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Greg McKeown (author)

Greg McKeown, (born in London, England, in 1977) is a public speaker, business thought leader, consultant, and a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author. He is also the founder and CEO of THIS, Inc., a leadership and strategy design agency in Silicon Valley. McKeown is a popular blogger for the Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn’s Influencers group, and his writing has appeared in, or been covered by, Fast Company, Fortune, HuffPost, Politico, and Inc. Magazine.

McKeown has dedicated his career to discovering why some people and organizations break through to the next level—and others don’t.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

 * "...only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter."
 * "To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make."
 * "Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?"
 * "The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default.
 * "If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will."
 * * "...the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place."
 * "We can either make our choices deliberately or allow other people's agendas to control our lives."
 * “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”
 * "Whatever decision or challenge or crossroads you face in your life, simply ask yourself, “What is essential?” Eliminate everything else."
 * “There should be no shame in admitting to a mistake; after all, we really are only admitting that we are now wiser than we once were.”
 * “Many capable people are kept from getting to the next level of contribution because they can’t let go of the belief that everything is important.”
 * “If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.”
 * “What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”

Journal Articles

 * “It never ceases to amaze me how often I ask people, “What do you really want?” and they look at me blankly, unable to articulate the answer. It’s not that they don’t want things, it’s just that they don’t have a high level of clarity regarding the matter.”
 * “We live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable.”
 * “Life today is fast and full of opportunity. The complication is we think we have to do everything. The implication of this is we end up being pulled into endless distractions without pausing to really think. My position is we can make a different choice. We can discern what is really essential. We can design a life that really matters.”
 * “Here is the #1 myth that kills people's productivity: 'if you fit it all in, you can have it all.'”
 * “A hundred years from now, when people look back at this period, they will marvel at the stupidity of it all: the stress, the motion sickness, and the self-neglect we put ourselves through. So we have two choices. We can be among the last people caught up in the “more bubble” when it bursts, or we can see the madness for what it is and join the growing community of Essentialists and get more of what matters in our one precious life.”
 * “The bottom line is this: if you want to engage your employees at a whole new level, if you want to become a person of greater influence, and if you want to discover a new kind of power — listen.”
 * “To develop meaningful and mature relationships at work or at home we need to develop two filters. The first filter protects you from other people. The second filter protects other people from you.”
 * “The point I wish to emphasize is not an economic one, but a human one: if you try to say too many things, you don’t say anything at all.”
 * “If we “hire slow, fire fast” we can increase what Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has called the “talent density” of our organizations. It is not easy. It takes having hard conversations. It takes leadership. Still, if we can do it then, ultimately, people, teams and organizations win.”
 * “Often we try to bring about change through sheer effort and we put all of our energy into a new initiative. But you can’t beat stress using the same techniques that created the stress in the first place.”
 * “Achieving strategic clarity is hard. It takes asking tough questions about tradeoffs, deep concentration to get to the very essence of the issues and real courage to cut off competing priorities. It is worth the effort because with real clarity, people, teams and organizations can fully mobilize, break through to the next level and achieve something truly great.”
 * “If success is a catalyst for failure because it leads to the “undisciplined pursuit of more,” then one simple antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less. Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials.”
 * ““What will we say no to?” It is that question that will reveal the real tensions in your team. It is that question that will uncover the core trade-offs in your organization. It is that question that can deliver the rare and precious clarity necessary to achieve game-changing breakthroughs in your business.”
 * “Simply put, when you invite people’s best thinking and lead like a multiplier, your team will give you more—more discretionary effort, more mental and physical energy, and more of the fresh ideas critical for long-term success.”

Twitter

 * “Everything changes when we give ourselves permission to be more selective in what we choose to do.”
 * “Every time we check email, we're checking somebody else's agenda.”
 * “Say no to many good things so you can say yes to a few great things.”
 * “When we push back effectively, it shows people that our time is valuable. It distinguishes the professional from the amateur.”
 * “Saying no is its own leadership capability. It is not just a peripheral skill.”
 * “By abolishing any chance of being bored we have also lost the time we used to have to think and process.”
 * “Discern more; do less.”
 * “You can do a few things superbly well, or a lot of things averagely well.”
 * “Very successful people are absurdly selective.”
 * “Effort and results do not share a linear relationship.”
 * “There is value in NOT doing a thing.”
 * “So many smart people get snared in the death grip of the nonessential.”
 * “There are only two forces in the world that simplify organizations: one is failure, the other is leadership.”
 * “Making hard trade-offs is where leadership is tested.”
 * "People will plateau at exactly the same level that their selectivity plateaus."
 * “If you are too busy to think then you are too busy.”

title: Greg McKeown (author)


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Social constructionism

Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality.

Quotes

 * A fundamental problem in such studies stems from the long tradition that has regarded artistic productions as social facts. by regarding such productions as social facts the analyst is relieved of the burden of demonstrating what meanings these productions have for the artist and his audience. It is too frequently assumed that such meanings can be identified by a capable analyst, independent of the interpretations brought to such works by the artist or his audiences. In my judgement artist productions must be seen as interactional creations; the meanings of which arise out of the interactions directed to them by the artist and his audience.
 * Norman Denzin, quoted in The Sociology of Rock by Simon Frith, 1978, ISBN 0094602204

 * Those who say that all historical accounts are ideological constructs (which is one version of the idea that there is really no historical truth) rely on some story which must itself claim historical truth. They show that supposedly "objective" historians have tendentiously told their stories from some particular perspective; they describe, for example, the biasses that have gone into constructing various histories of the United States. Such an account, as a particular piece of history, may very well be true, but truth is a virtue that is embarrassingly unhelpful to a critic who wants not just to unmask past historians of America but to tell us that at the end of the line there is no historical truth. It is remarkable how complacent some "deconstructive" histories are about the status of the history that they deploy themselves.
 * Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (2002)

 * A further turn is to be found in some "unmasking" accounts of natural science, which aim to show that its pretensions to deliver the truth are unfounded, because of social forces that control its activities. Unlike the case of history, these do not use truths of the same kind; they do not apply science to the criticism of science. They apply the social sciences, and typically depend on the remarkable assumption that the sociology of knowledge is in a better position to deliver truth about science than science is to deliver truth about the world.
 * Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (2002)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Social constructionism


text:
Norman K. Denzin

Norman K. Denzin (born March 24, 1941) is an American sociologist and Distinguished Professor of Communications.

Quotes

 * A fundamental problem in such studies stems from the long tradition that has regarded artistic productions as social facts. By regarding such productions as social facts the analyst is relieved of the burden of demonstrating what meanings these productions have for the artist and his audience. It is too frequently assumed that such meanings can be identified by a capable analyst, independent of the interpretations brought to such works by the artist or his audiences. In my judgement artist productions must be seen as interactional creations; the meanings of which arise out of the interactions directed to them by the artist and his audience.

title: Norman K. Denzin


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John Dean

John W. Dean III (born 1938) was White House counsel to Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1972. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a significant witness for the prosecution resulted in a reduced prison sentence. After his plea, he was disbarred.

Quotes

 * We have a cancer within, close to the presidency, that's growing.
 * Said to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal (Tape of March 21, 1973).

 * I'm anything but skittish about government, but I must say this administration is truly scary and, given the times we live in, frighteningly dangerous.

 * This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration, Stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.
 * Memorandum from Dean to Lawrence Higby dated August 16, 1971, regarding the purpose of Nixon's Enemies List

Authoritarian Nightmare (2020)

 * Brooklyn: Melville House. Co-written with Bob Altemeyer in third-person narrative style.

 * Eternal vigilance. Remember, no one said democracy would be easy.
 * p. 282

title: John Dean


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Jimmy Stewart

James Maitland Stewart (20 May 1908 – 2 July 1997), popularly known as Jimmy Stewart, was an Academy Award-winning American film and stage actor, best known for his self-effacing screen persona. In his military career he reached the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force Reserve.

