Ideas

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
--John Cage

Don't Even Know

We don't even know what we are, where we come from, why we're here, what we're supposed to do. How can we know the nature of something much bigger than us? We are limited by sight, hearing, physical senses, smells, tastes, thoughts, emotions. How can we think these tools give us a clear picture of what is beyond self-preservation in an unknown sea of hazards? Why do we feel we need God, a notion or understanding of God? Isn't it to feel safe?
--Steve Eatenson

Markets

The markets didn't crash because we were paying too much to teachers.
--Eric Schneiderman (Attorney General, New York State)

More Is More

My editor at Random House, Joe Fox, used to tell me, "Stanley, less is more." He wanted to strike--oh, he had a marvelous eye for the "good" stuff--and that's what he wanted to strike. I had to fight him tooth and nail in the better restaurants to maintain excess because I don't believe that less is more. I believe that more is more. I believe that less is less, fat fat, thin thin and enough is enough.
--Stanley Elkin

Again

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
--Walt Whitman

Humble

Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy of the interposition of a deity. More humble and I think truer is to consider him created from animals.
--Charles Darwin

Cuts

If too many Americans don't believe in or understand what government does to help them, to offset recessions, to protect their security in retirement and in hard times, to maintain the infrastructure, to provide educational opportunities and health care decent enough to offset the disadvantages so many are born with...if those functions are unknown, underfunded, and/or carried out poorly, why should they care about how much this deal or the next one cuts?
--Jared Bernstein

Capital Gains

In my experience earning income from capital gains is a lot easier than earning ordinary income. Why not tax both at the same rate? It only seems fair.
--Leonard E. Burman (deputy assistant Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration)

Values

The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over adversity.
--Jared Diamond

Kindness

I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverance for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
--Brendan Behan

Black Dots

Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.
--Vincent van Gogh

Social Media

Social media isn't about having a conversation with people you know. It's about advertising yourself. It's not social; it's media. Real conversations don't happen in public.
--Erin Biba

Storytelling

Every political failure in a democracy begins with bad storytelling. When false narratives and incoherent story lines dominate public conversation, poor decisions are sure to follow.
--Gene Lyons

Learning

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.
--Leon Trotsky

Not A Thing

When the recession began there were many wise words about having learnt the lessons of both the Great Depression and Japan's long malaise. Now we know we didn't learn a thing.
--Joseph Stiglitz

Double Dip

I keep wondering when they'll stop saying "double-dip recession," making it sound like a Baskin-Robbins promotion. I keep wondering when they'll start saying the dread D-word: Depression.
--Ron Rosenbaum

Climate Change

The whole situation sort of reminds me of Trotsky's quip about the dialectic. Neither Governor Perry nor the bulk of Texas' citizens may be interested in climate change, but climate change is interested in them.
--Matthew Yglesias

The Economy

Our hearts want government to come through and save the economy. But our heads know that it's not going to happen. And that failure, in turn, is only going to further weaken institutional legitimacy across the U.S. and the world. It's a vicious cycle.
--Felix Salmon

Solidarity

The opposite of solidarity is dog-eat-dog, which, if we had to choose a motto for the last quarter century of American history, would work as well as any.
--Christopher Hayes

Beauty

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
--Franz Kafka

It's Always Something

When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health, you worry about getting rupture or something. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death.
--J. P. Donleavy