Epstein Quotes & Sayings

Technological change is discontinuous. The monks in their scriptoria did not invent the printing press, horse breeders did not invent the motorcar, and the music industry did not invent the iPod or launch iTunes. — Jason Epstein

From a rational standpoint, it might be expected that man should be far more willing to express financial confidence in his skills rather than risking his earnings on the mindless meanderings of chance. Experience, however, has strongly indicated the reverse proposition to hold true. — Richard Arnold Epstein

The acquisition of culture requires repose, sitting quietly in a room with a book, or alone with one's thoughts even any crowded concert or art museum. — Joseph Epstein

Of all the seven deadly sins, only Envy is no fun at all. — Joseph Epstein

One of the oldest mythological fables tells of Mercury playing at dice with Selene and winning from her the five days of the epact (thus totaling the 365 days of the year and harmonizing the lunar and solar calendars). — Richard Arnold Epstein

I went to an arts school as a kid. We had to take dance every other day, along with drama, music and visual arts. However, wearing black tights was something I dreaded ... and still have nightmares about it to this day. I think I was a pretty good dancer. I suppose that training helped me land parts in musicals ... or has just given me nightmares! — Jake Epstein

If you ever meet anyone who tells you his or her religion can offer all the answers, run for the hills. Or at least hide your wallet. — Greg M. Epstein

TRUMP IS EPSTEIN IN DISGUISE! — David Howard

The desire to avoid short-term hardships leads to major dislocations in [housing] markets. — Richard A. Epstein

Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food. — Joseph Epstein

The revolutionary process by which all books, old and new, in all languages, will soon be available digitally, at practically no cost for storage and delivery, to a radically decentralized world-wide market at the click of a mouse, is irreversible. — Jason Epstein

As a child, I had a serious illness that lasted for two years or more. I have vague recollections of this illness and of my being carried about a great deal. I was known as the 'sick one.' Whether this illness gave me a twist away from ordinary paths, I don't know; but it is possible. — Jacob Epstein

When we stop distancing ourselves from the pain in the world, our own or others', we create the possibility of a new experience, one that often surprises because of how much joy, connection, or relief it yields. Destruction may continue, but humanity shines through. — Mark Epstein

At bottom are only two pure forms of legislation - productive and redistributive. — Richard Allen Epstein

There is no life after death, so offer kindness to all, not in the next life but now. — Greg M. Epstein

The Buddha may well have been the original psychoanalyst, or, at least, the first to use the mode of analytic inquiry that Freud was later to codify and develop. — Mark Epstein

We have a thriving subculture of 'independent' American movies that makes an impact on America as a whole roughly equivalent to that of a the modern literary novel. These are the films sincere viewers marry, whereas, once upon a time, movies were a lifetime of one night stands. — Edward Jay Epstein

In demonstrating this, the Buddha was making an important example for the ages. For almost no one is exempt from trauma. While some people have it in a much more pronounced way than others, the unpredictable and unstable nature of things makes life inherently traumatic. What the Buddha revealed through his dreams was that, true as this may be, the mind, by its very nature, is capable of holding trauma much the way a mother naturally relates to a baby. One does not have to be helpless and fearful, nor does one have to be hostile and self-referential. The mind knows intuitively how to find a middle path. Its implicit relational capacity is hardwired. — Mark Epstein

Anger is sign that something needs to change. — Mark Epstein

And I'm sorry I ever called you an arrogant know-it-all." "I never heard you say that." "Well, it wasn't to your face. — Adam Jay Epstein

A recently deceased American Zen master and navy veteran, John Daido Loori, used to say that those who think Buddhism is just about stillness end up sitting very silently up to their necks in their own shit. — Mark Epstein

Why dont they stick to murder and leave art to us? — Jacob Epstein

I grew up reading comics. I was primarily an 'X-Men' fan, but I definitely dressed up as Spider-Man for Halloween when I was, like, 12 years old. Maybe younger than that. — Jake Epstein

