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Scientists

30 Charles Darwin quotes

written by quotegal71

Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science.

In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.

Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey

List of quotes

To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.
Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.
My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.
On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!
The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.
A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence.
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.
A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives – of approving of some and disapproving of others.
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, – a mere heart of stone.
An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.
Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world.
How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.
I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
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Artists

33 Salvador Dali quotes

written by quotegal71

Salvador Dalí was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work

Dalí’s artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design, and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays, and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork.

There are two major museums devoted to Salvador Dalí’s work: the Dalí Theatre Museum in Figueres, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

List of quotes

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.
We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.
There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.
There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.
Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.
It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning.
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.
I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.
I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.
I have Dalinian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.
I seated ugliness on my knee, and almost immediately grew tired of it.
In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.
Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.
Let my enemies devour each other.
Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism. Money is a glory.
Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.
Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.
Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.
Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.
The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.
The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.
The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.
The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture.
Instead of stubbornly attempting to use surrealism for purposes of subversion, it is necessary to try to make of surrealism something as solid, complete and classic as the works of museums.
Don’t bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid.
Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.
At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
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Musicians

47 Sheryl Crow quotes

written by quotegal71

Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, pop, country, folk, and blues.

She has released eleven studio albums, five compilations, and three live albums, and contributed to several film soundtracks. Her most popular songs include “All I Wanna Do” (1994), “Strong Enough” (1994), “If It Makes You Happy” (1996), “Everyday Is a Winding Road” (1996), “My Favorite Mistake” (1998), “Picture” (2002, duet with Kid Rock) and “Soak Up the Sun” (2002).

Crow has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide[2] and won nine Grammy Awards (out of 32 nominations) from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

List of quotes

That feeling of freedom, open highways of possibilities, has kind of been lost to materialism and marketing.
Steve McQueen was from a time when you didn’t know every little dirty thing about our public figures. He and James Dean were very mysterious, archetypal American heroes.
Some people are really good at maneuvering their careers and images and I’m not one of those people.
People don’t realize that I’m really funny and I’m an excellent bridge player.
No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere.
Music really becomes the soundtrack to the major events to your life.
It’s interesting when I jog, how much the music makes a difference. You can pretty much count on the Foo Fighters to get your heart rate up.
Most writers like to maintain some sort of anonymity. For me, making videos was an assault.
It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.
The bands that wrote the big, heroic rock songs – I really wanted to make a record like that.
Where I fit in is confusing to me.
Music commands how we feel, dictates what we experience in our feelings.
The beauty of having a producer is that you have someone who says, You’re finished.
The greatest hits in some weird way marks the end of something.
The video forum for me has been a source of great consternation because once you start projecting a look to a song, it robs the listener of their ability to adopt that song and make the lyric their own.
The writing process for me is pretty much always the same – it’s a solitary experience.
There’s a lot of integrity with musicians; you really still aspire to grow, and be great, to be the best version of yourself you can be.
There’s so much of it you can’t control. There is no handbook for how to conduct yourself in the public world.
When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting.
You can’t be in the public eye without making mistakes and having some regrets and having people analyze everything you do.
Your art kind of changes as you get older, by nature of the fact that you’re hopefully gaining wisdom and you’re starting to watch things with a better overview.
A song that sounds simple is just not that easy to write. One of the objectives of this record was to try and write melodies that continue to resonate.
I’ve only been making records since 1991. When you look at the long-standing careers of people like Joni, it’s not very long!
When I reach the point that I write Yesterday, then I can retire.
I don’t set goals for myself too much, but I’m always trying to write that one great song.
I’ve been really, really blessed. I got to perform on stage with Bob Dylan. I’ve gotten to sing with Mick Jagger.
Beck said he didn’t believe in the theory of a song coming through you as if you were an open vessel. I agree with him to a certain extent.
Artists have really never had any representation on Capitol Hill, because it’s not the nature of the artist to join together and make a unified presence. Those days kind of died in the ’60s.
A lot of people seem to get preoccupied with what I’m wearing as opposed to the music.
However I am is however I am. When you see me onstage or in the press, there’s not a lot of thought and calculation that goes into it.
I become more seasoned, it’s less interesting to try and compete in the pop market.
I can always tell when people have had plastic surgery.
I don’t really cringe over any of my albums.
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about regrets because there’s nothing I can do.
I draw from my family and my friends and I feel like that small-town person. The achievements, the materialistic possessions have really become to mean less. They mean nothing.
I think everyone became sick of Sheryl Crow. I actually became sick of Sheryl Crow.
I’m not much of a partier anymore. I enjoy clarity much more.
I wish I was having as much fun as the press reports said I had.
I didn’t get into making music for the fame aspect. There are people who do desire that.
I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies.
I got to learn to surf.
I have yet to write that one song that defines my career.
I have been around for a long, long time. I didn’t make it ’til I was older. I went through the period when women were not getting signed, particularly if you were writing songs that were lyrically propelled.
I have a golden Lab who goes everywhere with me. He’s a great leveler.
I hate that word, mature, but I guess I am growing up.
I hate how I’ve had the mantle set on my shoulders as being against the record label. We’ve had some issues, but that is the nature of business.
I try to conduct my life with a little levity.
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Scientists

