c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was. I would give a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?"   "Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat. Then everybody despises him for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they hough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see him hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks to see it. When he has furnished...
— Mark Twain, Собрание сочинений в восьми томах
Rome, on the other hand, lost—suffering on that one day more battle deaths than the United States during the entire course of the war in Vietnam, suffering more dead soldiers than any other army on any single day of combat in the entire course of Western military history.
— Robert L. O'Connell, The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal & the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic
Polybius managed to attach himself to the clan and person of Scipio Aemilianus, grandson of one of the two losing consuls at Cannae,
— Robert L. O'Connell, The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal & the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic
That’s the way it is with Appian; things that appear ridiculous on average just might have happened, so they cannot be entirely dismissed.
— Robert L. O'Connell, The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal & the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic
I believe that the truth is the only force that will set us free. I have hope, not in the tangible or in what I can personally accomplish, but in the faith that battling evil, cruelty, and injustice allows us to retain our identity, a sense of meaning and ultimately our freedom. Perhaps in our lifetimes we will not succeed. Perhaps things will only get worse. But this does not invalidate our efforts. Rebellion—which is different from revolution because it is perpetual alienation from power rather than the replacement of one power system with another—should be our natural state. And faith,...
— Chris Hedges
The instant the old folks had entered their codes and the Harmony program had begun to sing, suicide disappeared from human society. Nearly all battles ceased. The individual was no longer a unit. The entire social system was the unit. By losing its sense of self and self-awareness, society had been freed from the pain it suffered because its systems had relied on imperfect humans, arriving for the first time at a perfect bliss. I am a part of the system, as you are part of the system. No one felt any pain about that any longer. There was no “me” to feel pain. I had been replaced by a single...
— Project Itoh, Harmony
No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball; he will crash. That’s why they call it rewriting.
— Steven Pressfield, Do the Work
It’s a tiresome proposition, having to take up the work of the Enlightenment all over again, but it’s happened on your watch.
— Rebecca Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
The Democrats, fearful of his grassroots campaign, blamed him for the election of George W. Bush, an absurdity that found fertile ground among those who had abandoned rational inquiry for the thought-terminating clichés of television.
— Chris Hedges
He tried to read, but the words swam in front of his eyes in meaningless waves. He put on the television. Nick at Nite, the cultural equivalent of aerosol cheese.
— Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker
He takes a hold of the back of my neck.
— Addison Moore, Ethereal
Owning pipelines, people, products, or even intellectual property is no longer the key to success. Openness is.
— Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do?: Reverse-Engineering the Fastest Growing Company in the History of the World
I remembered seeing a media channel where they showed picture after picture of food items I had never seen before in my life. When I asked my father what it was, he said they called it the “Two Minutes’ Hate.
— Project Itoh
As the late baseball manager Sparky Anderson put it: “Losing hurts twice as bad as winning feels good.
— L. Jon Wertheim
intrusive government and layer upon layer of regulatory red tape. When
— Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
Three years with Claudia had taught Ruso that when a woman said something did not matter and refused to tell you what it was, it usually mattered a great deal—to her, if not to you. Frequently her way of punishing you for not knowing what it was in the first place was to refuse to tell you until you gave up asking. This was her cue to accuse you of not caring about her, otherwise you would have known what she wanted you to know without having to be told. Finally, if you were lucky, she would explain the latest way in which you had failed her expectations. If you were not lucky, she would explain...
— Ruth Downie, Terra Incognita
I was just trying to remove a stain
—  I made a bigger stain.
lenders to trade their long-term income streams for short-term cash. Say
— Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
Patrick opens his arms about three feet wide and, with one finger pointing up on each hand, tries to show the scope of this thing. I notice that he doesn’t look at his hands as he does this, but at the wall behind me. It suddenly occurs to me that when people describe size this way, they’re relying on perspective to help them. He’s not saying ‘It’s this big.’ He’s saying ‘It would look this big from here if it was over there.
— Scarlett Thomas
its key components are action and practice, which in turn prompt success, which refuels motivation. Figure
— Teri S. Lesesne
Listen. In every office you hear the threads of love and joy and fear and guilt, the cries for celebration and reassurance, and somehow you know that connecting those threads is what you are supposed to do and business takes care of itself.
— Susan Scott, Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst "Best" Practices of Business Today
The great differentiator going forward, the next frontier for exponential growth, the place where individuals and organizations will find a new and sustainable competitive edge, resides in the area of human connectivity.
