text:
Talk:David Lynch

d    a    v  i  d        l  y  n ch          r o c k s ! *

Primary Colors
I have seen the quote, "Believe it or not, Primary Colours are total fucking bullshit." attributed to David Lynch before but I think it might be a misattribution. Does anyone have a source for that quote?

''After a bit more research, I've discovered that this is actually of another, not much more confusing, quote. "Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film."'' Source

title: Talk:David Lynch


text:
Noel Gallagher

Noel Gallagher (born 29 May 1967) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter, known as former lead songwriter, guitarist and sometime lead-singer with the British rock band Oasis. He left the band in August 2009, thus leading to the group's dissolution. His brother Liam Gallagher was also in Oasis.

Controversy with other artists

 * I hate that Alex and Damon. I hope they catch AIDS and die.
 * Noel Gallagher cited in "Timeline: Blur v Oasis after Britpop" at news.bbc.co.uk, 14 August, 1995: Referring to Damon Albarn and Blur

 * Kylie Minogue is just a demonic little idiot as far as I'm concerned. She gets cool dance producers to work with her for some bizarre reason, I don't know why. She doesn't even have a good name. It's a stupid name, Kylie, I just don't get it
 * Noel Gallagher cited in "Kylie 'demonic', says Oasis star", at news.bbc.co.uk, 27 June 2002

 * There is a limited supply of excellent songs, but I am not the only one. Paul McCartney, one of the best songwriters of all time, has only produced manure for the past 25 years. Rock musicians over 30 only produce unimportant material.
 * Noel Gallagher cited in ‘Sir Paul has just written manure for years’ at scotsman.com, originally published 2 July 2002 (see here)

 * I don't know, I think he's just going senile, isn't he?
 * Noel Gallagher cited in ‘Sir Paul has just written manure for years’ at scotsman.com, 2 July 2002: Gallagher was asked about Paul McCartney’s recent work in another interview.

 * He's now trying to make social comment, this is the guy who hid who he actually was from the public for 20 years. Now, all of a sudden, he's got something to say about the way of the world. I find it laughable. That's even before you get to the song, which is diabolical.
 * Noel Gallagher cited in "Gallagher attacks 'liar' Michael" at news.bbc.co.uk, 8 July 2002. Remarks on George Michael's song "Shoot the Dog."

 * Jack White, right, has just done a song for Coca-Cola. End of. He ceases to be in the club. And he looks like Zorro on doughnuts. He's supposed to be the poster boy for the alternative way of thinking... I'm not having that, that's fucking wrong. Particularly Coca-Cola, it's like doing a fucking gig for McDonald's."
 * Noel Gallagher cited in "Gallagher Slams White's Coca-Cola Connection" at contactmusic.com,  8 December 2005: Remarks on Jack White's song for a new Coca-Cola commercial.

 * If there were gold medals for taking drugs for England then I’d have won a shitload! I did enjoy it but it kind of got to the point where I’d done them all and that was it, there was none left and I just thought 'Can’t be arsed any more.’
 * Noel Gallagher cited in "Gallagher speaks about drug experiences" at digitalspy.com, 25 November 2006

 * "People hate fucking cunts like Phil Collins, and if they don't, they fucking should!"

 * "Another reason to vote Labour is if you fucking don't and the Conservatives get in, Phil Collins is threatening to come back and live here, and let's face it none of us want that."

 * The music industry doesn't like mavericks. The reason why there are no bands now is because in the 90s Oasis and Primal Scream, Blur, and all those... (bands)-- we were the mainstream. And what the music industry doesn't like is the mainstream being a load of fellas on drugs, drunk half the time on a Tuesday. They don't like that. They like people like Harry Styles. They say, Wear this dress and shut it. Wear this, sing that, go home. And that's kinda what happened.
 * Absolute Radio, 11 June 2021

Politics

 * "Do I think we should leave [the EU]? I don't think we should be given a vote. I see politicians on TV every night telling us that this is a fucking momentous decision that could fucking change Britain forever and blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, why don't you fucking do what we pay you to do which is run the fucking country and make your fucking mind up. What are you asking the people for? 99 percent of the people are thick as pig shit. They didn't fucking ask us for a referendum when they were going off to war, did they? No, fucking assholes."

 * "Fuck Jeremy Corbyn. He's a communist."

 * "Twitter is the playground of fucking idiots .... quite literally I’d put the pair of them [ Donald Trump and Liam Gallagher] in a driverless car each so they crash into each other."

Definitely Maybe (1994)

 * I live my life in the city / There's no easy way out / The day's moving just too fast for me" I live my life for the stars that shine/People say it's just a waste of time. In my mind my dreams are real You're not down with who I am / look at you now, you're all in my hands tonight"
 * ''Rock'n'Roll Star

 * "Maybe you're the same as me / We see things they'll never see / You and I are gonna live forever.
 * Live Forever

 * Tell me how high / Do you think you'll go / Before you start falling?" The people here / They don't hear you calling How does it feel / When you're inside me?"
 * Up In The Sky

 * There we were / Now here we are / All this confusion / Nothing's the same to me I can't tell you the way I feel / because the way I feel is also new to me"
 * Columbia

 * I need to be myself / I can't be no-one else "You can have it all but how much do you want it?"
 * Supersonic

 * You're the outcast / You're the underclass / But you don't care / Because you're living fast You're the uninvited guest that stays to the end. I'll be scraping your life from the sole of my shoe tonight" Bring It On Down

 * These could be the best days of our lives / but I don't think we've been living very wise." ''
 * Digsy's Dinner

 * I was looking for some action / but all I found was cigarettes and alcohol Is it worth the aggravation to find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for? You might as well do the white line"
 * Cigarettes and Alcohol''

 * I dream of you / And all the things you say / I wonder where you are now I need you now / You've knocked me off my feet We talk of going old / But you say "Please don't Let me be the one / Who shines with you / In the morning / We don't know what to do"
 * Slide Away

 * I hate the way that you are so sarcastic, and you're not very bright. You think that everything you've done's fantastic, your music's shite it keeps me up all night. And it will be nice to be alone, for a week or two, but I know then I will be right, right back here with you"
 * Married With Children

(What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

 * You've got to say what you say / Don't let anybody get in your way"
 * Roll With It''

 * I don't believe that anybody / Feels the way I do / About you now All the roads that lead you there are winding / And all the lights that light the way are blinding There are many things that I would like to say to you / But I don't know how. Maybe / You're gonna be the one that saves me"
 * Wonderwall

