March 2017 Quotations (56)

"Human rights and civil rights morally outrank states’ rights."
~~ V.B. Price

"There were so many lies in the air that [another] one more or less made little difference."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940] - in short story “The I.O.U.”

"Replace the word 'problem' with the word 'opportunity' in all your thoughts."
~~ Matthew Keith Groves

"The movies that aren't made are as revealing of the times as those that are."
~~ Richard Brody, blogger/critic at The New Yorker Magazine

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”
~~ J.K. Rowling

“Getting to know someone is not a task - it’s an art.”
~~ Pierce LeBlanc

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”
~~ Alexis de Tocqueville [1805-59]

"Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
~~ Rev. Martin Luther King [1929-68]

“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”
~~ E.A. Bucchianeri

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you.”
~~ Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-80]

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
~~ Plato [427-347 BCE] - in "The Republic"

"Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you."
~~ actress Mary Tyler Moore [1936-2017]

“If you were born with the weakness to fall you were born with the strength to rise.”
~~ Rupi Kaur of Canada

“It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”
~~ Seneca the Younger [4? B.C.E. - 65 A.D.]

"All of us tough guys are hopeless sentimentalists at heart."
~~ Raymond Chandler [1888-1959]

"Modern music is a sick puppy."
~~ musician Frank Zappa [1940-93]

"If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn."
~~ jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker [1920-55].

"You may already be a member!"
~~ motto of The Cacophony Society [est. 1986]

"If you could feel but a particle of Divine Love, so great would it be [that] you could not contain it."
~~ Paramahansa Yogananda [1893-1952]

"We made our mistakes back in the XXth century, Lord knows, but we never nominated a man for president who brags about not reading . . . When I envision a Trump Presidential Library, I see enormous chandeliers and gold carpet and a thousand slot machines. God help us. I mean it. We’re in trouble down here."
~~ author & radio personality Garrison Keillor

"Democracy dies in darkness."
~~ Judge Damon J. Keith, U.S. Court of Appeals, circa 1960s
and added as slogan on the Washington Post newspaper masthead in 2017

"The limits of my language are the limits of my world."
~~ Ludwig Wittgenstein [1889-1951]

"The question for America no longer comes down to Democrats vs. Republicans nor liberals vs. conservatives nor free market libertarians vs. anti-globalists, but rather to a simple formulation of the people vs. the elites ... Wake up! The Class War has already begun." ."
~~ John R. Talbott, in 2004

"Not only is it extremely unjust in itself, inequality has highly negative consequences on the society as a whole because the very fact of inequality has a corrosive, harmful effect on democracy."
~~ philosopher-activist Noam Chomsky

"The arts are enormously important. The arts bring passion and emotion to ideas . . . Art has a special and powerful role to play because it enhances people's feelings and gives strength to people's ideas and inspires people."
~~ activist-historian Howard Zinn [1922-2010]

“Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”
~~ Marie Rutkoski

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”
~~ Allan W. Watts [1915-73]

"Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.”
~~ James Baldwin [1924-87]

“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”
~~ activist Malcolm X [1925-65]

“What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.”
~~ diplomat Madeleine K. Albright

“Freedom lies in being bold.”
~~ poet Robert Frost [1874-1963]

“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.”
~~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712-78]

"We should never overlook the fact that the threats that we now face are the most severe that have ever arisen in human history. They are literal threats to survival ... These are very urgent concerns, they cannot be delayed ... They have to be faced directly and soon."
~~ philosopher-activist Noam Chomsky - in December 2016

"[The victory at Standing Rock] is a call to remind us that the engine can be stopped."
~~ Harry Belafonte

"I'm so glad I didn't die on the various occasions I have earnestly wished I might, for I would have missed a lot of lovely weather."
~~ Elizabeth von Arnim [1866-1941]

"Nature is as it is because this is the only possible nature consistent with itself."
~~ physicist Geoffrey F. Chew - in the 1960s

"If they were honest they would call their [TrumpCare] bill the 'Give Us All Your Money or Die Act'."
~~ The Pen at Peace Team activism website

"There have been no dragons in my life / Only small spiders, and stepping in gum . . . / I could have coped with dragons"
~~ poem circa 1970s by Niki Nymark of St. Louis

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them."
~~ author Lemony Snicket

"Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there."
~~ Clare Booth Luce [1903-87]

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
~~ Irish playwright & author Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]

"The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"The world is not a miserable prison, it is a playground for a nonstop tournament between stupidity and imagination."
~~ poet James Broughton [1913-99]

"Behind every argument is someone's ignorance."
~~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis [1856-1941]

I swear to the Lord / I still can't see / why Democracy means / everybody but me
~~ Langston Hughes [1902-67]

"Conflict cannot survive without your participation."
~~ Dr. Wayne W. Dyer [1940-2015]

"As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the one thing left to us in a bad time."
~~ writer E.B. White [1899-1985]

“At one and the same time, therefore, society is everything and society is nothing. Society is the most powerful concoction in the world and society has no existence whatsoever.”
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941] — in "Orlando: A Biography", 1928

"Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority."
~~ The Second Doctor Who

"[We're] not about ideas. [We're] about making ideas happen."
~~ Scott Belsky, co-founder of the Bëhance creativity social website [est. 2005]

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men."
~~ John F. Kennedy [1917-63]

"If you don't genuinely like your customers, chances are [that] they won't buy."
~~ Thomas Watson, Jr. [1914-93], longtime CEO of IBM

"Hire character. Train skill."
~~ Peter W. Schutz

"A truly great library contains something to offend everyone."
~~ Anonymous

"Educate the heart. Let us have good men."
~~ sculptor Hiram Powers [1805-73]

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are."
~~ Mason Cooley [1927-2002]

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