Quotes

 * When I got back from the war in 1946 people didn't want the Mr. Smith kind of movie any more, and I refused to make war pictures.
 * On how he started doing westerns, as quoted in "Innocent Revisited" in TIME magazine (29 June 1970)

 * I've always been skeptical of people who say they lose themselves in a part. Someone once came up to Spencer Tracy and asked, "Aren't you tired of always playing Tracy?" Tracy replied, "What am I supposed to do, play Bogart?" You have to develop a style that suits you and pursue it, not just develop a bag of tricks.
 * As quoted in "Innocent Revisited" in TIME magazine (29 June 1970)

 * If you can do a part and not have the acting show.
 * A definition of good acting, given in an interview on WNET TV (13 March 1987); sometimes quoted as "It’s well done if you can do a part and not have the acting show."

 * I've sort of gotten into the habit of looking for the vulnerable guy, the guy who makes mistakes, the guy who can't figure things out all the time but keeps at it.
 * On roles he looks for, as quoted in "Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart dead at 89" at CNN (2 July 1997)

 * Hollywood dishes out too much praise for small things I won't let it get me, but too much praise can turn a fellow's head if he doesn't watch his step.
 * As quoted in "Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart dead at 89" at CNN (2 July 1997)

 * I'm going to be with Gloria now.
 * His last words, about his wife Gloria, who had died in 1994, as quoted in "Morbid Fascination" by Emily Yoffe in Slate (4 December 1997)

 * Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.
 * As quoted in The Ultimate Writer's Guide to Hollywood (2004) by Skip Press, p. 199

Quotes about Stewart

 * I don't go to movies very much. In fact, I never cared for them. But when I do go, I like to watch Jimmy Stewart. I met him when he was making Strategic Air Command at St. Petersburg, Fla. and like him very much.
 * Stan Musial, as quoted in "The Scoreboard: private life of Stan Musial" by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (May 15, 1955), Sec. 4, p. 3

Movie roles and quotes

 * Rope: Rupert Cadell
 * Harvey: Elwood P. Dowd
 * It's a Wonderful Life: George Bailey
 * Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: Jefferson Smith
 * Vertigo: Detective John 'Scottie" Ferguson
 * The Philadelphia Story: Macaulay 'Mike' Connor
 * Rear Window: L.B. Jeffries

title: Jimmy Stewart


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User:Vespristiano~enwikiquote/Sandbox

This is where I store quotations I am in the process of editing.

"Because information is exploding, (the Internet) is going to become increasingly difficult to use if we don't get it right," said Liesl Capper, chief executive of Australian search startup Mooter. http://www.mooter.com/moot

http://www.newsobserver.com/24hour/technology/story/1242481p-8287334c.html

title: User:Vespristiano~enwikiquote/Sandbox


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György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti (28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Jewish Hungarian composer, widely seen as one of the great composers of instrumental music of the 20th century.

Quotes

 * Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it’s not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape.
 * A lecture at the New England Conservatory in 1993, quoted on

Quotes about Ligeti

 * You need three or five hands to play Ligeti.
 * Alfred Brendel, quoted in: "The Music of Ligeti – May 20, 2006," at aventa.ca, 2006.

title: György Ligeti


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Richard Brautigan

Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – September 1984) was an American novelist and poet associated with the Beat Generation.

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster

 * Dell Publishing (Delta), 1968 (Some poems in this edition first appeared elsewhere.)

 * A friend came over to the house a few days ago and read one of my poems. He came back today and asked to read the same poem over again. After he finished reading it, he said, "It makes me want to write poetry."
 * "Hey! This Is What It's All About"

 * I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.
 * "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace"

 * if a girl likes me a lot and starts getting real nervous and suddenly begins asking me funny questions and looks sad if I give the wrong answers and she says things like, "Do you think it's going to rain?" and I say, "It beats me," and she says, "Oh," and looks a little sad at the clear blue California sky, I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time Instead of me.
 * "It's Raining In Love"

Rommel Drives on deep into Egypt

 * Dell Publishing (Delta), 1970 (Some poems in this edition first appeared elsewhere.)

 * Forsaken, fucking in the cold, eating each other, lost runny noses, complaining all the time like so many people that we know
 * "Donner Party"

 * Thinking hard about you I got on the bus and paid 30 cents car fare and asked the driver for two transfers before discovering that I was alone.
 * "30 cents, Two Transfers, Love"

 * Everybody wants to go to bed with everybody else, they're lined up for blocks, so I'll go to bed with you. They won't miss us.
 * "-2"

Trout Fishing In America

 * Dell Publishing (Delta), 1967 (Some chapters of this novel first appeared elsewhere.)

 * There are seductions that should be in the Smithsonian Institute, right next to The Spirit of St. Louis.
 * Epigram at the end of the table of contents. (Underlining in source.)

 * Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were suddenly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool and the sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing that smelled the most like sheep, was the sun itself. When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of sheep decreased, like standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a cup of coffee.
 * Page 50

 * ... the Coleman lantern is the symbol of the camping craze that is currently sweeping America, with its unholy white light burning in the forests of America.
 * Page 73.

The Tokyo-Montana Express

 * Delacorte, 1980

 * All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.
 * Page 150

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away

 * Delacorte, 1982

 * I didn't know the full dimensions of forever, but I knew it was longer than waiting for Christmas to come.
 * Page 38

An Unfortunate Woman: A Journey

 * St. Martins Press, 2000

 * Probably the closest things to perfection are the huge absolutely empty holes that astronomers have recently discovered in space. If there's nothing there, how can anything go wrong?
 * Page 15

title: Richard Brautigan


text:
William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830) was an English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism. He is sometimes esteemed the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson.

Quotes

 * The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.
 * Review of Lord Byron's Childe Harold in Yellow Dwarf (2 May 1818), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, ed. A.R. Waller and Arnold Glover (1902-1904)

 * Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
 * "Thoughts on Taste", Edinburgh Magazine (July 1819), final paragraph

 * We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
 * "Thoughts on Taste," Edinburgh Magazine, (October 1818), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

 * Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
 * "On The Conduct of Life" (1822), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

 * Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits, and you will pass for a fine man.
 * "On The Conduct of Life" (1822)

 * You know more of a road by having travelled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
 * "On The Conduct of Life" (1822)

 * The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
 * "Common Places," No. 1, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

 * A scholar is like a book written in a dead language — it is not every one that can read in it.
 * "Common Places," No. 13, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)

 * I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.
 * "Common Places," No. 60, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)

 * Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols — it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.
 * "Common Places," No. 76, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)

 * Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
 * Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1824), ch. XVI

 * If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power, for you necessarily feel some towards him; and since he will take no denial, you must comply with his peremptory demands, or send for a constable, which out of respect for his character you will not do.
 * "On The Want Of Money," Monthly Magazine (January 1827), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

 * Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for — they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?
 * "The Modern Gradus ad Parnassum," London Weekly Review (17 May 1828), reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt (1925), edited by P. P. Howe

 * The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
 * "American Literature — Dr. Channing," Edinburgh Review, (October 1829), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

 * The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.
 * Burke and the Edinburgh Phrenologists in The Atlas (15 February 1829); reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt, William Hazlitt and Percival Presland Howe (ed.), (2nd edition, 1925), p. 117; also reprinted in The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, Volume 20: Miscellaneous writings, (J.M. Dent and Sons, 1934), (AMS Press, 1967), p. 201

 * When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
 * "On The Spirit of Controversy," The Atlas (30 January 1830), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

 * Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
 * "The Sick Chamber," The New Monthly Magazine (August 1830), reprinted in Essays of William Hazlitt, selected and edited by Frank Carr (London, 1889)

 * Well, I've had a happy life.
 * Last words (18 September 1830), quoted by his grandson, William Carew Hazlitt, in Memoirs of William Hazlitt (1867) vol. II, p. 238

The Eloquence of the British Senate (1808)

 * General principles are not the less true or important because, from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence which binds the world together and holds the planets in their orbits.
 * "Edmund Burke"

The Round Table (1815-1817)

 * The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.
 * "On the Literary Character" (28 October 1813)

 * They are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream; a studied madness.
 * "On Actors and Acting" (The Examiner, 5 January 1817)

