We’ve always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments - these moments when we dared to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known - we count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that, and perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers, that we’ve barely begun, and that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, for our destiny lies above us." - Joseph Cooper, astronaut, Interstellar trailer (2014)
"It's no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want to do is make a lot of money." --Everett Sloan in *Citizen Kane* (or something close to that he said)
"It is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation." - Lord Russell (1831)
"While [Jukes] was exchanging explanatory yells with his captain, a sudden lowering of the darkness came upon the night, falling before their vision like something palpable. It was as if the masked lights of the world had been turned down." --Conrad, "Typhoon"
"Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon." - Benjamin Disraeli, responding to the taunt of a political foe
"It was the Serang, an elderly, alert, little Malay, with a very dark skin, who murmured the order to the helmsman. And then slowly Captain Whalley sat down again in the arm-chair on the bridge and fixed his eyes on the deck between his feet. He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane of the sea." --Conrad, *The End of the Tether*
"There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order; the firmest foundations for the development of individual character; and the best provision for the happiness of the nation at large." - William Gladstone (1879)
Wow, I guessed that one right, I knew Gladstone had to be coming up soon. I think he gets a repeat, but not enough to look it up, since I'll find out soon enough with no pesky effort.
"A boarding-house is no sort of home though it may get you a living. His feelings were horribly rasped by the idea of the boarding-house. In his rank of life he had that truly aristocratic temperament characterized by a scorn of vulgar gentility and by prejudiced views as to the derogatory nature of certain occupations." --Conrad, *The End of the Tether*
Sure, Gladstone's worth another one. Have you read Roy Jenkins's bio of him? Quite good.
"Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, are as sacred in the eye of Almighty God as are your own. Remember that He who has united you together as human beings in the same flesh and blood, has bound you by the law of mutual love, that that mutual love is not limited by the shores of this island, is not limited by the boundaries of Christian civilisation, that it passes over the whole surface of the earth, and embraces the meanest along with the greatest in its wide scope." - William Gladstone (1879)
No, I haven't read hardly anything about Gladstone -- thanks for the recommendation, though -- I'll keep it in mind if I need something about WEG. ETA and it will be here for future archaeologists. That sounds odd, but it's not nothing.
"It is customary nowadays to dismiss contemptuously the atomic view of sensation as it appears in Hume and his followers. We are told that the sensible world is a continuous flux, in which divisions are unreal, the work of the mind purely conceptual, and so on. This is said as something obvious, for which only a stupid man would demand evidence." -- B Russell EETA resize (IIRC he inherited the title of lord from that other guy back then, and really didn't want it to get around town or among his mainland European contacts, perhaps following the younger Wittgenstein's lead in trying to obscure his identity, or maybe it's a British thing). Oh, that's from *Inquiry in Meaning in Truth*, back when publishers used to put neat books in little pocket-sized paperbacks and sell them cheap.[/eeta]
"Oh, God, it is all over. It is all over!" - Lord North, upon hearing of the American victory at Yorktown (1781)
"And time with us was never popular.
When have we not preferred some going round
To going straight to where we are?"
--from Auden, "Our Bias"
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt the Younger (1783)
"Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple."
