text:
William Cowper

 * For the Lord Chancellor, see William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper.

William Cowper (26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and hymnodist.

Quotes

And frustrate hope severer than despair.'''
 * '''Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
 * "Hope, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile", line 35

To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.
 * But oars alone can ne'er prevail
 * "Human Frailty", line 21 (1779)

Man yet mistakes his way, While meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
 * Reasoning at every step he treads,
 * "The Doves", line 1. (1780)

Found oftenest in what least we dread, Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
 * Fate steals along with silent tread,
 * "A Fable" (or "The Raven"), line 36

 * True Charity, a plant divinely nurs'd.
 * "Charity", line 573. (1781)

Thy posterity shall sway'''; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they." Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
 * "'''Regions Caesar never knew
 * "Boadicea" (1782)

Apt emblem of a virtuous maid Silent and chaste she steals along, Far from the world's gay busy throng: With gentle yet prevailing force, Intent upon her destined course; Graceful and useful all she does, Blessing and blest where'er she goes; Pure-bosom'd as that watery glass, And Heaven reflected in her face.'''
 * '''Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade,
 * "To a Young Lady" (1782)

Boys care but little whom they trust, An error soon corrected— For who but learns in riper years That man, when smoothest he appears Is most to be suspected?
 * Candid, and generous, and just,
 * "Friendship", line 19 (1782)

 * Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
 * "From a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Newton", line 21. (1782)

 * I believe no man was ever scolded out of his sins.
 * Letter to John Newton, (17 June 1783)

Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.
 * An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,
 * "Epistle to Joseph Hill", line 62 (1785)

With such a luster, he that runs may read.
 * Shine by the side of every path we tread
 * "Tirocinium", line 79 (1785)

The brave! that are no more; All sunk beneath the wave, Fast by their native shore!'''
 * '''Toll for the brave —
 * "On the Loss of the Royal George", st. 1 (1791)

In wintry age to feel no chill, With me is to be lovely still, My Mary!
 * And still to love, though prest with ill,
 * "To Mary", st. 11 (1791)

 * I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.
 * The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Preface

Shine in full splendor, and the winds are hush'd, The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland-heights Stand all apparent, not a vapor streaks The boundless blue, but ether open'd wide All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.
 * As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
 * The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Book VIII, line 643

Shall bear that also; for, by practice taught, I have learned patience, having much endured.
 * My soul
 * The Odyssey of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Book V, line 264

 * Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.
 * Letter to the Rev. John Johnson, (29 September1793)

(Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.
 * Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day
 * "The Needless Alarm, Moral" (1794)

This lesson seems to carry — Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry.
 * Misses! the tale that I relate
 * "Pairing Time Anticipated, Moral" (c. 1794)

Its semblance in another's case.
 * Misery still delights to trace
 * "The Castaway" (1799)

No light propitious shone; When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, We perish'd, each alone; But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he.
 * No voice divine the storm allay'd,
 * "The Castaway" (1799)

And, when by that of reason, a mere fool
 * A knave, when tried on honesty's plain rule,
 * Hope

Olney Hymns (1779)

A calm and heav'nly frame; A light to shine upon the road That leads me to the Lamb!
 * Oh! for a closer walk with God,
 * No. 1, "Walking With God"

How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.
 * What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
 * No. 1, "Walking With God"

 * And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.
 * No. 29, "Exhortation to Prayer"

His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.'''
 * '''God moves in a mysterious way,
 * The opening statement is often paraphrased: God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
 * No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness"

He hides a smiling face.
 * Behind a frowning providence
 * No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness"

Of never failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will.
 * Deep in unfathomable mines
 * No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness"

Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.'''
 * '''His purposes will ripen fast,
 * No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness"

And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain. '''
 * '''Blind unbelief is sure to err,
 * No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness"

Drawn from Emmanuel's veins; And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.
 * There is a fountain fill'd with blood
 * No. 79, "Praise for the Fountain Opened"

Table Talk (1782)

 * I play with syllables and sport in song
 * From:First of the Moral Satires
 * Glory, built On selfish principles, is shame and guilt.
 * Line 1

 * Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
 * Line 28

 * As if the world and they were hand and glove.
 * Line 173

Less on exterior things than most suppose.
 * Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows,
 * Line 246

That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
 * Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
 * Line 260

The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
 * Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
 * Line 542

And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
 * Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
 * Line 556

As ecstasy.
 * Elegant as simplicity, and warm
 * Line 588

 * Low ambition and the thirst of praise.
 * Line 591

 * Made poetry a mere mechanic art.
 * Line 654

Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower; Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
 * Nature, exerting an unwearied power,
 * Line 690

The Progress of Error (1782)

 * Lights of the world, and stars of human race.
 * Line 97

 * Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.
 * Line 240

Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!
 * How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
 * Line 415

 * No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest, Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.
 * Line 470

Conversation (1782)
A fool must now and then be right by chance.'''
 * Tis hard if all is false that I advance,
 * Line 96

Assert the nose upon his face his own.
 * He would not, with a peremptory tone,
 * Line 121

Will not affront me, and no other can.
 * A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
 * Line 193

Unfriendly to society's chief joys, Thy worst effect is banishing for hours The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
 * Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
 * Line 251

A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.
 * I cannot talk with civet in the room,
 * Line 283

A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.
 * The solemn fop; significant and budge;
 * Line 299

But when you knock it never is at home.
 * His wit invites you by his looks to come,
 * Line 303

Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.
 * I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
 * Line 347

Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.
 * Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
 * Line 357

 * That good diffused may more abundant grow.
 * Line 443

 * But that disease when soberly defined Is the false fire of an o'erheated mind.
 * Line 667; of fanaticism

And chiefly when religion leads the way, Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs, Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.
 * But Conversation, choose what theme we may,
 * Line 703

Retirement (1782)
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
 * A business with an income at its heels
 * Line 615

A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
 * Absence of occupation is not rest,
 * Line 623

As useless when it goes as when it stands.
 * An idler is a watch that wants both hands;
 * Line 681

 * Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.
 * Line 688

A panting syllable through time and space, Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.
 * Philologists, who chase
 * Line 691

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.
 * I praise the Frenchman [Voltaire], his remark was shrewd —
 * Line 739

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782)

 * This was Cowper's tribute to Alexander Selkirk the actual man whose shipwrecked existence upon an island inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe.