33 Nicolaus Copernicus quotes

written by quotegal71

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center.

In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier

List of quotes

Therefore I would not have it unknown to Your Holiness, the the only thing which induced me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their investigation thereof.
Yet if anyone believes that the earth rotates, surely he will hold that its motion is natural, not violent.
Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms.
So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.
So, influenced by these advisors and this hope, I have at length allowed my friends to publish the work, as they had long besought me to do.
The earth also is spherical, since it presses upon its center from every direction.
The earth together with its surrounding waters must in fact have such a shape as its shadow reveals, for it eclipses the moon with the arc of a perfect circle.
The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.
Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began to consider the mobility of the earth.
Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe.
Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.
Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.
Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.
Of all things visible, the highest is the heaven of the fixed stars.
We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface.
In so many and such important ways, then, do the planets bear witness to the earth’s mobility.
To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
I am aware that a philosopher’s ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.
Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, I suggest that we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions.
Although all the good arts serve to draw man’s mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure.
At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun.
Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe.
First of all, we must note that the universe is spherical.
For a traveler going from any place toward the north, that pole of the daily rotation gradually climbs higher, while the opposite pole drops down an equal amount.
More stars in the north are seen not to set, while in the south certain stars are no longer seen to rise.
For it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study.
Not a few other very eminent and scholarly men made the same request, urging that I should no longer through fear refuse to give out my work for the common benefit of students of Mathematics.
I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected.
I shall now recall to mind that the motion of the heavenly bodies is circular, since the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle.
Mathematics is written for mathematicians.
Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth.
Near the sun is the center of the universe.
For I am not so enamoured of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.
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Authors

39 William S. Burroughs quotes

written by quotegal71

William Seward Burroughs II was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature.

Burroughs wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays, and five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences; he was initially briefly known by the pen name William Lee.

He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, made many appearances in films, and created and exhibited thousands of visual artworks, including his celebrated “Shotgun Art”

List of quotes

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.
In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.
Junk is the ideal product… the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy.
Language is a virus from outer space.
The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams, the way the whites are taking care of the Indians: killing their dreams, their magic, their familiar spirits.
Perhaps all pleasure is only relief.
I am getting so far out one day I won’t come back at all.
Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.
Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can’t mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.
Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.
Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.
Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.
Smash the control images. Smash the control machine.
Sometimes paranoia’s just having all the facts.
The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.
The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don’t buy love for nothing.
The only possible ethic is to do what one wants to do.
There couldn’t be a society of people who didn’t dream. They’d be dead in two weeks.
Which came first the intestine or the tapeworm?
You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.
The face of evil is always the face of total need.
Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.
A cat’s rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.
A functioning police state needs no police.
A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.
Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo – and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way.
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say ‘I want to see the manager.’
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
Be just and if you can’t be just, be arbitrary.
Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.
Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.
Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.
How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.
After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.
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Musicians

32 James Brown Quotes

written by quotegal71

James Joseph Brown was an American singer, record producer, and bandleader.