 * Slip inside the eye of your mind / don't you know you might find / A better place to play So I'll start a revolution from my bed / Because you said the brains I had went to my head. Please don't put you're life in the hands / Of a rock 'n' roll band / Who'll throw it all away"
 * Don't Look Back In Anger

 * I took a walk with my fame down memory lane / I never did find my way back" Feel no shame / 'coz time's no chain"
 * Hey Now

 * Some might say that sunshine follows thunder / Go and tell it to the man who cannot shine / Some might say that we should never ponder / On our thoughts today 'cos they hold sway over time Some might say / We will find a brighter day Some might say they don't believe in heaven / Go and tell it to the man who lives in hell" *
 * Some Might Say

 * Here's a thought for every man who's tried to understand what's in his hands Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say / Chained to all the places that he never wished to stay / As he faced the sun, he cast no shadow. As they took his soul they stole his pride"
 * Cast No Shadow

 * All your dreams are made / When you're chained to the mirror and the razor blade"
 * Morning Glory

 * She's got a sister / God only knows how I missed her / And on the palm of her hand is a blister She's got a brother / We don't get on with one another / But I quite fancy her mother / And I think that she likes me She's got one in the oven / But it's nothing to do with me"
 * She's Electric

 * How many special people change? / How many lives are living strange? / Where were you while we were getting high? People believe that they're gonna get away for the summer/ But you and I/ We live and die/ The world still spins around we don't know why. Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide / In a champagne supernova in the sky."
 * Champagne Supernova

Be Here Now (1997)

 * I met my maker / I made him cry / And on my shoulder / He asked me why / His people won't fly / Through the storm / I said listen up man, they don't even know you're born All my people / Right here, right now / D'you know what I mean? Coming in a mess / Going out in style / I ain't good looking / But I'm someone's child No one can give me the air that's mine to breathe"
 * D'You Know What I Mean

 * Round this town you've ceased to be / That's what you get for sleeping with the enemy Guess who's gonna take the blame for my big mouth Into my big mouth / You could fly a plane"
 * My Big Mouth

 * I'll have my way, in my own time / I'll have my say, my star will shine.
 * Magic Pie

 * Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday / I've got a lot of things to learn What's the matter with you? / Sing me something new The cold and wind and rain don't know / They only seem to come, and go away Stand by me / Nobody knows the way it's going to be There is one thing I can never give you / My heart will never be your home"
 * Stand By Me

 * The future's mine and it's no disgrace, cos in the end the past means nothing. I feel a little down today, and I ain't got much to say And if I stumble, catch me when I fall / 'Cause, baby, after all / You'll never forget my name.
 * I Hope, I Think, I Know

 * Would you maybe / Come dancing with me / 'Cos to me it doesn't matter if your hopes and dreams are shattered"
 * The Girl In The Dirty Shirt

 * And I want to be there when you're coming down / And I want to be there when you hit the ground Don't go away / Say what you say / Say that you'll stay... because I need more time just to make things right Damn my education / I can't find the words to say Me and you, what's going on?/All we seem to know/Is how to show, the feelings that are wrong
 * Don't Go Away

 * Maybe the songs that we sing are wrong / Maybe the dreams that we dream are gone / So bring it on home and it won't be long / It's gettin' better man!
 * It's Getting Better (Man!

 * It's a bit early in the midnight hour for me / To go through all the things that I want to be Take me away / 'Cos I just don't want to stay / And the lies you make me say / Are getting deeper every day If you're lost at sea / Well I hope that you drownd" Please don't cry / Never say die
 * All Around The World''

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000)

 * Is it any wonder why Princes & Kings / Are clowns that caper in their sawdust rings / When ordinary people who are like you and me / Are the builders of their destiny.
 * Go Let It Out

 * Thank you for the sun / The one that shines on everyone / Who feels love.
 * Who Feels Love

 * What tongueless ghost of sin crept through my curtains?. My family don't seem so familiar / And my enemies all know my name. You better get on your knees and pray / Panic is on the way My eyes are dead / My throat's like a black hole / And if there's a God / Would he give another chancer / An hour to sing for his soul?"
 * Gas Panic

 * You know that feeling you get / You feel you're older than time? Do you keep the receipts for the friends that you buy? And I hope you know / That it won't let go / It sticks around with you until the day you die. I hope the tears don't stain the world that waits outside.
 * Where Did It All Go Wrong?

 * When yer lonely and you start to hear/The little voices in your head at night/You will only sniff away the tears/So you can dance until the mornings light And in your head, do you feel what your not supposed to feel? You need more time / 'Cos your thoughts and words won't last forevermore"
 * Sunday Morning Call

Heathen Chemistry (2002)

 * God gave me a soul / And your rock 'n' roll In and out my brain / And running through my vein / You're my sunshine / You're my rain"
 * The Hindu Times

 * You look like a faded picture / I see the cracks forming on your skin For smoking all my stash / For burning all my cash.. It's all over town that the sun's / Going down on the days / Of your easy life"
 * Force of Nature

 * Why you scared? / You'll never change what's been and done All of the stars / Have faded away / Just try not to worry / You'll see them someday / Take what you need / And be on your way / And stop crying your heart out"
 * Stop Crying Your Heart Out

 * We dream our dream alone with no resistance / Fading like the stars we wish to be True perfection has to be imperfect My God woke up on the wrong side of his bed Little by little / We gave you everything you ever dreamed of / And little by little / the wheels of your life have slowly fallen off" **
 * Little by Little

Don't Believe the Truth (2005)

 * You get your mucky fingers burnt / You get your truth from the lies that you've learnt Fed up with life in the city / 'Cos all the phonies have blown my mind It's all mine!"
 * Mucky Fingers

 * I've waited for a thousand years / For you to come and blow me out my mind The world around us makes me feel so small If you can't hear me call / Then I can't say, Lyla / Heaven help you catch me if I fall"
 * Lyla

 * My girlfriend called me the other night / She said 'Boy, you lazy I don't mind / As long as there's a bed beneath the stars that shine / I'll be fine I can't get a life if my heart's not in it I lost my faith in the summertime / 'Cos it don't stop raining I begged my doctor for one more line / He said 'son, words fail me / It ain't your place to be killing time' / I guess I'm just lazy"
 * The Importance of Being Idle

