September 2015 Quotations (60)

"Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"The public is not behind us, and that’s a real problem for our party."
~~ Republican Cong. Justin Amash [MI-03] in 2015

"Rich people don't create jobs. Jobs create rich people. The republi-cons moan, the republi-cons bitch. Our rich are too poor and our poor are too rich."
~~ Ferguson Foont

"As soils are depleted, human health, vitality, and intelligence go with them."
~~ Louis Bromfield [1896-1956]

"Efficient often looks a lot like lazy."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"The poor can never be made to suffer enough."
~~ Jimmy Breslin

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
~~ astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."
~~ Greek philosopher Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]

"That's one thing about Republican Presidents. They never went in much for plans. They only had one plan. It says: 'Boys, my head is turned. Just get it while you can'."
~~ American humorist Will Rogers [1879-1935]

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."
~~ George Lucas

"Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other."
~~ Charles Lamb [1775-1834], in the Essays of Elia (1823)

"Integrity needs no rules."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60]

"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."
~~ Irish poet William Butler Yeats [1865-1939]

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
~~ Hermann Hesse [1877-1962]

"If you have a job without aggravations, [then] you don't have a job."
~~ Malcolm Forbes [1919-90]

"Reading is socially-accepted disassociation. You flip a switch and you're not there anymore. It's better than heroin."
~~ memoirist Mary Karr

"When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate – the genetic and neural fate – of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own life, to die his own death."
~~ Oliver Sacks, MD [1933-2015]

"Most of the time, I feel entirely unqualified to be a parent. I call these times being awake."
~~ comedian Jim Gilligan

"Hope, like faith, is nothing if not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous."
~~ Thornton Wilder [1897-1975]

"Living an interesting life is a precondition to being an interesting person."
~~ novelist Ottessa Moshfegh

"There are three stages of scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then they deny that it is important; finally, they credit the wrong person."
~~ naturalist Alexander von Humboldt [1769-1859]

"If you got it, flaunt it; if you don't got it, flaunt it."
~~ TV actress Mindy Kaling

"Horror films don't create fear. They release it."
~~ filmmaker Wes Craven [1939-2015]

"The reader is the writer's only unrelenting, genuine enemy. He has everything on his side; all [that] he has to do, after all, is shut his eyes, and any work of fiction becomes meaningless."
~~ novelist Shirley Jackson [1916-65]

"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."
~~ Nassim Nichilas Taleb

"I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again."
~~ Anaïs Nin [1903-77]

"Transformation carries with it [a] kind of deep surprise. [Transformation] doesn’t merely change our outlook and actions, it uncovers the structures of being and interpretation on which we are grounded. [Transformation] removes arbitrary views that limit and shape what’s possible, and gives us hands-on access to who we are."
~~ Jeff Willmore, Landmark Forum Leader

“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude . . . But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’ – Here, this is sin! Do you see?”
~~ Pope Francis, September 2015

"The truth must dazzle gradually / or every man be blind."
~~ poet Emily Dickinson [1830-86]

"[T]he essence of what made America a great country [is] its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election is over."
~~ former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, on the Thom Hartmann radio show, 9/2015

"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive."
~~ William F. Buckley, Jr. [1925-2008]

"Everybody thinks [that] you reach a certain age and you're a grownup, but it's not true. Nobody grows up until the day [that] they croak."
~~ rock legend Keith Richards

"What's good for comedy is bad for America."
~~ Bill Maher

"A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want."
~~ rock star Madonna

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]

"If you think [that] you are so enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents."
~~ Ram Dass

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie."
~~ Stephen King

"I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man."
~~ rapper Jay-Z

"Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past, it loses the future."
~~ poet Kathleen Norris

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
~~ Elie Wiesel

"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of life, but that it bothers him less and less."
~~ Vaclav Havel [1936-2011]

"Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don't expect it from cheap people."
~~ American capitalist Warren Buffett

"No two persons ever read the same book."
~~ Edmund Wilson [1895-1972]

"There's room in this world for beauty to be diverse."
~~ actress Lupita Nyong'o

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others."
~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero [106 B.C.E. – 43 B.C.E.]

"Every idle moment is treason."
~~ Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881]

"We will have a more just society as soon as we want one."
~~ George Packer, columnist at The New Yorker Magazine

"The highest calling of leadership is to unlock the potential of others."
~~ Carly Fiorina

"Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the XXIst Century."
~~ Irish politician & activist Mary Robinson

"I don't plan an awful lot in life, just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction."
~~ Lawrence Block

"The finest achievement of human society and its rarest pleasure is Conversation."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012], in 1959

"Toutes les grandes personnes ont un jour été des enfants, mais peu d'entre elles s'en souviennent."
"All grown-ups were children, but few of them remember."
~~ aviator & author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44]

“There's no great loss without some small gain.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957], author of "Little House On The Prairie"

"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."
~~ British computer genius Alan Turing [1912-54]

"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."
~~ Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]

“The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE] - (in "The Republic")

"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution."
~~ J.K. Rowling

"The greatest mistake [that] you can make in life is to continually be afraid [that] you will make one."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]

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