The extreme stress laid upon differences of minor importance, to the neglect of more general truths and broader views of things, gives an inverted bias to the understanding; and this bias is continually increased by the eagerness of controversy, and captious hostility to the prevailing system. A party-feeling of this kind once formed will insensibly communicate itself to other topics; and will be too apt to lead its votaries to a contempt for the opinions of others, a jealousy of every difference of sentiment, and a disposition to arrogate all sound principle as well as understanding to themselves, and those who think with them. We can readily conceive how such persons, from fixing too high a value on the practical pledge which they have given of the independence and sincerity of their opinions, come at last to entertain a suspicion of every one else as acting under the shackles of prejudice or the mask of hypocrisy. All those who have not given in their unqualified protest against received doctrines and established authority, are supposed to labour under an acknowledged incapacity to form a rational determination on any subject whatever. Any argument, not having the presumption of singularity in its favour, is immediately set aside as nugatory. '''There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice. For this last implies not only the practical conviction that it is right, but the theoretical assumption that it cannot be wrong.''' From considering all objections as in this manner "null and void,” the mind becomes so thoroughly satisfied with its own conclusions, as to render any farther examination of them superfluous, and confounds its exclusive pretensions to reason with the absolute possession of it.
 * There is a natural tendency in sects to narrow the mind.
 * "On the Tendency of Sects"

 * Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
 * "On Manner"

 * Grace in women has more effect than beauty.
 * "On Manner"

 * Grace is the absence of every thing that indicates pain or difficulty, or hesitation or incongruity.
 * "On Beauty"

Lecture I, "On Poetry in General"

 * All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.

 * Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.

 * The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner, and by the most striking examples of the same quality in other instances.

Lecture III, "On Shakespeare and Milton"

 * The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser, remoteness; of Milton, elevation; of Shakespeare, every thing.

Lecture VIII, "On the Living Poets"

 * The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of dead men.

 * He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.

 * The love of fame, as it enters at times into his mind, is only another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority — that of time.

Political Essays (1819)

 * Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters (1819)

 * I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party-man : I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools; and this feeling I have expressed as often and as strongly as I could. I cannot sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power, and have tried to expose the little arts of sophistry by which they are defended. I have no mind to have my person made a property of, nor my understanding made a dupe of. I deny that liberty and slavery are convertible terms, that right and wrong, truth and falsehood, plenty and famine, the comforts or wretchedness of a people, are matters of perfect indifference. That is all I know of the matter; but on these points I am likely to remain incorrigible, in spite of any arguments that I have seen used to the contrary. It needs no sagacity to discover that two and two make four; but to persist in maintaining this obvious position, if all the fashion, authority, hypocrisy, and venality of mankind were arrayed against it, would require a considerable effort of personal courage, and would soon leave a man in a very formidable minority.
 * ""Preface"

 * The Tory is one who is governed by sense and habit alone. He considers not what is possible, but what is real; he gives might the preference over right. He cries long life to the conqueror, and is ever strong upon the stronger side — the side of corruption and prerogative.
 * "Preface"

 * Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
 * "On the Clerical Character" (January/February 1818)

 * It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
 * "On Court-Influence" (January 3/January 10, 1818)

 * We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.
 * "On Court-Influence" (January 3/January 10, 1818)

 * The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
 * "The Times Newspaper"

Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

 * Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
 * "On Wit and Humour"

 * Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees; or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.
 * "On Wit and Humour"

 * Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
 * "On Wit and Humour"

 * Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.
 * "On Wit and Humour"

 * Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.
 * "On Wit and Humour"

Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners (1821-1822)

 * Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.
 * "On the Pleasure of Painting"

 * First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.
 * "On the Knowledge of Character"

 * Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
 * "On the Knowledge of Character"

 * Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.
 * "On the Knowledge of Character"

 * One has no notion of him as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist; his style stuns readers...He is too much for any single newspaper antagonist; "lays waste" a city orator or Member of Parliament, and bears hard upon the government itself. He is kind of fourth estate in the politics of the country.
 * "On the Character of Cobbett"

 * He changes his opinions as he does his friends, and much on the same account. He has no comfort in fixed principles; as soon as anything is settled in his own mind, he quarrels with it. He has no satisfaction but the chase after truth, runs a question down, worries and kills it, then quits it like a vermin, and starts some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his heels and the leaders perpetually at fault.
 * "On the Character of Cobbett"

 * Scholars, like princes, may learn something by being incognito. Yet we see those who cannot go into a bookseller's shop, or bear to be five minutes in a stage-coach, without letting you know who they are. They carry their reputation about with them as the snail does its shell, and sit under its canopy, like the lady in the lobster. I cannot understand this at all. What is the use of a man's always revolving round his own little circle? He must, one should think, be tired of it himself, as well as tire other people.
 * "On People With One Idea"

 * Any one who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.
 * "On the Ignorance of the Learned"

 * Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge.
 * "On the Ignorance of the Learned"

 * The thing is plain. All that men really understand is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know and motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and imposture.
 * "On the Ignorance of the Learned"

 * The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.
 * "On the Ignorance of the Learned"

 * It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.
 * "On the Ignorance of the Learned"

 * If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.
 * "On the Ignorance of the Learned"

 * Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) — neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice.
 * "The Indian Jugglers"

 * No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
 * "The Indian Jugglers"

 * What I mean by living to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it: it is as if no one know there was such a person, and you wished no one to know it: it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination to make or meddle with it.
 * "On Living to One's-Self"

 * Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!
 * "On Living to One's-Self"

 * There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
 * "On Living to One's-Self"

 * When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? No!
 * "On Living to One's-Self"

 * Thought depends on the habitual exercise of the speculative faculties; action, on the determination of the will. The one assigns reasons for things, the other puts causes into act. … Such is the effeminacy of the speculative and philosophical temperament, compared with the promptness and vigour of the practical! … Reasoners in general are undecided, wavering, and sceptical, or yield at last to the weakest motive as most congenial to their feeble habit of soul.
 * "On Thought and Action"

 * The great requisite … for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination.
 * "On Thought and Action"

 * It [will-making] is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition … This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite. All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so (in settling accounts with those who are so unmannerly as to survive us) as to do as little good, and to plague and disappoint as many people, as possible.
 * "On Will-Making"

 * His hypothesis goes to this — to make the common run of his readers fancy they can do all that can be done by genius, and to make the man of genius believe he can only do what is to be done by mechanical rules and systematic industry. This is not a very feasible scheme; nor is Sir Joshua sufficiently clear and explicit in his reasoning in support of it.
 * "On Certain Inconsistencies in Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses"

 * It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements — not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses.
 * "On Paradox and Common-Place"

 * Of the two classes of people, I hardly know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgar aping the genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to distinguish themselves from the vulgar. … True worth does not exult in the faults and deficiencies of others; as true refinement turns away from grossness and deformity, instead of being tempted to indulge in an unmanly triumph over it. … Real power, real excellence, does not seek for a foil in inferiority; nor fear contamination from coming in contact with that which is coarse and homely.
 * "On Vulgarity and Affectation"

 * Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
 * "On Vulgarity and Affectation"

 * Our first of poets was one of our first of men. He was an eminent instance to prove that a poet is not another name for the slave of power and fashion … who merely aspire to make up the pageant and show of the day. There are persons in common life who … can so little bear to be left for any length of time out of the grand carnival and masquerade of pride and folly, that they will gain admittance to it at the expense of their characters … Milton was not one of these. He had lofty contemplative principle, and consciousness of inward power and worth, [not] to be tempted by such idle baits.
 * "On Milton's Sonnets"

 * One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to do it myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.
 * "On Going on a Journey"

 * I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.
 * "On Going on a Journey"

 * The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.
 * "On Going on a Journey"

 * Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner — and then to thinking! … I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.
 * "On Going on a Journey"

 * I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.
 * "On Going on a Journey"

 * It is strange that people should take so much interest at one time in what they so soon forget; — the truth is, they feel no interest in it [news of the day] at any time, but it does for something to talk about. Their ideas are served up to them, like their bill of fare, for the day; and the whole creation, history, war, politics, morals, poetry, metaphysics, is to them like a file of antedated newspapers, of no use, not even for reference, except the one which lies on the table! You cannot take any of these persons at a greater disadvantage than before they are provided with their cue for the day. They ask with a face of dreary vacuity, 'Have you anything new?' — and on receiving an answer in the negative, have nothing further to say.
 * "On Coffee-House Politicians"