--Auden, from "Law Like Love"
"[I]f we lose our chance now...that chance will not return either to us or to our children. The memories of the last War will grow dim. The world will get back into the old rut, familiar professions and piety about peace will again soothe us to sleep, and the various countries will once more base their security upon military preparation. So they will all, in the end, find themselves drifting hopelessly upon those currents that make for war... and remember what the next war will be like. The old lines which divide combatants from non-combatants, the weak and the diseased from the strong and the robust, men from women and children, will all be obliterated and civilization itself assailed, and from sea and sky will be brought to a heap of ruins." - Ramsay MacDonald (1929)
"That is why young Alan Turing, instead of entering into our community of interpreters, preferred to start by constructing primitive typewriters and to end by conceiving, a few years later, the most primitive and most universal machine ever thought of. The Oriental Goddess and Collosi simply represented the first and partial realizations of Turing's Universal Discrete Machine. This young man had, by dismissing human and usually female secretaries, reduced the typewriter's discrete but not yet binary systems to its very principle." --Friedr. KITTLER, "Media Wars: Trenches, Lightning, Stars," in KITTLER, *Literature, Media, Information Systems: Essays," tr. J. Johnston
"I have often thought, with reference to the late War...that it has shown the whole world how thin is the crust of civilisation on which this generation is walking. The realisation of that must have come with an appalling shock to most of us here. But more than that. There is not a man in this House who does not remember the first air raids and the first use of poisoned gas, and the cry that went up from this country. We know how, before the War ended, we were all using both those means of imposing our will upon our enemy. We realise that when men have their backs to the wall they will adopt any means for self-preservation. But there was left behind an uncomfortable feeling in the hearts of millions of men throughout Europe that, whatever had been the result of the War, we had all of us slipped down in our views of what constituted civilisation. We could not help feeling that future wars might provide, with further discoveries in science, a more rapid descent for the human race. There came a feeling, which I know is felt in all quarters of this House, that if our civilisation is to be saved, even at its present level, it behoves all people in all nations to do what they can by joining hands to save what we have, that we may use it as the vantage ground for further progress, rather than run the risk of all of us sliding in the abyss together." - Stanley Baldwin (1923)
"Russkie--'So what brought you here?' Yank--'A fellow that doesn't work so well.' Russkie--'The man in the wheelchair? How did he get there? Yank--'Seems to me that was in your neck of the woods back in the late unpleasantness.' [onscreen business about a falling coffee cup] Yank--'Good reflexes.' Russkie--'Oh yeah, they die hard.'" -- the motion picture *Ronin* IIRC directed by Frankenheimer, who I think was an Oscar fellow. Jesus, JFrankenh. worked a long time. Kids today, they start too soon and end too young. Huston, Ford, Hawks, Chabrol, Siegel, Fuller, they all were in it to win it.
"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again... This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace in our time." - Neville Chamberlain (1938)
"Nothing is further from the wishes of Leonardo's biographers than to try to solve the problems in their hero's mental life by starting from his small weaknesses and peculiarities; and the usual comment that they make on these singular accounts is one which lays stress on the artist's kindness and consideration for his pupils. They forget that what calls for explanation is not Leonardo's behavior, but the fact that he left these pieces of evidence of it behind him." --SFreud, Leonardobüchlein, trans. ATyson
"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old." - Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (4 June 1940)
"[T]he material invites so great a variety of shading that we have felt justified in making numerous additions in this regard, in order to prevent the player from falling into an indiscriminating 'reading-off' or 'rattling-off,' such as many self-appointed guardians of the classic still unhappily declare to be canonical." Bülow, Lebert, eds. Beethoven PSonata Op 26, note to Rondo bar 13.
"Unfortunately, in this country the propaganda for entering the Common Market has been largely based on defeatism. We are told that unless we do it we are going to have a terrible time. That is no way to go into a negotiation. You ought to go into a negotiation on the basis that they have need of you, not just you of them." - Clement Attlee (1962)
"Wong. Racist name."
A Rick and Morty reference, right?
"It would be impertinent for a country that did not suffer occupation to carry a judgment on another one that suffered one." - Anthony Eden (1971)
"[T]he Redgrin Grumble [...]. Oh, you agree, huh? It's funny. You like that redgrin grumble reference?"
"Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about a modern battlefield is the desolation and emptiness of it all...one cannot emphasize too much. Nothing is to be seen of war or soldiers--only the split and shattered trees and the burst of an occasional shell reveal anything of the truth. One can look for miles and see no human being. But in those miles of country lurk (like moles or rats, it seems) thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men, planning against each other perpetually some new device of death. Never showing themselves, they launch at each other bullet, bomb, aerial torpedo and shell. And somewhere too (on the German side we know of their existence opposite us) are the little cylinders of gas, waiting only for the moment to spit forth their nauseous and destroying fumes. And yet the landscape shows nothing of all this--nothing but a few shattered trees and three or four lines of earth and sandbags, these and the ruins of towns and villages are the only signs of war anywhere visible. The glamour of red coats--the martial tunes of flag and drum--aide-de-camps scurrying hither and thither on splendid chargers--lances glittering and swords flashing--how different the old wars must have been!" - Harold Macmillan (1916)
"Of all human sciences the most useful and most imperfect appears to me to be that of mankind: and I will venture to say, the single inscription on the Temple of Delphi contained a precept more difficult and more important than is to be found in all the huge volumes that moralists have ever written." -- Lincoln Hawk Rousseau, pref. to "Discourse,Orig.ofInequa."trans.GDHCole.
"I suppose, when you come to think of it, he is the fourteenth Mr. Wilson." - Alec Douglas-Home, said of his opponent, Harold Wilson, who criticized him for being the fourteenth Earl of Home (he renounced his title when he became Prime Minister)(1963)
"RICK SANCHEZ -- What part of "blackout" don't you understand? I thought you drank.
CHRISTIAN SLATER -- Like cool drinking! Like sexy drinking, not this psycho, trailer-park shit."
"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery." - Harold Wilson (1967)
"Rage is a basic emotion, which is not to be confused with aggression.... A leading neuroscientist investigating rage is Jaak Panksepp, whose *Affective Neuroscience* is a standard textbook in the field. He argues that aggression is wider than anger, distinguishing at least two forms of 'aggressive circuits' in mammalian brains: predation and rage." -- John Protevi, "Ontology, Biology, and History of Affect," in Bryant, Srnicek, and Harman, eds., *The Speculative Turn* (2011)
"This was a secret meeting on a secret tour which nobody is supposed to know about. It means that there are men, and perhaps women, in this country walking around with eggs in their pockets, just on the off-chance of seeing the Prime Minister." - Edward Heath, after being egged by protestors (1970)
"Encapsulation yields robustness and adaptability, for it allows the implementation details of parts of a program to change without adversely affecting other parts, thereby making it easier to fix bugs or add new functionality with relatively local changes to a component." -- the Python version of Goodrich and Tomassia and some other guy Data Structures book, eta, I can't remember the exact title, but a basic textbook
BTW, what's the Greek in your avatar mean, Jizz?
"A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn't mean he has to be consistent." - James Callaghan (1986)
Not really sure. I just scrawled it using the trackpad in Gnome Paint. It's supposed to read: "hepatotoxicon," but I may have misspelled it and it may also not be a word.
"'Or put it another way,' said Neary; 'the single, brilliant, organised, compact blotch in the tumult of heterogeneous stimulation.' 'Blotch is the word,' said Murphy."
--Beckett, *Murphy*
No, I wasn't just saving that quote for just such an occasion -- I've only just started reading in *Murphy* last night, and I find it amusing, even though it's a childrens' book
"To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning." - Margaret Thatcher (1980)
"O Isabella Jane! Isabella Jane! Hold your jaw! Don't make such a fuss! Shut up! Here's a pretty row! What's it all about?" --Ebenezer Prout words to fit the subject of the G major fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier I.
"If the answer is 'more politicians,' you are asking the wrong question." - John Major, on a proposed expansion of the House of Lords (2007)
"My name is Talky Tina and I don't think I like you." -- *Twilight Zone*
"The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes." - Tony Blair (1994)
"Note to our American brethren: A metre is about 3 feet 3 inches.
And 'metre' is 'meter' spelt correctly...
Oi Oi, that's yer lot.
Thank you.
Jos Grain. Production"
--Backline Rider contract for Iggy Pop and the Stooges excerpt.