— Susan Scott, Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst "Best" Practices of Business Today
leave me. And it was a great sense of relief. The
— Rebecca Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
book variables, student variables, and school variables.
— Teri S. Lesesne
Into the Volcano (Wood 2008) holds out the promise of
— Teri S. Lesesne
We often speak of creating an environment for reading, a reading climate.
— Teri S. Lesesne
Does doing something old with new technology mean that I’m teaching with technology and that I’m doing so in a way as to really improve the reading and writing skills of the students in my classroom?” (2007, 214). Her answer, as well as mine, would be no. When we simply bring a traditional mind-set to literacy practices, and not a mind-set that understands new literacies (an idea developed by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel, which I elaborate on later) into the process of digital writing, we cannot make the substantive changes to our teaching that need to happen in order to embrace the...
— Troy Hicks
We can no longer allow them to write just stories and poems; we must teach them the forms of nonfiction writing as well, specifically that of writing on demand.
— Troy Hicks
He thought, I got wings on my eyes, and the thought was so odd and yet so pleasing to him that he felt suddenly that he was immensely special, that there could be no one like him in the world.
— Deborah Treisman, 20 Under 40: Stories from The New Yorker
What do you gain if you ban employees from, say, visiting a social-networking site or watching YouTube while at work? You gain nothing. That time doesn’t magically convert to work. They’ll just find some other diversion.
— Jason Fried
how irrelevant the belief in God can be to religious experience—so irrelevant that the emotional structure of religious experiences can be transplanted to completely godless contexts with little of the impact lost—and when he had also, almost as an afterthought, included as an appendix thirty-six arguments for the existence of God, with rebuttals, his claim being that the most thorough demolition of these arguments would make little difference to the felt qualities of religious experience,
— Rebecca Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
However, you cannot force smokers to stop, and although all smokers secretly want to, until they are ready to do so a pact just creates additional pressure, which increases their desire to smoke. This turns them into secret smokers, which further increases the feeling of dependency.
— Allen Carr, Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking: Be a Happy Non-smoker for the Rest of Your Life
I think people get excited about their perspective on sexuality because it gives them the feeling that, their failures notwithstanding, if they take a hard stand on what they consider to be godly, maybe God will be more merciful to them.
— Walter Wink, Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches
were under the very erroneous impression that we had money. Of
— Lee Child, First Thrills: High-Octane Stories from the Hottest Thriller Authors
The polarization is such that the conservatives on this side have their prayer meeting and their choir meeting. And the liberals on this side have their prayer meeting and their choir meeting, and the two sides never get together and talk about it. The result is the tearing apart of the fabric of the body of Christ.
— Walter Wink, Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches
The practical consequence of both of the teachings noted is to encourage homosexual promiscuity. Church members can engage in many short-term liaisons without raising questions about their standing in the church. We tend not to pry into one another's private lives. But if a man brings another man to church with him regularly, if they give the same address and show signs of mutual affection, then there is likely to be a scandal. The dominant effect of church teaching is to encourage secret, temporary liaisons without commitment and to discourage long-term fidelity.
— Walter Wink, Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches
The moment you stop smoking, everything that goes wrong in your life is blamed on the fact that you’ve stopped smoking. Now when you have a mental block, instead of just getting on with it you start to say, ‘If only I could light up now, it would solve my problem.’ You then start to question your decision to quit smoking.
— Allen Carr, Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking: Be a Happy Non-smoker for the Rest of Your Life
veterans and remarkable rookies. International Thriller Writers, Inc. (ITW) cofounder, David
— Lee Child, First Thrills: High-Octane Stories from the Hottest Thriller Authors
Or he’d watch the news: more plagues, more famines, more floods, more insect or microbe or small-mammal outbreaks, more droughts, more chickenshit boy-soldier wars in distant countries. Why was everything so much like itself?
— Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
It is the truth that sets us free, and it is the truth that we must run with in order to continue our race in freedom.
— Cynthia Heald, Becoming a Woman of Freedom
I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. 
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36).
— Cynthia Heald, Becoming a Woman of Freedom
It has been observed that "none are free indeed but those whom Christ makes free.
— Cynthia Heald, Becoming a Woman of Freedom
As we admit our inadequacy to run the race alone and accept God's gracious redemption, then the race begins to have meaning, validity, and most of all, freedom.
— Cynthia Heald, Becoming a Woman of Freedom
Climate change. Urbanization. Biotechnology. Those three narratives, still taking shape, are developing a long arc likely to dominate this century.