The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is often referred to by the honorific nicknames “the Hardest Working Man in Show Business”, “Godfather of Soul”, “Mr. Dynamite”, and “Soul Brother No. 1”.

In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986.

List of quotes

I had to tell about my colonic, which expresses the fact why I’m so neat today as opposed to a few years ago. I never knew that the weight made that much difference.
I’ve been knocked down a lot of times.
Michael Jackson has a very good heart. He was crying when he was giving me the award, ’cause his mind went back over the early days.
My expectations of other people, I double them on myself.
You only live once.
You can’t teach others if you are living the same way.
You can take care of yourself, and God helps those who help themselves.
When I’m on stage, I’m trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don’t go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.
When God took it, he accepted it; when he brought it back, he accepted it. That’s what’s happening with me.
I’m not going to be joining ZZ Top. You know they can’t play my stuff. It’s too complicated.
My son don’t have to say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud. He don’t have to be called those crazy names.
I’ve been held responsible for taxes I know nothing about.
I just thank God for all of the blessings.
I’m kidding about having only a few dollars. I might have a few dollars more.
I named my new son James Joseph Brown II. I think he’s going to be a lot better than I was.
Sometimes I feel like I’m a preacher as well, ’cause I can really get into an audience.
Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Everybody needs that.
Thank God for the journey.
The hardest thing about being James Brown is I have to live. I don’t have no down time.
The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.
I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know.
Like Christ said, love thee one another. I learned to do that, and I learned to respect and be appreciative and thankful for what I had.
Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he’s got it all.
I got a wife who likes expensive things, so she takes all the cash.
I started Michael years ago. I saw him in Gary, Indiana, and we’d have him on the talent shows. He kind of emulated me, and did the best he could.
I think the best thing about being James Brown is looking at my little son. Hopefully I can make my son a role model to a lot of people.
I think what I came through is great, but my son can take it to another level, not having to fight racism. His mother’s a Norwegian and I’m mixed up four or five times, so he can face the world.
I used to think like Moses. That knocked me down for a couple years and put me in prison. Then I start thinking like Job. Job waited and became the wealthiest and richest man ever ’cause he believed in God.
I want to say to you, Help yourself, so you can help someone else.
I was stillborn. The midwives laid me aside, thought I was really gone. I laid there about an hour, and they picked me back up and tried again, ’cause my body was still warm. The Good Lord brought me back.
I’d like to cut down on the work a little bit.
I did the thing with bonds, which was about 30 million dollars, and didn’t get none of the money on them.
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Musicians

33 David Bowie Quotes

written by quotegal71

David Robert Jones known professionally as David Bowie was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s.

His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft had a significant impact on popular music.

List of quotes

Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.
I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.
When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.
I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.
I’m just an individual who doesn’t feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I’m working for me.
It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.
Nearly all the synth work on Heathen is mine and some of the piano.
On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.
Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.
Strangely, some songs you really don’t want to write.
The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.
There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.
Tony Visconti and I had been wanting to work together again for a few years now. Both of us had fairly large commitments and for a long time we couldn’t see a space in which we could get anything together.
When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.
I’m an instant star. Just add water and stir.
To not be modest about it, you’ll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I’ve worked with have done their best work by far with me.
I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.
And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.
But I’ve got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album’s worth of work as his legacy. That’s all that life allowed him.
Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.
But I’m pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.
However, there’s no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.
I’m always amazed that peole take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously.
I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody’s talents.
I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.
I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.
I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.
I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.
I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.
I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized that to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.
I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.
I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.
Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I’m referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods presence in his life. He is the 21st century man.
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Authors

73 Jane Austen quotes

written by quotegal71

Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critiqued, and commented upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century.

Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism.

Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, has earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.

List of quotes

A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.
What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!
Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.
General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
From politics, it was an easy step to silence.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.
Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.
An artist cannot do anything slovenly.
A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!
Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.
Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.
It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.
If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.
I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.
Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s.
One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.
Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.
Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.
There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.
To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.
There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
Those who do not complain are never pitied.
They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.
There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
No man is offended by another man’s admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.
To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.
My sore throats are always worse than anyone’s.
My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.
Nobody minds having what is too good for them.
Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.
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Authors

37 Isaac Asimov quotes

written by quotegal71

Isaac Asimov was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University.