"I have just accepted the invitation of Her Majesty the Queen to form a Government. This will be a new Government, with new priorities, and I have been privileged to have been granted the great opportunity to serve my country and at all times I will be strong in purpose, steadfast in will, resolute in action in the service of what matters to the British people, meeting the concerns and aspirations of our whole country." - Gordon Brown (2007)
"In our case the question would be, 'Is one string less than the other?'" -- Bartosz Milewski, *C++ In Action*
"Over generations, we have built something extraordinary in Britain – a successful multi-racial, multi-faith democracy. It’s open, diverse, welcoming – these characteristics are as British as queuing and talking about the weather. It is here in Britain where different people, from different backgrounds, who follow different religions and different customs don’t just rub alongside each other but are relatives and friends; husbands, wives, cousins, neighbours and colleagues. It is here in Britain where in one or two generations people can come with nothing and rise as high as their talent allows. It is here in Britain where success is achieved not in spite of our diversity, but because of our diversity. As we talk about the threat of extremism and the challenge of integration, we should not do our country down – we are, without a shadow of doubt, a beacon to the world. Every one of the communities that has come to call our country home has made Britain a better place." - David Cameron (2015)
"LORRE -- I understand. I understand very easily. It must be like I've been reading so many times, you know, that every generation the young generation grows soft, that the starch is leaving their spine. MCQUEEN -- You'd better tell that to the Boy Scouts, but I'll tell you one thing, if you go around the old campfire lopping off fingertips, you're going to get thrown out right on your ear. LORRE -- Is that so. MCQUEEN -- That's so." -- bit of dialogue from "The Man from the South," *Alfr. Hitchcock Presents*
"Politics is about public service. Everything we do - in Parliament, in our constituencies, here in Bournemouth - should be motivated by one goal: improving the lives of our fellow citizens. Politicians are seen as untrustworthy and hypocritical. We talk a different language. We live in a different world. We seem to be scoring points, playing games and seeking personal advantage - while homeowners struggle to make ends meet and schoolchildren see years of hard work undermined by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen. In recent years a number of politicians have behaved disgracefully and then compounded their offences by trying to evade responsibility. We all know who they are... [but] we believe that an active government should focus on doing what it can to help people get on with their lives.This is the true measure of a compassionate government." - Theresa May (2002)
"A.FERRER -- You've grown soft in your old age D. LYNCH -- Not where it counts, old buddy." --*Twin Peaks* ep. 17 of season 3.
"In order to deal justly and equitably with your subjects, be straightforward and firm, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, but always following what is just, and upholding the cause of the poor 'til the truth be made clear." - King Louis IX of France (c. 1226)
"We had fancied our tasks would be different, only to find we were to be trained for heroism as though we were circus-ponies. But we soon accustomed ourselves to it." --Remarque, *All Quiet on the Western Front*
"Every time that I fill a high office, I create a hundred discontented men and an ingrate." - King Louis XIV (1751)
"I want there to be no peasant in my realm so poor that he will not have a chicken in his pot every Sunday." --Henri IV, proverbial
"One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel." - Madame de Pompadour
"The gatherings between poets were in fashion. Leconte de L'Isle pontificated and vaticated there. Coppée recited and mimed with gaiety." -- Henri Mondor, *The Life of Mallarmé*
"Whoever did not live in the years neighboring 1789 does not know what the pleasure of living means." - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
"This crude admonition, imprinted with an eloquence which characterized Mazarin whether he spoke Italian or Spanish, and which he entirely lost when he spoke French, was pronounced with an impenetrable face which only gave suspicion to Gondy, such a habile physiognomist as he was, of a simple advertisement of being more moderated/modulated." --Dumas, *Twenty Years After*
"lf the attribute of popular government in peace is virtue, the attribute of popular government in revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror; virtue without which terror is fatal, terror without which virtue is impotent. The terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is thus an emanation of virtue.... We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror." - Maximilien Robespierre (1794)
"Pretty soon his improvisations had become more frequent. During the Convention he did not intervene less than 300 times until the 9 of Thermidor. He contented himself, most often, with tossing some notes on paper around which he organized his thought." --some guy named Marc Bouloiseau who got the job of writing the *Que sais-je* book on Robespierre, which I don't know why I have a copy. It's a series, sort of like Cliffs' Notes in French about all kinds of little topics supposedly of interest to French undergraduates or high-schoolers, sometimes written by distinguished academic.