— Stewart Brand
Time and again, we let the fear of loss overpower rational decision-making and often make ourselves worse off just to avoid a potential loss. Psychologists call this loss aversion, and it means we often tend to prefer avoiding losses at the expense of acquiring gains.
— L. Jon Wertheim
The man nodded and brought a bottle from the glass-fronted fridge,
— Ian Rankin, The Complaints
What the Didache doesn’t say is that the community should shun or excommunicate those who commit the forbidden sins. In fact, “correct some, pray for others, and some you should love more than your own life” makes plain that the worst sinners should be showered with the most love.
— Tony Jones
One of our group said that a lot of people in church spend a lot of time correcting each other these days, but in order to correct another person in love, you really have to know that person. Only then, she told us, can you practice the kind of community that the Didache teaches.
— Tony Jones
an unknown and forgotten treasure of the earliest Christians, a manual for living used by the generation of Jesus followers immediately after the apostles.
— Tony Jones
She shrugged. "Ownership is a fragile concept.
— Kay Kenyon, City Without End
He didn't know which he preferred: the Red, with its fatalistic and pious acceptance of all futures, or the Misery, acknowledging that the more you attracted notice, the worse God dealt with you.
— Kay Kenyon, City Without End
in Vancouver BC and drive south to a town named Medina, north of Bellingham, Washington.
— Todd Russell, Mental Shrillness
south to a town named Medina, north of Bellingham, Washington. Today,
— Todd Russell, Mental Shrillness
removed an inch long section. She almost called Dr. Sears, but
— Todd Russell, Mental Shrillness
The worst kind of poison for despots: truth.
— Kay Kenyon, City Without End
Go to a goddamn priest if you wanna be lied to. I've seen too many of your kind slip back inside to fool myself. If you wanna think you're a new man, hell, that's fine. But don't think you're looking any different in anyone else's mind.
— Joe Meno, How the Hula Girl Sings
Slow as your own dubious grace.
— Joe Meno, How the Hula Girl Sings
Inside the opponent’s 45-yard line, facing anything less than fourth and eight, teams are better off going for it than punting. Inside the opponent’s 33-yard line, they are better off going for it on anything less than fourth and 11.* Regardless of field position, on anything less than fourth and five, teams are always better off going for it.
— L. Jon Wertheim, Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind Sports and How Games Are Won
But do I really want my vagina to heal over through lack of use either?
— Nick Alexander, The Case of the Missing Boyfriend
If there are weeds in my garden, I have a problem. But it does not lead me to question the existence of lettuce.
— Douglas Wilson
I think if a man beats you and fucks half the women he sees and no one will help you, axing him isn’t the least understandable thing you can do.
— Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island
Chuck said, “Hey. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Cawley looked over at him. “I’ll bite. How many?” “Fish,” Chuck said and let loose a bright bark of a laugh.
— Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island
The drawing is also a reminder that there’s an artist within each of us, and we must encourage that artist to do the work, to make something that matters, regardless of anything else that is going on.
— Steven Pressfield, Do the Work
There are people who can make love standing on a hammock, but it is not the easiest way.
— Allen Carr, Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking: Be a Happy Non-smoker for the Rest of Your Life
A few minutes after he arrived, Lee was talking to a group of astronomers eager to learn what news he could bring them, for there are few natural philosophers as frustrated as astronomers in a fog.
— Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
probation. Jesus Christ was and is Jehovah, the God of Adam and of Noah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel, the God at whose instance the prophets of the ages have spoken, the God of all nations, and He who shall yet reign on earth as King of kings and Lord of lords.
— James E. Talmage, JESUS THE CHRIST [Illustrated]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirms her possession of divine authority for the use of the sacred name, Jesus Christ, as the essential part of her distinctive designation. In view of this exalted claim, it is pertinent to inquire as to what special or particular message the Church has to give to the world concerning the Redeemer and Savior of the race, and as to what she has to say in justification of her solemn affirmation, or in vindication of her exclusive name and title. As we proceed with our study, we shall find that among the specific teachings of the Church respecting...
— James E. Talmage, JESUS THE CHRIST [Illustrated]
It may not look it, but all the glass on Earth is flowing downwards under the relentless drag of gravity. Remove a pane of really old glass from the window of a European cathedral and it will be noticeably thicker at the bottom than at the top.
