"Every day is one of those days . . ."
~~ line from Apple+ movie "Luck"
"The fascist Republicans in the U.S. Senate are all a-dither about possible 'weaponizing' of government oversight. This is one result of the Rethuglicons having long ago weaponized stupidity."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]
"I am not a man, I am dynamite."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68], in a student newspaper in 1947
"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows that he doesn't know, knows."
~~ Joseph Campbell [1904-87]
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of consid-ering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
~~ Ursula K. Le Guin [1929-2018] Page, in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" [1973]
"Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good."
~~ actor Terrence Mann
"At the end of the day it's better to be an unpleasant winner than a nice loser."
~~ soccer/futball star Giorgio Chiellini
"To write down one’s impressions of Hamlet as one reads it year after year, would be virtually to record one’s own autobiography, for as we know more of life, so Shakespeare comments upon what we know."
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941]
"Being homosexual isn't a crime . . . It's not a crime. Yes, but it's a sin. Fine, but first let's distinguish between a sin and a crime. It's also a sin to lack charity with one another."
~~ Pope Francis, denouncing laws against homosexuality in an AP interview
"If you feel pain, you're alive. If you feel other people's pain, you're a human being."
~~ Count Leo Tolstoy [1828-1910] of Russia
"The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that 'truth will prevail' is merely a pious wish; history doesn't show it."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88], in "Methuselah's Children" [1958]
"No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!"
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"My so-called inventions already existed in the environment. I’ve created nothing. Nobody does."
~~ inventor Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
"Democrats get angry when officials commit treason, Democrats hate fascism, Republitards love both."
~~ Brian J. Harris
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted . . . but to weigh and consider."
~~ Sir Francis Bacon [1561-1626]
"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not adopt a rational attitude."
~~ philosopher Karl Popper [1902-94]
the Scientific Principle of Parsimony says that things will be created or connected or behave in the simplest or most economical way.
"An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences."
~~ Edith Wharton [1862-1937]
"All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion."
~~ Ram Dass
"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose."
~~ James Baldwin [1924-87]
"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
"We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all."
~~ writer Joan Didion [1934-2021]
"It's how you deal with failure that determines your success."
~~ internet marketer Rick Beneteau
"You never stop learning until there is dirt in your face."
~~ line in the movie "The First Grader"
"My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
"I wish I'd a knowed more people. I would've loved 'em all. If I'd a knowed more, I would a loved more."
~~ Toni Morrison [1931-2019], in "The Song of Solomon" [1977]
"Remember that literature was not created to serve life, nor even translate it, but to escape it."
~~ French critic Paul Léautaud [1872-1956]
"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen."
~~ architect Frank Lloyd Wright [1867-1959]
"'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' marked the beginning of American literature. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]
"Giving up is simply not an option."
~~ teenage eco-activist Greta Thunberg of Stockholm, Sweden
"For this Nation to remain true to its principles, we cannot allow any American's vote to be denied, diluted, or defiled. The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished."
~~ Ronald Reagan [1911-2004]
"Only those who would fail to see the relationship between the fight for civil rights and the struggle for world peace would be surprised to see me. Both fights are the same."
~~ James Baldwin [1924-87]
"We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good."
~~ astronomer Carl Sagan [1934-96]
"We are bound together by the loss and the pain of the days that have gone by. We are also bound together by the hope and the possibilities in the days in front of us."
~~ President Joe Biden, in 2023
"Life's most persistent and urgent question is 'What are you doing for others?'."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor."
~~ Thomas Donahue, President, AFL-CIO (and frequent AFL-CIO slogan)
"I dream my painting and I paint my dream."
~~ Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh [1853-90]
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
~~ American philosopher William James [1842-1910]
"The image of God is your final obstruction to a religious experience.”
~~ Joseph Campbell [1904-87]
"I believe that today’s Trump supporters are people who are making a conscious, knowing, and morally flawed choice to continue supporting a sociopath and a party chock-full of seditionists."
~~ Tom Nichols, in The Atlantic Magazine, March 2023 issue
"[It’s] really sad to see Tucker Carlson go off the rails like that."
~~ Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah
"As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts lasts; what doesn't doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself."
~~ Japanese writer Haruki Murakami
"The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics."
~~ physicist & astronomer Galileo Galilei [1564-1642]
"Color is a power which directly influences the soul."
~~ Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky [1866-1944]
"One simply cannot concern oneself eight or even five hours a day with nonsense-taken-seriously and not be corrupted by it. The corruption lies in the very habits of thought."
~~ author Patricia Highsmith [1921-95]
"I don’t know about you, but I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment’."
~~ author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]
"Make men and women only sufficiently jealous or fearful or drunken or angry, and the hot red eyes of the cavemen will glare out at us today."
~~ British author H.G. Wells [1866-1946]
"Everyone pretends. And everything is more than we can ever see of it.”
~~ Ian Bogost, contributor at The Atlantic Magazine
"Maybe it’s better to regulate railroads and banks instead of uteruses and drag shows."
~~ New Mexico poet Mary Oishi
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}