Ask Quotes - page 84
I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life - fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet-and probably in the entire system-reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin... Now when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible... Every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has a certain half-life, in some cases for billions of years. I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it... I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. Have I given you an answer to your question?
Hyman G. Rickover
My position is entirely different from what the majority of the public imagine.. .I want a great deal, firstly because my position entails expenditure, and secondly because I like it. Being a very well-known man I cannot reduce my expenses as other people do. I was about to ask for an increase of salary, but the conditions are so unfavorable that I must set the idea aside.
Francisco Goya
"Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance." ... What excellent advice it is, and how it was beaten into my generation of schoolboys... But one may tire of even the best advice, as one may tire of writing according to these precepts. Would we wish to be without the heraldic splendour and torchlight processions that are the sentences of Sir Thomas Browne? Would we wish to sacrifice the orotund, Latinate pronouncements of Samuel Johnson? Would we wish that Dickens had written in the style recommended by the brothers Fowler, who framed the rules I have quoted; what would then have happened to Seth Pecksniff, Wilkins Micawber, and Sairey Gamp, I ask you?
Robertson Davies
...Let us ask ourselves whether in principle a "Free, Independent Armenia" is a realistic goal that would serve the interests of the Armenian people in the long run. As we seek an answer to this question, we should keep in mind that realism is a guiding principle for revolutionaries. Before advancing political slogans, one should first pose the question: Is it realizable? If it is not, then it should not be adopted.
Monte Melkonian
However dreary we may have felt life to be here, yet when that hour comes - the winding up of all things, the last grand rush of darkness on our spirits, the hour of that awful sudden wrench from all we have ever known or loved, the long farewell to sun, moon, stars, and light - brother man, I ask you this day, and I ask myself humbly and fearfully, "What will then be finished? When it is finished, what will it be? Will it be the butterfly existence of pleasure, the mere life of science, a life of uninterrupted sin and self-gratification, or will it be, 'Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do?'"
Frederick William Robertson
If a wise man should ask, What are the modern virtues? and should answer his own question by a summary of the things we admire; if he should discard as irrelevant the ideals which by tradition we profess, but which are not found outside of the tradition or the profession-ideals like meekness, humility, the renunciation of this world; if he should include only those excellences to which our hearts are daily given, and by which our conduct is motived,-in such an inventory what virtues would he name?
John Erskine
I went over to the Sargent, said, "Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sitting here on the bench, I mean I'm sitting here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug."
Arlo Guthrie
I saw Stay as You Are and Tess only. I didn't ask her if she saw every movie I did. I could never think about that. Why do I have to see every movie she did? Why? Sometimes she did movies with people I was bored by. I don't care about this or that director. So if she is so beautiful in a movie, it is because of her, not a director. So why should I see the movie then? As long as I am not blind, I don't need a dog to see. If I am blind, maybe I would like the dog to lead me. I am not blind. I don't have to see her movies. I know my child.
Klaus Kinski
Popularity, even at its most mediocre, delights me... I behave nicely with the public, out of the same concern for prudence that makes me generous in cases of epidemics or other collective calamities... Beware, I tell myself, because you may be judged at the end of the time, if there is an end of time and a judge... Beware of the day when no one ask you for anything anymore, be nice with the cratinization of advertising... Any reflection of my existence in others clams my worries about the feeble degree of reality of things, the world and myself. It's from all these eyes, in which I see myself seen, that I take my substance.... but where is substance? If it is not in nature it can't be in God... In a reality that endlessly disperses before the eye, fades away between our fingers, the only really material matter, the only really substantial substance, would be God.
Salvador Dalí
When I was.... in the surroundings of pictures and things of art... I then had a violent passion for them... And I do not repent it, for even now, far from that land, I am often homesick for the land of pictures. Now for more than five years already, I do not know exactly how long, I'm more or less without employment, wandering here and there... But you will ask what is your definite aim? That aim becomes more definite, will stand out slowly and surely, as the rough draft becomes a sketch and the sketch becomes a picture.... my only anxiety is: how can I be of use in the world, cannot I serve some purpose and be of any good, how can I learn more and study profoundly certain subjects?
Vincent van Gogh
