53 entries categorized "Quotable" Feed

July 20, 2012

Quotable Tutu

If you are neutral on situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

— DESMOND TUTU

 

in Activism, Quotable | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 28, 2012

Quotable Emerson

It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. […]

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? […] Insist on yourself; never imitate.

— RALPH WALDO EMERSON, IN SELF-RELIANCE (1841)

 

in Literature, Quotable | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

April 5, 2012

Quotable Godard

image from 25.media.tumblr.com

 

All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun.

— JEAN-LUC GODARD (b. 1930)

 

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January 19, 2012

Quotable Comey

In 1975, the Atomic Industrial Forum had invited David Comey to tell the nuclear industry how it could be more credible with the public. He was a high-priced consultant; not a lobbyist, an historian. Comey gave them his standard answer: To become credible you must tell the truth.

— Albert Bates quoting Comey at The Great Change [h/t Moisha Blechman]

in Quotable | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 12, 2011

Quotable Sagan

It often happens that scientists say: “You know, that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken.” And then they actually change their minds, and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

— Carl Sagan (CSICOP Keynote Address, 1987)

in Politics | U.S., Quotable, Religion | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 1, 2011

Quotable Simon

Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.

— U.S. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon (1927-2000) 

in Politics | U.S., Quotable | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 10, 2011

Quotable West

image from static.guim.co.ukIt is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.

— Attributed to novelist Rebecca West, née Cicely Isabel Fairfield (1892-1983)

in Quotable | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 13, 2011

Quotable Douglass

image from t1.gstatic.comIf there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

— FREDERICK DOUGLASS (WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION SPEECH, 1857)

in Activism, Politics | International, Politics | U.S., Quotable | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 6, 2011

Quotable Mencken

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

— Henry louis (H.L.) Mencken 

in Quotable | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 5, 2011

Quotable Dash

image from www.technorotic.com So, who is this man? He’s the anchor baby of an activist Arab muslim who came to the U.S. on a student visa and had a child out of wedlock. He’s a non-Christian, arugula-eating, drug-using follower of unabashedly old-fashioned liberal teachings from the hippies and folk music stars of the 60s. And he believes in science, in things that science can demonstrate like climate change and Pi having a value more specific than “3”, and in extending responsible benefits to his employees while encouraging his company to lead by being environmentally responsible.

Every single person who’d attack Steve Jobs on any of these grounds is, demonstrably, worse at business than Jobs. They're unqualified to assert that liberal values are bad for business, when the demonstrable, factual, obvious evidence contradicts those assertions.

It’s a choice whether you, or anyone else, wants to accept the falsehood that liberal values are somehow in contradiction with business success at a global scale. Indeed, it would seem that many who claim to be pro-business are trying to “save” us from exactly the inclusive, creative, tolerant values that have made America's most successful company possible. I side with the makers, the creators, and the inventors, and it's about time that the pack of clamoring would-be politicians be put on the defensive for attacking the values of those of us on this side.

— Anil DaSh on Steve Jobs

in Obituaries, Quotable, Technology | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 29, 2011

Quotable Spikes

It is what it is, but it ain’t what you think.

— New England Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes

in Quotable, Sports | Football | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 15, 2011

Quotable Oglesby

What gives you hope gives me bitterness—this balmy night, soft spring, sweet air. Life looks so little and death looks so big. You don't misunderstand me. What’s worth working for is simply worth working for—on its own present terms, on the face value of what it is. I mean, I’m not in the movement like a businessman’s in business, waiting for the payoff on the investment. The value of my commitment is not pending anything, the commitment isn't waiting to be ratified by success or refuted by failure. Life is better than death, one sides with life always.

— Anti-war activist CARL Oglesby [h/t Daniel Radosh]

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