— Bill Bryson
Here are the facts. Coronary artery disease is the leading killer of men and women in Western civilization. In the United States alone, more than half a million people die of it every single year. Three times that number suffer known heart attacks. And approximately three million more have “silent” heart attacks, experiencing minimal symptoms and having no idea, until well after the damage is done, that they are in mortal danger. In the course of a lifetime, one out of every two American men and one out of every three American women will have some form of the disease.
— Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr.
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
— Christa Allan, Walking on Broken Glass
Much of modern life is based upon a false logic, a logic that assumes that happiness and well-being come from financial prosperity.
— Nic Marks, The Happiness Manifesto
Winners recognize that even when they aren’t physically selling a product, they are always selling themselves. Every human interaction is an opportunity to connect—and then to sell.
— Frank Luntz, Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary
There are two main reasons why this assumption is wrong. First, once basic material needs have been met, there is very little evidence that pursuing financial prosperity generates much extra happiness for individuals or for nations. Second, by blindly pursuing economic growth, we are creating a whole set of social and environmental issues that will undermine the potential happiness and well-being of future generations.
— Nic Marks, The Happiness Manifesto
The time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being. And measures of well-being should be put in a context of sustainability.
— Nic Marks, The Happiness Manifesto
Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.
— Tim Sanders, Today We Are Rich: Harnessing The Power Of Total Confidence
I believe the message in the hymn “Rise Up, O Men of God” (Hymns, no. 324) is a plea, a call, a divine invitation for us to rise above the telestial tinsel of our time; to deny ourselves of ungodliness and clothe ourselves in the mantle of holiness; to reach and stretch and grasp for that spiritual direction and sacred empowerment promised to the Lord’s agents, to those charged to act in the name of our Principal, Jesus Christ; and to point the way to salvation and deliverance and peace in a world that finds itself enshrouded in darkness, a world that yearns for spiritual leadership.
— Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man
I left a pause. ‘You sound like a certain kind of surgeon. A lot more interested in the operation than the patient.’ ‘I should not like to be in the hands of a surgeon who did not take that view.
— John Fowles
Try not to take it personally if the mother criticizes you or tells you to stop doing something that you expected to be helpful. Just say, “Sorry,” and stop doing it. Don’t try to explain why you did it or express frustration with her. She is really saying that labor is so difficult right now that nothing helps. You are the safest person for her to lash out at. Later, she will probably apologize.
— Penny Simkin, The Birth Partner: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Doulas, and All Other Labor Companions
Points to Ponder 1. What does it mean to “grow up unto the Lord” (Helaman 3:21)? 2. How often do I think about what kind of man I want to be? How often do I think about what others will remember most about me? What kind of priesthood legacy am I leaving? 3. The Prophet Lehi pleaded with his sons repeatedly to “Awake! and arise from the dust” (2 Nephi 1:14). In what ways do I need to wake up? How is it that I have been called to arise from the dust? (see D&C 113:7–10). 4. Peter was counseled by the Master at the Last Supper to become converted and then to strengthen his brethren (Luke...
— Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man
grand a pop for the vampires who survived their first does.
— Lina Gardiner, Grave Illusions
and her answer to it because she’s driving the conversation. In
— Tim Sanders, Today We Are Rich: Harnessing The Power Of Total Confidence
Lehi’s message, given some six centuries before the coming of the Messiah, seems very applicable to our day and time: “O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound. . . . Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent. . . . Arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity. . . . Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness” (2 Nephi 1:13, 14, 21, 23; emphasis...
— Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man
THE TRUTH ABOUT PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION • American fifteen-year-olds rank thirty-fifth out of fifty-seven developed countries in math and literacy. • 30 percent of public school students don’t graduate from high school. • Every day, 7,000 kids drop out of high school. • Of the 50 million children currently in public school, 15 million of them will drop out. • 25 percent of all public school math teachers did not major in mathematics or a math-related subject at a college or university. • Less than two-thirds of high school graduates are accepted to college every year. • One half...
— Frank Luntz, Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary
Winners know what makes people tick by effectively tapping into our fears and aspirations. By listening very carefully and then repeating almost word-for-word exactly what they’ve heard, winners know how to articulate compelling needs—and products to satisfy those needs—that people didn’t even know they wanted.
— Frank Luntz, Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary
But she finally had the good sense to see that a long, dull and predictable future was an expensive price to pay for the satisfaction of a passing sexual attraction.
