Comfortable Quotes - page 67
To say that the future will be different from the present is, to scientists, hopelessly self-evident. I observe regretfully that in politics, however, it can be heresy. It can be denounced as radicalism, or branded as subversion. There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed. It hardly seems necessary to point out in California - of all States -- that change, although it involves risks, is the law of life.
Robert F. Kennedy
I think Carl was always exhorting us for the sake of our children, for the sake of a democratic society, to become at least comfortable with the methods and the language of science and that way, we could be informed decision makers in our society. I just think that his legacy, both in pioneering research for extraterrestrial intelligence which-- When he began working in this field, there were only a handful of distinguished scientists who would risk taking a scientific approach to such a sexy subject.
Ann Druyan
Liberal intellectuals, then, whether of the continental persuasion like Aron or Luigi Einaudi, or in the British sense like Isaiah Berlin, were always distinctly more comfortable than most conservatives with the American connection that history had imposed upon them. The same was true, curious as it may seem, of Social Democrats. This was in part because the memory of FDR was still fresh, and many of the American diplomats and policy-makers with whom Europeans dealt in these years were New Dealers, who encouraged an active role for the state in economic and social policy and whose political sympathies fell to the left of center.
Tony Judt
[B]efore the Argentine action he was the subject of all our attention. He had won Hillhead. He had taken his seat. He has put a notably incomprehensible, but no doubt distinguished, maiden question to the Prime Minister about micro-chips. All things seemed possible for him. But within days Dr David Owen had seized the SDP controls and was roaring away on the subject of submarines, frigates, and vertical take-off. Dr Owen is at home with such matters. Mr Jenkins is not. Like Switzerland, he is prosperous, comfortable, civilized and almost entirely landlocked. His only previous contact with the high seas has been in various good fish restaurants.
Roy Jenkins
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. It sees man, a feeble speck, surrounded by unfathomable depths of silence; yet it bears itself proudly, as unmoved as if it were lord of the universe. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Bertrand Russell
Why would anybody want to go skiing ? You could sit in the comfort of you own kitchen and break your knees with a hammer. What is the human impulse ? What's wrong with these people ? I think it's because they're so closeted, their lives are so comfortable, they actually seek out danger as a pastime. If you're poor, you don't go and look for danger ‘cause you're surrounded by it. Your accommodation is dangerous, your neighbours are dangerous. Your own family are pretty handy. You probably have a couple of moves yourself. Your dinner can fucking kill you anyway so you don't have to go and look for danger.
Dylan Moran
I settled everything with Mrs. Grey, while you were putting on your bonnet," replied he. "She said I might have her consent, if I could obtain yours; and I asked her, in case I should be so happy, to come and live with us - for I was sure you would like it better. But she refused, saying she could now afford to employ an assistant, and would continue the school till she could purchase an annuity sufficient to maintain her in comfortable lodgings; and, meantime, she would spend her vacations alternately with us and your sister, and should be quite contented if you were happy. And so now I have overruled your objections on her account. Have you any other?"
"No - none."
"You love me then?" said he, fervently pressing my hand.
"Yes.
Anne Brontë
For prayers and meditation, you can have any comfortable position. You must select a fine pose in which you can sit for a long time comfortably. The only condition is that your neck and back should be erect. Close your eyes, breathe in and out very slowly and mentally repeat the Mantra OM OM OM and think of the divine qualities of the Lord. Now you will enter into silent meditation. You will enjoy great peace and acquire inner spiritual strength. (Avoid Extremes in Yoga)
Swami Sivananda
...You have to intentionally seek out community. You have to intentionally seek out spaces that are comfortable, that are welcoming. And I think that intentionality just bleeds into the work of people who are from Pittsburgh. It's not a place where you could just laze into blackness. You have to be hyper-cognizant of it...
Damon Young (writer)
Born and bred a member of the leather-aproned class, Franklin was, at least for most of his life, more comfortable with artisans and thinkers than with the established elite, and he was allergic to the pomp and perks of a hereditary aristocracy. Throughout his life he would refer to himself as "B. Franklin, printer."