The kids all literally think I'm Spider-Man, and they ask me how I shoot my webs. It's flattering and crazy, but it's Spider-Man they're in awe of, not Jake Epstein. — Jake Epstein

Brian Epstein was like all people who turn out to be of interest, someone who was of interest to himself. I hear this a lot now. There's a feeling of I am different. — Derek Taylor

My parents did not discourage me but could not understand how I could make a living by art. Their idea of an artist was a person who was condemned to starvation. — Jacob Epstein

Usually I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe in the Bilderbergers as a conspiracy or the Trilateralists. But I am certain that the Communists killed JFK. There is a super great book called 'Legend' by Edward Jay Epstein that makes it all perfectly clear. — Ben Stein

When I was six, Hitler, who had become rather a nuisance, launched a sustained attempt to destroy Liverpool, and though we lived several miles from the vulnerable docks target, our Childwall suburb became too close for comfort and safety. — Brian Epstein

I was obsessed with X-Men as a kid, and I would have to go and play every last one of them. My sister was obsessed with Barbies. So we would create these X-Men-Barbie combos and perform weird musicals where they interacted with each other. — Jake Epstein

These feelings of rage and distress and despair that you talk about," I said, circling something I knew I would have trouble articulating. "They only exist because of your original love for your father. They are like signposts back to that love. His leaving took that love with him, or appeared to, but you will see, if you stay with your meditation, that all of that love is still there in you. From the infant's perspective, it's directed at only one or two people, but even if they failed you, that capacity for love is still there in you. It's too bad for your father that he didn't get to know it - but there are plenty of people now who will be grateful for it. There's a whole roomful right here. — Mark Epstein

The Beatles were hard men too. Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool, which is like Hamburg or Norfolk, Virginia
a hard, sea-farin' town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. Ringo's from the Dingle, which is like the f***ing Bronx. The Rolling Stones were the mummy's boys
they were all college students from the outskirts of London. They went to starve in London, but it was by choice, to give themselves some sort of aura of disrespectability. I did like the Stones, but they were never anywhere near the Beatles
not for humour, not for originality, not for songs, not for presentation. All they had was Mick Jagger dancing about. Fair enough, the Stones made great records, but they were always s**t on stage, whereas the Beatles were the gear. — Lemmy Kilmister

I believe the evidence is clear that nuclear is the safest energy technology — Alex J. Epstein

Early eighteenth-century Italy saw facial powder at the center of the biggest scandal ever to befall a cosmetics manufacturer. A woman named Signora Toffana, who was well known in upper-class social circles, created a face powder that contained lead and arsenic and sold it to the wives of noblemen and the wealthy. The more affectionate the husband was with pecks on his wife's cheeks, the faster he died from the toxic powder. An estimated 600 husbands died this way, and Toffana was executed as an accomplice in their deaths. — Samuel S. Epstein

Envy is never general, but always very particular - at least envy of the kind one feels strongly. — Joseph Epstein

It's not so much that I mind listening to her stories. Everybody likes to have an audience - that's why most people have kids, isn't it? — Robin Epstein

Who wouldn't fancy Brian Epstein? He was tall and handsome and had money and class. — Cilla Black

I came from a huge extended family of musicians. — Jake Epstein

Early on I saw the plastic quality in colored people and had friends among them; and later was to work from colored models and friends, including Paul Robeson, whose splendid head I worked from in New York. I tried to draw Chinamen in their quarter, but the Chinese did not like being drawn and would immediately disappear when they spotted me. — Jacob Epstein

We are not dealing with a scientific problem. We are dealing with a political issue. — Samuel Epstein

A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream. Then Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive, popped it on the back of his three-man yacht, and turned it on. With a good scope, you could still see his ship going at a marginal percentage of the speed of light, heading out into the big empty. The best, longest funeral in the history of mankind. Fortunately, he'd left the plans on his home computer. The Epstein Drive hadn't given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets. — James S.A. Corey