 * Suddenly I found that I'd lost my way in this city / The streets and the thousands of faces all bleed into one I'm having trouble just finding some soul in this town It's all they can do to be part of the queue 'There'll be no tomorrow' they say / Well I say 'More's the pity'"
 * Part of the Queue

Dig Out Your Soul (2008)

 * Gold and silver and sunshine is rising up"
 * Bag it Up

 * I still don't know what I was waiting for / A big love to fall down from the sky Heaven must have sent you / To save me from the rapture"
 * Waiting for the Rapture

 * I'm over my heart's desire / I feel cold, but I'm back in the fire Love is a litany / A magical mystery / And all in good time"
 * The Shock of the Lightning

 * We live a dying dream / If you know what I mean"
 * Falling Down

B-sides released by Oasis

 * I haven't seen your face around since I was a kid / It's bringing back the memories of the things that we did"
 * D'Yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?, 1994

 * My body feels young but my mind is very old So what do you say / You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway / You're half the world away I've been lost, I've been found / But I don't feel down"
 * Half the World Away, 18 December 1994

 * When I was young I though I had my own key / I knew exactly what I wanted to be / Now I'm sure / You've boarded up every door While we're living / The dreams we had as children fade away"
 * Fade Away from the The Help Album'', 1995

 * We need each other / We believe in one another / And I know we're gonna uncover / What's sleeping in our souls"
 * Acquiesce, released 24 April 1995

 * All your dreams are made of strawberry lemonade / And you make sure I eat today"
 * Talk Tonight, released 24 April 1995

 * Take the time to make some sense / Of what you want to say / And cast your words away upon the waves Dance if you wanna dance, please brother take a chance / You know we're gonna go which way we wanna go / All we know is that we don't know how it's gonna be, please brother let it be / Life, on the other hand, won't make you understand / We're all part of the masterplan. I'm not saying right is wrong / It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way
 * The Masterplan, released 30 October 1995

 * Day by day there's a man in a suit / Who's gonna make you pay For the thoughts that you think and the words / They won't let you say I don't believe in magic / Life is automatic And I don't mind being on my own.
 * Listen Up, 1995

 * Is anyone here prepared to say / Just what they mean or is it too late / For anyone here to try to do / Just what it takes to get through to you Let's all make believe / That we're still friends and we like each other Let's all make believe / That in the end we're gonna need each other Strangle my hope and make me pray / To a God I've never seen but who I betray"
 * Let's All Make Believe, 7 February 2000

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

title: Noel Gallagher


text:
Talk:Albert Camus

Missing Quotes
There's a quote here from Camus' journals that references the effort it takes to be normal. The quote points out that it  does not appear in any of Camus’ “books in bookstores.”  This quote dealing with the same idea needs to be placed below it. It is from a conversation in The Plague between Rieux and Grand.

"Too long! It's lasted too long. All the time one's wanting to let oneself go, and then one day one has to. Oh, doctor, I know I look a quiet sort, just like anybody else. But it's always been a terrible effort only to be, just normal. And now, well, even that's too much for me."

I dont know where I should place this quote with in the article. "I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there  isn't, than live my life as if there isn't, and die to find out  there is." ~Albert Camus --68.207.206.69 07:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I scarcely believe he said it. Do you have a citation for that?--67.162.26.112 14:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Only a COWARD would say something like that. A coward who is afraid of death and willing to believe anything in order to avoid the inevitable. So I seriously doubt Albert Camus made that statement. 74.185.0.47 01:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * In reply to the below comment.
 * Camus speaks in the Myth of Sisyphus of the nullification of both morality and immorality in the face of the absurd. Camus simply suggests ammorality, or rather 'integrity' to act with self honesty and consistent motivation/desire. It is incorrect to say Camus had any desire to prevent the abandonment of morality; he at most says that it is not off the table, or that "one can be virtuous on a whim" (Myth of Sisuphyus). Though he may have wrote a sympathetic piece on religion early on, you cannot deny the coldness, or outright objection towards it shown in later works (The Stranger, The Plague). He was fundamentally opposed to the idea of salvation and believing in the certainty of a God; such is the core idea from which his Absurdist philosophy springs. 58.105.93.217 02:53, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately, the previous writer obviously knows very little about the philosophy of Camus. Camus was an atheist yes, but he was also very concerned with atheism and the lack of morality that could possibly result from it. His main qualm with the church was their over complication of morality, which he believed was a very simple truth of life that one must abide by. His intention of the quotation concerning God above is to express his fundamental belief that morality cannot be abandoned. Camus was an atheist, but for those of you that love him for cynicism you have the wrong guy. He does not think life has a fundamental point and thus "we must imagine Sisyphus happy" (The Myth of Sisyphus), but not get caught up in its pointlessness. He has dark leanings, but he is forever trying to escape them and focus on living in the joys of a life free of contemplation; hence his love of sports and activity. If you are looking for a philosopher who hates religion try Nietzsche, but Camus and Sartre are both very respectful of the ability to chose to religion if it is done wisely. In fact, they find their lack of faith depressing in some works. To say that only "a COWARD" would say something like that is to be proud and not understand the depths of the absurdity and hopes of redemption that Albert Camus struggled with. If you desire further proof, look at his college thesis; it concerned Augustine and Plutarch, two fundamental Christian theologists and philosophers that Camus felt a great affinity for. Before making such claims, please know what you are talking about. :

Wasn't Camus an atheist? The stranger, Myth of Sisyphus etc..

 * he was an atheist, a quick google shows this is just one of those misquotes that randomly turns up on fundamentalist christian websites. They often do the same thing with einstein. 87.246.64.2

 * Sounds like a spin on Pascal's wager, and really doesn't go along with most of what Camus argued.

 * I don't think he said that, although Camus' Sisyphus is a kind of spin on Pascal's Wager. According to Camus our lives are rendered absurd by the no-knowability of whether or not there is a god; whether or not our lives have meaning (same question, different spin, not necessarily dependant on god). The question is then what to do when faced with this absurdity? Should we embrace nihilism or continue as if our lives have meaning? The conclusion of Camus' Myth of Sisyphus is that "we must imagine Sisyphus happy." It is not just that we must make this choice but that we can make no other. Choosing nihilism would be a meaningful reaction to conditions of absurdity because it would be our human choice. In Mearleu-Ponty's phrase, we are condemned to meaning. (Here you can see the radical difference between Camus' and Sartre's Existentialism. For Satre we are condemned to be free. No such luck with Camus.) Pascal argued we should, logically, wager on God. Camus demonstrates that we have no choice but to wager on meaning. What that meaning might be we are welcome to fill out for ourselves.

absolute nonsense! it is possible that a character in one of his books said something like that, but camus himself was not just an atheist, he had an absurdist stance. "god is maintained only through the negation of human reason" THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS-p41 "The perception of an angel or a god has no meaning for me" THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS-p46 so yeah, this is clearly christian propaganda.--I6 6 6I (talk) 15:54, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Car Crash Quote?
While I'm here - I've heard somewhere that Camus once said that a car accident is the most absurd way to die; a horrifyingly (and halariously) ironic statement considering his death. Does anyone know where this might be found? It's certainly worth putting up here.