From these attitudes spring what may be Franklin's most important vision: an American national identity based on the virtues and values of its middle class. Instinctively more comfortable with democracy than were his fellow founders, and devoid of the snobbery that later critics would feel toward his own shopkeeping values, he had faith in the wisdom of the common man and felt that a new nation would draw its strength from what he called "the middling people." Through his self-improvement tips for cultivating personal virtues and his civic-improvement schemes for furthering the common good, he helped to create, and to celebrate, a new ruling class of ordinary citizens.
Walter Isaacson
I am not writing to make people feel warm and comfortable. When my readers enter the world of my book I want them to feel like they can find a place to belong in my story. But it is not their story, and the language is familiar but it is not their language. It is a novel about belonging and it is a novel about difference, too.'
Melissa Lucashenko
If the Dodgers had kept Clemente with them at Ebbets Field-as they did with Sandy Koufax-the course of baseball might have been drastically changed. This intrigued me and I did some research on the subject. For years, the Dodgers kept looking for a left fielder to pair up with Duke Snider in center and Carl Furillo in right. This might have been an all-time outfield: Clemente-Snider-Furillo. Imagine Clemente taking dead aim at the comfortable home-run area in Ebbets Field for four years and the short left field fence in the Coliseum for the next three years. The Dodgers won the pennant in 1955 and again in 1956. They won after a playoff in 1959 and copped it again in 1963. But wouldn't it be safe to assume they could have won in 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961 and 1962 with a Clemente in their lineup?
Roberto Clemente
Unfortunately for McCain, it was precisely these voices of the hard Right that were exciting the core GOP voters most likely to vote in presidential primaries, rather than the business-friendly, strong-on-defense, socially moderate Republicans McCain appealed to and was most comfortable with. And as the Republican primary wore on, and McCain sought to win over some of the very people he professed to despise- as he abandoned any pretense of fiscal rectitude in favor of even bigger tax cuts than the Bush tax cuts he'd once voted against, and hedged his position on climate change to accommodate fossil fuel interests- I sensed a change taking place in him. He seemed pained, uncertain- the once jaunty, irreverent warrior transformed into a cranky Washington insider, lassoed to an incumbent president with an approval rating around 30 percent and a hugely unpopular war.
Barack Obama
Were our meetings with President Trump harmful or helpful? I believe that, despite the attempt to discredit these meetings, they nevertheless were more positive than negative. ...it is better to communicate and interact with each other than, forgive my language, engage in a never-ending dogfight. Our meetings have hardly improved US domestic politics, I guess. Probably because, again, there are those who are always trying to play this card in the domestic political struggle. I would say the incumbent president is geared to stabilise and level Russian-American relations. Let's see how the situation develops. We, in any case, are ready for this at any time... We have a comfortable professional dialogue with him... he reacts to the arguments I make. He may disagree with something I say, just as I would disagree with something he might say. We have different views... but this is a normal discussion between partners...
Vladimir Putin
Today we know that the accusations against the KR regime were mainly true. Chomsky's answer would probably have been that such heavy accusations have to be grounded in precise empirical facts, and that in the case of Cambodia back in the late 1970s such facts were sorely missing. While there is some truth in this claim (especially with regard to the devastation caused earlier in Cambodia by the US Army), I have again some problems with it. There is a thin line that separates justified doubt about media reports from comfortable skepticism which allows us to ignore or downplay atrocities. One can easily imagine a similar line of argumentation in the late 1930s about the Nazi atrocities or the Stalinist purges: we don't have enough reliable data, we should not pretend to know what really goes on in these countries, so it is advisable to doubt Western press reports...
Noam Chomsky
Otherwise, I know I'm often wasting my breath and electronic ink saying this, but the "real-world” is a pretty weird place where lots of inexplicable things happen all the time, and I like to catch the flavor of that too. It just seems more modern and authentic to me as a storyteller. The "real world” doesn't come with the neat three-act structures and resolutions we love to impose on it, and if repeated doses of movie and TV-storytelling have convinced anyone that it does, it‘s time to get out and about a bit. The real world is filled with ghost stories, non sequiturs, inexplicable mysteries, dead ends and absurdities, and I think it's cool to season our comfortable fictions with at least a little taste of what actual reality is like.
Grant Morrison