My right there is none to dispute; From the center all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute.'''
 * '''I am monarch of all I survey,
 * Line 1

That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms Than reign in this horrible place.'''
 * '''O solitude! where are the charms
 * Line 5

I must finish my journey alone, Never hear the sweet music of speech; I start at the sound of my own.'''
 * '''I am out of humanity's reach.
 * Line 9

Divinely bestow'd upon man, O had I the wings of a dove How soon I would taste you again!'''
 * '''Society friendship and love
 * Line 17

 * Religion! what treasure untold Resides in that heavenly word!
 * Line 25

A wish or a thought after me? '''O tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to see.'''
 * My friends, do they now and then send
 * Line 37

And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace And reconciles man to his lot.
 * There is mercy in every place,
 * Line 53

The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)
She had a frugal mind.
 * Though on pleasure she was bent,
 * St. 8

Up flew the windows all; And every soul cried out, "Well done!" As loud as he could bawl.
 * The dogs did bark, the children screamed,
 * St. 28

 * A hat not much the worse for wear.
 * St. 46

And Gilpin, long live he; And, when he next doth ride abroad, May I be there to see!
 * Now let us sing — Long live the king,
 * St. 63

Book I, The Sofa
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.
 * United yet divided, twain at once:
 * Line 77

Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature.
 * Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
 * Line 181

Of desultory man, studious of change And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
 * The earth was made so various, that the mind
 * Line 506

Disinterested good, is not our trade.
 * Doing good,
 * Line 673

 * God made the country, and man made the town.
 * Line 749

Book II, The Timepiece
Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more.
 * Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
 * Line 1

Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
 * Mountains interposed
 * Line 17

To carry me, to fan me while I sleep And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
 * I would not have a slave to till my ground,
 * Line 29

 * We have no slaves at home. ─ Then why abroad?
 * Line 37

Receive our air, that moment they are free! They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
 * Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
 * Line 40

 * Fast-anchor'd isle.
 * Line 151

My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee.
 * England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—
 * Line 206

Of her magnificent and awful cause.
 * Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
 * Line 231

To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
 * Praise enough
 * Line 235

Which only poets know.
 * There is a pleasure in poetic pains
 * Line 285

To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.
 * Transforms old print
 * Line 363

Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.
 * Reading what they never wrote,
 * Line 411

 * Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.
 * Line 444

 * O Popular Applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?
 * Line 481

That gives it all its flavour.'''
 * '''Variety's the very spice of life,
 * Line 606

Her dear five hundred friends.
 * She that asks
 * Line 642

Not yet by time completely silvered o'er, Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, But strong for service still, and unimpaired.
 * His head,
 * Line 702

Book III, The Garden
Of Paradise that has survived the fall!
 * Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
 * Line 41

Long since.
 * I was a stricken deer that left the herd
 * Line 108

And still they dream that they shall still succeed; And still are disappointed.
 * Dream after dream ensues;
 * Line 127

Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.
 * Great contest follows, and much learned dust
 * Line 161

Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up.
 * From reveries so airy, from the toil
 * Line 188

 * Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
 * Line 265

That owes its pleasures to another's pain.'''
 * '''Detested sport,
 * Line 326
 * Of fox-hunting

Calls idle, and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
 * How various his employments whom the world
 * Line 352

 * Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
 * Line 566

 * So manifold, all pleasing in their kind, All healthful, are the employs of rural life, Reiterated as the wheel of time, Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.
 * Line 624

Book IV, The Winter Evening
And give them voice and utterance once again. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
 * I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
 * Line 34

 * Which not even critics criticise.
 * Line 51

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
 * What is it but a map of busy life,
 * Line 55

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. 'T is pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world,—to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
 * And Katerfelto, with his hair on end
 * Line 86

Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
 * While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
 * Line 118

 * O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!
 * Line 120

Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.
 * With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
 * Line 217

 * In indolent vacuity of thought.
 * Line 297

 * It seems the part of wisdom.
 * Line 336

 * All learned, and all drunk!
 * Line 478

 * Gloriously drunk, obey the important call.
 * Line 510

And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings, And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.
 * Those golden times
 * Line 514

 * The Frenchman's darling.
 * Line 765

Great talents. And God gives to every man The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordain'd to fill.
 * Some must be great. Great offices will have
 * Line 788

Book V, The Winter Morning Walk
No sound of hammer or of saw was there.
 * Silently as a dream the fabric rose —
 * Line 144

Kings would not play at.'''
 * '''But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
 * Line 187

 * The beggarly last doit.
 * Line 316

Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.
 * As dreadful as the Manichean god,
 * Line 444

 * The still small voice is wanted.
 * Line 685

 * He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
 * Line 733

Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, My Father made them all!
 * With filial confidence inspired,
 * Line 745

His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before: Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart Made pure shall relish with divine delight Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
 * Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste
 * Line 779

And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.
 * Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor;
 * Line 905

Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave: Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touched within us, and the heart replies. How soft the music of those village bells Falling at intervals upon the ear In cadence sweet!
 * There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
 * Line 1

May give a useful lesson to the head, And Learning wiser grow without his books.
 * Here the heart
 * Line 85

Have oft-times no connexion, Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men, Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
 * Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
 * Line 88

The mere materials with which wisdom builds, Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. '''Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.''' Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
 * Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
 * Line 92

Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.
 * Some to the fascination of a name
 * ''The Task, book vi. Winter Walk at Noon, line 101

Whose cause is God.
 * Nature is but a name for an effect,
 * Line 223

But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain, Of his unrivall'd pencil.
 * Not a flower
 * Line 240

Is register'd in Heaven; and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annex'd. Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, But God will never.
 * But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth
 * Line 439

(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarn'd, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
 * I would not enter on my list of friends,
 * Line 560

The Negro's Complaint (1788)
Afric's coast I left forlorn, To increase a stranger's treasures O'er the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, Paid my price in paltry gold; But, though slave they have enrolled me, Minds are never to be sold.
 * Forced from home and all its pleasures
 * Lines 1-8

Cannot forfeit nature's claim; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.
 * Fleecy locks and black complexion
 * Lines 13-16

Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard and stronger Than the colour of our kind.
 * Deem our nation brutes no longer,
 * Lines 49-52

Ere you proudly question ours!
 * Prove that you have human feelings,
 * Lines 55-56

The Yardley Oak (1791)

 * Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all that once lived here
 * Lines 1-2

 * It seems idolatry with some excuse, When our forefather Druids in their oaks Imagined sanctity.
 * Lines 9-11

 * Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball, Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp. But fate thy growth decreed.
 * Lines 18-23

 * So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can, Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search Of argument, employed too oft amiss, Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!
 * Lines 29-32

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.
 * Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,—
 * Truth, line 327

 * The sounding jargon of the schools.
 * Truth, line 367

Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'T is e'en as if an angel shook his wings.
 * When one that holds communion with the skies
 * ''Charity, line 435

May kill a sound divine.
 * A kick that scarce would move a horse
 * The Yearly Distress

These valleys and rocks never heard; Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell, Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.
 * But the sound of the church-going bell
 * Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk

Compared with the speed of its flight The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.
 * How fleet is a glance of the mind!
 * Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk

And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
 * There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!
 * On observing some Names of Little Note

May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.
 * And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
 * The Rose

In every change both mine and yours.
 * 'T is Providence alone secures
 * A Fable, Moral