--67.162.26.112 14:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

What's With The Religious Pictures?

Why are there subtle pictures that relate to religion on Albert Camus's quote page? Picture of "Jesus," various pictures of a bright light in the sky... Camus wasn't religious.
 * if you look at the picture and read the quote below it, they both relate in some way.--McNoddy 12:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * yes, they relate --in some lame, inappropriate way.--Diagoras of melos 22:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, Terry Pratchett's coat of arms? What's the point of these images, anyway? Krychek (talk) 19:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The point of many of these is to help make the points of Camus penetrate into the often relatively pointless perspectives of people whose awareness and appreciation of many things are so shallow and narrow as to not see much point to anything, often obsessed with pointing towards many things with distaste, disapproval and absolutist scorn of ideas, because they cannot immediately understand them, and perhaps believe they can silence such ideas with sufficient scorn. Camus is clearly addressing broad ranges of ideas, including religious ones, and one of the ultimate points of many philosophies, and especially the absurdism Camus develops is to come to greater appreciation of "The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point." So it goes… ⨀∴☥☮♥∵ॐ … Blessings. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:26, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * With all due respect (more respect than your oblique insults have shown to others, anyway), the purpose of this page is to provide a simple list of Camus quotations, not to serve as an object lesson in his teachings. Krychek (talk) 20:24, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote from this list please move it to Albert Camus. --Antiquary 14:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

With original French:

 * C'est bien là le génie: l'intelligence qui connaît ses frontières.
 * That's what a genius is: an intelligence that knows its limits.

 * L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.
 *  In the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent — he continues it.  - I found this quote in the Rebel and added it to the main page. Part V: Thought at the Meridian (the section is called "Moderation and Excess". Look for the quote in the original French. (http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/camus_albert/homme_revolte/camus_homme_revolte.pdf) 2:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Translations:

 * Happiness, too, is inevitable.

 * A healthy attitude also includes faults.

 * A little thought estranges from life, whereas much thought reconciles to life. Unable to refine the real, thought pauses to mimic it.

 * A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and best of a life are devoted to earning that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.

 * Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: It should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can be fruitful. An analysis of the idea of revolt could help us discover ideas capable of restoring a relative meaning to existence, although a meaning that would always be in danger.

 * After all, ironic philosophies produce passionate works.

 * All executioners are of the same family.

 * All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.

 * All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

 * All of us, among the ruins, are preparing a renaissance beyond the limits of nihilism. But few of us know it.

 * Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

 * Barbarism is never temporary. Sufficient allowance is never made for it, and, quite naturally, from art barbarism extends to morals.

 * Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

 * Being able to remain on that dizzying crest — that is integrity and the rest is subterfuge.

 * Being aware of one's life, one's revolt, one's freedom, and to the maximum, is living, and to the maximum.

 * But I have been sought out, as each individual has been sought out. Artists of the past could at least keep silent in the face of tyranny. The tyrannies of today are improved; they no longer admit of silence or neutrality. One has to take a stand, be either for or against. Well, in that case, I am against.

 * But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?
 * From "The Nuptials", Lyrical and Critical Essays, translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy, p. 101, found in Google books.--Hughh (talk) 15:51, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

 * By what right, moreover, could a Christian or a Marxist accuse me, for example, of pessimism? I was not the one to invent the misery of the human being or the terrifying formulas of divine malediction.

 * Charm is a way of getting the answer "Yes" without asking a clear question.

 * Conformity is one of the nihilistic temptations of rebellion which dominate a large part of our intellectual history. It demonstrates how the rebel who takes to action is tempted to succumb, if he forgets his origins, to the most absolute conformity. And so it explains the twentieth century.

 * Creating is living doubly.

 * Differences are the roots without which the tree of liberty, the sap of creation and of civilization, dries up.

 * Does the end justify the means? That is possible. But what will justify the end? To that question, which historical thought leaves pending, rebellion replies: the means.

 * Even men without a gospel have their Mount of Olives. And one must not fall asleep on theirs either.

 * Even revolution, particularly revolution, which claims to be materialist, is only a limitless metaphysical crusade.

 * Even those who are fed up with morality ought to realize that it is better to suffer certain injustices than to commit them even in wars, and that such deeds do us more harm than a hundred underground forces on the enemy's side.

 * Every achievement is a servitude. It drives us to a higher achievement.

 * Every act of creation, by its mere existence, denies the world of master and slave. The appalling society of tyrants and slaves in which we survive will find its death and transfiguration only on the level of creation.

 * Every ethic based on solitude implies the exercise of power.

 * For capital punishment to be really intimidating, human nature would have to be different; it would have to be as stable and serene as the law itself. But then human nature would be dead.

 * For men of today there is an inner way, which I know well from having taken it in both directions, leading from the spiritual hilltops to the capitals of crime. And doubtless one can always rest, fall asleep on the hilltop or board with crime. But if one forgoes a part of what is, one must forgo being oneself; one must forgo living or loving otherwise than by proxy. There is thus a will to live without rejecting anything of life, which is the virtue I honor most in this world.

 * For some time the entire effort of our philosophers has aimed solely at replacing the notion of human nature with that of situation, and replacing ancient harmony with the disorderly advance of chance or reason's pitiless progress. Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will's impulse in the very center of reason, which has, as a result, become deadly.

 * For twenty centuries the sum total of evil has not diminished in the world.

 * From my first articles to my latest book I have written so much, and perhaps too much, only because I cannot keep from being drawn toward everyday life, toward those, whoever they may be, who are humiliated and debased. They need to hope, and if all keep silent or if they are given a choice between two kinds of humiliation, they will be forever deprived of hope and we with them.