"Fifty years of anarchy await you, and you will emerge from it only by the power of some dictator who will arise - a true statesman and patriot. O prating people, if you did but know how to act!" - Jean-Paul Marat (1792)
"There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people."
--some random person on Slashdot
"They wanted me to be another Washington." - Napoleon Bonaparte, on his deathbed (1821)
"The Master, firstly, is his own prophet: He is Saint John the Baptist decapitated by the waters, cap and plume announcing the coming of the messianic number." -- Quentin MEILLASSOUX, *The Number and the Siren* (2011), trans. Mackay
"In politics, evils should be remedied, not revenged." - Napoleon III (1839)
Hmmm...it was a good aphorism, but somehow I don't think the people ended up liking it too much.
"Imagine a brilliant scientist who solves a major theoretical problem. In one scenario he scribbles his theory on a beer mat, sharing it only with his drinking companions. In this scenario, very few scientists will have the ability to incorporate this discovery into their research." -- Katherine Munn, "Introduction," in *Applied Ontology*, eds. Munn and Barry Smith (2008)
"America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization." - Georges Clemenceau
"When a law has received a sufficient confirmation from experiment, we may adopt two attitudes: Either we may leave this law in the fray; it will then remain subject to incessant revision, which without any doubt will end by demonstrating that it is only approximate."
--Henri POINCARÉ, from *The Value of Science*
"In war there are none but particular cases. Everything has there an individual nature; nothing ever repeats itself. In the first place, the data of a military problem are but seldom certain; they are never final. Everything is in a constant state of change and reshaping." - Ferdinand Foch (1919)
"Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths." -- Joseph JOFFRE
"My country has been beaten and they are calling me back to make peace and sign an armistice...This is the work of 30 years of Marxism. They're calling me back to take charge of the nation." - Philippe Pétain (1940)
"To the extent that the [boundary] is not tight for any, the hope is that the right hand side still gives useful information...The bound not being tight for the whole chosen family of learning machines gives critics a justifiable target at which to fire their complaints." --Burges, "A Tutorial on Support Vector Machines for Pattern Recognition," in *Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery* 2 (1998)
"How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?" - Charles de Gaulle (attrib.)
"Thus began the great war of statues. It was in the year of the cheval de feu and there was no great immolation. Neither young nor old could hold on to their life."
--Henri Michaux, "Annales," from *Trials, exorcisms 1940-1944*
"There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technicians. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technicians." - Georges Pompidou
"The last night of his sojourn in Paris is given up to 'the fucking business.' He has a full program all day -- conferences, cablegrams, interviews, advice to the faithful, etc., etc. At dinner time he decides to lay aside his troubles." -- Henry Miller, *Tropic of Cancer* (1934)
"Europe without Greece is like a child without a birth certificate." - Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
"Given that the only relevant properties are order properties, the raster is not to be read as a implying a pace[sic]. In particular, the referents of the locations on the raster are not requested to be equally spaced in time." --Roberto Casati, of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, "The Structure of Standard Musical Notation," in Zaibert, ed., *The Theory and Practice of Ontology*
"What I demand you is almost impossible, for one has to defeat our history. And nevertheless, if one does not defeat it, one has to know a rule that imposes itself: nationalism, this is war! War is not solely past, it can be our future, and these are you, ladies and gentlemen deputies, who are the guardians of our peace, our security and our future." - François Mitterrand, address to the European Parliament (1995)
"'The silly thing just keeps running,' alleges friend. 'That’s what’s so fascinating. Continuous performances since 1944. Just keeps rolling along.' Tilts head back, laughs theatrically. 'It wasn’t even any good then, for chrissake.'" --Donald Barthelme, "Hiding Man" (1961)
"One can go to war alone, but you can't build peace alone." - Jacques Chirac
""'He got up painfully, looked at the flames, at the sea sparkling round the ship, and black, black as ink farther away; he looked at the stars shining dim through a thin veil of smoke in a sky black, black as Erebus.