If birds confabulate or no.
 * I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau
 * Pairing Time Anticipated

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
 * The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
 * To an Afflicted Protestant Lady

With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
 * Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
 * On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture

 * The son of parents pass'd into the skies.
 * On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture

And proves, by thumping on your back, His sense of your great merit, Is such a friend that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon or to bear it.
 * The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
 * On Friendship

And at the root of age.
 * A worm is in the bud of youth,
 * Stanzas subjoined to a Bill of Mortality

And by the hoarseness of his note, Might be supposed a crow.
 * There is a bird who by his coat,
 * The Jackdaw (translation from Vincent Bourne)

The world, with all its motley rout, Church, army, physic, law, Its customs and its businesses, Is no concern at all of his, And says—what says he?—Caw.
 * He sees that this great roundabout
 * The Jackdaw (translation from Vincent Bourne)

That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it come to light, In every cranny but the right.
 * For 't is a truth well known to most,
 * The Retired Cat

And lives contentedly between The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.
 * He that holds fast the golden mean, 22
 * Translation of Horace, book ii, Ode x

 * But strive still to be a man before your mother.
 * Connoisseur. Motto of No. iii

Misattributed
Pleasure never is at home.
 * Ever let the Fancy roam,
 * Actually the opening lines of Keats's "Fancy" (1820)

 * No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.
 * From the writings of William Cowper Brann (1855 – 1898), known as Brann the Iconoclast.

 * The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.
 * A misquotation of "The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow", from James Fenimore Cooper's The Red Rover (1827), ch. 23.

Quotes about Cowper

 * The mind of Cowper was, so to speak, naturally terrestrial. If a man wishes for a nice appreciation of the details of time and sense, let him consult Cowper's miscellaneous letters. Each simple event of every day—each petty object of external observation or inward suggestion, is there chronicled with a fine and female fondness, a wise and happy faculty, let us say, of deriving a gentle happiness from the tranquil and passing hour.
 * Walter Bagehot, "William Cowper" in The National Review (1855), p. 52

 * Cowper, writing after Pope, had the advantage of knowing what to avoid; but he was misled by a false analogy, and seeing in Milton a great epic poet, austere in his manner and repellent of meretricious ornament, attempted to force on Homer a style which, rightly considered, is almost as artificial as Virgil's, and which, moreover, he was himself unequal to wield.
 * John Conington, on Cowper's translation of Homer, in Oxford Essays (1855), "The Poetry of Pope", p. 30

 * Have you ever read the letters of the poet Cowper? He had nothing—literally nothing—to tell anyone about; private life in a sleepy country town where Evangelical distrust of "the world" denied him even such miserable society as the place would have afforded. And yet one reads a whole volume of his letters with unfailing interest. How his tooth came loose at dinner, how he made a hutch for a tame hare, what he is doing about his cucumbers—all this he makes one follow as if the fate of empires hung on it.
 * C. S. Lewis, letter to his father (25 February 1928) — in Letters of C. S. Lewis (1966), p. 124

 * We can not but admire a man who, subject to a lifelong illness that inflicted with frequent recurrence an intense mental agony, fought persistently against his weakness—at times their master, at times a victim to their influence. Still he did not flinch even under this torture, but held his pen and pressed it to write in a cause which was distinctly unpopular. Cowper was preeminently a poet of feelings; he may have been melancholy, but he pointed out to his readers how they were themselves subjects of emotion. He owed a debt to Providence, and he rebuked the people for their follies. In doing so he was regardless of his own fame and of their opprobrium. He gave them tolerable advice, and strove to awaken them from their apathy to a sense of their duty towards their neighbours. First of poets, since the days of Milton, to champion the sacredness of religion, he was the forerunner of a new school that disliked the political satires of the disciples of Pope, and aimed at borrowing for their lines of song from the simple beauties of a perfect nature.
 * A. Edmund Spender, "The Centenary of Cowper", in The Westminster Review, Vol. 153 (May, 1900), p. 545

title: William Cowper


text:
John Newton

John Newton (24 July 1725 – 21 December 1807) was a British slave trader who later became an abolitionist and a convert to Christianity. He came to be a clergyman and songwriter. He is known for writing the lyrics to the historical hymn, Amazing Grace.

Quotes

 * "If the trade is at present carried on to the same extent and nearly in the same manner, while we are delaying from year to year to put a stop to our part in it, the blood of many thousands of our helpless, much injured fellow creatures is crying against us. The pitiable state of the survivors who are torn from their relatives, connections, and their native land must be taken into account. I fear the African trade is a national sin, for the enormities which accompany it are now generally known; and though, perhaps, the greater part of the nation would be pleased if it were suppressed, yet, as it does not immediately affect their own interest, they are passive. {...] Can we wonder that the calamities of the present war begin to be felt at home, when we ourselves wilfully and deliberately inflict much greater calamities upon the native Africans, who never offended us?. "Woe unto thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled"
 * Alluding to the biblical verse in Isaiah 33:1. As quoted in The Works of the Rev. John Newton... to which are Prefixed Memoirs of His Life (1839), Vol. 2, U. Hunt., page 438.

 * Whether men are pleased or not, we will, we must, worship the Lamb that was slain.
 * The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Vol. 2, p. 382.

 * "I should be inexcusable, considering the share I have formerly had in that unhappy business, if, upon this occasion, I should omit to mention the African slave-trade. I do not rank this amongst our national sins, because I hope, and believe, a very great majority of the nation earnestly long for its suppression. But, hitherto, petty and partial interest prevail against the voice of justice, humanity and truth. This enormity, however, is not sufficiently laid to heart. If you are justly shocked by what you hear of the cruelties practised in France, you would, perhaps, be shocked much more, if you could fully conceive of the evils and miseries inseparable from this traffic, which I apprehend, not from hearsay, but from my own observation, are equal in atrocity, and, perhaps superior in number, in the course of a single year, to any or all the worst actions which have been known in France since the commencement of their revolution. There is a cry of blood against us; a cry accumulated by the accession of fresh victims, of thousands, of scores of thousands, I had almost said of hundreds of thousands, from year to year."
 * As quoted in The Works of the Rev. John Newton... to which are Prefixed Memoirs of His Life (1839), Vol. 2, U. Hunt, pages 429-230.

 * By one hour's intimate access to the throne of grace, where the Lord causes his glory to pass before the soul that seeks him, you may acquire more true spiritual knowledge and comfort, than by a day or a week's converse with the best of men, or the most studious perusal of many folios.
 * |35|383 Letter (February 1772)

 * I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, "By the grace of God I am what I am."
 * As quoted in The Christian Pioneer (1856) edited by Joseph Foulkes Winks, p. 84. Also in The Christian Spectator, vol. 3 (1821), p. 186
 * Often paraphrased as I am not the man I ought to be, I am not the man I wish to be, and I am not the man I hope to be, but by the grace of God, I am not the man I used to be."