 * From the evening breeze to this hand on my shoulder, everything has its truth. Consciousness illuminates it by paying attention to it.

 * From the humanitarian idylls of the eighteenth century to the bloodstained gallows the way leads directly; and the executioners of today, as everyone knows, are humanists.

 * From the moment that eternal principles are put in doubt simultaneously with formal virtue, and when every value is discredited, reason will start to act without reference to anything but its own successes... All that was God's will henceforth be rendered to Caesar.

 * Half a man's life is spent in implying, in turning away, and in keeping silent.

 * He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.

 * He who rejects the entire past, without keeping any part of it which could serve to breathe life into the revolution, condemns himself to finding justification only in the future and, in the meantime, to entrusting the police with the task of justifying the provisional state of affairs... The future is the only transcendental value for men without God.

 * Heraclitus, the discoverer of the constant change of things, nevertheless set a limit to this perpetual process. This limit was symbolized by Nemesis, the goddess of moderation and the implacable enemy of the immoderate.

 * Historical reasoning is not a type of reasoning that, within the framework of its own functions, can pass judgment on the world. While pretending to judge it, it really tries to determine its course. Essentially a part of events, it directs them and is simultaneously pedagogic and all-conquering.

 * Historical thought was to deliver man from subjection to a divinity; but this liberation demanded of him the most absolute subjection to historical evolution. The man takes refuge in the permanence of the party in the same way that he formerly prostrated himself before the altar. That is why the era which dares to claim that it is the most rebellious that has ever existed only offers a choice of various types of conformity. The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude.

 * History without a value to transfigure it, is controlled by the law of expediency.

 * History, undoubtedly, is one of the limits of man's experience; in this sense the revolutionaries are right. But man, by rebelling, imposes in his turn a limit to history, and at this limit the promise of a value is born... The triumphant revolution must prove by means of its police, its trials, and its excommunications that there is no such thing as human nature. Humiliated rebellion, by its contradictions, its sufferings, its continuous defeats, and its inexhaustible pride, must give its content of hope and suffering to this nature.

 * I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false. But at least it represents a great adventure of the mind... No, everything is not summed up in negation and absurdity. We know this. But we must first posit negation and absurdity because they are what our generation has encountered and what we must take into account.

 * I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules.
 * Variant: Integrity has no need for rules.

 * I have shared and I still share many of the contemporary frenzies. But I have never been able to get myself to spit, as so many others do, on the word "honor."

 * I loathe none but executioners.

 * I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.

 * If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this.

 * If our age admits, with equanimity, that murder has its justifications, it is because of this indifference to life which is the mark of nihilism.

 * If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers.

 * If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.

 * If something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something not worth dying for?

 * In certain men, the fire of eternity consuming them is great enough for them to burn in it the very heart of those closest to them.

 * In my case, I have always drawn my hope from the idea of fecundity.

 * In our daily trials rebellion plays the same role as does the "cogito" in the realm of thought: it is the first piece of evidence. But this evidence lures the individual from his solitude. It founds its first value on the whole human race. I rebel — therefore we exist.

 * In the difficult hour we are living, what else can I desire than to exclude nothing and to learn how to braid with white thread and black thread a single cord stretched to the breaking-point? In everything I have done or said up to now, I seem to recognize these two forces, even when they are at cross-purposes.

 * In the light, the earth remains our first and our last love. Our brothers are breathing under the same sky as we; justice is a living thing. Now is born that strange joy which helps one live and die, and which we shall never again postpone to a later time. On the sorrowing earth it is the unresting thorn, the bitter brew, the harsh wind off the sea, the old and the new dawn.

 * In the twentieth century power wears the mask of tragedy.

 * In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and the price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.

 * Indeed, it is not so much identical conclusions that prove minds to be related as the contradictions that are common to them.

 * Is it possible eternally to reject injustice without ceasing to acclaim the nature of man and the beauty of the world? Our answer is yes. This ethic, at once unsubmissive and loyal, is in any event the only one that lights the way to a truly realistic revolution.

 * It is not much to be able to do violence when you have been simply preparing for it for years and when violence is more natural to you than thinking. It is a great deal, on the other hand, to face torture and death when you know for a fact that hatred and violence are empty things in themselves. It is a great deal to fight while despising war, to accept losing everything while still preferring happiness, to face destruction while cherishing the idea of a higher civilization.

 * Liberty ultimately seems to me, for societies and for individuals, for labor and for culture, the supreme good that governs all others.

 * Life can be magnificent and overwhelming — That is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.

 * Life is this dichotomy itself, the mind soaring over volcanoes of light, the madness of justice, the extenuating intransigence of moderation.

 * Live to the point of tears.

 * Lucifer also has died with God, and from his ashes has arisen a spiteful demon who does not even understand the object of his venture.

 * Man is that force which ultimately cancels all tyrants and gods.

 * Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

 * Messianism, in order to exist, must construct a defense against the victims.

 * National society can be preserved only by opening it up to a universal perspective.

 * Nature is still there, however. She contrasts her calm skies and her reasons with the madness of men. Until the atom too catches fire and history ends in the triumph of reason and the agony of the species. But the Greeks never said that the limit could not be overstepped. They said it existed and that whoever dared to exceed it was mercilessly struck down. Nothing in present history can contradict them.

 * No great work has ever been based on hatred or contempt... Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and this is its whole secret.

 * No human being, even the most passionately loved and passionately loving, is ever in our possession.

 * None among us is authorized to despair of a single man, except after his death, which transforms his life into destiny and then permits a definitive judgment. But pronouncing the definitive judgment before his death, decreeing the closing of accounts when the creditor is still alive, is no man's right. On this limit, at least, whoever judges absolutely condemns himself absolutely.

 * Nothing is given to men, and the little they can conquer is paid for with unjust deaths. But man's greatness lies elsewhere. It lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition. And if his condition is unjust, he has only one way of overcoming it, which is to be just himself.

 * Of all kinds of fate the least deceptive is the one that is lived.

 * Of whom and of what indeed can I say: "I know that!" This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.

 * One can reject all history and yet accept the world of the sea and the stars.

 * One of the temptations of an artist is to believe himself solitary ...But this is not true. He stands in the midst of all, in the same rank

 * One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it.

 * "Only the modern city," Hegel dares to write, "offers the mind a field in which it can become aware of itself." We are thus living in the period of big cities. Deliberately, the world has been amputated of all that constitutes its permanence: nature, the sea, hilltops, evening meditation. Consciousness is to be found only in the streets, because history is to be found only in the streets — this is the edict.

 * Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and they have a perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose — even for transforming murderers into judges.

 * Our most effective terrorists, whether they are armed with bombs or with poetry, hardly escape from infancy.

 * Philosophy secularizes the ideal. But tyrants appear who soon secularize the philosophies that give them the right to do so.

 * Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.

 * Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

 * Rebellion's demand is unity; historical revolution's demand is totality.

 * Suffering is never provisional for the man who does not believe in the future.

 * Temporal idols demanding an absolute faith tirelessly decree absolute punishments.

 * The age of enlightenment, as people say, wanted to suppress the death penalty on the pretext that man was naturally good. Of course he is not (he is worse or better). After twenty years of our magnificent history we are well aware of this. But precisely because he is not absolutely good, no one among us can pose as an absolute judge and pronounce the definitive elimination of the worst among the guilty, because no one of us can lay claim to absolute innocence.

 * The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world.

 * The Church has been so harsh with heretics only because she deemed that there is no worse enemy than a child who has gone astray. But the record of Gnostic effronteries and the persistence of Manichean currents have contributed more to the construction of orthodox dogma than all the prayers.

 * The contrary of a civilized nation is a creative nation.

 * The current motto for all of us can only be this: without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom.

 * The divine availability of the condemned man before whom the prison doors open in a certain early dawn, that unbelievable disinterestedness with regard to everything except for the pure flame of life — it is clear that death and the absurd are here the principles of the only reasonable freedom: that which a human heart can experience and live.

 * The doctrines of evolution and the notions of selection that accompany them have made of the future of society a final end. The political utopias that were grafted onto those doctrines placed at the end of time a golden age that justified in advance any enterprises whatever.

 * The Empire supposes a negation and a certainty: the certainty of the infinite malleability of man and the negation of human nature.

 * The fecundity and the importance of a literary form are often measured by the trash it contains.

 * The great novelists are philosopher-novelists whom write in images instead of arguments.

 * The important thing, as Abbé Galiani said to Mme d'Epinay, is not to be cured, but to live with one's ailments.

 * The irrational imposes limits on the rational, which, in its turn, gives it its moderation.

 * The majority of revolutions are shaped by, and derive their originality from, murder.

 * The man whose blood, and extravagances, and frail heart lead him to the commonest weaknesses must rely on something in order to get to the point of respecting himself and hence of respecting others. This is why I loathe a certain self-satisfied virtue, I loathe society's dreadful morality because it results, exactly like absolute cynicism, in making men despair and in keeping them from taking responsibility for their own life with all its weight of errors and greatness.

 * The miner who is exploited or shot down, the slaves in the camps, those in the colonies, the legions of persecuted throughout the world — they need all those who can speak to communicate their silence and to keep in touch with them.

 * The most painful thing to bear is seeing a mockery made of what one loves.

 * The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

 * The night on Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadow, the divinity abandoned its traditional privileges and drank to the last drop, despair included, the agony of death. This is the explanation of the Lama sabactani and the heartrending doubt of Christ in agony. The agony would have been mild if it had been alleviated by hopes of eternity. For God to be a man, he must despair.

 * The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in their most profound manifestations, are centuries that have tried to live without transcendence.

 * The philosopher, even if he is Kant, is a creator.

 * The punishment that aims to intimidate an unknown murderer certainly confers a vocation of killer on many another monster about whom there is no doubt.

 * The real universe which, by its radiance, calls forth bodies and statues receives from them at the same time a second light that determines the light from the sky.

 * The rule of our action, the secret of our resistance can be easily stated: everything that humiliates labor also humiliates the intelligence, and vice versa. And the revolutionary struggle, the centuries-old straining toward liberation can be defined first of all as a double and constant rejection of humiliation.

 * The triumph of the man who kills or tortures is marred by only one shadow: he is unable to feel that he is innocent. Thus, he must create guilt in his victim so that, in a world that has no direction, universal guilt will authorize no other course of action than the use of force and give its blessing to nothing but success. When the concept of innocence disappears from the mind of the innocent victim himself, the value of power establishes a definitive rule over a world in despair.

 * The unbeliever cannot keep from thinking that men who have set at the center of their faith the staggering victim of a judicial error ought at least to hesitate before committing legal murder.

 * There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.

 * There are means that cannot be excused.

 * There are no frontiers between the disciplines that man sets himself for understanding and loving. They interlock, and the same anxiety merges them.

 * There are no just people — merely hearts more or less lacking in justice. Living at least allows us to discover this and to add to the sum of our actions a little of the good that will make up in part for the evil we have added to the world. Such a right to live, which allows a chance to make amends, is the natural right of every man, even the worst man... Without that right, moral life is utterly impossible.

 * There is not one human being who, above a certain elementary level of consciousness, does not exhaust himself in trying to find formulas or attitudes that will give his existence the unity it lacks. Appearance and action, the dandy and the revolutionary, all demand unity in order to exist, and in order to exist on this earth.

 * There is scarcely any passion without struggle.

 * There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart. The most destitute men often end up by accepting illusion. That approval prompted by the need for peace inwardly parallels the existential consent. There are thus gods of light and idols of mud. But it is essential to find the middle path leading to the faces of man.

 * These paltry and essential belongings, these relative truths are the only ones to stir me. As for the others, the "ideal" truths, I have not enough soul to understand them. Not that one must be an animal, but I find no meaning in the happiness of angels.

 * Those who reject the agony of living and dying wish to dominate.

 * To a man devoid of blinders, there is no finer sight than that of the intelligence at grips with a reality that transcends it.

 * To come alive again, one needs a special grace, self-forgetfulness, or a homeland. Certain mornings, on turning a corner, a delightful dew falls on the heart and then evaporates. But its coolness remains, and this is what the heart requires always. I had to set out again.

 * To create is likewise to give a shape to one's fate.

 * To create today is to create dangerously. . . Danger makes men classical, and all greatness, after all, is rooted in risk.

 * To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.

 * To force solitude on a man who has just come to understand that he is not alone, is that not the definitive crime against man?

 * To impoverish that reality whose inhumanity constitutes man's majesty is tantamount to impoverishing him himself. I understand then why the doctrines that explain everything to me also debilitate me at the same time. They relieve me of the weight of my own life, and yet I must carry it alone.

 * To tell the truth, far from being romantic, I believe in the necessity of a rule and an order. I merely say that there can be no question of just any rule whatsoever.