— John Fowles
It was Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse who said that simply because a person is a member of a specific denomination, there is no reason to suppose that the entire denomination is represented by that person’s theology,
— Walter Ralston Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults
The current best estimate for the Earth’s weight is 5.9725 billion trillion tonnes, a difference of only about 1 per cent from Cavendish’s finding.
— Bill Bryson
A man’s life was five dogs long, Cortland believed. The first was the one that taught you. The second was the one you taught. The third and fourth were the ones you worked. The last was the one that outlived you. That was the winter dog. Cortland’s winter dog had no name. He thought of it only as the scarecrow dog…
— Stephen King, UR
Think about it this way: If you had to launch your business in two weeks, what would you cut out?
— Jason Fried, ReWork
That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.
— George Orwell, 1984
The problem with abstractions (like reports and documents) is that they create illusions of agreement. A hundred people can read the same words, but in their heads, they’re imagining a hundred different things.
— Jason Fried, ReWork
When you can do that, little Wren, when you can accept the wearing down and the eroding, then you can do anything. How did I manage to keep going out nights? I just told myself I didn’t matter all that much—that those in here mattered more. You know something? It’s not so hard really. You just have to get past the fear.
— Terry Brooks, The Elf Queen of Shannara
He had a collection of science-fiction films on DVD and Blu-ray discs, and although he said he’d seen most of them before, Caitlin was surprised to discover how many of the cases were still shrink-wrapped. “Why’d you buy them if you weren’t going to watch them?” she asked. He looked at the tall, thin cabinets that contained the movies and seemed to ponder the question. “My childhood was on sale,” he said at last, “so I bought it.
— Robert J. Sawyer, WWW: Watch
One day Augustus asked Newt to ride along with him, much to Newt’s surprise. In the morning they saw a grizzly, but the bear was far upwind and didn’t scent them. It was a beautiful day—no clouds in the sky. Augustus rode with his big rifle propped across the saddle—he was in the highest of spirits. They rode ahead of the herd some fifteen miles or more, and yet when they stopped to look back they could still see the cattle, tiny black dots in the middle of the plain, with the southern horizon still far behind them.
— Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
Don’t be insecure about aiming to be a small business. Anyone who runs a business that’s sustainable and profitable, whether it’s big or small, should be
— Jason Fried
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order,
— William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989
And Wolfram knows about cellular automata?” “Oh, my goodness, yes,” said Anna. “He wrote a book you could kill a man with—twelve hundred pages—called A New Kind of Science. It’s all about them.” “We should totally ask him what he thinks!” Caitlin said.
— Robert J. Sawyer, WWW: Wake
in time to come be shaped by the human mind.” Asked
— Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
and line of cases. Justice Byron R. "Whizzer" White, a JFK appointee, dissented, calling Doe an act of "raw judicial power," as it took these decisions from the states and enshrined their determination in the Supreme Court's reasoning.
— William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989
And once I realized that code I write never fucking goes away and I'm going to be a maintainer for life. I get comments about blog posts that are almost 10 years old. "Hey, I found this code. I found a bug," and I'm suddenly maintaining code.
— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work
Mr. Lockery—my biology teacher—says if dinosaurs were magically brought forward in time today, we’d have nothing to worry about. Dogs, wolves, and bears would make short work of tyrannosaurs.” She nodded at Schrödinger, who was now padding across the floor in the opposite direction. “Big cats, too. They’re faster, tougher, and brighter than anything that existed seventy million years ago. Everything is always ramping up, always escalating.
— Robert J. Sawyer, WWW: Watch
Eisenhower has been much criticized for his failure publicly to endorse the Court's decision. But he felt that doing so would set an undesirable precedent. If a president endorsed decisions he agreed with, might he feel compelled to oppose decisions he did not agree with? And what would that do to the rule of law? "The Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold ... the constitutional processes.... I will obey."3
— William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989
American soldiers were dying in frigid Korea. One of our greatest generals told us that the president and his team were not trying to win. And some strident voices were saying that that was because they didn't want to win,
— William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989
I am not a Federalist,” he declared in 1789, “because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever.… If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
— Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
money I could hardly think of it. “Go on, take it.
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
He came in and took a piss in my hotel bathroom without even closing the door as I'm standing right there. I'm like, "Alright. You're comfortable." It was like we knew each other for four or five years, even though we had never met.
— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work
There was a sound like a garbage bag of pudding dropped off a tall building onto a sidewalk. Robert had erupted, chunks slapping off the walls in every direction.