Olney Hymns (1779)

 * Zeal is that pure and heavenly flame, The fire of love supplies; While that which often bears the name, Is self in a disguise. True zeal is merciful and mild, Can pity and forbear; The false is headstrong, fierce and wild, And breathes revenge and war.
 * Hymn 70: True and False Zeal

Amazing Grace

 * Originally titled: "Faith's Review and Expectation"

 * Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That sav'd a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.

 * 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears reliev'd; How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believ'd!

 * Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.

 * The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But God, who call'd me here below, Will be forever mine.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
 * Show me what I have to do, Every hour my strength renew; Let me live a life of faith, Let me die Thy people's death.
 * P. 266.

 * There is many a thing which the world calls disappointment; but there is no such thing in the dictionary of faith. What to others are disappointments are to believers intimations of the will of God.
 * P. 281.

 * I look upon prayer-meetings as the most profitable exercises (excepting the public preaching) in which Christians can engage. They have a direct tendency to kill a worldly, trifling spirit, and to draw down a Divine blessing upon all our concerns, compose differences, and enkindle (at least maintain) the flames of Divine love amongst brethren.
 * P. 475.

Misattributed

 * When we've been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise Than when we'd first begun.
 * These lines were not written by Newton. They have often been accreted to various hymns, including "Amazing Grace", since the mid-nineteenth century.

Quotes about John Newton

 * Outside in the harbor ... was the captain of the slave-ship, with so clear a conscience that one of them, in the intervals of waiting to enrich British capitalism with the profits of another valuable cargo, enriched British religion by composing the hymn "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!"
 * C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins (1938), p. 8

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

title: John Newton


text:
David Deutsch

David Deutsch (born 1953 in Haifa, Israel) is a British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a non-stipendiary Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, Clarendon Laboratory. He pioneered the field of quantum computers, and is a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Quotes

 * A computation is a physical process in which physical objects like computers, or slide rules or brains are used to discover, or to demonstrate or to harness properties of abstract objects—like numbers and equations. How can they do that? The answer is that we use them only in situations where to the best of our understanding the laws of physics will cause physical variables like electric currents in computers (representing bits) faithfully to mimic the abstract entities that we’re interested in.
 * What is computation? How Does Nature Compute? Lecture (November 1st, 2008)

The Fabric of Reality (1997)

 * Surely it is more interesting to argue about what the truth is, than about what some particular thinker, however great, did or did not think.

 * Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense...

 * The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy—but the ones that contain the deepest explanations.

 * The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.

 * A prediction, or any assertion, that cannot be defended might still be true, but an explanation that cannot be defended is not an explanation.

 * To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel. … Passing experimental tests is only one of many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.
 * Ch. 1

 * The quantum theory of parallel universes is not the problem, it is the solution. It is not some troublesome, optional interpretation emerging from arcane theoretical considerations. It is the explanation—the only one that is tenable—of a remarkable and counter-intuitive reality.
 * Ch. 2

 * Reality contains not only evidence, but also the means (such as our minds, and our artefacts) of understanding it. There are mathematical symbols in physical reality. The fact that it is we who put them there does not make them any less physical.
 * Ch.3

 * Thus we can see that if we take solipsism seriously - if we assume that it is true and that all valid explanations must scrupulously conform to it - it self destructs. How exactly does solipsism, taken seriously, differ from its common-sense rival, realism? The difference is based on no more than a renaming scheme. Solipsism insists on referring to objectively different things (such as external reality and my unconscious mind, or introspection and scientific observation) by the same names. But then it has to introduce the distinction through explanations in terms of something like the 'outer part of myself'. But no such extra explanation would be necessary without its insistence on an inexplicable renaming scheme. Solipsism must also postulate the existence of an additional class of processes - invisible, inexplicable processes which give the mind the illusion of living in an external reality. The solipsist, who believes that nothing exists other than the contents of one mind, must also believe that that mind is a phenomenon of greater multiplicity than is normal supposed. It contains other-people-like thoughts, planet-like thoughts and laws-of-physics-like thoughts. These thoughts are real. They develop in a complex way (or pretend to), and they have enough autonomy to surprise, disappoint, enlighten or thwart other classes of thoughts which call themselves 'I'. Thus the solipsist's explanation of the world is in terms of interacting thoughts rather than interacting objects. But those thoughts are real, and interact according to the same rules that the realist says govern the interaction of objects. Thus solipsism, far from being a world view striped to its essentials, is actually just realism disguised and weighed down by additional baggage, introduced only to be explained away.
 * Ch.4

 * Think of all our knowledge-generating processes, our whole culture and civilization, and all the thought processes in the minds of every individual, and indeed the entire evolving biosphere as well, as being a gigantic computation. The whole thing is  executing a self-motivated, self-generating computer program.  More specifically it is, as I have mentioned, a  virtual-reality program in the process of rendering, with ever-increasing accuracy, the whole of existence.

 * It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment.
 * Ch. 6

 * Since building a universal virtual-reality generator is physically possible, it must actually be built in some universes.
 * Ch. 6

 * Quantum computation is … nothing less than a distinctly new way of harnessing nature … It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes, and then sharing the results.
 * Ch. 9 : Quantum Computers

 * The next chapter is likely to provoke many mathematicians. This can't be helped. Mathematics is not what they think it is.
 * Ch. 10

 * Mathematical knowledge may, just like our scientific knowledge, be deep and broad, it may be subtle and wonderfully explanatory, it may be uncontroversially accepted; but it cannot be certain.
 * Ch. 10

 * Necessary truth is merely the subject-matter of mathematics, not the reward we get for doing mathematics. The object of mathematics is not, and cannot be, mathematical certainty. It is not even mathematical truth, certain or otherwise. It is, and must be, mathematical explanation.