 * To work and create "for nothing," to sculpture in clay, to know that one's creation has no future, to see one's work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries — this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions. Performing these two tasks simultaneously, negating on the one hand and magnifying on the other, is the way open to the absurd creator. He must give the void its colors.

 * Totalitarian tyranny is not based on the virtues of the totalitarians. It is based on the mistakes of the liberals.

 * Totality is, in effect, nothing other than the ancient dream of unity common to both believers and rebels, but projected horizontally onto an earth deprived of God.

 * Unity and diversity, and never one without the other...

 * Utopia replaces God by the future. Then it proceeds to identify the future with ethics; the only values are those which serve this particular future. For that reason Utopias have almost always been coercive and authoritarian.

 * Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil. Nor can it identify itself completely with reality without denying itself.

 * We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.

 * We have a right to think that truth with a capital letter is relative. But facts are facts. And whoever says that the sky is blue when it is gray is prostituting words and preparing the way for tyranny.

 * We have nothing to lose except everything.

 * We have to live and let live in order to create what we are.

 * We live in an unsacrosanct moment in history.

 * We must accept the dangers: the era of chairbound artists is over. But we must reject the bitterness ... Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

 * When law ventures, in the hope of dominating, into the dark regions of consciousness, it has little chance of being able to simplify the complexity it wants to codify.

 * When the meaning of life has been suppressed, there still remains life.

 * You will never be happy if you keep searching for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you keep looking for the meaning of life without living it.

Unsourced/missourced quote in the "disputed" section
"Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth."

In the "disputed" section, someone claimed as a potential source:

 * This appears in the handwritten manuscript for the L'Etranger, but not apparently in the English translations. See https://twitter.com/lit_books/status/491648425654751232?lang=en Someone who reads French is needed to verify.

This tweet is entirely wrong. The manuscript has nothing to do with Camus, as it shows page 20 of a manuscript of Samuel Beckett's French translation of his own book The Lost Ones, translated as "Le dépeupleur". The whole notebook can be read online at Washington University. Worse, the quote is not found in the manuscript.

I left the quote in the "disputed" section as I don't know Wikiquote's policies. As a layman, the Picasso misattribution hypothesis seems most likely to me. --ÉcorceDeLiège (talk) 15:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Albert Camus


text:
Talk:Dwight D. Eisenhower

A transitional President..... Dwight Eisenhower was a bridge between the war years of WWII and the modern american society. He transited us from an era of a weak federal government to the present era of a massive federal government, though the fault for this should not be layed at his feet solely. The oft spoke military-industrial complex had grown from a wobbly kneed child to an insolent teenager bent on alienating itself from its parents, the peoples of the United States, the taxpayers. It is this behemoth of industry and government, that shaped the massive budget and personnel growth of the federal government.

The red menace, the communist conspiracy, bent on enslaving the world into one common commune, was constantly in the thoughts of all americans in this time frame. From this bias came the secret government that rules the United States and much of the commerce conducted by its partners. The black budgets, the classified projects and documents, the layer separating the governed from their government, was seeping into the american pysche to change what it was we thought a good American should be.

All wars are now undeclared, all reasons for war are merely propaganda, all dissent is disregarded and all spoils are shared among the leaders of the secret government and their coporate masters.

Is the price of a secret government, the freedom of its citizens?

Removed broken external link
Removed:
 * Selected Quotes provided by the Eisenhower Library

I went to the associated domain and was unable to located the 'selected quotes' page, so I have removed the link. I was afraid of breaking the section so I've left the 'External Links' header there for the time being.

The quote "If a problem seems intractable, enlarge it" (aut sim.) is attributed to D. D. Eisenhower. Does anyone have a context for it ? Here: In the context of evacuating American citizens from cities in the event of a nuclear attack: http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=22100&lan=en&sp=0

Unsourced

 * And when he goes to heaven, to St. Peter he will tell: One more soldier reporting, sir. I've served my time in hell.
 * June 5, 1944

 * Peace and Justice are two sides of the same coin.

 * The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my administration. We kept the peace. People asked how it happened — by God, it didn’t just happen, I’ll tell you that.
 * Summing up his eight years in office

 * An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

 * Being shot at focuses the mind wonderfully.
 * This is very similar to a statement attributed to Winston Churchill: "There is nothing as exhilarating as being shot at and missed."

 * Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal.

 * Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.

 * I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

 * If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.
 * Variant: If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. (1949)
 * May be paraphrasing: If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government. Cited source: DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, president of Columbia University, speech to luncheon clubs, Galveston, Texas, December 8, 1949.The New York Times, December 9, 1949, p. 23. (From http://quotationsbook.com/quote/44827/)--Orlum (talk) 23:47, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

 * Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

 * The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

 * The sergeant is the army.

 * There is no victory at bargain basement prices.

 * Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

 * In his case, there seems to be no final answer to the question, "How stupid can you get?"
 * Commenting on the Senate Republican leader

 * God help any man who sits behind this desk who doesn't know the military like I do.
 * Referring to how the military can control politicians, especially when referring military-industrial complex

 * Like the export of the Spanish Inquisition, the American Inquisition too has been taken to the far flung corners of the earth.

 * This operation is being planned as a success, We can not afford to fail.
 * Referring to to the importance of Overlord

 * I made two mistakes and both of them are sitting on the Supreme Court.
 * Referring to Earl Warren and William Brennan. Attributed in Wall St. Journal, Coming to Order: How the Court Really Works

 * The biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made.
 * Referring to Earl Warren. The quote is attributed to Eisenhower in Warren's New York Times obituary, July 10, 1974.

 * The hand of aggression is stayed by strength and strength alone.
 * Quoted on the wall of Eisenhower Hall at the United States Military Academy

 * The only way to win World War III is to prevent it.

 * We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.

 * Pessimism never won any battle.

 * "People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters."

title: Talk:Dwight D. Eisenhower


text:
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin is a novel and British sitcom starring Leonard Rossiter in the title role. Both the book and TV series were written by David Nobbs, and the screenplay for the first series was adapted by Nobbs from the novel.