 * We cannot by a little verbal sophistry confound the qualities of different minds, nor force opposite excellences into a union by all the intolerance in the world. … If we have a taste for some one precise style or manner, we may keep it to ourselves and let others have theirs. If we are more catholic in our notions, and want variety of excellence and beauty, it is spread abroad for us to profusion in the variety of books and in the several growth of men's minds, fettered by no capricious or arbitrary rules.
 * "On Criticism"

 * The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics — mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.
 * "On Criticism"

 * It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes... It is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it, out of eight or ten words equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pretensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible, but decisive.
 * "On Familiar Style" (1821)

 * Very trifling circumstances do give great and daily annoyance, and as often prove too much for our philosophy and forbearance, as matters of the highest moment. … The truth is, we pamper little griefs into great ones, and bear great ones as well as we can … To great evils we submit; we resent little provocations.
 * "On Great and Little Things"

 * If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
 * "On Great and Little Things"

 * Whatever is placed beyond the reach of sense and knowledge, whatever is imperfectly discerned, the fancy pieces out at its leisure; and all but the present moment, but the present spot, passion claims for its own, and brooding over it with wings outspread, stamps it with an image of itself. Passion is lord of infinite space, and distant objects please because they border on its confines and are moulded by its touch.
 * "Why Distant Objects Please"

 * There is (so to speak) "a mighty stream of tendency" to good in the human mind, upon which all objects float and are imperceptibly borne along; and though in the voyage of life we meet with strong rebuffs, with rocks and quicksands, yet there is a "a tide in the affairs of men," a heaving and a restless aspiration of the soul, by means of which, "with sails and tackle torn," the wreck and scattered fragments of our entire being drift into the port and haven of our desires!
 * "Why Distant Objects Please"

 * We can scarcely hate any one that we know.
 * "Why Distant Objects Please"

 * In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason … If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable.
 * "On Genius and Common Sense"

 * The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot. The future is like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view; the past is alive and stirring with objects, bright or solemn, and of unfading interest.
 * "On the Past and Future"

 * I think it is a rule that men in business should not be taught other things. Any one will be almost sure to make money who has no other idea in his head. A college education, or intense study of abstract truth, will not enable a man to drive a bargain … The best politicians are not those who are deeply grounded in mathematical or in ethical science. Rules stand in the way of expediency. Many a man has been hindered from pushing his fortune in the world by an early cultivation of his moral sense.
 * "On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority"

 * Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
 * "On Corporate Bodies"

 * They [universities] may be said to resemble antiquated coquettes of the last age, who think everything ridiculous and intolerable but what was in fashion when they were young, and yet are standing proofs of the progress of taste and the vanity of human pretensions. Our universities are, in a great measure, become cisterns to hold, not conduits to disperse knowledge. … they can only be of service as a check-weight on the too hasty and rapid career of innovation. … The unavoidable aim of all corporate bodies of learning is not to grow wise, or teach others wisdom, but to prevent any one else from being or seeming wiser than themselves.
 * "On Corporate Bodies"

 * Reputation runs in a vicious circle, and Merit limps behind it, mortified and abashed at its own insignificance. It has been said that the test of fame or popularity is to consider the number of times your name is repeated by others … So, if you see the same name staring you in the face in great letters at the corner of every street, you involuntarily think the owner of it must be a great man to occupy so large a space in the eye of the town. The appeal is made, in the first instance, to the senses, but it sinks below the surface into the mind. There are various ways of playing one's-self off before the public, and keeping one's name alive. The newspapers, the lamp-posts, the walls of empty houses, the shutters of windows, the blank covers of magazines and reviews, are open to every one.
 * "On Patronage and Puffing"

 * No young man believes he shall ever die.
 * "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth"

 * There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortals.
 * "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth"

 * Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern — why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
 * "On the Fear of Death"

 * The art of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation.
 * "On Will-Making"

Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

 * Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

 * Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
 * No. 2

 * Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.
 * No. 19

 * Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope; and few are reduced so low as that.
 * No. 34

 * Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.
 * No. 35

 * The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.
 * No. 43

 * There are names written in her immortal scroll, at which FAME blushes!
 * No. 53

 * The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test; for it is on that on which our success in life depends.
 * No. 54

 * There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please — that is as they please or displease us.
 * No. 60

 * It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.
 * No. 66

 * Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.
 * No. 72

 * The public have neither shame or gratitude.
 * No. 85

 * Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.
 * No. 87

 * As is our confidence, so is our capacity.
 * No. 89

 * Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
 * No. 101

 * The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about.
 * No. 112

 * No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.
 * No. 132

 * Unlimited power is helpless, as arbitrary power is capricious. Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We can attempt nothing great, but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter: we can persevere in nothing great, but from a pride in overcoming them.
 * No. 156

 * One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
 * No. 162

 * To a superior race of beings the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem equally ridiculous.
 * No. 191

 * The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
 * No. 257

 * If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
 * No. 302

 * Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
 * No. 305

 * The most learned are often the most narrow-minded men.
 * No. 330

 * The true barbarian is he who thinks every thing barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
 * No. 333

 * We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.
 * No. 364

 * A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one — they shew one another off to the best advantage.
 * No. 376

 * An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
 * No. 387

 * Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.
 * No. 388

 * Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight.
 * No. 389

 * He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.
 * No. 401

 * The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
 * No. 402

 * Those who can command themselves, command others.
 * No. 407

 * Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
 * No. 413

 * Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it because they excel.
 * No. 416

 * To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.
 * No. 429

The Spirit of the Age (1825)

 * This Journal, then, is a depository for every species of political sophistry and personal calumny. There is no abuse or corruption that does not there find a jesuitical palliation or a bare-faced vindication. There we meet the slime of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry, the cobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its object is as mischievous as the means by which it is pursued are odious.
 * "William Gifford"

 * One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed.
 * "Jeremy Bentham

 * The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
 * "Mr. Brougham — Sir F. Burdett"

The Plain Speaker (1826)

 * The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.
 * "On Envy"

 * For my own part, as I once said, I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.
 * "On the Pleasure of Hating" (c. 1826)

 * If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
 * "On the Pleasure of Hating"

 * We grow tired of every thing but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.
 * "On Application to Study"

 * Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
 * "On Application to Study"

 * No really great man ever thought himself so.
 * "Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?"

 * Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
 * "Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?"

 * He who comes up to his own idea of greatness, must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.
 * "Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?"

 * Zeal will do more than knowledge.
 * "On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking"

 * To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it…
 * "On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking"

 * Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.
 * "On the Spirit of Obligations" (1824)

 * The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favour.
 * "On the Spirit of Obligations"

 * Good temper is an estate for life…
 * "On Personal Character" (1821)

 * So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.
 * "My First Acquaintance with Poets" (1822)

 * Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.
 * "On Old English Writers and Speakers" (1825)

 * The way to secure success, is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it; the surest hindrance to it is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the discernment of the public.
 * "On the Qualifications Necessary for Success"

 * We are not hypocrites in our sleep.
 * "On Dreams"

 * We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.
 * "On Dreams"

 * A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.
 * "On the Look of a Gentleman"

Winterslow: Essays and Characters (1850)

 * Happy are they who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and hope; to whom the guiding star of their youth still shines from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered! They have not been "hurt by the archers", nor has the iron entered their souls. The world has no hand on them.
 * "Mind and Motive"

 * To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.
 * "A Farewell to Essay-Writing" (March 1828)

Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

 * If I have not read a book before, it is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
 * "On Reading New Books" (1825)

 * Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
 * "On the Conversations of Lords," New Monthly Magazine (April 1826)

 * Horus non numero nisi serenas—"I count only the hours that are serene"—is the motto of a sundial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled.
 * "On a Sun-Dial" (New Monthly Magazine, October 1827)

 * Gallantry to women (the sure road to their favor) is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.
 * "On Disagreeable People" (August 1827)