 * Time travel may be achieved one day, or it may not. But if it is, it should not require any fundamental change in world-view, at least for those who broadly share the world view I am presenting in this book.
 * Ch. 12

 * Kuhn's theory suffers from a fatal flaw. It explains the succession from one paradigm to another in sociological or psychological terms, rather than as having primarily to do with the objective merit of the rival explanations. Yet unless one understands science as a quest for explanations, the fact that it does find successive explanations, each objectively better than the last, is inexplicable.
 * Ch. 13; commentary on the ideas of Thomas Kuhn, as presented in the book

The Beginning of Infinity (2011)

 * Experience is indeed essential to science, but its role is different from that supposed by empiricism. It is not the source from which theories are derived. Its main use is to choose between theories that have already been guessed. That is what ‘learning from experience’ is.
 * Ch. 1

 * The misconception that knowledge needs authority to be genuine or reliable dates back to antiquity, and it still prevails. To this day, most courses in the philosophy of knowledge teach that knowledge is some form of justified, true belief, where ‘justified’ means designated as true (or at least ‘probable’) by reference to some authoritative source or touchstone of knowledge.
 * Ch. 1

 * That progress is both possible and desirable is perhaps the quintessential idea of the Enlightenment. It motivates all traditions of criticism, as well as the principle of seeking good explanations. But it can be interpreted in two almost opposite ways, both of which, confusingly, are known as ‘perfectibility’. One is that humans, or human societies, are capable of attaining a state of supposed perfection – such as the Buddhist or Hindu ‘nirvana’, or various political utopias. The other is that every attainable state can be indefinitely improved. Fallibilism rules out that first position in favour of the second.
 * Ch. 3

 * Any theory about improvement raises the question: how is the knowledge of how to make that improvement created? Was it already present at the outset? The theory that it was is creationism. Did it ‘just happen’? The theory that it did is spontaneous generation.
 * Ch. 4

 * If something is permitted by the laws of physics, then the only thing that can prevent it from being technologically possible is not knowing how.
 * Ch. 9

 * Let me define that [wealth] in a non-parochial way as the repertoire of physical transformations that they would be capable of causing.
 * Ch. 9

 * Could it be that the moral imperative not to destroy the means of correcting mistakes is the only moral imperative? That all other moral truths follow from it?
 * Ch. 10

Deutsch's Law
This was Deutsch's response to the 2004 Edge Annual Question: "What is Your Law?"

Deutsch's Law: Every problem that is interesting is also soluble.
 * Corollary #1: Inherently insoluble problems are inherently boring.
 * Corollary #2: In the long run, the distinction between what is interesting and what is boring is not a matter of subjective taste but an objective fact.
 * Corollary #3: The problem of why every problem that is interesting is also soluble, is soluble.

Weblog

 * As I understand it, the claim is that the less you use Homeopathy, the better it works. Sounds plausible to me.

TED Talks

 * The rational thing for a layperson to do is to take seriously the prevailing scientific theory.

Quotes about David Deutsch

 * Native slipstream thinking, which has been around for millennia, anticipated recent cutting-edge physics, ironically suggesting that Natives have had things right all along. The closest approximation in quantum mechanics is the concept of the "multiverse," which posits that reality consists of a number of simultaneously existing alternate worlds and/or parallel worlds. Interested readers will enjoy John Gribbin's In Search of the Multiverse: Parallel Worlds, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Frontiers of Reality (2010) and David Deutsch's seminal The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications (1998). Deutsch's approach describes reality as "an infinite library full of copies of books that all start out the same way on page one, but in which the story in each book deviates more and more from the versions in the other books the farther into the book you read." The further twist of Deutsch's theory is that it "allows universes to merge back together... as if two of the books in the library have the same happy ending arrived at by different routes."
 * Grace Dillon Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (2012)

title: David Deutsch


text:
Monk (TV series)

 * Seasons: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | Main

Monk (2002–2009) is a television comedy drama created by Andy Breckman about Adrian Monk, a former detective, and now consultant, for the San Francisco Police Department who suffers from a number of psychological disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and several phobias.

Seasons

 * Season 1
 * Season 2
 * Season 3
 * Season 4
 * Season 5
 * Season 6
 * Season 7
 * Season 8

Mr. Monk's Last Case

 * Beth Landlow: I'm sorry, Adrian, it's just too late. It's been ten years. The name "Adrian Monk" used to mean something! It's a different world now; everyone's moved on.
 * Monk: I have an idea - may I make a suggestion? You both leave the room and, uh, someone different comes in and says different things to me.
 * Landlow: That's not gonna happen.
 * Monk: How 'bout this: you leave the room and nobody comes back in. Ever.

 * Richard Eden: Congratulations, Mr. Briggs. Most people don't know when they've made the biggest mistake of their lives, but you'll know. You'll always know. You'll go to your grave knowing.

 * Shelter Owner: You remember an address you saw on a post-it note two days ago?
 * Natalie: It's a gift. And a curse.
 * Monk: I'm no longer so sure about the "gift" part.

 * Eden: Shouldn't you be retired by now? No, actually, let me rephrase that: It is important to me that you are retired.

 * Eden: They are doing miraculous things these days with cryogenics and blood transfusions. Maybe you... you could live forever.
 * Monk: Live forever? You really are a monster.

 * Eden: I don't suppose I could convince you to jump, could I?
 * Monk: Not tonight. Not yet.

 * Molly: You know what? I don't care. I don't care, let him win. He wins. It was a perfect murder. I just-- I just wanna move on.
 * Monk: You could live with that? No. You couldn't...
 * Molly: I'll learn to live with it.

 * Monk's Suicide Note: Dear Harold, Almost all is forgiven. Your "friend", Adrian Monk

 * Eden: A billion dollars. What were you thinking?
 * Monk: I was thinking about my wife. Molly was her baby. You broke her baby’s heart.

 * Griffin: I just wanted to say thank you.
 * Monk: For...?
 * Griffin: Closure. Justice. When I couldn't speak for myself, you spoke for me.

 * Monk: Beautiful day.
 * Molly: It is a beautiful day.
 * Monk: Not perfect, but... good enough.

Cast

 * Tony Shalhoub - Adrian Monk
 * Traylor Howard - Natalie Teeger
 * Ted Levine - Captain Leland Stottlemeyer
 * Jason Gray-Stanford - Lieutenant Randall "Randy" Disher
 * Bitty Schram - Sharona Fleming

title: Monk (TV series)


text:
MediaWiki talk:Sitetitle

Please could a sysop change this page to say "Wikiquote" instead of MediaWiki. Thanks. Angela 03:37, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

title: MediaWiki talk:Sitetitle


text:
Henry Rollins

Henry Lawrence Garfield (born February 13, 1961), better known as Henry Rollins, is an American musician, singer, actor, presenter, comedian, and activist.

