Ucles 2019 Quotes & Sayings

More men have become great through practice than by nature. — Democritus

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order: there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Back in middle school, Catherine and I had gone through this stage where all we would read were fantasy books. We'd consume them like M&M's, by the fistful, J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks and Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander. Susan Boone looked, to me, like the queen of the elves (there's almost always an elf queen in fantasy books). I mean, she was shorter than me and had on a strange lineny outfit in pale blues and greens ... — Meg Cabot

My mum, in addition to trying to mutilate me with lobsters, always told me that shy kids get nothing. — Douglas Black

At last, when no one else came, Mother Sleep soothed with her soft caresses the wounded heart of the motherless lad. — Rabindranath Tagore

So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name. — Alan Bennett

(While interviewing The University Student
'Oh, poor Xinran. You haven't even got the various categories of women straight. How can you possibly hope to understand men? Let me tell you. When men have been drinking, they come out with a set of definitions for women. Lovers are "swordfish", tasty but with sharp bones. "Personal secretaries" are "carp", the longer you "stew" them, the more flavour they have. Other men's wives are "Japanese puffer fish", trying a mouthful could be the end of you, but risking death is a source of pride.'
'And what about their own wives?'
'Salt cod, because it keeps for a long time. When there is no other food, salt cod is cheap and convenient. — Xinran

The critical spirit rises up against itself and consumes its form. But instead of coming out of this process greater and purified, it devours itself in a kind of self-cannibalism and takes a morose pleasure in annihilating itself. Hyper-criticism eventuates in self-hatred, leaving behind it only ruins. A new dogma of demolition is born out of the rejection of dogmas. Thus we euro-americans are supposed to have only one obligation: endlessly atoning for what we have inflicted on other parts of humanity. How can we fail to see that this leads us to live off self-denunciation while taking a strange pride in being the worst? Self-denigration is all too clearly a form of indirect self-glorification. Evil can come only from us; other people are motivated by sympathy, good will, candor. This is the paternalism of the guilty conscience: seeing ourselves as the kings of infamy is still a way of staying on the crest of history. — Pascal Bruckner

Growing older I descend November. The asymptotic cycle of the year plummets to now. In crystal reveries I pass beneath a fixed white line of trees where dry leaves lie for footsteps to dismember. They crackle with a muted sound like fear. That and the wind are all that I can hear. I ask cold air, "What is the word that frees?" The wind says, "Change," and the white sun, "Remember." - from Electra — Samuel R. Delany