'Youngest first,' he said.""
--Conrad, "Youth"
"I want to issue a call to everyone in the world who believes in the values of tolerance, freedom, democracy, humanism, to all those who are persecuted by tyranny, by dictatorships." - Nicolas Sarkozy (2007)
"'Capabilities,' in [Amartya] Sen's sense, are not simply valuable functionings; they are freedoms to enjoy valuable functionings....[And this] room for disagreement is something that Sen regards as valuable rather than disadvantageous." --Putnam, "Fact and Value in the World of Amartya Sen" (delivered 2000, published in the paperback *The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays*)
"The fight against global warming is a humanitarian issue - how the planet can be preserved - and it is also an issue of considerable economic importance, of what we call green growth." - Francois Hollande
"I despise [Borges'] work, and I despise him too. He’s a fascist swine—he was very close to Pinochet, by the way—a loathsome swine who did not ever come out for the Left or anything. I’ve never liked his work because it’s terribly artificial—I just never believed it." -- Chandler Brossard, in "A Conversation With Chandler Brossard" in *The Review of Contemporary Fiction*, 1987
"I come all wreathed in a reputation the press has made for me. Judge me on my actions. That's all that counts." - Emmanuel Macron
"[Peter Madsen's] behaviour seems boundless, with a moody unpredictability. There is a creative dynamic, but also something more destructive. He lacks self-awareness, and knows that he is hard to work with." --Måns Mosesson, "The news that shook the world," *Dagens Nhyeter*, 31-Aug-2017 equally describes Macron's willingness to not take any of Trump's shrink-dick bullshit
"Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments." - Frederick the Great
"Reasonable persons see very that those [feminine] traits are just the tools for the management of men, and for the use of men for female designs." --Kant, *Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View*
"Anyone who loves the law or sausages should not see either made." - Otto von Bismarck
"The facts themselves are viewed as 'immediate emanations of the world spirit,' and that is why they alone are thought to possess the necessary dignity and profundity, that is why tragic art is supposed to subordinate itself to history! Ridiculous! To history!" --Nietzsche, notebook summer/autumn 1873
"Raise high the black flags, my children. No prisoners. No pity. I will shoot any man I see with pity in him." - Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher (at Waterloo; attributed)
"Lie there, poor wretch: seduced, you come
To bonds of love that brook no treason.
The man whom Helen has struck dumb
Gropes long ere he regains his reason."