Quotes

 * Whenever I get dumped, I nail the door shut so that no one can come inside, get a towel and clip it around my neck so it's like a Superman cape, take off my shoes so I can slide across the room, and...get a fake mic, like a celery stick or a pen, and I play any record that features the vocalist Ronnie James Dio. And you can just pretend you're Dio, because on every album he does, he has minimum one, usually three, *EVIL WOMAN LOOK OUT!*- songs. And if you wanna point like Dio, it's a three-finger point.  (heavy metal voice) 'The exit is that way.  Evil LURKS!  Evil lurks in twilight!  Dances in the DARK!  Evil woman!  Just WALK AWAY!'
 * Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

 * You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom.  A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others.
 * Talk is Cheap Volume 1 (1998)

 * Don't hide behind the Constitution or the Bible. If you're against gay marriage, just be honest, put a scarlet 'H' on your shirt, and say, 'I am a homophobe!'
 * Talk is Cheap Volume 1 (1998)

 * If I let you, you would make me destroy myself. But in order to survive you, I must first survive myself. I can sink no further and I cannot forgive you. There's no choice but to confront you, to engage you, to erase you. I've gone to great lengths to expand my threshold of pain. I will use my mistakes against you. There's no other choice. Shameless now. Nameless now. Nothing now. No one now. But my soul must be iron cause my fear is naked. I'm naked and fearless - and my fear is naked!
 * Bottom from the album Undertow by the band TOOL

 * Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star act. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs.
 * Black Coffee Blues

 * I got three letters today telling me that I'm god. Why can't I pay the rent?
 * Black Coffee Blues

 * My pen knows what to do. I close my eyes and I see this girl who glows. A girl who radiates. When she smiles, she beams. She warms my heart. I open my eyes with a feeling of floating past all the garbage around me. I will emerge unscathed because I will not endeavor to hide myself from whatever is coming. Bring on the worst. I welcome it with open arms.
 * Black Coffee Blues

 * You would think that pot had some kind of power; I mean come on, it’s a plant, not a reason for living. Controlled by a plant, how hilarious. A plant! A fucking plant!
 * Get In The Van

 * BULLLLLSHIT!!
 * Feast

 * The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you're a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.
 * IRON, article in Details Magazine, January 1993

 * When life hands you a lemon, say "Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?
 * The Boxed Life

 * Knowledge without Mileage is bullshit to me.
 * Provoked with Henry Rollins, House of Blues, New Orleans, September 21, 2007

 * If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.
 * Do I Come Here Often

 * I know what we're gonna do! OOOOO - REAL ROCK POWER! There'll be nothing left. It'll be like Godzilla stepping on a cupcake. You're outta here! You're dead! YOU'RE DEAD! And so they clear, we put our gear on and we walk out there. 14,000 people have dwindled to... about six. It's alright! They'll come back! So we go out there - 'OOOOO POOOSSSHHHHH!' Three songs later, there's about 3,000 people. Four songs into the set, there's about 800 people. No response whatsoever. We get to the end of the set, there's like eight guys standing a mile away, 'Fuck you!'
 * Live At The Westbeth Theater (2001): On having to play after Sheryl Crow at a festival show

 * I have to use a handbasket, which says 'I'm only kidding. I'm not really here buying a lot of shit. I'm just buying a few things. I'm just goofing around. Hey!' It's a way of avoiding the truth. It's like when you come into your apartment, and your two buddies are fucking each other. You know, like 'Uhhh! Ooohhh! Oh - ha ha ha ha! You're wondering about this, huh? Ha! We were just kiddin' around! We were just goofin' around! Nothin' else to do; let's fuck each other! Go figure!'
 * Live At The Westbeth Theater (2001); On his first visit to Bed, Bath & Beyond

 * 'HOW YA DOIN'!? PHIL! PETE! TOM! SAM, RIGHT?' I grab a shopping cart. Fuck the handbasket; I'm going big today. Goin' up to everybody in there: 'HEY, HOW YA DOIN'! HAVING A GOOD BED, BATH & BEYOND EXPERIENCE TODAY? RIGHT ON! HEY, TONY! HOW ARE THOSE FUCKIN' CANDLES DOING? ANY CANDLES ON SALE?'
 * Live At The Westbeth Theater (2001): On his fourth visit to Bed, Bath & Beyond in five days

 * The Ninja, as you know, operates by stealth. And so, case in point: I put out records... no one hears them! I make videos... (whispers) no one sees! I go on tour.... (whispers) no one knows! NINJA! I was never here!
 * Talk Is Cheap Volume 2 (2003)

 * Cynicism is only intellectual sloth.
 * Riff on life's journey blends humor, hope, Columbus Dispatch

 * I make music all the time that no-one ever hears. Y' know, I sing in the shower, I hit on things. Music is life - life is music. Of all people, Nietzsche said 'Life without music is an error'. And so I'll be making music one way or another. Oh believe me, I make music..I've made whole records that no-one heard. Oh they came out, no-one bought them! We used to do whole secret tours, we used to stand outside like 'We're playing tonight!' and only the bouncers and bartenders would see you. I'm used to it. I'm that tree that falls in the forest.
 * Clip for Studio4a at youtube.com

 * Someone who would go across a desert that can kill you, to get to another country? You want to be an American *that* bad? 'Cause I've never had to lift my damn finger to be an American. I'm honored to share a country with you.
 * Interview with Pharrel Williams for the Reserve Channel at youtube.com

Solipsist (1998)

 * It is no surprise to me that hardly anyone tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep themselves to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you? Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer than close to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to.

 * I must tell you that I was always afraid of the fury with which I loved you. It overwhelmed me. I thought it beyond comprehension, therefore my silence.

 * I will never say the things that I want to say to you. I know the damage it would do. I love you more than I hate my loneliness and pain.

 * They say true love only comes around once and you have to hold out and be strong until then. I have been waiting. I have been searching. I am a man under the moon, walking the streets of earth until dawn. There's got to be someone for me. It's not too much to ask. Just someone to be with. Someone to love. Someone to give everything to. Someone.

 * Thank you for touching me. Some of the only moments worth living were spent with you. Not you especially, the collective you.

 * If I was a woman these days, I'd be killing motherfuckers. My handgun would never cool and my hands would be covered in testicular blood. I would have a horrible reputation with a lot of men because I would be calling them on their weak bullshit left and right.

 * Basically, men are afraid of women and can't handle the fact that they came out of the same thing they spend the rest of their lives trying to get back into.

 * If I was gay, there would be no closet, you would never see the closet I came out of. Why? I would have burned it for kindling by the time I was 12. Because I know with all certainty in my mind, there is nothing wrong with being gay, and you know it.

title: Henry Rollins


text:
Talk:Kurt Vonnegut

This was posted by someone earlier:

 * There are only two important things to remember in life. The first is that you should be good to other people. The second is that God doesn't care whether you are or not.
 * This is pretty close but not an exact quote.

 I know of no exact matches and until there is something with a definite source, it probably should not be on the main article page. ~ Kalki 06:45, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In attributed "If you want to study a granfalloon just take the skin off a toy balloon" comes from Cat's Cradle

Dwarf Kirlston -Jan 29

The quote from A Man Without a Country say this:

 * In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were.

The In These Times column where the line originally appeared has it this way:

 * In case you haven’t noticed, we are now almost as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis were.

The word almost in the second version seems to change the quote substantially. Does the line appear in the book without it? WillMatthews 16:16, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the info. I have now corrected the quote to read as it does in the original article. I think it unlikely that it was deliberately changed in the book, but do not have a copy to check. ~ Kalki 16:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Removed some of the quotes from Attributed that were in other sections as well.

