December 2010 Quotations

"Our real enemy is cynicism."
~~ British folksinger-activist Billy Bragg

"If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys."
~~ Chief Dan George [1899-1981]

"Certain things catch your eye, But pursue only those that capture your heart."
~~ old Native American saying

"An artist is a creature driven by demons -- he usually doesn't know why they chose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why."
~~ William Faulkner [1897-1962]

"Let us hear the voice of reason, singing in the night"
~~ line from song in "Muppet Christmas Carol" [1992]

"Losing hurts twice as bad as winning feels good."
~~ baseball manager George 'Sparky' Anderson [1934-2010]

"A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard."
~~ Billy Wilder [1906-2002]

"Wonder is our need today, not information."
~~ Elia Kazan [1909-2003]

"With thought, all problems can be resolved."
~~ character Hercule Poirot (as written by Agatha Christie [1890-1976])

"I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut."
~~ Billy Wilder [1906-2002]

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you."
~~ Kahlil Gibran [1883-1931]

"A revolution is not a dinner party, [it is] an insurrection, an act of violence."
~~ Chairman Mao [1893-1976]

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-1965]

“Goodbye Mr. Zanuck: it certainly has been a pleasure working at 16th Century Fox.”
~~ auteur Jean Renoir [1894-1979] of France

“The person who has never seen movies by Satyajit Ray is like a person who has never seen the moon and the sky."
~~ Akira Kurosawa [1910-98]

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."
~~ Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919], Labor Day speech, 1903

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."
~~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt [1882-1945]

"Where there is oppression, Liberty must light the dark."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Nothing so much contributes to promote the public well-being as the exportation of manufactured goods."
~~ Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford [1676-1745]

"Success is measured by how high you bounce when you hit bottom."
~~ Gen. George S. Patton [1885-1945]

"If you make any film that accurately portrays the world as it is – that portrays people's lives the way [that] they actually are – by definition, that's a political film."
~~ movie director Steven Soderbergh

"Life is a series of adjustments to plans that didn't work out."
~~ mystery author Margaret Coel

"An aristocracy is bad manners organized."
~~ Henry James [1843-1916]

"Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up."
~~ British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard

"Whoever established the high road, and how high it should be, should be fired."
~~ actress Sandra Bullock

"Truth exists, only falshood has to be invented."
~~ Cubist painter Georges Braque [1882-1963]

"A work of art is a thing that requires as much cunning and viciousness as the perpetration of a crime."
~~ painter Edgar Degas [1834-1917]

"Coyote is always out there waiting, and coyote is always hungry."
~~ old Native American saying

"We should always have goals. If you don't have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life."
~~ Sylvester Stallone

"An educated person is one who has attained a rational understanding of the pros and cons mof the major problems facing society during his[/her] lifetime."
~~ Walston Chubb, in 1978

"As courage is bravery in the face of fear, virtue is right conduct in the face of temptation."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]

"What you see with your eyes shut is what counts."
~~ Sioux shaman Lame Deer [1903?-1976]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}