"Above all, a nation cannot exist as a money-making mob: it cannot with impunity go on despising literature, despising science, despising nature, despising compassion, and concentrating its soul on Pence."
~~ John Ruskin [1819-1900], in 1864
"Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy. He is unfit for the presidency and cannot be endorsed. A Trump presidency would be dangerous for the nation and the world.”
~~ Washington Post Editorial Board, 22 July 2016
"Bureaucracies and corporations do not 'understand', it is simply not in their repertoire. If their ads say that they do, they are lying."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation."
~~ Sir Walter Scott [1771-1832]
"Stick to it. Everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep all on."
~~ character Peter, in "The Railway Children" [1906 novel]
"Science erases what was previously true."
~~ writer John McPhee, in 1967
"The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"Equality isn’t just an ideal. It is a pragmatic economic advantage.”
~~ activist George Lakey
"Defiance, not obedience, is the American's answer to overbearing authority."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
“If I talked like Donald Trump, I’d get sent to the principal’s office immediately.”
~~ Alexis Fridman, a third-grader who co-founded a Kids Against Trump group
"These are not spontaneous chants [of 'Lock her up!'] at the Republican convention. They are led by hundreds of synchronized Trump Bronx cheerleader whips on the convention floor. This is a choreographed lynch mob."
~~ The Pen activism website
"Write about what you know and care deeply about. When one puts one's self on paper - that is what is called good writing."
~~ Joel Chandler Harris [1848-1908]
"What a hypocrite! If Trump wants to ‘fix’ trade he can start by making his products in the U.S., not low-wage countries abroad.”
~~ Sen. Bernie Sanders
"To succeed, you've got to love what you're doing. If you don't love it, get out of the way for someone who does."
~~ hockey great Gordie Howe [1928-2016]
"I had no particular desire to be a personality like my father, nor was I equipped to be one. I was determined to be my own man, although having the Fairbanks name did make it easier to get into an office to see someone."
~~ Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. [1909-2000]
"I always like to do the unexpected. Takes people by surprise."
~~ Doctor Who, in "Trial of The Time Lord"
"The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"Disappointments continue to affect my confidence – but never my resolve."
~~ Orson Welles [1915-85], in 1985
"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."
~~ John F. Kennedy [1917-63]
"You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far."
~~ character Uncle Remus as written by Joel Chandler Harris [1848-1908]
"I’m worried that I will be the last Republican president.”
~~ George W. Bush to former aides, as reported by Politico in July 2016
"What a man notices first about a woman is whether she notices him."
~~ Marlene Dietrich [1901-92]
"All rising to great place is by a winding stair."
~~ Sir Francis Bacon [1561-1626]
"All philosophies that claim [that] the physical world around [you does] not exist except in your imagination are sheer nonsense."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]
"Truth is stranger than fiction."
~~ George Gordon, Lord Byron [1788-1824], in "Don Juan" (1819)
"The fundamental tragedy is not death, but the unlived life."
~~ film critic Ella Taylor
"The central goal of Western humanism is . . . the audacious control by Reason of Man's fate."
~~ C. Wright Mills [1916-62]
"Uninterpreted truth is as useless as buried gold."
~~ British writer Lytton Strachey [1880-1932]
"Chance is very, very methodical in its distribution of probabilities, and uses sheer coincidences only very sparingly."
~~ mystery author Ellis Peters [1913-95], in "Rainbow's End" [1978]
"Skepticism about what is unproven can easily turn into a prohibition upon thinking."
~~ German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno [1903-69]
"A great work of art . . . is prepared within the silence of the heart."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60], in "An Absurd Reasoning" (1942)
"There really is no why and there often is no warning. When death comes, it just comes. In the meantime, we should just celebrate our lives a little each day and relish every sunset [that] we can."
~~ Mark Cromer
"Experience is the worst teacher; it gives the test before presenting the lesson."
~~ baseball pitcher Vernon Law
"Art is meant to disturb, science reassures."