The capacity for loving strangers, whether one thinks of them as fictional beings or stars one will never meet, is a profound reflection on the new consciousness whereby every individual leads his or life while aware of all the billions of other people on Earth. Perhaps it is a fantasy or a fallacy that we can feel for so many strangers. Perhaps it is a mask for selfishness. But no matter the modern stress on special effects, there isn't a sight in movies as momentous as shots of a face as its mind is being changed. And only movies have allowed that. — Edward Jay Epstein

You stand now between anarchy and law. The Police have done their duty. Let the jury have the same courage so that the police can indeed rest in peace. The flowers of spring shall bloom upon their graves moistened by the tears of a great city. Outraged and violated law shall be redeemed and in their martyrdom anarchy shall be buried forever. — Jason Epstein

Ringo, the last to become a Beatle, came into the group not because I wanted him, but because the boys did. To be completely honest, I was not at all keen to have him. I thought his drumming rather loud, his appearance unimpressive, and I could not see why he was important to the Beatles. But again I trusted their instincts and I am grateful now. He has become an excellent Beatle and a devoted friend. Ringo is warm and wry-witted, a good drummer, and I like him enormously. He is a very uncomplicated, very nice young man. — Brian Epstein

After five minutes, or ten, or fifteen - it doesn't matter - open your eyes and resume your day. For a moment or two things might seem more alive. — Mark Epstein

A civilization without retail bookstores is unimaginable. Like shrines and other sacred meeting places, bookstores are essential artifacts of human nature. The feel of a book taken from the shelf and held in the hand is a magical experience, linking writer to reader. — Jason Epstein

The reason 'closure' is a cliche is that it is used too often, too imprecisely, and doesn't in any case reflect reality. In reality, such closure in broken friendships and much else in life is rarely achieved; only death brings closure and then not always for those still living. — Joseph Epstein

The sense that just about anything goes with the collection of public revenues and the making of public expenditure has contributed mightily to the current malaise. — Richard A. Epstein

A wife, a lover, can perhaps never see what the artist sees. They rarely ever do. Perhaps a really mediocre artist has more chance of success. — Jacob Epstein

Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self preservation? (CIA Document, Project ARTICHOKE, MORI ID 144686, 1952)
As cited by Dr Ellen P. Lacter, p57 — Orit Badouk Epstein

I grew up in Canada and was a huge Spider-Man fan, and never thought of Spider-Man as an American hero. — Jake Epstein

Epstein came up with an elaborate plan, including TV ads, and presented it to the board. The board rejected it.
"It really came down to this," McCaffrey later said. "We have a limited budget. Do we want to put that money into the technology, into the infrastructure, into hiring really great people? Or do we want to blow it on a marketing campaign that we can't measure?" Larry and Sergey told Epstein that his interim stint was over — Steven Levy

When I was 9, I auditioned for an arts school in Toronto with a few of my friends. The sole reason we auditioned was that we found out you got to miss a couple days of school to do the audition. Without actually wanting to go to arts school, I accidentally got in. My parents encouraged me to try it, and I ended falling in love with performing. — Jake Epstein

Someone - Cyril Connolly? Ezra Pound? - once said that anything that can be read twice is literature; I would say that anything that bears saying twice is quotable. — Joseph Epstein

Meditation is not a means of forgetting the ego; it is a method of using the ego to observe and tame its own manifestations. — Mark Epstein

The study of human institutions is always a search for the most tolerable imperfections. — Richard A. Epstein

Those who consider themselves good teachers probably aren't. — Joseph Epstein

What, really, is wanted from a neighborhood? Convenience, certainly, an absence of major aggravation, to be sure. But perhaps mostof all, ideally, what is wanted is a comfortable background, a breathing space of intermission between the intensities of private life and the calculations of public life. — Joseph Epstein

Our basic suffering is rooted in a kind of original separation anxiety, which he called a "fear of life." We fear what has already irrevocably happened - separation from the greater whole - and yet we also come to fear the loss, in death, of this precious individuality. "Between these two fear possibilities," Rank wrote, "these poles of fear, the individual is thrown back and forth all his life, which accounts for the fact that we have not been able to trace fear back to a single root, or to overcome it therapeutically."8 — Mark Epstein

