Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it.
I think one of the things that's happening is that people are realizing that they can't pass the buck to the government because the government, at least as far it comes to environmental protection, doesn't exist. That they're going to have to bite the bullet a little bit themselves. Look, there are no silver linings to Trumpism. This is an unmitigated disaster. But let's hope that at least it helps people find their courage in this resistance.
In those days [batch processing] programmers never even documented their programs, because it was assumed that nobody else would ever use them. Now, however, time-sharing had made exchanging software trivial: you just stored one copy in the public repository and therby effectively gave it to the world. Immediately people began to document their programs and to think of them as being usable by others. They started to build on each other's work.
I understand and respect people who say they want to boycott the Trump brand. I also respect your right to buy his products. But what you miss is that no one in public office, Hilary or Trump should use that platform to profit themselves. In Trump's case there are serious concerns about the conflict of interest in his brand and business ownership. Do we really want a president who had products he can push while working for the American people?
The best way to neutralise fear is by laughing. You can see the dynamics of this in action when people watch a horror movie. You'll notice that immediately after a good fright, following the sceams of terror - which is the point of maximum experience of fear - people will always laugh immediately afterward, as this is the natural way to release the fear. By laughing at something you also take away the perception that it has any power over you.
I found a lot of stuff that's never been seen before. That was the goal: to not use cliché Cold War footage but give people a sense of the place and setting. It's a field you still need. At first it was a lot of fun, and then later it became a little bit intimidating. "Oh my God, I've got so much footage. Where am I going to put it? What am I going to do?" I ended up really only reviewing about 20 to 30 percent of what I had. So it was a task.
I would like to play some character that's somewhat dramatic. I don't see myself ever becoming that serious, or it sounds weird, but I don't see myself doing something that's really dramatic but somewhat dramatic. I would like to do something that's more real and doesn't have to be laugh out loud funny. I always like whatever I'm involved in... whether it be funny or whether it be somewhat like... I'm not gonna try to get people to really cry.
People always focus on people like me who use synthesizers, right, which are explicitly electronic and therefore obvious. "Ah, yes, that's electronic music." But they don't realize that so is the concept of actually taking a piece of extant music and literally re-collaging it, taking chunks out and changing the dynamics radically and creating new rhythmic structures with echo and all that. That's real electronic music, as far as I'm concerned.
Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. It does not matter whether, with the Northwest Coast, it requires delusions of self-reference, or with our own civilization the amassing of possessions. In any case the great mass of individuals take quite readily the form that is presented to them.
I'm sure there are people in Hollywood, whose main drive in film is to make money, who will feel that any use of the word hijacking or any reference to anything violent or remotely associated with the terrible tragedy that occurred will lose customers for them. And that will be the only criterion that will matter and so they'll force the minions that work for them to remove these things from their movies, or not make movies about that subject.
In every bio-region, one of the most urgent tasks is to rebuild the community of naturalists - so radically depleted in recent years, as young people have spent less time in nature, and higher education has placed less value on such disciplines as zoology……The times are right for the return of the amateur, twenty-first-century, citizen naturalist. To be a citizen naturalist is to take personal action, to both protect and participate in nature.
People don’t find the personal lives of people with much, much more power than any celebrity would have — don’t find their personal lives interesting. I think if you put the lives of people who controlled billions of dollars on the front news of every single paper, the world would be a better place. It’s the spin culture. If you took away publicists and things and people spoke for themselves, then they’d have to be responsible for their words.
The most central and irrational faith among people is the faith in technology and economical growth. Its priests believe until their death that material prosperity bring enjoyment and happiness - even though all the proofs in history have shown that only lack and attempt cause a life worth living, that the material prosperity doesn't bring anything else than despair. These priests believe in technology still when they choke in their gas masks.
I love movies; I grew up loving movies. I've always loved movies. I never thought about making movies until I took art classes and then I started studying different artists. As you study paintings, you see light and shadow, of course - Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix. You start to understand the relationship between people and art, and images. For me, between movies that I watched and art, it was like, I'd love to make moving art. Moving pictures.
Whether I affect one person or an entire family, or even a group of people, I feel like I have resources and education and ability and skills that some people may not be fortunate enough to acquire. But by sharing and inquiring, being a listener, and being interested in the stories of other people and their lives, I can also pull things out and say "What can I do for them? What can I share with them that may alleviate some of their suffering?"
Puzzles are great because they're fun. But really we are drawn to puzzles because they can be solved. We love the idea of being able to put a puzzle together and it being complete: you do it perfectly, step away, and you've completed the job. There's a deep satisfaction from that, and I think we wish for the ability to do that with everything. But emotions just don't work that way, people don't work that way, relationships don't work that way.
Do you realize that people don't know how to read Kafka simply because they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories - and come up with nothing but clichés: life is absurd (or it is not absurd), God is beyond reach (or within reach), etc. You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.
As chancellor, I am - as it should be - constantly under the microscope from both the public and the media. It is also important to me that my staff tells me openly how they see things. And an additional good indicator is the mood in my own electoral district. When I am there, which happens frequently, no one is particularly excited or impressed anymore to meet the chancellor. People there tell me immediately what is going well and what isn't.