~~ cubist painter Georges Braque [1882-1963]
"Anyone is ready to be savage in some cause."
~~ William James [1842-1910]
"The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages."
~~ Horace Greeley [1811-72]
"Life is first boredom, then fear. Whether or not we use it, it goes."
~~ U.K. poet Philip Larkin [1922-85]
"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true."
~~ John C. Lilly [1915-2001]
"Never ever put peanut butter in your pocket to eat later."
~~ cartoonist Bil Keane [1922-2011]
"When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food & clothes."
~~ Desiderius Erasmus [1466-1536]
"No one is perfect until you fall in love with them."
~~ TV curmudgeon Andy Rooney [1919-2011]
"A song that don't say somethin' ain't worth nothin'."
~~ folksinger-activist Woody Guthrie [1912-67]
"One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood."
~~ British author E.M. Forster [1879-1970], in Preface to "A Passage To India" [1924 novel]
"Desire and love are the same thing, save that by desire we always signify the absence of the object, by love, most commonly the presence of it."
~~ Thomas Hobbes [1588-1679]
"Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success."
~~ Napoleon Hill [1883-1970]
"The [San Francisco-Oakland] Bay area is one of the great experiments in ambulatory psychosis."
~~ Allan Cohen
"A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience."
~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. [1809-94]
"The waking have one common world / But the sleeping turn aside / Each into a world of his own."
~~ Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus [535?-475? BCE]
"Comment is free, but facts are sacred."
~~ C.P. Scott [1846-1932], editor & owner of U.K.'s Manchester Guardian
"Many people take no care of their money until they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time."
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1749-1832]
"Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
"Only the weak are sent out on paths without perils."
~~ Nobel-laureate Hermann Hesse [1877-1962] , in "The Glass Bead Game" [1943 novel]
"[W]e are waves whose stillness is non-being. We are alive because of this, [thus] we have no rest."
~~ mystery author Dorothy Gilman [1923-2012]
"Anger that has no purpose, that isn't guided toward a positive end, is dangerous and counter-productive."
~~ singer-activist Harry Belafonte
"Dying is an art, like everything else."
~~ writer Sylvia Plath [1932-63]
"All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward."
~~ Southern writer Ellen Glasgow [1873-1945]
"It's the best job in [journalism], chasing crooks in Florida, because the well never runs dry."
~~ Carl Hiaasen
"If you are going to think, you might as well think BIG!"
~~ Donald J. Trump
"The reverse side also has a reverse side."
~~ Japanese proverb
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Keep Cool With Popsicles
Global warming has arrived (be sure to thank a Republican) with the last three years breaking records as the hottest year ever. This trend is likely to continue.
I was looking for something different at the local Lowe's grocery store and decided to grab a bag of popsicles. Brilliant move. There are 18 two-stick popsicles in the bag, made of three fruit-juice flavors; the bag costs $3.29, which is 18¼ cents each.
Why I think this is worthy of posting on the blog is that I now have a super-cold popsicle instead of a glass of Kool-Aid or iced tea. Very refreshing, and it seems not to add calories like a meal – I am even losing a little bit of weight (although that could also be from the sweat pouring out of my pores!).
I have ordered a window air conditioner for the master bedroom from Home Depot which will arrive on Saturday. It is only going to get hotter, all around the planet – there is no reversing global warming. Maybe next year I will buy another A/C unit for the living room window.
Or as former talk radio host Randi Rhodes liked to say: "Fight global warming. Be cool!"
Copyright 2016 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
I was looking for something different at the local Lowe's grocery store and decided to grab a bag of popsicles. Brilliant move. There are 18 two-stick popsicles in the bag, made of three fruit-juice flavors; the bag costs $3.29, which is 18¼ cents each.
Why I think this is worthy of posting on the blog is that I now have a super-cold popsicle instead of a glass of Kool-Aid or iced tea. Very refreshing, and it seems not to add calories like a meal – I am even losing a little bit of weight (although that could also be from the sweat pouring out of my pores!).