Moved quotes from wikipedia article
I moved the quotes from the Wikipedia article on Vonnegut to here. Commonbrick 22:46, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

About three quotes appear both in the Attrbitude section and under their respective book.

I'd like to teach Iraq about Democracy because we're so experienced with it. First they should know that after 100 years they should free their slaves. Then after 150 years they should give their women the right to vote. Oh, and of course when they start it all they should begin with some genocide and ethnic cleansing. (Sarcasticly) Appearance on "The Daily Show," September 2005
 * Is this correct? I don't think that is exactly what he said.  I'm not sure.  --64.192.21.58 23:48, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

In attributed the quote is from Cats Cradle it is allready written there, I am removing the duplicated unsourced quote. 23:51, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.

Citing sources
Some of the miscellaneous sourced statements do not actually have sources. For example, "Vonnegut on Humanism" is not a source, and "Interview Playboy (1973)" should be much more specific. --65.147.0.216 16:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Pay no attention when I laugh...
Someone help me out here. I'm no literary critic, I just love the quote, "Pay no attention when I laugh... I'm a notorious pervert in that respect." I had the last, longer quote under Cat's Cradle. Is it too much? Does it have the same effect out of context?

 * I think it would be better without the context, just "Pay no attention when I laugh... I'm a notorious pervert in that respect." Ed Fitzgerald 07:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Is the note necessary?
I'm new to the Wiki updating so want to refrain from stepping on toes immediately. After the quote, "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected" there is a note about the validity of this statement. This is largely a useless designation, I believe. Since this is the Wikiquote and simply supposed to be a repository of quotes, correct?

 * Comments after the quotes are allowed here, especially if there are specific details about the context or validity of the statement to note. This comment seems to have been added by someone repudiating Vonnegut's observation about Hitler's rise to Chancellorship; I don't think the observation is absolutely necessary, but the statement is truthful, and now that it is there, I wouldn't remove it entirely, but it could be editied slightly. ~ Kalki 03:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Misattributed ?
In the Unsourced section, there's a quote that says "We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down."

Two very similar quotes are on Ray Bradbury's Wikiquote page:

In Sourced:

 * Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down. Brown Daily Herald (24 March 1995)

In Unsourced:

 * If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: "It's gonna go wrong." Or "She's going to hurt me." Or,"I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore . . ." Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.

added "See the nigger fly the airplane!" to 'Hocus Pocus' (1990)

Ray Bradbury said the wings quote 1st : http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/06/17/cliff-wings/

Request for Quote about Atheists
I have in my memory a quote which I've thought about often, but can't find anywhere. I believe I read it in a Kurt Vonnegut essay, and the idea is something like this: Every atheist has a secret dream - To meet God when they die; to learn that they had led a just life; and to be smug in the knowledge that they, unlike believers, had done so independently, without the bribe of Heaven or the threat of Hell to influence them.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Unsourced

 * Vonnegut is one of those major iconic figures to whom, over time, many statements become attributed; unsourced attributions to him should usually be treated with some skepticism, and often a great deal of it.

 * I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.
 * quoted in “The War Between Writers and Reviewers,” New York Times Book Review (6 January 1985).

 * When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.
 * quoted in "Kurt Vonnegut: In His Own Words" (London) Times Online (12 April 2007).

 * It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.
 * quoted in "Kurt Vonnegut: In His Own Words" (London) Times Online (12 April 2007).

 * If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.

 * The two prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck.

 * True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

 * We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

 * We're not too young for love, just too young for about everything there is that goes with love.

 * Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

 * The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.
 * A Man Without a Country

 * You understand, of course, that everything I say is horseshit.
 * quoted in Playboy interview, David Standish, 1973, and reprinted in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, page 77.

 * Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.

 * As a humanist I love science, I hate superstition, which could never have given us A-bombs.

 * Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

Nazi Imagery
Can we keep the ridiculous swastikas on Union Jacks etc. off this page? They have nothing to do with the story or quotes. And linking communism with the Nazi party is just ridiculous, especially on this page considering Vonnegut's stance on socialism.

 * You speak as if these Swastikas were actually promoting Nazism, rather than used in conjunction with quotes from a story about Nazism and other forms of tyranny and social corruption, which promotes skepticism towards any form of intolerant and presumptuous fanaticism, nationalism or ideologies. If one has ever actually examined the excellent yet depressingly dark novel, Mother Night, one would have some idea that it is ABOUT an ostensibly fanatic Nazi propagandist, who is actually an American agent in Nazi Germany, and who regularly dressed in garish Americanized Nazi regalia, and later was himself deceived in encountering agents of various groups operating within and beyond Communist East Germany. It is perhaps not one of Vonnegut's greatest works, but certainly has some tragic and ironic plot twists that are among his most memorable to anyone who has read it, as I have. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 01:23, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think this is debatable. Although the images express meaningful comments about themes addressed in the work from which the quotes are drawn, quotations by their very nature are taken out of context. It is not at all surprising that someone who is unfamiliar with that work might be taken aback by such symbolism in this context, where they do not have the sort of directly apparent relevance to the captioning quotations, or to the subject of the page, as is stipulated in the WQ:IMAGE policy. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

the "THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED... OF GOD WAS MUSIC" in the caption needs context
I provided it, but didn't want to edit/remove the above quote that is in a caption. I wanted to build a consensus that it is deceptive w/out context, as he  was self-described as a humanist non-religious. If we achieve consensus on that, perhaps we can vote on what to do about it. As an analogy, I can quote Einstein saying "I am not a Jew" similarly. It makes more sense with the surrounding context: "The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect, I am not a Jew. . "

Noah Edelson (talk) 18:13, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kurt Vonnegut


text:
Childhood's End

Childhood's End (1953) is a science-fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke about the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.

Quotes
Note: A new first chapter was substituted in 1990, owing to anachronisms in the opening scene. Editions since have appeared with the original opening or including both alternatives. Except as noted, quotations are from the original 1953 edition.