I hope that people can relate to my music, it's very relatable, it's very fun, it's very honest. It's very, very, honest. I know that my fans will probably learn a lot about me by listening to my music, if they really listen to the lyrics. I'm sure they'll learn about a new side to me, it's all very honest, I don't put on any... there's no fake-ness to it, it's very real and I hope my fans can relate to it and that it's enjoyable for all ages.
If you look back on the history of the 20th century, the 19th century or even to the ancien régime of the 18th, you will see that first people rebelled against the order of the things because of lack of liberty, and demanded more freedom. And when they got more freedom, they got frightened, and they desired more security for a change. After a while, they started complaining, although more secure, they also become more dependent and rule-bound.
There are some people who do not want this thing to continue to work, and that's what they're doing is all about. They don't want to unify. They don't want this thing to work. That's the whole point of going forth with grievance after grievance after grievance and victim after victim after victim, because this inherent system... There is an all-out assault on the unity of this country. There are people whose express purpose is to rip it apart.
Hadrian shook his head and sighed. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult? They’re probably not bad people—just poor. You know, taking what they need to buy a loaf of bread to feed their family. Can you begrudge them that? Winter is coming and times are hard.” He nodded his head in the direction of the thieves. “Right?” “I ain’t got no family,” flat-nose replied. “I spend most of my coin on drink.” “You’re not helping,” Hadrian said.
Sociopaths are not usually physically violent. A typical sociopath never kills anybody and doesn't look like Charles Manson - they look like you and me and everybody else. You're not looking for someone who's recognizably evil or scary-looking, but rather someone who looks normal. Another lynchpin is dishonesty. Lying for the sake of lying. Lying just to see whether you can trick people. And sometimes telling larger lies to get larger effects.
I was raised in a country [South Africa] with a lot of political turmoil. I was part of a culture and a generation that suppressed people and lived under apartheid regimes. I don't know how you can come out of that and not have an awareness for the world. I think that if my life had turned out any other way and I was working in a bank, I would still feel this way about it, because there's a connection to humanity that to me is really important.
I think that idealism is always there in America. It's a spirit that's been subverted lately, and sold down the river to the contractors, what with the privatizing of all aspects of the government. It's so cold and cynical - all dollars and cents and parcel it up and sell it out and downgrade it and outsource it. They don't consider what it does to people. I think the spirit of this country is finally coming back, and hopefully it will triumph.
So much of what we see and hear about the Middle East focuses on what we call politics, which is essentially ideology. But when it comes to the Middle East, and especially the Arab world, simply depicting people as human beings is the most political thing you can do. And that's why I chose to write about food: food is inherently political, but it's also an essential part of people's real lives. It's where the public and private spheres connect.
You're creating music to pull people into a world, whether it be a visual medium where music is just one element, or a purely musical medium. Either way, you're trying to transport people and to create a connection. I've always felt that the best films and the best albums can be the best company. If people feel a little bit less alone because of something I had a hand in creating than I feel like I'm contributing to the world in a positive way.
Farm animals are far more aware and intelligent than we ever imagined and, despite having been bred as domestic slaves, they are individual beings in their own right. As such, they deserve our respect. And our help. Who will plead for them if we are silent? Thousands of people who say they ‘love’ animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been treated so with little respect and kindness just to make more meat.
Do you mean to say," asked Caspian, "that you three come from a round world (round like a ball) and you've never told me! It's really too bad for you. Because we have fairy-tales in which there are round worlds and I have always loved them … Have you ever been to the parts where people walk about upside-down?" Edmund shook his head. "And it isn't like that," he added. "There's nothing particularly exciting about a round world when you're there.
These people in media have a personal attachment to Barack Obama and his presidency and his legacy. And so Trump... It's just another of many reasons why Trump has to be diminished, destroyed, impugned, or what have you. But Middle East trip is so phenomenally successful, so phenomenally positive that they can't report it because it doesn't fit with the Trump whom they have painted in the last six or so months. But it's still getting out there.
There was a show in which these scientists shared the secrets of the world's oldest living people, people still functioning past 100 years-old. They found that they exercised everyday, they ate in proportion, that they had a social network of family and friends, and that they had some sort of faith. So, that's what I'm doing now, very consciously. Instead of working out three times a week, I do something physical, like a one-hour walk everyday.
It was really hard coming to terms with the Nazi history. Then in my twenties I was traveling to Germany. There was a lot of poetry activity and some of my first readings abroad and trying to relate with people my own age there and what they were discovering and learning had to examine in terms of their backgrounds. Then so many of my friends had family who had either perished in the holocaust or survived in the holocaust. It was very palpable.
Millions of people miss meditation because meditation has taken on a wrong connotation. It looks very serious, looks gloomy, has something of the church in it, looks as if it is only for people who are dead, or almost dead, who are gloomy, serious, have long faces, who have lost festivity, fun, playfulness, celebration.... A really meditative person is playful: life is fun for him.... He enjoys it tremendously. He is not serious. He is relaxed.