— David Wong, John Dies at the End
Table of Contents
— Joe Haldeman, The Accidental Time Machine
designer can inject the most artistic flair. The word “ampersand” didn’t come into being until the nineteenth century. At that time & was customarily taught as the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet and pronounced “and.” When schoolchildren recited their ABCs, they concluded with the words “and, per se [i.e., by itself ], ‘and.’” This eventually became corrupted to “ampersand.” The symbol is a favorite of law and
— Ben Yagoda, When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better And/Or Worse
these groups followed some solitary passer-by, hurrying his steps; one after another the doors were closed, one after
— Alexandre Dumas, The Borgias Celebrated Crimes
long middle finger resembling a twig that it could use for probing for grubs. There is a telling example of convergent evolution when an unrelated species (the Long-Fingered Possum from Papua New Guinea) devised a similar strategy to address the same problem. (Douglas was very intrigued by the implications of convergence. What need is there to posit a designer if the operation of random forces, constrained by the reality of the world, produces the same elegant solution, as if there were no choice in the matter?) We monkeys have
— Nick Webb, Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams
legal investigation. As Clinton noted, “My goal in this deposition was to be truthful, but not particularly helpful.
— Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature
be as good as our first honeymoon?’ Friday 7 October A
— Matt Rudd, William Walker's First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story
Zawinski: Sometimes. I end up doing all the sysadmin crap, which I can't stand-I've never liked it. I enjoy working on XScreenSaver because in some ways screen savers-the actual display modes rather than the XScreenSaver framework-are the perfect program because they almost always start from scratch and they do something pretty and there's never a version 2.0. There's very rarely a bug in a screen saver. It crashes-oh, there's a divide-by-zero and you fix that.
— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work
on. I’m getting cold.’ Clutching the pluckers, I call her. ‘Right,
— Matt Rudd, William Walker's First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story
Fitzpatrick: Back when I was doing Perl-even for people that knew Perl really well-I would recommend MJD's Higher-Order Per!. The book is really fun in that it starts somewhat simple and you're like, "Yeah, yeah, I know what a closure is." And then it just continues to fuck with your head. By the end of the book, you're just blown away.
— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work
Sweet allowed her pregnancy to get the better of her and simply sat down. Reenie’s lips set into a straight, emotionless line. Mawu no longer talked back, the words she did speak taking on an air of vapidity. Philip was chained at night, no longer trusted. So it was no wonder that Lizzie sought out the white woman then.
— Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Wench
Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a dedicated liar is to persuade himself he's sincere. And once he's sincere, all deception vanishes.
— Ian McEwan, Saturday
Initiative and starting are about neither of these. They are about “let’s see” and “try.” If there’s no clear right answer, perhaps the thing you ought to do is something new. Something new is often the right path when the world is complicated.
— Seth Godin, Poke the Box
This process of professionalising the obvious fosters a sense of mystery around science, and health advice, which is unnecessary and destructive. More than anything, more than the unnecessary ownership of the obvious, it is disempowering.
— Ben Goldacre
It's at moments like these in a game that the essentials of his character are exposed: narrow, ineffectual, stupid—and morally so. The game becomes an extended metaphor of character defect. Every error he makes is so profoundly, so irritatingly typical of himself, instantly familiar, like a signature, like a tissue scar or some deformation in a private place.
— Ian McEwan, Saturday
the book is intended to show how it is possible to live in and be enlarged by loss, even as we continue to experience it.
— Gerald L. Sittser
A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. Predictable law-abiding behavior lulls drivers. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane, assume you will stay there, can't handle it when you leave that little box.
— Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Truth by definition is exclusive. If truth were all-inclusive, nothing would be false.
— Walter Ralston Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults
I had no way of anticipating the adjustments I would have to make and the suffering I would have to endure in the months and years ahead.
— Gerald L. Sittser
In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.
— Ben Goldacre
Becoming drunk is a journey that generally elates him in the early stages—he's good company, expansive, mischievous and fun, the famous old poet, almost as happy listening as talking. But once the destination is met, once established up there on that unsunny plateau, a fully qualified drunk, the nastier muses, the goblins of aggression, paranoia, self-pity take control. The expectation now is that an evening with John will go bad somehow, unless everyone around is prepared to toil at humouring and flattering and hours of frozen-faced listening. No one will be.
— Ian McEwan, Saturday
They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment.  I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained...
