Gassman Appliance Quotes & Sayings

Self persuasion was a concept much loved by evolutionary psychologists. I had written a piece about it for an Australian magazine. It was pure armchair science, and it went like this: if you lived in a group, like humans have always done, persuading others of your own needs and interests would be fundamental to your well-being. Sometimes you had to use cunning. Clearly you would be at your most convincing if you persuaded yourself first and did not even have to pretend to believe what you were saying. The kind of self-deluding individuals who tended to do this flourished, as did their genes. So it was we squabbled and scrapped, for our unique intelligence was always at the service of our special pleading and selective blindness to the weakness of our case. — Ian McEwan

From a large planet of overwhelming magnitude, unlimited resources and endless mystery, the Earth has suddenly become a small planet, thoroughly explored, limited in resources, and reduced in mystery. — Thomas Berry

There are lots of people in the world who do have the advantage of going to a good drama school and just decide that they want to be actors. There's nothing wrong with an untrained actor; they have to get their training somehow, they have to learn. — Erika Slezak

The era of procrastination ... is coming to a close ... we are entering a period of consequences - Winston Churchill (warning about the danger of appeasement — Al Gore

Muddled syntax is the outward and audible sign of confused minds, and the misuse of grammar the result of illogical thinking. — Quentin Crisp

We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the taproom and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The goal had been important only for the sake of finding the path to it. — Sten Nadolny

If you have to drag somebody to register, they're not highly motivated. — Roger Stone

Just as Huckleberry Finn was published, the first generation of African Americans raised in the postslavery era began to come of age. Among them were people with musical talent, and at first they went to work in minstrelsy, in the well-worn patterns of show business they'd inherited. — Dennis McNally

On no account would I do a picture which I should be unwilling to show to all the world - or at least all the artistic world. If I did not believe I could take pictures of all children without any lower motive than a pure love of Art, I would not ask it: and if I thought there was any fear of its lessening their beautiful simplicity of character, I would not ask it. I print all such pictures myself, and of course would not let any one see them without your permission. I fear you will reply that the one insuperable objection is "Mrs. Grundy"
that people will be sure to hear that such pictures have been done, and that they will talk. As to their hearing of it, I say "of course. All the world are welcome to hear of it, and I would not an any account suggest to the children to mention it - which would at once introduce an objectionable element" - but as to people talking about it, I will only quote the grand old monkish legend: They say: Quhat do they say? Lat them say! — Lewis Carroll

The sovereign quality of wilderness is the same wherever encountered ... Each manifestation has an unshackled quality-each stirs untapped longings-each gives a fillip to living-each has an unsurpassed lilt which bursts from the deepest wellsprings of life. These are the realities found in the wilderness of the Great Smoky Mountains. — Harvey Broome

When we die the only judge we have is ourselves. We see our life played out in a hologram of knowledge that our earth souls cannot understand. We see all at once how each word and each action affected the lives of the people around us. How a moment of kindness can change a life and a sharp word can affect someone for ever. Words and actions are far more powerful than we realise. It's the pebble-in-the-lake effect-even the tiniest pebble thrown into water will create ripples right across the lake. We don't need to be punished because, when we have viewed the consequences of our actions on all the souls we have met, we have remorse enough. I believe there is no external judge. We must face ourselves. — Michele Knight

Everyone understood [Charlie Hebdo], as people had understood for hundreds of years, knowing that Rabelaisian tradition of French satire, they knew how to read it. And they understood the kind of release from piety that it represented every week. — Scott Simon