Used Quotes - Page 17

• A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them. The possession of knowledge makes for unjust power over others only if used for that very purpose: a physician or lawyer or clergyman can exploit or humiliate others, or he can be a humanitarian and a benefactor. In any case, it is absurd to conjure up behind anybody who exploits his educated status the existence of an "elite" scheming to oppress the rest of us.

  Jacques Barzun

  Art, Ignorance, Physicians

  "Exeunt the Humanities". Essay by Jacques Barzun (1980) published in his book "The Culture We Deserve" (p. 117), 1989.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• No one has ever used historical examples, near or remote, with the detail, precision, and directness to be found in every page of Shaw.

  Jacques Barzun

  Historical, Example, Details

  "Bernard Shaw in Twilight" by Jacques Barzun in "The Kenyon Review", Volume 5, No. 3 (pp. 321-345), Part IV, www.jstor.org. Summer 1943.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial, and not an inquisitorial, system - a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured, and may not, by coercion, prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Law, Guilt, Principles

  "Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 20, 1961.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The first of a thousand lies. Truth flowed to Micah Quill, was sucked in and disappeared, and emerged again looking ever so much like it used to, but changed subtly, at the edges, where none would notice, so that simple truth became a complicated fabric indeed, one that could wrap you up so tightly and close you off from the air until you suffocated in it.

  Orson Scott Card

  Lying, Simple, Air

  Orson Scott Card (2010). “Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker”, p.178, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive. But it is time to return to less cheerful topics.

  Bertrand Russell

  Animal, Race, Hydrogen Bomb

  4 Copy quote

• The best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Race, Majority

  Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone (2003). “Man's Peril, 1954-55”, p.319, Psychology Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think people are always looking for gurus. It's the easiest thing in the world to become a guru. It's quite terrifying. I once saw something fascinating here in New York. It must have been in the early seventies--guru time. A man used to go and sit in Central Park, wearing elaborate golden robes. He never once opened his mouth, he just sat. He'd appear at lunchtime. People appeared from everywhere, because he was obviously a holy man, and this went on for months. They just sat around him in reverent silence. Eventually he got fed up with it and left. Yes. It's as easy as that.

  Doris Lessing

  New York, Men, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• I have been disillusioned, however, this long, long time in the means used by any but the saints to live in this world God has made for us.

  Dorothy Day

  Mean, Long, Saint

  Dorothy Day, Peter Day (1999). “On Pilgrimage”, p.204, A&C Black

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lateral thinking... is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics.

  Edward de Bono

  Creativity, Thinking, Skills

  Edward De Bono (2010). “Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step”, p.3, Harper Collins

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Your street, rich street or poor
  Used to always be sure, on your street
  There's a place in your heart you know from the start
  Can't be complete outside of the street
  Keep moving on through the joy and the pain
  Sometimes you got to look back
  To the street again
  Would you prefer all those castles in Spain?
  Or the view of your street from your window pane?

  Van Morrison

  Pain, Moving, Heart

  "Song: 'The Street Only Knew Your Name' ('Inarticulate Speech of the Heart')". 1983.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ambition will take you And ride you too far and Conservatism bring you to boredom once more Sit down by the river And watch the stream flow Recall all the dreams That you once used to know The things you've forgotten That took you away To pastures not greener but meaner.

  Van Morrison

  Dream, Ambition, Rivers

  Song: I'm Tired Joey Boy

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• During the last quarter of a century all the authority associated with the function of spiritual guidance ... has seeped down into the lowest publications. ... Between a poem by Valéry and an advertisement for a beauty cream promising a rich marriage to anyone who used it there was at no point a breach of continuity. So as a result of literature's spiritual usurpation a beauty cream advertisement possessed, in the eyes of little village girls, the authority that was formerly attached to the words of priests.

  Simone Weil

  Girl, Spiritual, Eye

  "On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God". Book by Simone Weil. Translated by R. Rees, "Morality and literature," p. 164, 1968.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• New York City has 2 million rats. We used to have 8 million rats. Now we're down to 2 million. You know what that means? We lose four electoral votes.

  David Letterman

  New York, Mean, Cities

  4 Copy quote

• You know Kim Jong Un, the evil dictator of North Korea? Apparently, a guy in his inner circle used his ashtray while smoking and Kim Jong Un had him executed. I remember the same thing happened when a guy used Martha Stewart's personal lemon zester.