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
A popular management term used to describe efficiency is called "working smart." We are told that if we work smart instead of hard, we will be more productive. But if we do work "smart" then we are likely to have idle time, and if we are idle we will likely be thought of as being lazy or worthless.
— Charles Hayes
Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions.  I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her, maybe he knew something she didn't.
— Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Bit literacy means letting the bits go
—  anything else perpetuates the problem.
Or he was simply pretending—like many drinkers, he liked to think each new day drew a line under the day before.
— Ian McEwan, Saturday
Within the theological structure of the cults there is considerable truth, all of which, it might be added, is drawn from biblical sources, but so diluted with human error as to be more deadly than complete falsehood.
— Walter Ralston Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults
Bits have unique properties, then, that we can use to our advantage: they’re super-small, super-fast, easily acquired and created and copied and shared in near-infinite quantity, protected from the ravages of time, and free from the limitations of distance and space. In practice, though, bits reveal several paradoxes: they’re weightless, but they weigh us down; they don’t take up any space, but they always seem to pile up; they’re created in an instant, but they can last forever; they move quickly, but they can waste our time.
— Mark Hurst, Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload
We’re all free agents in this noncoercive class system, and Brooks eventually concludes that worrying about the problems faced by workers is yet another deluded affectation of the blue-state rich.
— Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
he saw in Populism the first glimmerings of some of the great intellectual upheavals of the twentieth century—naturalism, muckraking, and hard-hitting social satire—which would eventually topple the genteel tradition of the nineteenth century. In a peculiar way, Parrington seemed to think, Kansas was one of the birthplaces of literary modernism.
— Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
In 1991, though, began an uprising that would propel those reptilian Republicans from a tiny splinter group into the state’s dominant political faction, that would reduce Kansas Democrats to third-party status, and that would wreck what remained of the state’s progressive legacy. We are accustomed to thinking of the backlash as a phenomenon of the seventies (the busing riots, the tax revolt) or the eighties (the Reagan revolution); in Kansas the great move to the right was a story of the nineties, a story of the present.
— Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
AN IMPERIALIST POWER THAT ACTS ON ITS OWN REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE REST OF THE WORLD THINKS. 18–29 30–49 50–64 65+ Improper/Somewhat improper 86% 73 69 67 Somewhat proper/Proper 3 13 20 17 No other group we studied—not Democrats generally, not self-described progressives or libertarians, not readers of The New York Times—had a greater spread between the two extremes.
— John Zogby, The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream
nothing knee-jerk about their politics. Two out of three of them say that abortion is “always” or “usually” morally wrong. They are far more likely than voters age thirty and over to identify themselves as politically “strictly independent.” In fact, more than any other generation I’ve tracked in my polling, Globals seem determined to find a middle ground on the hot-button issues of the day and to decide each one on a case by case basis, not because their party leaders are urging them in one direction or the other. I like to tell audiences that while First Globals might not be more...
— John Zogby, The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream
four meta-movements that separately and together are redefining the American dream: living with limits, embracing diversity, looking inward, and demanding authenticity.
— John Zogby, The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream
Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library.  This book I had again and again perused with delight. 
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
By the term cult I mean nothing derogatory to any group so classified. A cult, as I define it, is any religious group which differs significantly in one or more respects as to belief or practice from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expressions of religion in our total culture.
— Walter Ralston Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults
Self-knowledge liberates us from the frustration of ignorance, while simultaneously nurturing and supporting our capacity for intelligence. Objectivity
— Charles Hayes
How slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions?
— Neal Stephenson
plans if you were going to go with this woman? come here.
— Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Wench
The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans.
— Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
I wanted to kiss her, she was beautiful again to me. But I dared not risk it. It wasn't only that I would have frightened her, it was that the desire to kill her was almost overpowering. Some fierce purely male instinct in me wanted to claim her now simply because I had claimed her in another way before.
— Anne Rice, The Tale of the Body Thief
They recognize the Master, now that I have preached Truth to them. All the robots do.
— Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
We remember, also, how that it is becoming increasingly difficult in these strenuous days for those who are desirous of studying the deeper things of God to find the time which such study requires.
— Arthur W. Pink
And there he lay in his bed, a broken man, worn out by a way of life which had been thrust upon him because of the antics of a wayward pig.
— Jean Plaidy, The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine
Dr. Neal Roese makes a fascinating distinction between two types of regret: regrets of action and regrets of inaction.