 * But there is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
 * "On Disagreeable People"

 * Indeed some degree of affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body; we must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.
 * "On Cant and Hypocrisy", London Weekly Review, (6 December 1828)

 * We all wear some disguise — make some professions — use some artifice to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom, though we may endeavour to keep some others that we think less to our credit as much as possible in the background…
 * "On Cant and Hypocrisy"

 * The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be as constantly wound up.
 * "On Cant and Hypocrisy"

 * Again, there is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have also their altars and their religion.
 * "On Cant and Hypocrisy"

 * Prejudice is the child of ignorance…
 * "On Prejudice"

 * We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
 * "On Prejudice"

 * Defoe says, that there were a hundred thousand stout country-fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.
 * "On Prejudice"

 * Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life.
 * "On Prejudice"

 * A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man.
 * "On Nicknames"

 * But fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism: it is haughty, trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean and ambitious, precise and fantastical, all in a breath — tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute.
 * "On Fashion"

 * The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.
 * "On Knowledge of the World"

Misattributed

 * Good temper is one of the great preservers of the features.
 * This is from Hazlitt's "Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A.," New Monthly Magazine (1826-1827), published in book form in 1830; but the words were spoken by Northcote

 * He who would see old Hoghton right Must view it by the pale moonlight.
 * William Carew Hazlitt, English Proverbs and Provincial Phrases, (London, 1882)

Quotes about Hazlitt

 * Sorted alphabetically by author or source

 * His manners are to 99 in 100 singularly repulsive—; brow-hanging, shoe-contemplative, strange. … he is, I verily believe, kindly-nature; is very of, attentive to, and patient with children; but he is jealous, gloomy, and of an irritable pride — and addicted to women, as objects of sexual indulgence.
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in a letter to Thomas Wedgwood (1803), in Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E.L. Griggs (1932)

 * If Samuel Johnson was the more deliberate aphorist, Hazlitt was the more self-conscious literary architect. You quote lines from Johnson; you want to recite entire passages from Hazlitt.
 * Arthur Krystal, in The New Yorker (18 May 2009), p. 74

 * John Lamb (the brother of Charles) once knocked down Hazlitt, who was impertinent to him; and on those who were present interfering and begging Hazlitt to shake hands and forgive him, Hazlitt said, "Well, I don't care if I do. I am a metaphysician, and do not mind a blow; nothing but an idea hurts me."
 * Thomas Moore, in his Journal (9 September 1820), vol. III, p. 146

 * The miscreant Hazlitt continues, I have heard, his abuses of Southey, Coleridge and myself, in the Examiner. — I hope that you do not associate with this Fellow, he is not a proper person to be admitted into respectable society, being the most perverse and malevolent Creature that ill luck has ever thrown in my way. Avoid him — hic niger est — And this, I understand, is the general opinion wherever he is known in London.
 * William Wordsworth, in a letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon (7 April 1817), in Critical Opinions of William Wordsworth, ed. M.L. Peacock (1950)

title: William Hazlitt


text:
Spider-Man (2002 film)

Spider-Man is a 2002 film based on the eponymous Marvel comic starring Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe. It tells the story of Peter Parker's first year as Spider Man. This movie was released in theaters on May 3, 2002 in United States.

 * Written by David Koepp. Directed by Sam Raimi.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Dialogue

 * [first lines]
 * Peter: Who am I? You sure you want to know? The story of my life is not for the faint of heart. If somebody said it was a happy little tale, if somebody told you I was just an average ordinary guy, not a care in the world, somebody lied. But let me assure you: This, like any story worth telling, is all about a girl. That girl. The girl next door. Mary Jane Watson. The woman I've loved since before I even liked girls. [referring to Flash Thompson sitting next to her] I'd like to say that's me sitting next to her. [referring to an overweight kid in front of them messily eating a jelly doughnut] Aw, heck, I'd even take him. [he and the other kids see a distressed nerdy boy in thick glasses running along the bus, yelling for the driver to stop the bus] That's me.

 * Harry: [to driver in Rolls Royce] Uh, you know, Charles, can we drive around the corner, please?
 * Norman: [sitting next to Harry] Why? The entrance is right there.
 * Harry: Dad, these are public school kids, I'm not showing up for a field trip in the Rolls.
 * Norman: What, you want me to just trade in my car for a Jetta just because you flunked out of every private school I ever sent you to?
 * Harry: It wasn't for me.
 * Norman: Of course it was. Don't ever be ashamed of who you are.
 * Harry: I'm not ashamed of who I am, it's just that...
 * Norman: Just what, Harry?
 * Harry: Forget it.

 * Ben: Oh, wait a minute, Peter, we, uh, we need to talk.
 * Peter: Well, we can talk later.
 * Ben: Well, we can talk now... [turns off the music] if you'll let me.
 * Peter: What do we have to talk about? Why now?
 * Ben: Because we haven't talked at all in so long, your Aunt May and I don't even know who you are anymore. You shirk your chores, you-you have all those weird experiments in-in-in-in your room, you start fights at school. I don't know who--
 * Peter: I didn't start that fight, I told you that.
 * Ben: Yeah, well, you sure as Hell finished it.
 * Peter: What was I supposed to do, run away?
 * Ben: No. No, you're not supposed to run away, but... Pete, look, you're changing, I know. I went through exactly the same thing at your age.
 * Peter: No, not exactly.
 * Ben: Peter, these are the years when a man changes into the man he's going to be for the rest of his life. Just be careful who you change into. This guy, Flash Thompson, he probably deserved what happened. But just because you can beat him up, doesn't give you the right to. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.
 * Peter: [utterly confused] Are you afraid that I'm gonna turn into some kind of criminal? Quit worrying about me, okay? Something's different, I'll figure it out. Stop lecturing me, please.
 * Ben: I don't mean to lecture, and I don't mean to preach. And I know I'm not your father.
 * Peter: [annoyed; snaps] Then stop pretending to be.