--Goethe, *Faust II* II.1, tr.Ph.Wayne
"You have sworn loyalty to me. You have only one enemy and that is my enemy. In the present social confusion it may come about that I order you to shoot down your own relatives, brothers or parents, but even then you must follow my orders without a murmur." - Kaiser Wilhelm II (speech to Army recruits, 1891)
"Fact holds out blankly, brutally and blindly, against that universal deliquescence of everything into logical relations which the Absolutist Logic demands, and it is the only thing that holds out." --Wm. James, "Absolutism and Empiricism" (1894)
“The foreign policy which the [Weimar Republic] government has pursued since the end of the war rejects the idea of revenge. Its purpose is rather the achievement of a mutual understanding.” - Wilhelm Marx (1927)
"It is difficult to tell a short-sighted man how to get somewhere. Because you cannot say to him: 'Look at that church tower ten miles away and go in that direction.'" --Wittgenstein, notebook fragment 1929
"Prosperity can come through peace alone. The German people are in favor of all possible means to make war impossible. I have seen three wars. A man who has seen three wars never will wish another war. He must be a friend of peace. But I am not a pacifist. All my impressions of war are so bad that I could be for it only under the sternest necessity — the necessity of fighting Bolshevism or of defending one's country." - Paul von Hindenburg (1929)
"A world of qualities without a man has arisen, of experiences without the person who experiences them, and it almost looks as though ideally private experience is a thing of the past, and that the friendly burden of personal responsibility is to dissolve into a system of formulas of possible meanings." --Musil, *Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften* (1930)
"In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity." - Konrad Adenauer
“I did not write the script of ‘Nick of Time,’ but I know the writer personally and professionally and I also know that he is a man of stature and good will who would never knowingly have caused as much personal hurt to you as he obviously did with a thoughtless, throw-away line which to him, meant nothing, but which to you must have been heart rending. Please accept my apologies in this and my assurance that it will never happen again on my show or any program in which I have a part. Too often we go along blithely unaware of the myriad meanings of language amongst people. Where to most, a certain line is general, unspecific and quite innocuous — to others it has a very special meaning and can be both damaging and offensive. I’ll be most careful of this in the future and I thank you so very much for calling it to my attention.” --Rod Serling, private correspondance, 1960, quoted in Grams, Jr., *The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic*
(What was the line for which Serling apologized, and its context?)
"A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece." - Ludwig Erhard
Episode "Nick of Time," I think Bill Shatner said "Stop treating me like a retarded child," and some guy wrote in to Rod Serl. saying that was kind of hurtful language. The response by Rod Serl is as above, according to the book cited.
It's the episode where Bill and his bride get hung up on some little fortune-telling machine at some diner. I forgot what happens, but it was all true, at the end!
"I hope that some people see some connection between the two topics in the title. If not, anyway, such connections will be developed in the course of these talks."
--Saul Kripke, lecture I of *Naming and Necessity*, Jan 20 1970
OK, thanks!
"This is the fate of a chancellor of the 'grand coalition': he has no grand coalition; he has a thousand little coalitions, with a thousand small disputes, day after day. " - Kurt Georg Kiesinger
"The majority of Americans now recognized that the Hamiltonians held a Tory ideology and were using the same methods and tactics as the British had used earlier. The friends of order had more in common with the enemies of the Revolution than with most Americans." --Donald Boudreaux, "The Fall and Rise of Puritanical Policy in America" THE JOURNAL OF LIBERTARIAN STUDIES 12:1 (SPRING 1996)
"In our modern world, mass hunger, economic stagnation, environmental catastrophe, political instability, and terrorism cannot be quarantined within national borders." - Willy Brandt
"If anybody doubts my loyalty to my country, I'll punch him in the nose, and I don't care how old he is."
--Willy Wyler
"The snail's pace is the normal pace of any democracy." - Helmut Schmidt
"I’m taking back the reins from the classless, spineless, frightened children who dragged Screeching Weasel’s name through the mud with their dishonest, ass-covering press release; and all the cheap shot cowards who kicked me while I was down are getting a horseshoe straight up the ass!"
- Ben Weasel
"Nations with a common currency never went to war against each other. A common currency is more than the money you pay with." - Helmut Kohl
"The reaction a fangirl has to any mention or sighting of the object of her "affection". These reactions include shortness of breath, fainting, highpitched noises, shaking, fierce head shaking as if in the midst of a seizure, wet panties, endless blog posts, etc." --Urban Dictionary, def. "fangirling"
"I am not the German Tony Blair, nor am I the German Bill Clinton. I am Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor of Germany, responsible for Germany. I don't want to be a copy of anyone." - Gerhard Schroder
"We may perhaps think, looking at the grinning faces of idiots, that they do not really suffer; they do, though, only not in the same place as the more intelligent...Not all suffering need after all evoke the same facial expression. A nobler man will bear himself differently in affliction than I." --Wittgenstein, notebook fragment, 1946, tr. PWinch
"Nobody in Europe will be abandoned. Nobody in Europe will be excluded. Europe only succeeds if we work together." - Angela Merkel
"What did he talk about? Well, the man was capable of spending a whole hour on the question: Why did Beethoven not write a third movement to the Piano Sonata Opus 111?"
