„SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN FATE, OTHERS DON’T. I DO, and I don’t. It may seem at times as if invisible fingers move us about like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown.“
Fonte: Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft
Thor Heyerdahl2
1914 - 2002Citações relacionadas
„Some people skip through life; some people are dragged through it. I sometimes wonder whether we are moving through time or time is moving through us.“
— Donald Miller, livro Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality
Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)
„They discuss no strings. There, the people, they don’t discuss anything. You can’t beat the British, you’ve got to sit with them for hours. They talk about this, they talk about that.“
— Jakaya Kikwete Tanzanian politician and president 1950
On the fewer strings attached to China's assistance.
Interviews, Interview with Financial Times, 2007-10-04 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8a07e28-72a3-11dc-b7ff-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check1/
„Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people. But what we do know for sure is the terrorists are going to be at war with us a year, a year and a half from now.“
— Rudy Giuliani American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City 1944 - 2001
News conference (12 June 2007); as quoted in "Giuliani Sets Forth a Dozen Priorities for His Presidency" in The New York Times (13 June 2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/us/politics/13giuliani.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
„We’re only here for a little while, and you’ve got to have some fun, right? I don’t take myself seriously, and I think the ones that do, there’s some sickness with people like that. That’s why I live in Florida.“
— Burt Reynolds American actor, director and producer. 1936 - 2018
"Burt Reynolds Has Made Mistakes. But He Regrets Nothing." in The New York Times (23 March 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/movies/burt-reynolds-the-last-movie-star.html. Chosen as the Quote of the Day for 6 September 2018.
„I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.“
— Ronald Reagan American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989) 1911 - 2004
The third and fourth sentences are a paraphrase of a sentence by G. K. Chesterton: "I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act." Generally Speaking, "On Holland' (1928).
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Contexto: It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.
„I don’t think that we are a species or a people that can exist without making mistakes somewhere along the line.“
— Harry Belafonte American singer 1927
As quoted in Democracy Now! interview by Amy Goodman (30 January 2006)
Contexto: I don’t think that we are a species or a people that can exist without making mistakes somewhere along the line. Some make mistakes that are greater than others. But I do believe that we should have the courage and the ability to look at something that we did, even if in the first instance we believed it, when in the wake of the aftermath and the truth, you find out that that was not the case, to then say, 'Let me go back and examine what led me to this conclusion. What gods was I serving? What masters was I serving? What was it all about?' and then try to be more instructive to people who will listen to you.
„Why is space-time doomed? There are many reasons, among which: In string theory we can change the dimension of space-time by changing the strength of the string force. Thus, the so-called II-A string theory, which semi-classically describes closed strings moving in ten-dimensional flat space for very weak coupling is dual for strong coupling to a theory, called M-theory, that at low energies is described by eleven-dimensional supergravity. By increasing the string coupling we can grow an extra dimension. How can the spatial continuum be fundamental if the number of spatial dimensions can be so changed?“
— David Gross American particle physicist and string theorist 1941
"Einstein and the Search for Unification", p. 11 https://books.google.com/books?id=rEaUIxukvy4C&pg=PA11, in The legacy of Albert Einstein: a collection of essays in celebration of the year of physics (2007)
„I do not accept the view, widely held in the Federal Cabinet, that some kind of slow Asian takeover of Australia is inevitable. I do not believe that we are powerless. I do believe that we can with good will and good sense control our destiny…. As a people, we seem to move from extreme to extreme. In the past 30 years the government of Australia has moved from the extreme of wanting a white Australia to the extreme of saying that we will have an Asian Australia and that the quicker we move towards it the better.“
— Geoffrey Blainey Australian historian 1930
"The Dilemma of Asian Immigration," The Age (March 20, 1984)
„After we did the Super Bowl, we took so much s*it, and then we went on the biggest tour we’ve ever been on, it made me realize: okay some people really like what we do and some people really don’t – and we love them equally. I’m just happy and grateful to be a human, I don’t mind if you don’t love what we do but we do love what we do.“
— Chris Martin musician, co-founder of Coldplay 1977
http://www.billboard.com/amp/articles/news/8543058/chris-martin-super-bowl-backlash-successful-world-tour source
„Johnson: What do you think about this Vietnam thing? I’d like to hear you talk a little bit.
