He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
One thing I love to do is produce. I've produced a couple of bands. I mean, nothing ever really happened with 'em, but I enjoy getting a young band into the studio and guiding them, and making them feel at ease.
Reduce your humanity through what Jules Feiffer called little murders. The minute I hear someone trying to demean me, I know that that person means to have my life. And I will not give it to them. When a person commits these little murders, and then you catch him or her at it, he or she might say, "Oh, I didn't mean it." But make no mistake: It is an assassination attempt.
Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.
In the first two years, when I had a strong majority in the House and the Senate, we were as productive as any administration has been since the '60s. I mean, we got a lot done.
When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed.
It will be hard to find a parallel in history in which unarmed people have represented the urge for freedom, turning their armlessness into the central means for deliverance.
Avoid the philosophy and excuse that yesterday's luxuries have become today's necessities. They aren't necessities unless we ourselves make them such. . . . It is essential for us to live within our means.
Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.
I've made a terrible confession to you, he concluded gloomily. Do appreciate it, gentlemen. And it's not enough, not enough to appreciate it, you must not just appreciate it, it should also be precious to you, and if not, if this, too, goes past your souls, then it means you really do not respect me, gentlemen. I tell you that, and I will die of shame at having confessed to such men as you.
Don't we introduce time as a means of becoming more evolved? The brain has evolved but is there evolution inwardly? Can the brain dominated by time not be subservient to it?