I have ordered a window air conditioner for the master bedroom from Home Depot which will arrive on Saturday. It is only going to get hotter, all around the planet – there is no reversing global warming. Maybe next year I will buy another A/C unit for the living room window.
Or as former talk radio host Randi Rhodes liked to say: "Fight global warming. Be cool!"
Saturday, July 23, 2016
THE GREATEST SPEECH EVER MADE (antidote to the fascist screed at the Republican Convention)
Charlie Chaplin's "The Greatest Speech Ever Made" excerpted from "The Great Dictator" [1940]
watch video [9/2013 upload; 4:38] on YouTube
— pass it on . . .
watch video [9/2013 upload; 4:38] on YouTube
— pass it on . . .
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Voter Suppression In Virginia
When the Supreme Court in 2013 invalidated several sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Virginia and other Republican-controlled state legislatures quickly passed voter suppression laws, most of them requiring a government-issued photo ID to prove identity at the polling place. This would disqualify the 200,000 voters in Virginia who lack photo ID.
The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that 25 percent of African American citizens lack a government-issued photo ID, compared to just 8 percent of whites; low-income and elderly voters are also disproportionately affected.
In July 2016, the Virginia Legislature passed a law to study the matter, HJ69.
The Legal Aid Justice Center filed a suit on July 6 declaring the practice unconstitutional. Over 900,000 voters in Virginia (of a population of 8.3 million!) have suspended driver's licenses because of outstanding warrants, unpaid parking tickets, or otherwise owing money to the state. The premise is that the voter can pay their fine and the driver's license will be activated. (Well, maybe that will happen by the August voter registration deadline.)
So who are these people with outstanding warrants and traffic tickets? Poor people, the unemployed, minorities, students, and the elderly – all considered enemies of the Republican agenda because they tend to vote for Democrats.
You can/should call the Virginia Board of Elections and accuse them of fraud; their 24-hour phone number is 1-800-552-9745 + 5.
Copyright 2016 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that 25 percent of African American citizens lack a government-issued photo ID, compared to just 8 percent of whites; low-income and elderly voters are also disproportionately affected.
In July 2016, the Virginia Legislature passed a law to study the matter, HJ69.
The Legal Aid Justice Center filed a suit on July 6 declaring the practice unconstitutional. Over 900,000 voters in Virginia (of a population of 8.3 million!) have suspended driver's licenses because of outstanding warrants, unpaid parking tickets, or otherwise owing money to the state. The premise is that the voter can pay their fine and the driver's license will be activated. (Well, maybe that will happen by the August voter registration deadline.)
So who are these people with outstanding warrants and traffic tickets? Poor people, the unemployed, minorities, students, and the elderly – all considered enemies of the Republican agenda because they tend to vote for Democrats.
You can/should call the Virginia Board of Elections and accuse them of fraud; their 24-hour phone number is 1-800-552-9745 + 5.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Bernie Sanders Endorses Hillary Clinton for President (excerpts)
Today, I [Bernie Sanders] endorsed Hillary Clinton to be our next president. I know that some of you will be disappointed with that decision. But I believe that, at this moment, our country, our values, and our common vision for a transformed America, are best served by the defeat of Donald Trump and the election of Hillary Clinton.
During the Democratic platform proceedings in St. Louis and Orlando, we were victorious in including amendments to make it a clear priority of the Democratic Party to fight for a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, expand Social Security, abolish the death penalty, put a price on carbon, establish a path toward the legalization of marijuana, enact major criminal justice reforms, pass comprehensive immigration reform, end for-profit prisons and detention facilities, break up too-big-to-fail banks and create a 21st century Glass-Steagall Act, close loopholes that allow big companies to avoid taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens, use that revenue to rebuild America, approve the most expansive agenda ever for protecting Native American rights, and so much more.
But none of these initiatives will happen if we do not elect a Democratic president in November. None! In fact, we will go backward. We must elect the Democratic nominee in November and progressive Democrats up and down the ballot so that we ensure that these policy commitments can advance.