 * [Peter Parker taking the stairs to the wrestling arena. Watches Bone Saw McGraw fighting the soldier man.]
 * Wrestling Referee: One! Two! Three! That's it!
 * Bone Saw McGraw: Who's the man?
 * Crowd: Bone Saw! Bone Saw! Bone Saw! Bone Saw!
 * Ring Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen! Give it up for Bone Saw McGraw! For $3000, is there no one here man enough to stay in the ring for three minutes with this titan of testosterone? [Parker is ready with his disguise.] Who? I know who. The Flying Dutchman.
 * [The crowd boos, Peter goes to the Check-in station.]
 * Check-In Girl: Next. There's no featherweight division here small fry. Next.
 * Spider-Man: No, no. Sign me up.
 * Check-In Girl: Okay. You understand the NYWL is not responsible for any injury you may and probably will sustain while participating in said event and you are indeed participating of your own free will?
 * Spider-Man: Yes.
 * Check-In Girl: Down the hall to the ramp. May God be with you. Next.
 * [Bone Saw McGraw throws The Flying Dutchman to the ground.]
 * Bone Saw McGraw: Told you! Told you!
 * Wrestling Referee: WINNER!!
 * Bone Saw McGraw: Next victim!
 * Ring Announcer: Are you ready for more?
 * Bone Saw McGraw: [Gives the microphone.] Bone Saw is ready!
 * Ring Announcer: Will the next victim please enter the arena at this time? If he can withstand just three minutes in the cage with Bone Saw McGraw the sum of $3000 will be paid to... [turn off microphone] What's your name, kid?
 * Spider-Man: The Human Spider.
 * Ring Announcer: The Human Spider? That's it. That's the best you got?
 * Spider-Man: Yeah.
 * Ring Announcer: Oh, that sucks. [turn off microphone] The sum of $3000 will be paid to the terrifying.... The deadly.... The amazing.... Spider-Man!
 * [Peter Parker wears the Spider-Man outfit and gloves. Then the crowd boos.]
 * Spider-Man: My name's The Human Spider!
 * Security Guard: I don't care, get out there.
 * Spider-Man: No, he got my name wrong.
 * Security Guard: Get out there, you moron!
 * [The crowd continues boos.]
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguard #1: Bone Saw will eat you up and spit you out, little man.
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguard #2: I hope you brought your mommy.
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguard #3: We'll break you! You'll need someone to cry to.
 * [The crowd throws the popcorn to Spider-Man]
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguard #4: I'm gonna rip all eight of your feeble legs off one by one!
 * The Flying Dutchman: Oh, my God! Oh, my legs! Oh, God. I can't feel my legs.
 * Crowd: [Chanting] KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!
 * [Spider-Man enters the ring. The cage starts to come down.]
 * Crowd: [Chanting] CAGE! CAGE! CAGE! CAGE! CAGE!
 * Spider-Man: Hello? Guys?
 * Ring Announcer: Will the guards please lock the cage doors at this time?
 * [The guard lock the doors.]
 * Spider-Man: Hey listen! This is some kind of mistake. I didn't sign up for a cage match! Unlock the thing! Take the chain off!
 * Bone Saw McGraw: [To Spider-Man] Hey, freak show! You're going nowhere. I got you for three minutes. Three minutes of playtime.
 * [Then bell starts, Bone Saw running and Spider-Man jumps up.]
 * Bone Saw McGraw: What are you doing up there?
 * Spider-Man: Staying away from you. That's a cute outfit. Did your husband give it to you?
 * [Bone Saw jumps up and Spider-Man jumps down, using the Web-Slinger to avoid Bone Saw McGraw.]
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguard #2: Finish him off!
 * [Bone Saw grabs the chair and hits Spider-Man and again, as he get up, Bone Saw hits again, and again.]
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguards: Smash him!
 * [Bone Saw throws Spider-Man to the cage and again.]
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguards: Hit him! HARDER!!
 * [Bone Saw grabs the whip and about to kill Spider-Man.]
 * Bone Saw's Bodyguard #4: Kick his spider ass! Hit him!
 * [Spider-Man kicks him, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. and Bone Saw is about to kill Spider-Man and he throws Bone Saw into the ground and he pins Bone Saw McGraw.]
 * Wrestling Referee: One! Two! Three! That's it! That's it! WINNER!!
 * Ring Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the new champion, SPIDER-MAN!!!
 * Crowd: [Chanting] Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Spider-Man!
 * [Spider-Man is the winner of the tournament.]

 * [Peter sees a large group of people gathered around, with some cops restraining them]
 * Male cop: Sir, you need to get back.
 * Male pedestrian #1: I can't see. What happened?
 * Male pedestrian #2: Old dude, man.
 * Male cop: Come on, folks. Keep moving, please. Keep moving. Let's go!
 * Male pedestrian #3: What happened?
 * Male pedestrian #4: Someone got hurt.
 * Peter: [Pushing through the crowd] Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.
 * Female cop: Stay back. Stay back!
 * Peter: [Sees that the injured person is Ben; panicked] That’s my uncle! [Pushes through] What happened?
 * Female cop: Carjacker. He's been shot. But we just called the paramedics, they're on their way.
 * Peter: [Trying to stay calm] Uncle Ben? Uncle Ben? Uncle Ben?
 * Ben: [Weakly, gasps] P-peter? [Smiles]
 * Peter: [Voice breaking] I'm here, Uncle Ben. [Holds Uncle Ben’s hand]
 *  Ben: Peter.... [He dies. Peter starts crying]
 * Male cop: They got the shooter. He's headed South on Fifth Avenue. We got three cars in pursuit. All right, folks. Come on, move back.
 * [Peter walks away with anger on his face, determined to confront Ben’s killer]

--
 * Carjacker: Come on, man, give me a chance!
 * Spider-Man: What about my uncle!!? Did you give him a chance!!? 'DID YOU!!?'

 * Peter: I missed him a lot today.
 * May Parker: I know. I miss him too, but... he was there.
 * Peter: I can't help thinking about... the last thing I said to him. He tried to tell me something important, and I threw it in his face.
 * May: You loved him. And he loved you. He never doubted the man you'd grow into; how you were meant for great things. I have no doubt in my mind that you won't disappoint him.

 * Peter Parker/Spider-Man: [saves Mary Jane] Well, beats taking the subway. Don't mind us, she just needs to use the elevator.
 * Mary Jane Watson: Wait. Who are you?
 * Peter/Spider-Man: You know who I am.
 * Mary Jane "M.J." Watson: I do?
 * Spider-Man: Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!

 * [Norman pours whiskey in a glass cup, and is about to drink, but abruptly stops when he hears an evil laughter echoing around him]
 * Norman: Somebody there?
 * Green Goblin: Somebody.
 * Norman: Who said that?
 * Green Goblin: Don't play the innocent with me. You've known all along.
 * Norman: Where are you?
 * Green Goblin: Follow the cold shiver running down your spine. [Norman nervously searches around his collection of masks in source of the voice] I'm right here.
 * Norman: [turns around toward mirror, looking at his reflection] I don't understand.
 * Green Goblin: Did you think it was coincidence? So many good things all happening for you, all for you... Norman?
 * Norman: [drinks his whiskey, and tosses his glass, with a shatter] What do you want?
 * Green Goblin: To say what you won't, to do what you can't, to remove those in your way.
 * Norman: [looking at the newspaper] The board members... [shocked] You've killed them.
 * Green Goblin: We killed them.
 * Norman: [confused and nervous] We?
 * Green Goblin: Remember your little accident in the laboratory?
 * Norman: [realizing] The performance enhancers...
 * Green Goblin: Bingo. Me. Your greatest creation. Bringing you what you've always wanted: Power beyond your wildest dreams, and it's only the beginning. There's only one who could stop us. Or... imagine if he joined us. [snickers evilly]

 * J. Jonah Jameson: Spider-Man. And the Green Goblin. The "Green Goblin." You like that?
 * Peter: Mr. Jameson--
 * Jameson: Made it up myself. These weirdos all got to have a name now.
 * Peter: Mr. Jameson, Spider-Man--
 * Jameson: [picks up the phone] Hoffman?
 * Hoffman: Yeah?
 * Jameson: [sees Hoffman in the office, and hangs up the phone.] Call the patent office, copyright the name "Green Goblin". I want a quarter every time somebody says it.
 * Hoffman: How about "Green Meanie"? [Jameson makes a "get out" hand gesture, and Hoffman obliges]
 * Peter: Spider-Man wasn't attacking the city, he was trying to save it. That's slander.
 * Jameson: It is not. I resent that. Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel.
 * Peter Parker: You don't trust anybody, that's your problem.
 * Jameson: I trust my barber. What are you, his lawyer? Get outta here. [throws his cigar out the window] Let him sue me, get rich like a normal person. That's what made this country-- [his cigar is thrown back in the window, lands in from of him, and the Green Goblin bursts through the The Daily Bugle window]
 * Green Goblin: [grabbing Jameson by the throat] Jameson, you slime! Who's the photographer who takes the pictures of Spider-Man?!
 * Jameson: [choking] I don't know who he is, his stuff comes in the mail!
 * Green Goblin: You're lying!
 * Jameson: [almost suffocates] I swear...
 * Green Goblin: He's the one who can take me to him!
 * Jameson: I don't know who he is!
 * Green Goblin: [preparing to punch Jameson] You are useless, you--
 * Spider-Man: [appears upside-down outside the window] Set him down, tough guy.
 * Green Goblin: [drops Jameson and turns around on the glider] Speak of the Devil!
 * Jameson: Spider-Man! I knew you two were in this together! I--
 * Spider-Man: [uses his web to seal Jameson's mouth shut] Hey, kiddo, let Mom and Dad talk for a minute, will ya?
 * Green Goblin: [uses sleep gas] Sleep!