During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the “Big Three” science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.

A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards.[c] Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as much nonfiction.

Asimov’s most famous work is the Foundation series,the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for “Best All-Time Series” in 1966. His other major series are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series

List of quotes

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
To insult someone we call him “bestial.” For deliberate cruelty and nature, “human” might be the greater insult.
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny…’
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.
And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.
I don’t believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.
I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You’d be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.
From my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.
It is not only the living who are killed in war.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
It takes more than capital to swing business. You’ve got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by – Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.
John Dalton’s records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.
No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
Dalton’s records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.
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Authors

36 Douglas Adams quotes

written by quotegal71

Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy developed into a “trilogy” of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams’s contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy’s Hall of Fame.

Adams also wrote Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990), and Last Chance to See (1990).

He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch “Patient Abuse” for the final episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

douglas adams inspired “Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy” H2G2

List of quotes

I don’t believe it. Prove it to me and I still won’t believe it.
The mere thought hadn’t even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.
Life is wasted on the living.
The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.
The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
The difficulty with this conversation is that it’s very different from most of the ones I’ve had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.
Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space.
I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
In order to fly, all one must do is simply miss the ground.
If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ’em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.
It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‘I could have thought of that’ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.
I’m spending a year dead for tax reasons.
It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher… or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
Time is bunk.
To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.
We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.
You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
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Presidents

39 Herbert Hoover quotes

written by quotegal71

Herbert Clark Hoover was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933.

He was a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Great Depression in the United States.

A self-made man who became rich as a mining engineer, Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

List of quotes

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.
No public man can be just a little crooked.
This is not a showman’s job. I will not step out of character.
There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.
The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.
The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.
The slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full garage.
The pause between the errors and trials of the day and the hopes of the night.
Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury.
Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.
In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.
Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.
No greater nor more affectionate honor can be conferred on an American than to have a public school named after him.
New discoveries in science will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.
Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.
Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.
It is the youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow… that are the aftermath of war.
Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.
I’m the only person of distinction who has ever had a depression named for him.
Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself.
A good many things go around in the dark besides Santa Claus.
Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.
Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.
With impressive proof on all sides of magnificent progress, no one can rightly deny the fundamental correctness of our economic system.
When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.
Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next.
When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.
About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
All men are equal before fish.
America – a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.
Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
Children are our most valuable natural resource.
Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.
Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body – the producers and consumers themselves.
Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.
We have not yet reached the goal but… we shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation.
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Presidents

50 Andrew Jackson quotes

written by quotegal71

Andrew Jackson was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837.

Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

Although often praised as an advocate for ordinary Americans and for his work in preserving the union of states, Jackson has also been criticized for his racial policies, particularly his treatment of Native Americans.

List of quotes

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.
In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.
It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word.
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.
It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.
Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges… which are employed altogether for their benefit.
Mr. Van Buren, your friends may be leaving you but my friends never leave me.
Never take counsel of your fears.
No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.
Nullification means insurrection and war; and the other states have a right to put it down.
One man with courage makes a majority.
If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.
Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.
Fear not, the people may be deluded for a moment, but cannot be corrupted.
The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.
Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.
Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.
I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.
All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.
Americans are not a perfect people, but we are called to a perfect mission.
Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.
As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.
Democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments, but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free governments.
I am a Senator against my wishes and feelings, which I regret more than any other of my life.
Elevate those guns a little lower.
I’ve got big shoes to fill. This is my chance to do something. I have to seize the moment.
Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.
The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.
I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life.
I have always been afraid of banks.
I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.
I would sincerely regret, and which never shall happen whilst I am in office, a military guard around the President.
Disunion by force is treason.
Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.
The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.
There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.
We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.
The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer… form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.
War is a blessing compared with national degradation.
To the victors belong the spoils.
You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.
There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.
The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.
The safety of the republic being the supreme law, and Texas having offered us the key to the safety of our country from all foreign intrigues and diplomacy, I say accept the key… and bolt the door at once.
The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.
The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.
The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.
Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that… the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.
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