--Mann, *Doktor Faustus*
"In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles." - David Ben-Gurion
"But, you know, that town girl was raped last week.
--Darling, you can't rape a townie."
--*Black Christmas* movie (dialogue between some girl and Margot Kidder)
"The State of Israel must, from time to time, prove clearly that it is strong, and able and willing to use force, in a devastating and highly effective way. If it does not prove this, it will be swallowed up, and perhaps wiped off the face of the Earth." - Moshe Sharett
"Life should not be arranged in the most comfortable and tolerable manner possible, but rather in the most rigorous manner possible.... The great instability of things makes it easier for us to learn this lesson. Nothing should be shown mercy, the truth must be stated frankly, no matter what the consequences." Nietzsche, notebook fragment, from first quarter of 1874
"Put three Zionists in a room and they will form four political parties." - Levi Eshkol
"The definiteness and directedness of the conscious mind are extremely important acquisitions which humanity has bought at a very heavy sacrifice, and which in turn have rendered humanity the highest service. Without them science, technology, and civilization would be impossible, for they all presuppose the reliable continuity and directedness of the conscious process. For the statesman, doctor, and engineer as well as for the simplest laborer, these qualities are absolutely indispensable. We may say in general that social worthlessness increases to the degree that these qualities are impaired by the unconscious." -- Jung, "The Transcendent Function" (1916)
"Not being beautiful was a true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome." - Golda Meir
"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks." Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"
"You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies... We must think differently, look at things in a different way. Peace requires a world of new concepts, new definitions." - Yitzhak Rabin
“Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
"I philosophize now like an old woman, who continually is mislaying something and has to look for it; now her glasses, then her keys." -- Wittgenstein, On Certainty §532
“I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
"A bare arm was extended towards him with gracious nonchalance even before he had finished speaking. He pressed the hand respectfully to his lips, and made the mental remark that it was bony." --Conrad, "The Duel"
“Life is a gift that must be given back and joy should arise from its possession. It's too damn short and that's a fact. Hard to accept this earthly procession to final darkness is a journey done, circle completed, work of art sublime, a sweet melodic rhyme. A battle won.”
― Dean Koontz, "The Book Of Counted Sorrows"
"When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is to look for the third that you didn't think about, that doesn't exist." - Shimon Peres
"[I]t dawned upon me that the purloiner of the treasure need not necessarily be a confirmed rogue, that he could even be a man of character, an actor and possibly a victim in the changing scenes of a revolution." --Conrad, "Author's Note" to Nostromo
“Money lost -- little lost. Honour lost -- much lost. Pluck lost -- all lost.”
― E.W. Hornung, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman
"'Ever done any acting' [Edm Goulding] asked.
'None to speak of.'
'Good. I'm looking for a new face to play the drunken, dissolute brother of Chatterton. Will you make a test for me tomorrow?'"
--David Niven, The Moon's A Balloon
"Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth." - Menachem Begin
"I cannot eat these eggs. They are of totally different sizes." -- one of the David Suchet-as-Hercule Poirot movies/TV shows, called "Peril at End House"
"I believe that the will of the people is resolved by a strong leadership. Even in a democratic society, events depend on a strong leadership with a strong power of persuasion, and not on the opinion of the masses." - Yitzhak Shamir
"General Barrios, in a shabby blue tunic and white pegtop trousers falling upon strange red boots, kept his head uncovered and stopped slightly, propping himself up with a thick stick. No! He had earned enough military glory to satisfy any man, he insisted to Mrs. Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of gallantry into his attitude." --Conrad, Nostromo, Part II, Chapt. Four.