 * [Spider-Man regains conscious after being knocked out by the Green Goblin]
 * Green Goblin: Wake up, little spider, wake up. No, you're not dead... yet. Just paralyzed, temporarily. You're an amazing creature, Spider-Man. You and I are not so different.
 * Spider-Man: [weakly] I'm not like you. You're a murderer.
 * Green Goblin: Well, to each his own. I chose my path, you chose the way of the hero, and they found you amusing for a while, the people of this city, but the one thing they love more than a hero... is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually, they will hate you. Why bother?
 * Spider-Man: Because it's right.
 * Green Goblin: [taps Spider-Man on the head] Here's the real truth. There are 8,000,000 people in this city, and those teeming masses exist for the sole purpose of lifting the few exceptional people onto their shoulders. You, me, we're exceptional. I could squash you like a bug right now, but I'm offering you a choice. Join me. Imagine what we could accomplish together, what we could create... or we could destroy, cause the deaths of countless innocents in selfish battle, again and again and again, until we're both dead! Is that what you want? [jumps onto his glider] Think about it, hero!

 * Mary Jane: You're amazing.
 * Spider-Man: Some people don't think so.
 * M.J.: But you are.
 * Spider-Man: Nice to have a fan.

 * Green Goblin: Spider-Man is all but invincible, but Parker? We can destroy him.
 * Norman: [Pleadingly] I can't....
 * Green Goblin: Betrayal must not be countenanced! Parker must be educated.
 * Norman: [Gives in] What do I do?
 * Green Goblin: Instruct him in the matters of loss and pain. Make him suffer, make him wish he were dead.
 * Norman: [Crawls towards the mask] Yes...
 * Green Goblin: And then grant his wish.
 * Norman: But how?
 * Green Goblin: The cunning warrior attacks neither body nor mind.
 * Norman: [Desperately] 'TELL ME HOW!!'
 * Green Goblin: (Snarling) The heart, Osborn! First, we attack his heart.

 * May: (Praying) Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us-- [the Green Goblin bursts through the window, laughing maniacally; screams in horror] Deliver us--!
 * Green Goblin: Finish it! FINISH IT!
 * May: ---from evil! (Passes out)

 * [Peter rushes down the hospital hallway and bursts into the room where Aunt May is being treated, as May cries and moans in anguish from the ordeal,]
 * Doctor: Two milligrams IV.
 * Nurse: Get the BP.
 * Peter: Aunt May? Is she gonna be okay? What happened?
 * Nurse: Yes, she's going to be okay. Look, you're gonna have to leave right now.
 * [The nurse hauls Peter out of the room]
 * Peter: What happened?!
 * May: Those eyes! Those horrible yellow eyes!
 * [The door closes on Peter]
 * Peter: [gasps; realizing] He knows who I am.

 * M.J.: Has he mentioned me?
 * Peter: Yeah.
 * M.J.: What'd he say?
 * Peter: Uh, I said--- he asked me what I thought about you.
 * M.J.: And what did you say?
 * Peter: I said, uh, "Spider-Man," I said, uh, "The great thing about MJ is... when you look in her eyes and she's looking back in yours...everything...feels...not quite normal." Because you feel stronger and weaker at the same time. You feel excited and at the same time, terrified. The truth is... you don't know what you feel except you know what kind of man you want to be. It's as if you've reached the unreachable and you weren't ready for it."
 * M.J.: You said that?
 * Peter: Well, something like that.

 * Peter: Can I do anything for you?
 * May: You do too much: College, a job, all this time with me, you're not Superman, you know.

 * [A bunch of commuters throw things at the Goblin to save Spider-Man, Mary Jane and a tram full of kids]
 * Commuter 1: Come on up here, tough guy! I got a little somethin' for ya!
 * Woman: Yeah, we're gonna kick your frickin' ass!
 * Commuter 1: Leave Spider-Man alone! You're gonna pick on a guy trying to save a bunch of kids?!
 * Commuter 2: Oh, yeah, I got something for your ass! You mess with Spidey, you mess with New York!
 * Commuter 1: You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!

 * [As the Green Goblin throws Spider-Man through the building, Spider-Man swings through the window, and crashes to the wall. A pumpkin bomb is thrown in front of Spider-Man's face; it explodes, and blows Spider-Man through the brick wall, and knocking him to the ground. The Goblin hops off his glider.]
 * Green Goblin: Misery, misery, misery, that's what you've chosen. I offered you friendship, and you spat in my face. [the Goblin beats Spider-Man up, until he kicks Spider-Man to the wall. Just as Spider-Man is about to shoot his web, the Goblin stops him.] You've spun your last web, Spider-Man. Had you not been so selfish, your little girlfriend's death would have been quick and painless, but now that you've really pissed me off, [sinisterly] I'm gonna finish her, nice and slow. [Spider-Man gets furious.] M.J. and I? [pulls out his trident] We're gonna have a hell of a time. [the Goblin lunges his trident to stab Spider-Man, but Spider-Man stops it, and the Green Goblin flies backwards to another brick wall. Spider-Man crushes the Goblin with it. The Goblin gets up, and Spider-Man beats him up] Peter, stop! Stop! It's me. [takes off his mask, revealing Norman Osborn]
 * Peter: [shocked yet confused] Mr. Osborn?
 * Norman: Peter, thank God for you.
 * Peter: [lost for words] You killed those people on that balcony...
 * Norman: [genuinely scared of his Goblin persona] The Goblin killed, I had nothing to do with it! Don't-Don't let him take me again. I beg you, protect me!
 * Peter: You tried to kill Aunt May, you tried to kill Mary Jane.
 * Norman: But not you. I've tried to stop it, but I couldn't stop it. I would never hurt you. [As Norman speaks, his Goblin persona presses a button on his suit, and his glider rises behind Peter.] I knew from the beginning. If anything ever happened to me, i-it was you that I could count on. You, Peter Parker, would save me, and so you have. Thank God for you. [Norman stands up] Give me your hand. Believe in me, as I believed in you. I've been like a father to you. Be a son to me now.
 * Peter: I have a father. His name was Ben Parker.
 * Green Goblin:  Godspeed, Spider-Man.
 * [warned by his spider sense, Peter flips just as the Green Goblin's glider was about to impale him.]
 * Green Goblin: (Mildly surprised) Oh. [Gets impaled by his own glider, and groans in pain and blood loss]
 * Norman: [Last words; weakly] Peter? Don't tell Harry. [Norman collapses and dies, and Peter lowers his head down.]

 * Peter: Everything. I mean, there's so much to tell.
 * M.J.: Yeah, there's so much to tell.
 * Peter: I want you to know, that I will always be there for you; I will always be there to take care of you. I promise you that. I will always be your friend.
 * M.J.: (Crying, smiling) Only a friend, Peter Parker?
 * Peter: That's all I have to give....
 * [last lines]
 * Peter: Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: "With great power comes great responsibility." This is my gift, my curse. Who am I? I'm Spider-Man.

About Spider-Man (2002 film)

 * “You mess with Spidey, you mess with New York!” More than any other superhero, Spider-Man is New York. He's the kid from Queens, the blue-collar nerd who got bitten by a radioactive spider and became the world's most famous teenage crime fighter. In Sam Raimi's 2002 film, a random man in the crowd hollers the above line as a group of New Yorkers protect Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) from his arch nemesis The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). It's a sincere moment, unburdened by the self-reflective seriousness found in the genre's contemporary efforts. Ironically for a film often cited as kickstarting the modern superhero movie trend, Raimi's Spider-Man is a bland superhero movie by today's standards. It lacks a world-ruling plot, a big CGI finale and it doesn't trade off 9/11 imagery. It is simply a story about a guy, the girl he loves and the city he shields from harm. It wasn't Raimi's intention to make a cinematic dissertation on the different types of heroism. Nor for that matter was he attempting to make a generic superhero movie. He set out to make a Spider-Man movie, and making a great Spider-Man movie requires making a great New York movie. As such, Raimi's version of New York is a place where fantasy and reality meet. There is no doubt that Spider-Man is a fantasy, as Peter reacts to his overnight transformation with a goofy grin because he's developed shredded abs. He and the rest of New York don't freak out at the idea of a guy swinging between buildings. In this city and the world Raimi creates within it, that seems perfectly normal. The director injects realism into the story by having his characters work mundane jobs to meet mundane ends like paying rent. They lead regular lives, and we are given hints of their everyday activities. In this film, New York is more than a setting, as Raimi gives his supporting characters lives outside of Spider-Man and The Green Goblin's ideological conflict.
 * Henry Bevan, Little White Lies: Truth and Movies, "Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man is a great New York movie: The director’s 2002 franchise opener is a tribute to this iconic city and the people who live in it.", (5 Jul 2017).