During the Democratic platform proceedings in St. Louis and Orlando, we were victorious in including amendments to make it a clear priority of the Democratic Party to fight for a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, expand Social Security, abolish the death penalty, put a price on carbon, establish a path toward the legalization of marijuana, enact major criminal justice reforms, pass comprehensive immigration reform, end for-profit prisons and detention facilities, break up too-big-to-fail banks and create a 21st century Glass-Steagall Act, close loopholes that allow big companies to avoid taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens, use that revenue to rebuild America, approve the most expansive agenda ever for protecting Native American rights, and so much more.
But none of these initiatives will happen if we do not elect a Democratic president in November. None! In fact, we will go backward. We must elect the Democratic nominee in November and progressive Democrats up and down the ballot so that we ensure that these policy commitments can advance.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
HobbyLobby hypocrisy
The recent full-page paid ad from Hobby Lobby-Mardel Stores printed in the Albuquerque Journal, the Peoria Journal Star, the Valdosta Daily Times, and other newspapers on July Fourth is a bunch of hooey.
The corporation has a right to publicize their viewpoint (in print or otherwise) and they appear to be accountable only to their stockholders, while pretending to be accountable to some non-existent diety. The First Amendment guarantees free speech, but it also states that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion'. This Constitutional provision is often violated by religionists.
There are at least three major failures displayed by Hobby Lobby-Mardel's grandstanding paid ad:
»» The first failure has to do with the Judeo-Xian Ten Commandments, which include the instruction "Thou shalt not bear false witness", i.e. don't lie. Thus the dunderhead executives at Hobby Lobby-Mardel prove themselves to be hypocrites.
»» As to the second failure, there is no requirement to be fair and balanced in paid ads, so here are a few quotations that the Hobby Lobby-Mardel ad failed to include:
“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.” — Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
“Church and state are, and must remain, separate.” — Ronald Reagan [1911-2004] {during a speech at Temple Hillel in Valley Stream, New York - 26 October 1984}
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” — Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826] {in the 'Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association', 1 January 1802}
“The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” - Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11, which was unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate on 7 June 1797 and signed by President John Adams.
»» Thirdly, Hobby Lobby-Mardel intentionally offends Native American, Jewish, Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, wiccan, Mormon, Seventh day Adventist, Jehovah's Witness, and non-religious readers.
Anyone not already boycotting Hobby Lobby-Mardel because of their ill-treatment of employees (especially female employees) now has ample reason to boycott Hobby Lobby-Mardel and never set foot in their stores because of their publicly displayed religious intolerance.
(The battle against ignorance and apathy and magical thinking is a full time job.)
Copyright 2016 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
The corporation has a right to publicize their viewpoint (in print or otherwise) and they appear to be accountable only to their stockholders, while pretending to be accountable to some non-existent diety. The First Amendment guarantees free speech, but it also states that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion'. This Constitutional provision is often violated by religionists.
There are at least three major failures displayed by Hobby Lobby-Mardel's grandstanding paid ad:
»» The first failure has to do with the Judeo-Xian Ten Commandments, which include the instruction "Thou shalt not bear false witness", i.e. don't lie. Thus the dunderhead executives at Hobby Lobby-Mardel prove themselves to be hypocrites.
»» As to the second failure, there is no requirement to be fair and balanced in paid ads, so here are a few quotations that the Hobby Lobby-Mardel ad failed to include:
“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.” — Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
“Church and state are, and must remain, separate.” — Ronald Reagan [1911-2004] {during a speech at Temple Hillel in Valley Stream, New York - 26 October 1984}
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” — Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826] {in the 'Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association', 1 January 1802}
“The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” - Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11, which was unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate on 7 June 1797 and signed by President John Adams.
»» Thirdly, Hobby Lobby-Mardel intentionally offends Native American, Jewish, Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, wiccan, Mormon, Seventh day Adventist, Jehovah's Witness, and non-religious readers.
