Fourteen Quotes - page 4
[Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife] is for me a secretly deep history of a generation of middle-class American males, my own, which was taught by parents and athletic coaches and scoutmasters and military chaplains and quack doctors and so on to be deeply ashamed of masturbation and wet dreams.
And the hidden plea in the book is one which first appeared in my eyes when I was fourteen, say, and which has not vanished entirely to this day. It is part of the mystery of me. The plea is addressed by old-fashioned males forever full of jism to any pretty human female, on the street, in a magazine, in a movie - anywhere. The plea is this: "Please, pretty lady, don't make me play with my private parts again."
Kurt Vonnegut
I do not think that the time is right to talk about democracy in its absolute concept. Arab societies marginalized their modern thinkers and scholars for the elders who stopped their time before fourteen centuries, which is the difference between us and them .. Therefore, it was necessary to work on spreading a more realistic culture in which modern science has a more open place. Take, for example, if we asked the Tunisian people (he meant former President Bourguiba then and not now) to hold a referendum on his position on women's education, then I can assure that 99.99% will refuse her education.
Habib Bourguiba
And therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife in order to rob his victim of his purse, and had no thought of killing him, we too, it would seem, cannot persuade ourselves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us are not to guard us, but only for defense against foreign foes, and to regulate traffic and fetes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that the men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in the stifling heat, for ten to fourteen hours a day, at night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure. One would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious. Yet it is denied.
Leo Tolstoy
Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago, independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the interests of itself and interests of its people - of its citizens. This is our final choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to have before. And the guarantee for this is the choice of the Russian people, themselves. No, guarantees from outside cannot be provided. This is impossible. It would be impossible for Russia today. Any kind of turn towards totalitarianism for Russia would be impossible, due to the condition of the Russian society.
Vladimir Putin
You know what you can buy at the supermarket?” Laws inquired acidly. "I'll tell you. Canned burnt offerings.”
"You know what you can buy at the hardware store?” Hamilton answered. "Scales to weigh your soul on.”
"That's silly,” the blond said petulantly. "A soul doesn't have any weight.”
"Then,” Hamilton reflected, "you could put one through the U. S. mail for nothing.”
"How many souls,” Laws conjectured ironically, "can be fitted into one stamped envelope? New religious question. Split mankind in half. Warring factions. Blood running in the gutters.”
"Ten,” Hamilton guessed.
"Fourteen,” Laws contradicted.
"Heretic. Baby-murdering monster.”
"Bestial drinker of unpurified blood.
Philip K. Dick
People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.
Charles Portis
There is much sentimentality in the fourteen Points of Wilson's peace program. As far as we are concerned the question of Alsace-Lorraine is one that we cannot discuss and it cannot even be raised at any international conference. The territorial integrity of Turkey must be maintained. The Reich Chancellor has declared that we do not seek the annexation of Belgium. However, the Flemish movement is working for independence. The Reich Government should make it its task to support this movement. With regard to the question of self-determination...it must be remembered that there is no political education in Lithuania and that from seventy to eighty per cent. of the population there is illiterate...[Poland does] not need freedom.
Gustav Stresemann