 * When Spider-Man was proposed to me originally it was like, ‘Really, you’re going to make a movie from a comic book?’” Dafo said. “It was like I was slumming it, you know? I didn’t see it that way, but some people were like, ‘Really?’
 * Willem Dafoe, "Watch: Hugh Jackman and Willem Dafoe Talk the Evolution and Endurance of Superhero Cinema" by Haleigh Foutch, Collider, (November 29, 2017).

 * Imagine "Superman" with a Clark Kent more charismatic than the Man of Steel, and you'll understand how "Spider-Man" goes wrong. Tobey Maguireis pitch-perfect as the socially retarded Peter Parker, but when he becomes Spider-Man, the film turns to action sequences that zip along like perfunctory cartoons. Not even during Spidey's first experimental outings do we feel that flesh and blood are contending with gravity. Spidey soars too quickly through the skies of Manhattan; he's as convincing as Mighty Mouse.
 * Remember the first time you saw the characters defy gravity in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"? They transcended gravity, but they didn't dismiss it: They seemed to possess weight, dimension and presence. Spider-Man as he leaps across the rooftops is landing too lightly, rebounding too much like a bouncing ball. He looks like a video game figure, not like a person having an amazing experience.
 * The other super-being in the movie is the Green Goblin, who surfs the skies in jet-shoes. He, too, looks like a drawing being moved quickly around a frame, instead of like a character who has mastered a daring form of locomotion. He's handicapped, too, by his face, which looks like a high-tech action figure with a mouth that doesn't move.
 * Peter Parker was crucial in the evolution of Marvel comics because he was fallible and had recognizable human traits. He was a nerd, a loner, socially inept, insecure, a poor kid being raised by relatives. Maguire gets all of that just right, and I enjoyed the way Dunst is able to modulate her gradually increasing interest in this loser who begins to seem attractive to her. I also liked the complexity of the villain, who in his Dr. Jekyll manifestation is brilliant tycoon Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) and in his Mr. Hyde persona is a cackling psychopath.
 * Roger Ebert, "Spider-Man Movie Review", Rogerebert.com, (May 3, 2002).

 * 9/11 was undeniably a paradigm shift. Its effects would ripple throughout the next decade and continues to impact the world today. The superhero industry's response to the unjust tragedy was felt immediately. Those who went to the movies to escape the ubiquitous news coverage on Sept. 11, 2001 would have seen a trailer for “Spider-Man,” which would be released in the following May. The trailer, which featured Spider-Man trapping a helicopter of bank robbers in a web strung up between the Twin Towers, was quickly pulled out of circulation along with posters featuring the towers reflected in his eyes. The nation, still reeling from the horrors of 9/11, flooded the theaters the following year, hitting a record high for U.S. admissions—1.64 billion moviegoers—in 2002, according to the 2006 U.S. Theatrical Market Statistics. Spider-Man raked in the highest domestic growth of 2002, beating well-established franchises “Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars” (“All Time Worldwide Opening”). The nation clearly hungered for a figure who could save the country—or, in this case, at least defend New York.
 * Cassandra Hsiao, "Post-9/11 world: What caused the rise of superhero movies", HS Insider, Los Angeles Times(June 16, 2016).

 * Q: Do you have a favourite scene in the film?
 * A: Yeah. The kissing scene where I'm hanging upside down in the rain and Kirsten peels down my mask to kiss me on the mouth. It comes off as sexy, romantic, and sweet and you see the character within the superhero as he gets vulnerable with somebody.
 * Tobey Maguire, "Tobey Maguire Spiderman Interview", by Alec Cawthorne, BBC, (2002/05/10).

 * Movies hadn't been doing the sort of opening-weekend business that's fairly common – even expected – today. The first Harry Potter came out about six months before us and it was this phenomenon from Day one. It was so wild because it was a new thing at that moment – and I'm not saying that hasn't happened in movie history, but at the time that was a big jump. and then that happened with us. People didn't anticipate [2002's Spider- Man] to be like that. Leading up to it you start to get reactions and people tell you, you know, what the tracking is and what range your opening weekend box office is likely to be. but for me it was kind of unexpected. So much shifted in my life the weekend the movie came out. it was shocking.
 * Tobey Maguire, "The Amazing Andrew Garfield" VMan, May 9, 2012; as quoted in "Spider-Man': Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire talk", Entertainment Weekly, Darren Franich, (May 9, 2012).

 * I worked closely with David Koepp who based his scenario on that of James Cameron. I especially wanted to develop what I like in Spider-Man, that is to say the character of Peter Parker. I really did not care about Spidey, I wanted a movie about Peter Parker. (Laughs) It's interesting because he looks like us, he does not have a lot of money, he grew up in a working class environment, he can not fit in, he has problems at school ... His egoism and irresponsibility contribute to his uncle's death and he does not know how to live with it. But when he realizes that he must live to become the responsible person his uncle wanted him to become, he takes the mask. And that's what I'm interested in Spidey. For me, he becomes a hero by becoming responsible, not by knocking out some bad guys. (He thinks) I feel still invested with great responsibilities. Parents will take their children to see the movie and whether it is good or bad, these kids will point the screen and say, "I want to be like Spider-Man . " I know that there will be this admiration and I had to put on the screen a character who deserves this admiration.
 * Initially, I wanted to build a very light camera, from 2 to 3 kg, loaded with a minute of film, mounted on a system of cranes and pulleys, with mini engines. She could have flown over the streets of Manhattan, drifting over passersby and reaching a speed of 60 km / h. But production was certain that we would lose control and kill people! So we tried lots of other things that did not work, like stuntmen hanging from cables, but they had neither the grace nor the acrobatic agility of Spidey. Then John Dykstra, the head of visual effects, proposed a virtual Spidey. I did not like this idea, I did not think I could convince the public with a virtual human, it would not be real enough. But at the point where we were, we tried. And it works. But because Spidey is wearing a suit. If it had been necessary to create skin or virtual eyes, nobody would have believed it.
 * I stay true to the spirit of Spider-Man . Its creators, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, wanted Peter Parker to be like us. I can identify with a simple high school student not a genius capable of inventing this mechanism and this canvas. I wanted to tell the story of an ordinary boy who becomes an extraordinary being, not that of an extraordinary boy who becomes an extraordinary hero.
 * Sam Raimi (as translated from French by Google), "Sam Raimi Appele A Regner Interview", Ciné Live - N ° 58 - (June 2002).

Cast

 * Tobey Maguire – Peter Parker/Spider Man: May and Ben's nephew
 * Willem Dafoe – Norman Osborn/Green Goblin: Harry's dad
 * Kirsten Dunst – Mary Jane Watson
 * James Franco – Harry Osborn: Norman's son
 * Cliff Robertson – Ben Parker: May's husband and Peter's uncle
 * Rosemary Harris – May Parker: Peter's aunt and Ben's wife
 * J. K. Simmons – J. Jonah Jameson
 * Joe Manganiello – Eugene "Flash" Thompson
 * Bill Nunn – Joseph "Robbie" Robertson
 * Elizabeth Banks – Betty Brant

title: Spider-Man (2002 film)


text:
John Vance Cheney

John Vance Cheney (29 December 1848 – 1 May 1922) was an American poet.

Tears (1892)

 * Not in the time of pleasure Hope doth set her bow; But in the sky of sorrow, Over the vale of woe. Through gloom and shadow look we On beyond the years! The soul would have no rainbow Had the eyes no tears.
 * The Century Vol. 44, Issue 4 (August 1892)

The Happiest Heart

 * Who drives the horses of the sun Shall lord it but a day; Better the lowly deed were done, And kept the humble way.

 * The rust will find the sword of fame, The dust will hide the crown; Ay, none shall nail so high his name Time will not tear it down.

 * The happiest heart that ever beat Was in some quiet breast That found the common daylight sweet, And left to Heaven the rest.

title: John Vance Cheney