Anyone not already boycotting Hobby Lobby-Mardel because of their ill-treatment of employees (especially female employees) now has ample reason to boycott Hobby Lobby-Mardel and never set foot in their stores because of their publicly displayed religious intolerance.
(The battle against ignorance and apathy and magical thinking is a full time job.)
Friday, July 01, 2016
June 2016 Quotations (50)
"[Orlando] is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets."
~~ Hillary Clinton
"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."
~~ 4th Doctor Who
"Behind every cloud . . . is another cloud."
~~ Judy Garland [1922-69]
"The capacity to be puzzled is indeed the premise of all creation, be it in art or science."
~~ Erich Fromm [1900-80]
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."
~~ data scientist Jeff Hammerbacher
"It's pretty clear [that] I'll never have greatness thrust upon me . . . but it's comforting to know [that] mediocrity remains within my reach."
~~ Ziggy cartoon panel drawn by Tom Wilson & Tom II
"The man that's out to do something has to keep in high gear all the time."
~~ Douglas Fairbanks [1883-1939]
"The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities."
~~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis [1856-1941]
"A good businessman never makes a contract unless he's sure [that] he can carry it thru, yet every fool on earth is perfectly willing to sign a marriage contract without considering whether he can live up to it or not."
~~ screenwriter Dalton Trumbo [1905-76]
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
"If you don't think, then you shouldn't talk."
~~ March Hare, as written by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) [1832-98]
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress."
~~ Daniel Ellsberg
“I'd rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
~~ Louisa May Alcott [1832-88]
"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]
“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?”
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941], in the novel 'Night and Day' (1919)
"An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you."
~~ dancer Isadora Duncan [1877-1927]
“The truth is at the bottom of a bottomless well.”
~~ playwright Tennessee Williams [1911-83], in 'Suddenly Last Summer' (1959)
“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others … Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”
~~ Katherine Mansfield [1888-1923], in 'Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927), journal entry for 14 October 1922
"Conform, go crazy, or become an artist."
~~ Nancy Springer
"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."
~~ composer Leonard Bernstein [1918-90]
"Remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free someone else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower someone else."
~~ author Toni Morrison
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous'. And God granted it."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]
"All pro athletes are bilingual. They know English and profanity."
~~ hockey great Gordie Howe [1928-2016]
"The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has to do is get up every morning and say 'How is the President?'."
~~ American humorist Will Rogers [1879-1935]
"All of life is a dispute over taste."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"A man who has made no enemies is probably not a very good man."
~~ Antonin Scalia [1936-2016]
"I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes."
~~ historian Edward Gibbon [1737-94]
"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces."
~~ children's author Judith Viorst
"The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one."
~~ TV comic Sid Caesar [1922-2014]
"Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert."
~~ Adolf Hitler [1889-1945]
"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: What good is it?."
~~ Aldo Leopold [1887-1948]
"Luck is not something [that] you can mention in the presence of self-made men."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"It's the things [that] we forget about that tell us who we are."
~~ writer Don DeLillo
"All good writing is swimming underwater holding your breath."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]
"I wish [that] people would love everybody else the way [that] they love me. It would be a better world."
~~ Muhammad Ali [1942-2016]
"You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose."
~~ Mario Cuomo [1932-2015]
"Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way."
~~ Allan W. Watts [1915-73]
"The detective novel asks the central question of philosophy: Whodunit?"
~~ Umberto Eco [1932-2016]
"Capitalism has proven itself far superior to socialism in creating wealth and alleviating poverty, but it has a weakness: The amorality of its most successful practitioners."
~~ Jean-Pierre Lehmann
"Monitor your own narcisism."
~~ J. Reid Meloy
"Chase your dreams. But always know the road that leads you home."
~~ country music singer Kenny Chesney
"And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your having been here."
~~ author Neil Gaiman
"Artists do their best work when they're old or young. Middle age is the enemy of art."
~~ cinema auteur Orson Welles [1915-85]
"A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader, is a rereader."