The Commerce Clause has already been inflated so much that we basically can't do anything without the government's permission. — Alex Epstein

There are no U-Turns or Exit Ramps in this life, move forward and don't look back. — John S. Epstein

For those that don't know much about 'American Idiot' or Green Day, just know that it's my generation's The Who's 'Tommy' or Pink Floyd's 'The Wall.' It was an album that really spoke to a generation. The theatrical show encapsulates that feeling and brings it to an even wider audience. — Jake Epstein

When you are young in this world, you believe that the class of deductive truths about social matters is larger than it turns out to be. [ ... ] I have discovered, to my infinite regret, that most of the serious debates over the basic principles of any political order have an irreducible empirical content. — Richard Allen Epstein

I believe it was Gayelord Hauser, the nutritionist, who said, 'You are what you eat,' but if you happen to be an intellectual, you are what you quote. — Joseph Epstein

Before you say anything censorious about anyone, ask yourself three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? If the answer to any one of these is even a qualified no, you'd best be quiet." And she remembered it. Miss — Helen Epstein

Well, I don't know about the dizzy height, but I always thought they were going to be pretty big. — Brian Epstein

A weakness of the random-walk model lies in its assumption of instantaneous adjustment, whereas the information impelling a stock market toward its "intrinsic value" gradually becomes disseminated throughout the market place. — Richard Arnold Epstein

The primary goal of publishing general fiction and non-fiction was never profit - though profit was essential to stay in the game. Publishing is a vocation in which the work is its own reward, an insufficient goal for today's conglomerates. — Jason Epstein

They say the personal is political and it's certainly fair to say that, like her politics, Rebecca Epstein's kissing is radical, forthright and uncompromising. — David Nicholls

There are pop managers, and then there's Simon Cowell, who isn't gay, Jewish or particularly riveting. He's not without interest but he doesn't exactly have the hinterland of, say, Brian Epstein. — Peter York

The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there is another kind of union than the one we imagine. In this union, achieved when the egocentric model of dualistic thinking is no longer dominant, we are not united with it, nor am I united with you, but we all just are. The movement from object to subject, as described in both Eastern meditation and modern psychotherapy, is training for this union, but its perception usually comes as a surprise, even when this shift is well under way. It is a kind of grace. The emphasis on sexual relations in the tantric teachings make it clear that the ecstatic surprise of orgasm is the best approximation of this grace. — Mark Epstein

Treatment of the apparently whimsical fluctuations of the stock quotations as truly non stationary processes requires a model of such complexity that its practical value is likely to be limited. An additional complication, not encompassed by most stock market models, arises from the manifestation of the market as a nonzero sum game. — Richard Arnold Epstein

Stillness does not mean the elimination of disturbances as much as a different way of viewing them. — Mark Epstein

My wife who is non-Jewish regrets it all the time that I can say these terrible things about fellow Jews and she can't. — Joseph Epstein

I wanted to be a soccer player. And then I wanted to be a rabbi. — Jake Epstein

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents, or the country of our birth.
We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death.
But within this realm of choicelessnness, we do choose how we live. — Joseph Epstein

'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,' if you go through the lyrics, is such a haunting melody, and the words are, for a pop song, pretty deep and dark. — Jake Epstein

Sleep debt is cumulative. Studies have shown that performance on tests of alertness and thinking continues to get worse the longer sleep deprivation lasts. In other words, we do not adapt to sleep deprivation. — Lawrence J. Epstein

Generalization, especially risky generalization, is one of the chief methods by which knowledge proceeds ... Safe generalizations are usually rather boring. Delete that "usually rather." Safe generalizations are quite boring. — Joseph Epstein

No one can yet tell me why I am able to forget what I wrote in articles and reviews that I once felt passionate about, and yet am able to recall the entire lyrics of Some Enchanted Evening — Joseph Epstein