While the foreign policy elite in Washington focuses on the 8,000 deaths in a conflict in Syria – half a world away from the United States – more than 47,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006 in Mexico. A deeply troubled state as well as a demographic and economic giant on the United States’ southern border, Mexico will affect America’s destiny in coming decades more than any state or combination of states in the Middle East.
I can start with the idea of taking until you can take off, through the idea that all of my writing foregrounds the idea of how I'm taking from my own life. I'm stealing from my own life in a way, and from the people around me, but in service of getting somewhere else. I'm starting with an autobiographical impulse, to get a better vantage on the circumstances of the life that I happen to be in at the moment and how that life connects to others.
I think we're a little bit protective in that way. You're always trying to balance between what's spreading the word about the band and what's good money and what's a shitty look. Is this good for the longevity of the band? Do people even care these days? We care, but do we care more about the money? We've had a lot of discussions about things. It gets us into a lot of fights, but it also makes you question your own morals in a really good way.
Is there anyone’s life story you don’t want to know?” “Not really.” His expression was unexpectedly serious. “Because people make a story of their lives. Gains, losses, tragedy and triumph—you can tell a lot about someone simply by what they put into each category. You can learn a lot about what you put into each category by your reaction to them. They teach you about yourself without ever intending to do it—and they teach you a lot about life.
Most readers look at the photograph first. If you put it in the middle of the page, the reader will start by looking in the middle. Then her eye must go up to read the headline; this doesn't work, because people have a habit of scanning downwards. However, suppose a few readers do read the headline after seeing the photograph below it. After that, you require them to jump down past the photograph which they have already seen. Not bloody likely.
... the friendship of worthless people has a bad effect (because they take part, unstable as they are, in worthless pursuits, and actually become bad through each other's influence). But the friendship of the good is good, and increases in goodness because of their association. They seem even to become better men by exercising their friendship and improving each other; for the traits that they admire in each other get transferred to themselves.
I honestly believe, and I've said it many times, that the universal stems from the specific and I can't walk around with a performance and ask everyone how they feel about it, but if noble is an opinion that people have I'll accept that. I've been asked many times why I don't play bad guys, or heavies, and I would do it, absolutely, in a second, just haven't been offered any so... if anybody has a script out there tonight I'm more than willing.
Everyone is creative, but me and my colleagues are using a different definition of creativity than is implied when people say they are not creative. We believe that people are being creative if they are bringing out their highest inner resources to improve their lives and those around them. Those who are living from their core, and doing what they are destined to do, are being creative, no matter how mundane their work or profession might seem.
Thing that we wanted to do was redefine what a green job was, what a climate job was. We said: "Wait a minute. There's all these people out there who are doing low-carbon work." It's not just guys in hard hats putting up solar panels. Teaching is low carbon. Caring for the sick is low carbon. Daycare is a green workplace. Overwhelmingly, this is work that is done by women, overwhelmingly women of color, on the frontlines of austerity clawbacks.
There are crimes which no one would commit as an individual which he willingly and bravely commits when acting in the name of his society, because he has been (too easily) convinced that evil is entirely different when it is done 'for the common good.'...one might point to the way in which racial hatreds and even persecution are admitted by people who consider themselves, and perhaps in some sense are, kind, tolerant, civilized and even humane.
Cutangle: While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe. Treatle: I hadn't looked at it like that, but you're absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance. They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.
The U.S. has a system that does have a poor cost-benefit ratio. I mean, 40 million people lack insurance; another 30 million or so are underinsured. The people who are insured do have to worry whether they are able to pay the bills. People become bankrupt because they cannot pay the medical bills, and there are vast differences in the quality of care depending on how much you are prepared and able to pay. I think the system is not working well.
People don't like the music that's out now, that's on their radio stations, and they want to hear something different, but they're just the audience. You know, people will keep the TV on even if a show is on that they hate - because, unfortunately, they've been programmed to do that. [But] they are really looking for something that's gonna speak to the world that they're living in. That's what people are looking for, but they're not finding it.
When we come together and appreciate each other, that's always a positive thing; a step in the right direction. That is what the NAACP Image Awards do. If we can just come together and love each other, that's important. I do feel like there's a lack of love but oddly enough, we blame the lack of love on other people not loving and appreciating our accomplishments. But the real reality is we haven't loved and appreciated our own accomplishments.
There are various art forms we may or may not have talent for, may or may not have time for, and we may or may not be able to express ourselves in, but we ought to consider this fact-that whether we choose to be an environment or not, we are. We produce an environment other people have to live in. We should be conscious of the fact that this environment which we produce by our very 'being' can affect the people who live with us or work with us.
No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the … victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver - no, not I. I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.
People sometimes focus on the red button hot topic issues and I'm, like, you know, who cares about priestly celibacy? I'm thinking about how am I forgiving my enemies? How am I turning the other cheek? How am I loving my neighbor as myself? To me that's 10,000 times more difficult than to say should priests be married or not be married? I'm, like, I think we're wasting all out energies on the wrong thing. Let's work on the most difficult stuff.