— Mark Batterson, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: How To Survive And Thrive When Opportunity Roars
The craving today is for something light and spicy, and few have patience, still less desire, to examine carefully that which would make a demand both upon their hearts and
— Arthur W. Pink
These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.
— Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as I lay the sausage against my ear. Abruptly, my cell phone went dead. A drop of grease dribbled into the dead center of my ear, creeping like a worm down onto my neck and below the collar of my shirt. A group of men and women in business suits walked by, swerving to avoid me. Across the street, a homeless-looking guy was staring at me, curious. Yep, this was pretty much rock bottom. As I was about to reach for a napkin and at least get my money's worth by eating the bratwurst while still hot, I heard it. "Dave? Can you hear me?
— David Wong, John Dies at the End
That Crawford Tilinghast should ever have studied science and philosophy was a mistake. These things should be left to the frigid and impersonal investigator for they offer two equally tragic alternatives to the man of feeling and action; despair, if he fail in his quest, and terrors unutterable and unimaginable if he succeed.
— H.P. Lovecraft, The Ultimate Collection
Although unanswered prayer is indeed a theme of the book, it is not the heart of the book, for unanswered prayer describes a problem but offers no solutions.
— Gerald L. Sittser, When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer
Juniper laughed for real, but one of those fake smiles he considered a plague of the Caucasian race followed. If you’re sad, be sad, he wanted to say.
— Jo-Ann Mapson, Solomon's Oak
I can wield any type of saw out there, and I have to do this, even if it takes me years. That I can even think in terms of a future, is a miracle. Why? Because two and a half years ago, when I was thirty-two years old, I had a heart attack. I used to be the size of a small, depressed cow. The heart attack led to my stomach strangling operation, and I lost 170 pounds. Now I am less than half myself, in more ways than one.
— Cathy Lamb, Such A Pretty Face
Mother Astarte who creates and destroys. Kybele, goddess of all that is, was, and ever shall be,” he invoked.
— Karen Essex
How the hell would she support herself and her mother if Agua Dulce’s new owner built one of those mega service stations right next door? Or worse yet, right on top of them.
— Anna Jeffrey
After Arthur sent me away for my own good, it' like my life switched from color to black and white--like the ending of The Wizard of Oz.
— Nick Nolan, Wide Asleep
Grady’s a man of action who craves excitement and needs plenty of activity, and he’s seen precious little of either in the ten or so years he’s been our sheriff. Well, let’s just say that since Candi Heart came to town, he’s had plenty to keep him busy, what with the stream of crimes that follows her around. And then there’s the mystery surrounding the woman herself. Suffice to say, Candi’s not quite what she appears and leave it at that.
— Deborah Grace Staley, What The Heart Wants
He sent Zuckerberg a letter proposing Viacom would pay $1.5 billion to buy the two-year-old company.
— David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
I never once thought I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to be a teacher. As soon as I left college, though, they sent me my draft notice, stuck me in officers training, and I ended up on the continent for twelve years. My life went by like a dream.
— Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
I sprinted into the conference room as my boss, and the owner of this law firm, Cherie Poitras, grabbed her client around the waist, a woman dressed to the nines in high heels and a cream suit. The woman had actually crawled up on the conference table and lunged for her husband. Cherie and I wrestled her off, but not before the husband’s attorney put him in a headlock to keep him from strangling his soon-to-be ex-wife. Even in a headlock, the husband, a local politician who stressed the sanctity of marriage and traditional values, struggled to get at his wife, his arms and legs flailing around...
— Cathy Lamb, Such A Pretty Face
we have quoted freely from the Scriptures and have sought to furnish proof-texts for every statement we have advanced.
— Arthur W. Pink
Instinct caused a woman who had once been so attractive to still attempt makeup and hairdos, Marisa guessed, but more often than not, the effort came off with Mama looking like a clown. Seeing it broke Marisa’s heart, but she didn’t interfere. Her mother didn’t know the difference and these days, it was rare for anyone but Marisa to see her. What little family they had seldom came and Mama’s friends in Agua Dulce, out of respect, were reluctant to gawk at her decline.
— Anna Jeffrey
A curiosity . . . no, a need for a different kind of communion. One with people not of the mountain, but rather the outsiders of the Ridge. She couldn’t explain the call of Angel Ridge. Women before her, like her mother, had experienced the same longing, had tried to assimilate with the people below the mountain and had been cruelly rejected, returning to the mountain to live a singular existence.
— Deborah Grace Staley, What The Heart Wants