I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies. The reason writers are such slow readers is that we are ceaselessly searching for things we can steal and then pass off as our own: a natty bit of syntax, a seamless transition, a metaphor that jumps to its target like an arrow shot from an aluminum crossbow. — Joseph Epstein

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, sentimental, foolish, a dope; disagree with someone one the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, cold-hearted, a sellout, evil-in league with the devil, he might say, if he didn't think religious terminology too coarse for our secular age. To this day one will hear of people who fell for Communism in a big way let off the hook because they were sincere; if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters, even if one's naive opinions made it easier for tyrants to murder millions. — Joseph Epstein

You're not going to find a graphic designer who also has extensive web experience and can write copy and manage your traffic team, too. — Andy Epstein

It is inescapable that Ringo was the catalyst for the others. He certainly completed the jigsaw and The Beatles, with Ringo, became a magnet for the great camera artists of the world, a target for the jaded, lately hostile eyes of people who had hardly known that popular music existed. — Brian Epstein

The protection of private property does more than promote market efficiency; it enhances the level of human freedom in the most intimate and personal parts of our lives. — Richard Allen Epstein

NCI now actually anticipates further increases, and not decreases, in cancer mortality rates, from 171/100,000 in 1984 to 175/100,000 by the year 2000! — Samuel Epstein

The discrepancy between what actually happened and the version of what happened provided by sources is an enormous gray area. — Edward Jay Epstein

The only way to find out where I was was to get out of the way and let myself happen. — Mark Epstein

The single thought that can empower us to empower the world: Mankind's use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous-because the human life is the standard of value, and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it wonderful for human life. — Alex Epstein

I won the family lottery. I come from the best family in the world. — Jake Epstein

It truly feels great to be a Cub today, — Theo Epstein

Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection. — Mark Epstein

Who can now deny the loss of natural light, of skin tones, of real place, and common but precious things in our movies, to be replaced by the gorgeous imagery of things that have never been and never will be? The most special effect in movies is always the human face when its mind is being changed. — Edward Jay Epstein

My sis, Gabi, is also an actor and singer. — Jake Epstein

We are losing the war against cancer. The prohibition of new carcinogenic products, reduction of toxins in use, and right-to-know laws - these are among the legislative proposals which could reverse the cancer epidemic. — Samuel Epstein

Well, then we got to know each other and eventually worked out a bit of idea of management. — Brian Epstein

Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly ... and discussing public question. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, liberties of citizens. The privilege of a citizen of the United States to use the streets and parks for communication of views on national questions may be regulated in the interest of all ... but it must not, in the guise of regulation, be abridged or denied. — Jason Epstein

If aspects of the person remain undigested-cut off, denied, projected, rejected, indulged, or otherwise unassimilated-they become the points around which the core forces of greed, hatred and delusion attach themselves. — Mark Epstein

I was a jock, hardcore sports all the way down the line, but I heard that if you auditioned for this arts school, you got time off school, and that sounded good to me. — Jake Epstein

Having released the wartime images he was carrying in his unconscious, he became worried that he would now be at their mercy, plagued by them in day as well as by night. But what he found was just the opposite. While he did retrieve the horrible images, he rediscovered a lost innocence as well. The beauty of the jungle, the glistening white sands of the Vietnamese beaches, and the intense greens of the rice paddies at dawn all filtered back to him. Not only did he remember his trauma, he remembered himself before his trauma. — Mark Epstein

One famous Japanese haiku illustrates the state that Sid managed to discover in himself. It is one that Joseph Goldstein has long used to describe the unique attentional posture of bare attention: The old pond. A frog jumps in. Plop!2 Like so much else in Japanese art, the poem expresses the Buddhist emphasis on naked attention to the often overlooked details of everyday life. Yet, there is another level at which the poem may be read. Just as in the parable of the raft, the waters of the pond can represent the mind and the emotions. The frog jumping in becomes a thought or feeling arising in the mind or body, while "Plop!" represents the reverberations of that thought or feeling, unelaborated by the forces of reactivity. The entire poem comes to evoke the state of bare attention in its utter simplicity. — Mark Epstein