 * The opinions expressed in this book are not those of the author.
 * Disclaimer on Copyright page

 * He had lost his race. And he knew that he had lost it, not by the few weeks or months that he had feared, but by millennia. The huge and silent shadows driving across the stars, more miles above his head than he dared to guess, were as far beyond his little "Columbus" as it surpassed the log canoes of paleolithic man. [...] All that the past ages had achieved was as nothing now: only one thought echoed and re-echoed through Reinhold's brain: The human race was no longer alone.
 * Prologue

 * When this book was written in the early 1950s, I was still quite impressed by the evidence for what is generally called the paranormal, and used it as a main theme of the story. Four decades later, after spending some millions of dollars of Yorkshire Television’s money researching my Mysterious World and Strange Powers programmes, I am an almost total skeptic. I have seen far too many claims dissolve into thin air, far too many demonstrations exposed as fakes.
 * Prologue (1990 edition)

 * Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets.
 * Ch. 2, Supervisor Karellen

 * "If you want a single proof of the essential—how shall I put it—benevolence of the Overlords, think of that cruelty-to-animals order which they made within a month of their arrival. If I had had any doubts about Karellen before, that banished them!"
 * Ch. 3, the blind Welshman

 * Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.
 * Ch. 4

 * It was a tribute to the Overlords' psychology, and to their careful years of preparation, that only a few people fainted. Yet there could have been fewer still, anywhere in the world, who did not feel the ancient terror brush for one awful instant against their minds before reason banished it forever. There was no mistake. The leathery wings, the little horns, the barbed tail—all were there. The most terrible of all legends had come to life, out of the unknown past. Yet now it stood smiling, in ebon majesty, with the sunlight gleaming upon its tremendous body, and with a human child resting trustfully on either arm.
 * Ch. 5

 * Fifty years is ample time to change the world and it's people almost beyond recognition. All that I'd required for the task are a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal- and power
 * Ch. 6

 * "All political problems," Karellen had once told Stormgren, "can be solved by the correct application of power"
 * Ch. 6

 * Crime had practically vanished. It had become unnecessary and impossible. When no one lacks anything there is no point in stealing.
 * Ch. 6

 * Western man had relearned-what the rest of the world had never forgotten-that there was nothing sinful in leisure as long as it did not degenerate into mere sloth.
 * Ch. 6

Within a few days, all mankind's multitudinous messiahs had lost their divinity. Beneath the fierce passionless light of truth, faiths that had sustained millions for twice a thousand years vanished like morning dew. All the good and all the evil they had wrought were swept suddenly into the past, and could touch the minds of men no more. Humanity had lost its ancient gods: now it was old enough to have no need for new ones.
 * The instrument he handed over on permanent loan to the World History Foundation was nothing more than a television receiver with an elaborate set of controls for determining co-ordinates in time and space. [...] One had merely to adjust the controls, and a window into the past was opened up. Almost the whole of human history for the past five thousand years became accessible in an instant. [...]
 * Ch. 6

 * The evidence is confused with mysticism—perhaps the prime aberration of the human mind.
 * Ch. 9

 * A well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.
 * Ch. 10

 * What finally decided him was the thought that, if he neglected this incredible opportunity, he would never forgive himself. All the rest of his life would be spent in vain regrets—and nothing could be worse than that.
 * Ch. 12

 * It had been the Golden Age. But gold was also the color of sunset, of autumn.
 * Ch. 14

 * The group of artists and scientists that had so far done least was the one that had attracted the greatest interest --and the greatest alarm. There was the team working on "total identification." The history of the cinema gave the clue to their actions. First sound, then color, then stereoscopy, then cinerama, had made the old "moving pictures" more and more like reality itself. Where was the end of the story? Surely, the final stage would be reached when the audience forgot it was an audience and became part of the action. to achieve this would involve stimulation of all the senses, and perhaps hypnosis as well but many believed it to be practical. When the goal was attained, there would be an enormous enrichment of human experience. A man could become --for a while, at least-- any other person, and could take part in any conceivable adventure, real or imaginary. He could even be a plant or an animal, if it proved possible to capture and record the sense impressions of other living creatures. And when the "program" was over, he would have acquired a memory as vivid as any experience in his actual life --indeed, indistinguishable from reality itself.
 * “I've invented a new definition for TV,” he muttered gloomily. “I've decided it’s a device for hindering communication between artist and audience.”
 * Few artists thrive in solitude, and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests.
 * Ch. 15

 * Far, far away on the horizon was something that was not of Earth—a line of misty columns, tapering slightly as they soared out of the sea and lost themselves among the clouds. They were spaced with perfect precision along the rim of the planet—too huge to be artificial, yet too regular to be natural. ("Sideneus 4 and the Pillars of the Dawn," said Rashaverak, and there was awe in his voice. "He has reached the center of the Universe." "And he has barely begun his journey," answered Karellen.)
 * Ch. 18

 * A century ago we came to your world and saved you from self-destruction. I do not believe that anyone would deny that fact—but what that self-destruction was, you never guessed.
 * Ch. 20

 * Across that abyss, there is only one bridge. Few races, unaided, have ever found it. Some have turned back while there was still time, avoiding both the danger and the achievement. Their worlds have become Elysian islands of effortless content, playing no further part in the story of the universe. That would never have been your fate—or your fortune. Your race was too vital for that. It would have plunged into ruin and taken others with it, for you would never have found the bridge.
 * Ch. 20

 * Your mystics, though they were lost in their own delusions, had seen part of the truth. There are powers of the mind, and powers beyond the mind, which your science could never have brought within its framework without shattering it entirely. [...] During the first half of the twentieth century, a few of your scientists began to investigate these matters. They did not know it, but they were tampering with the lock of Pandora's box. The forces they might have unleashed transcended any perils that the atom could have brought. For the physicists could only have ruined the Earth: the paraphysicists could have spread havoc to the stars.
 * Ch. 20

 * All these potentialities, all these latent powers—we do not possess them, nor do we understand them. Our intellects are far more powerful than yours, but there is something in your minds that has always eluded us.
 * Ch. 20

 * We believe—it is only a theory—that the Overmind is trying to grow, to extend its powers and its awareness of the universe. By now it must be the sum of many races, and long ago it left the tyranny of matter behind. It is conscious of intelligence, everywhere. When it knew that you were almost ready, it sent us here to do its bidding, to prepare you for the transformation that is now at hand.
 * Ch. 20

 * It starts with a single individual—always a child—and then spreads explosively, like the formation of crystals round the first nucleus in a saturated solution. Adults will not be affected, for their minds are already set in an unalterable mould.
 * Ch. 20

 * What you have brought into the world may be utterly alien, it may share none of your desires or hopes, it may look upon your greatest achievements as childish toys—yet it is something wonderful, and you will have created it. When our race is forgotten, part of yours will still exist. Do not, therefore, condemn us for what we were compelled to do. And remember this—we shall always envy you.
 * Ch. 20

 * ...no one of intelligence resents the inevitable.
 * Ch. 23

 * "The buildings round me, the ground,  the mountains—everything’s like a glass—I can see through it. [...] The light! From beneath me—inside the Earth—shining upward, through the rocks, the ground, everything—growing brighter, brighter, blinding—"
 * Ch. 24

 * There was nothing left of Earth: They had leeched away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them, through the fierce moments of their inconceivable metamorphosis, as the food stored in a grain of wheat feeds the infant plant while it climbs towards the Sun. Six thousand million kilometers beyond the orbit of Pluto, Karellen sat before a suddenly darkened screen. [...] The weight of centuries was upon him, and a sadness that no logic could dispel.
 * Ch. 24

title: Childhood's End


text:
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