~~ author Vladimir Nabokov [1899-1977]
"Prohibition is OVER!" ~~ slogan at Wise Pies Pizza
"Just because you're offended doesn't mean [that] you're right."
~~ comedian Ricky Gervais
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Hillary Clinton
"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."
~~ 4th Doctor Who
"Behind every cloud . . . is another cloud."
~~ Judy Garland [1922-69]
"The capacity to be puzzled is indeed the premise of all creation, be it in art or science."
~~ Erich Fromm [1900-80]
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."
~~ data scientist Jeff Hammerbacher
"It's pretty clear [that] I'll never have greatness thrust upon me . . . but it's comforting to know [that] mediocrity remains within my reach."
~~ Ziggy cartoon panel drawn by Tom Wilson & Tom II
"The man that's out to do something has to keep in high gear all the time."
~~ Douglas Fairbanks [1883-1939]
"The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities."
~~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis [1856-1941]
"A good businessman never makes a contract unless he's sure [that] he can carry it thru, yet every fool on earth is perfectly willing to sign a marriage contract without considering whether he can live up to it or not."
~~ screenwriter Dalton Trumbo [1905-76]
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
"If you don't think, then you shouldn't talk."
~~ March Hare, as written by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) [1832-98]
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress."
~~ Daniel Ellsberg
“I'd rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
~~ Louisa May Alcott [1832-88]
"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]
“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?”
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941], in the novel 'Night and Day' (1919)
"An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you."
~~ dancer Isadora Duncan [1877-1927]
“The truth is at the bottom of a bottomless well.”
~~ playwright Tennessee Williams [1911-83], in 'Suddenly Last Summer' (1959)
“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others … Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”
~~ Katherine Mansfield [1888-1923], in 'Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927), journal entry for 14 October 1922
"Conform, go crazy, or become an artist."
~~ Nancy Springer
"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."
~~ composer Leonard Bernstein [1918-90]
"Remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free someone else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower someone else."
~~ author Toni Morrison
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous'. And God granted it."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]
"All pro athletes are bilingual. They know English and profanity."
~~ hockey great Gordie Howe [1928-2016]
"The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has to do is get up every morning and say 'How is the President?'."
~~ American humorist Will Rogers [1879-1935]
"All of life is a dispute over taste."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"A man who has made no enemies is probably not a very good man."
~~ Antonin Scalia [1936-2016]
"I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes."
~~ historian Edward Gibbon [1737-94]
"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces."
~~ children's author Judith Viorst
"The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one."
~~ TV comic Sid Caesar [1922-2014]
"Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert."
~~ Adolf Hitler [1889-1945]
"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: What good is it?."
~~ Aldo Leopold [1887-1948]
"Luck is not something [that] you can mention in the presence of self-made men."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"It's the things [that] we forget about that tell us who we are."
~~ writer Don DeLillo
"All good writing is swimming underwater holding your breath."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]
"I wish [that] people would love everybody else the way [that] they love me. It would be a better world."
~~ Muhammad Ali [1942-2016]
"You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose."
~~ Mario Cuomo [1932-2015]
"Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way."
~~ Allan W. Watts [1915-73]
"The detective novel asks the central question of philosophy: Whodunit?"
~~ Umberto Eco [1932-2016]
"Capitalism has proven itself far superior to socialism in creating wealth and alleviating poverty, but it has a weakness: The amorality of its most successful practitioners."
~~ Jean-Pierre Lehmann
"Monitor your own narcisism."
~~ J. Reid Meloy
"Chase your dreams. But always know the road that leads you home."
~~ country music singer Kenny Chesney
"And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your having been here."
~~ author Neil Gaiman
"Artists do their best work when they're old or young. Middle age is the enemy of art."
~~ cinema auteur Orson Welles [1915-85]
"A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader, is a rereader."
~~ author Vladimir Nabokov [1899-1977]
"Prohibition is OVER!" ~~ slogan at Wise Pies Pizza
"Just because you're offended doesn't mean [that] you're right."
~~ comedian Ricky Gervais
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
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