  David Letterman

  Circles, Korea, Evil

  4 Copy quote

• Sri Yukteswar used to poke gentle fun at the commonly inadequate conceptions of renunciation."A beggar cannot renounce wealth," Master would say. "If a man laments: 'My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,' to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!"Saints like Gandhi, on the other hand, have made not only tangible material sacrifices, but also the more difficult renunciation of selfish motive and private goal, merging their inmost being in the stream of humanity as a whole.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Fun, Selfish, Sacrifice

  Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (2008). “Autobiography of a Yogi”, p.425, Diamond Pocket Books (P) Ltd.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we're ever going to get the world back on a natural footing, back in tune with natural rhythyms, if we're going to nurture the Earth and protect it and have fun with it and learn from it - which is what mothers do with their children - then we've got to put technology (an aggressive masculine system) in its proper place, which is that of a tool to be used sparingly, joyfully, gently and only in the fullest cooperation with nature. Nature must govern technology, not the other way around.

  Tom Robbins

  Mother, Children, Fun

  "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues". Book by Tom Robbins, 1976.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against other force.

  Thomas Sowell

  Black, Force, Antithesis

  Thomas Sowell (1996). “Knowledge And Decisions”, p.116, Basic Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's basically against the whole idea of what always made rock&roll music interesting to me. I thought it was an unassailable outlet for some pure and natural expressions of rebellion. It was one channel you could take without havin' to kiss ass, you know? And right now it just seems like they're on a big daisy chain, each kissin' each other's asses.

  Keith Richards

  Kissing, Rocks, Expression

  "Keith Richards: The Rolling Stone 20th Anniversary Interview". Interview with Kurt Loder, www.rollingstone.com. November 05, 1987.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I support the death penalty. I think that it has to be administered not only fairly, with attention to things like DNA evidence, which I think should be used in all capital cases, but also with very careful attention. If the wrong guy is put to death, then that's a double tragedy. Not only has an innocent person been executed but the real perpetrator of the crime has not been held accountable for it, and in some cases may be still at large. But I support the death penalty in the most heinous cases.

  Al Gore

  Real, Thinking, Dna

  "Text Of Third Bush-Gore Debate (cont.)". www.cbsnews.com. October 18, 2000.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men characterize pornography as something mental because their minds, their thoughts, their dreams, their fantasies, are more real to them than women's bodies or lives; in fact, men have used their social power to characterize a $10-billion-a-year trade in women as fantasy.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Dream, Real, Men

  Andrea Dworkin (1989). “Pornography: men possessing women”, Plume

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was born with the wrong sign
  In the wrong house
  With the wrong ascendancy
  I took the wrong road
  That led to
  The wrong tendencies
  I was in the wrong place
  At the wrong time
  For the wrong reason
  And the wrong rhyme
  On the wrong day
  Of the wrong week
  Used the wrong method
  With the wrong technique
  Wrong
  Wrong.

  Martin Gore

  House, Technique, Week

  12 Copy quote

• That's the problem, we do get used to things.

  Paulo Coelho

  Problem

  "The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession". Book by Paulo Coelho, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Europeans used to say Americans were puritanical. Then they discovered that we were not puritans. So now they say that we are obsessed with sex.

  Mary McCarthy

  Sex, Puritan, Obsessed

  "Lady with a Switchblade". Life Magazine, September 20, 1963.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I go to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment when I suddenly fall asleep, as a man throws himself into a pool of stagnant water in order to drown. I do not feel this perfidious sleep coming over me as I used to, but a sleep which is close to me and watching me, which is going to seize me by the head, to close my eyes and annihilate me.

  Guy de Maupassant

  Fall, Sleep, Eye

  Edgar Allan Poe, Frank Richard Stockton, H.O. Lovecraft, Guy de Maupassant, Franz Kafka (2017). “13 Short Scary Stories: Masterpieces of the greatest writers”, p.176, LeBooks Editora

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• I remember an old Singer sewing machine at home that belonged to my grandmother. It had a pedal. My mom taught me how to use it when I was 12 years old. I used to find it so intriguing, how a flat piece of material could be made into an object that had so many uses.

  Bibhu Mohapatra

  Mom, Home, Grandmother

  4 Copy quote