Russell: Well, frankly, Mr. President, it’s the damn worse mess that I ever saw, and I don’t like to brag and I never have been right many times in my life, but I knew that we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don’t see how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles. I just don’t see it. I just don’t know what to do.
Johnson: Well, that’s the way I have been feeling for six months.
Russell: Our position is deteriorating and it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less they are willing to do for themselves. It is a mess and it’s going to get worse, and I don’t know how or what to do. I don’t think the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. If I was going to get out, I’d get the same crowd that got rid of old Diem [the Vietnamese prime minister who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963] to get rid of these people and to get some fellow in there that said we wish to hell we would get out. That would give us a good excuse for getting out.
Johnson: How important is it to us?
Russell: It isn’t important a damn bit for all this new missile stuff.
Johnson: I guess it is important.
Russell: From a psychological standpoint. Other than the question of our word and saving face, that’s the reason that I said that I don’t think that anybody would expect us to stay in there. It’s going to be a headache to anybody that tries to fool with it. You’ve got all the brains in the country, Mr. President—you better get ahold of them. I don’t know what to do about this. I saw it all coming on, but that don’t do any good now, that’s water over the dam and under the bridge. And we are there.“
— Lyndon B. Johnson American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969) 1908 - 1973
1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)
„My friends, after years of hard work and treating people right, isn’t that what we all want to hear? Isn’t that America at our best? We don’t thrive on tearing each other apart, or separating ourselves. We know we are stronger together. We believe in equality and dignity for all. And when we fall short, we strive to do better, not to blame and scapegoat but to improve ourselves, to move toward becoming that more perfect union that our founders hoped for. This election is a chance for us to move still closer to that goal, to make sure everyone can contribute to a growing and prospering America, to say loudly and clearly in this country, no one’s worthless, no one’s ‘less than.’ We’re all of value. In the United States of America, the greatest country in the world, we believe everyone is created equal. And you know what else we believe? We all believe love trumps hate.“
— Hillary Clinton American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady 1947
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Orlando, Florida (September 21, 2016)
„In the beginning I felt like I wasn’t represented on stage or on film. As Latinos, we have been told in every which way that we don’t matter, that we are invisible — especially people who are indigenous, people who value their Native American roots. We’ve been eradicated, made invisible, and that’s one way that we’ve been disempowered. So, I realized the most powerful thing you can do is to own your humanity…“
— Josefina Lopez American playwright 1969
On her experiences in theater and arts as a whole in “Josefina López: ‘I became the protagonist of my story’” https://boyleheightsbeat.com/josefina-lopez-i-became-the-protagonist-of-my-story/ in Boyle Heights Beat (2018 Sep 19)
„This is the land of the free, and it always will be. As Americans, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights that no man or government can take away from us. But we've also long recognized, as our Founders recognized, that with rights come responsibilities. Along with our freedom to live our lives as we will comes an obligation to allow others to do the same. We don’t live in isolation. We live in a society, a government of, and by, and for the people. We are responsible for each other.“
— Barack Obama 44th President of the United States of America 1961
Remarks by the President and the Vice President on Gun Violence, 2013-01-16, January 16, 2013 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/16/remarks-president-and-vice-president-gun-violence,
2013
„I was born human. But this was an accident of fate - a condition merely of time and place. I believe it's something we have the power to change.“
— Kevin Warwick British robotics and cybernetics researcher 1954
in Kevin Warwick "Cyborg 1.0", Wired, pp.145-151, February 2000.
„I’m often called, so often called in the media, it’s like a part of my name “white supremacist” or whatever. I’m not one. I don’t want white people to be supreme. I don’t believe, in fact, that we should even have bases in 65 countries of the world I don’t think we should be in Iraq. I don’t believe we should try to control politics of the South American countries or the Southeast Asia or in Africa, or anywhere else in the world. But I do think we have a right to preserve our own culture, own heritage in our own country.“
— David Duke American White nationalist, white supremacist, writer, right-wing politician, and a former Republican Louisiana State R… 1950
Podcast (4 July 2006)
„Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.“
— Loren Eiseley US philosopher (1907-1977) 1907 - 1977
Fonte: The Unexpected Universe
„First-time novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don’t have a lot of promotional budget to throw at unknown factors like us. Mostly, we rise and fall based on word-of-mouth.“
— Cory Doctorow, livro Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
"A note about this book, January 9, 2003
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)