Series 1

 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a favourable report when I read one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a real winner when I see one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by selling ice cream tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by waffling."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without learning how to compromise."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by biting people in the changing room."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing the Algarve when I see it."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by wearing underpants decorated with Beethoven."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by saying 'earwig' instead of 'thank you'."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without having a little champagne, not too much, just enough."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by talking about Dutch parking meter disease!"
 * "I didn't get where I am today by shaking hands with the person on my right!"
 * "I didn't get where I am today without getting letters from cranks."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without making enemies."
 * "I didn't get where I am today wondering what life's all about."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by thinking."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by going on and on about gumboots."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by knowing the difference between one foreign country and another."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing there's no fun in getting where I am today."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without naming it the 'Reginald Perrin Memorial Foundation'."

Series 2

 * "I didn't get where I am today trusting the easy chairs."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by having lipstick on my face."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by posing as my long lost friend from the Argentine."
 * "I could practically destroy this firm if I started caring about people. I didn't get where I am today by caring about people."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by making room for broken reeds, lame ducks or stool pigeons."
 * "I didn't get where I am today indulging in hanky panky."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising a front when I see one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising another front when I see one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by having two black eyes."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by telling the truth."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a slight wobble when I enter one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing Grot will be a success."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising another slight wobble when I enter one."
 * "I didn't get where you are today without knowing the night is darkest before the storm."
 * "I didn't get where you are today without being a bit of a stickler for offices."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising "promising inroads" when I see them."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by having Irish labourers promoted over my head."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising a completely useless machine when I see one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by serving Welsh people."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by calling it Grotfabrieken Rubbishhausen."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without asking for 10p for a cup of tea, Guv."

Series 3

 * "I didn't get where I am today by being nice."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising a rib-tickling play on words when I hear one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by having green frogs thrust down my crotch."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by changing nappies."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising a person who doesn't pull his weight."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by telling undertakers from anyone else."
 * "I didn't get where I am today listening to married couples squabble like children."
 * "I didn't get where I am today learning about the 'them and us' situation which bedevils British industry so tragically."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by sleeping with sweaty, Caledonian chefs."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without recognising Success City, Arizona when I see it."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by tearing money into small pieces!"
 * "I didn't get where I am today by touching everybody!"
 * "I didn't gergle where I am todergle without recognising a mergle that looks like rain when I see one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by playing 'mothers and fathers'."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by looking a gift horse in the mouth. Or by going down with a sinking ship."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by drinking a liquid that's only been tested on pencils."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by being disguised as half a compost heap!"
 * "I didn't get where I am today by everything smelling of a Bolivian unicyclist's jockstrap!"

The Legacy of Reginald Perrin (Series 4)

 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing God moves in mysterious ways."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by looking a gift horse in the bush."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without being pleased to come."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by being absurd."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by throwing money into the hands of overpaid lawyers."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by sounding like a cheese."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by pouring cold water over a wet blanket."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without being able to see which way the wind is blowing."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by comparing Jimmy to Sir Winston Churchill."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a burglar type when I see one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by sweating my guts out over a bloodless revolution."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without striking while the bird in the hand is hot."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by apologising."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by using and discarding people like old socks."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by taking over the government."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by caring about ginger-headed strangers."
 * "I didn't get where I am today feeling like a fish out of water but you can't make him drink."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without spending lolly to earn even more lolly."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by being a good chap."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by booking more coaches."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a shrewd idea when I hear one."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without knowing this is the age of the media."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without the Lake District is full."
 * "I didn't get where I am today without wondering who has betrayed us."
 * "I didn't get where I am today by being upset by being 'sent to Birmingham'."

Series 2

 * "Proliferation is the thief of time"
 * "What the eye doesn't see is goose for the gander"
 * "There's no smoke without the worm turning"
 * "It's the early bird who catches the quick brown fox"
 * "No need to beat around the mulberry bush"
 * "Let's hope I'm not a fait accompli worse than death"

Series 3

 * CJ: "Absence is better than a cure." Reggie: "Prevention makes the heart grow fonder."
 * "After all, the proof of the pudding is caviar to the general" (spoken by Reggie, not CJ)
 * "...a different kettle of fish out of water"
 * "The only good ringer's a dead ringer"
 * "...the pot calling the kettle a silver lining"
 * "It's a long lane that gathers no moss"
 * "Sacrifice never killed the cat"
 * "Every silver lining has a cloud"
 * "Out of the mouths of babes and little children"
 * "Run it up the flagpole, see if the rats desert a sinking ship"
 * "...spoil the ship for a ha'peth of spilt milk"
 * "Trumpet call of duty"
 * "The ugly duckling that prevented the goose from laying the golden egg"
 * "The morning after the Lord Mayor's show before"
 * "It's never too late for a leopard to change horses in midstream"
 * "Never outstay your doodah"
 * "In and out like lamb's tails"
 * "Leave no worm unturned"
 * "The only good ringer is a dead ringer."

1982 Christmas Special

 * "I'm not an ostrich who buries his head under a bushel"
 * "Good news is better than no broth"

Series 4 (Legacy of Reginald Perrin)

 * "The early bird catches a cold"
 * "...burnt your cakes..."
 * "Not that I'm counting my chickens before they spoil the broth"
 * "Never look a gift horse in the bush"
 * "...the exception that closes the stable door"
 * "Nine's company, ten's a crowd"
 * "I'm drawn to clichés like a moth to a long lane"
 * "I don't want to pour cold water on a wet blanket"
 * "That's the fly in the woodpile"
 * "We'll cross those legs when we come to them"
 * "Correct me if I've got the wrong end of the gist"
 * "You can't tell a book by its silver lining"
 * "That's the pot calling the kettle a horse of a different colour"
 * "The night is always darker before the mast"
 * "If at first you don't succeed, you'll catch the early worm"
 * "We've put the cart before the egg"
 * "I believe in striking while the bird in the hand is hot"
 * "The theft of invention is the mother and father of a lie"
 * "...a square peg in a round poke"
 * "If at first you don't succeed, then the mountain must go to Mahomed"
 * "Time is the procrastination of thieves"
 * "I want the whole thing caught in the bud"
 * "Have I put the cat in the china shop?"
 * "The pigeons are well and truly out of the bag"
 * "A leopard never changes his spots twice in the same place"
 * "You've opened a whole new can of pots, calling the kettle by another name"
 * "I feel like a fish out of water, but can't make him drink"
 * "A rose by any other name sometimes changes its spots"
 * "We're putting the cart before the trees"
 * "So I'm sent to Birmingham?"
 * "People who live in glass houses shouldn't cast beams into the moat"
 * "We couldn't see the broth for the trees because of all the cooks"

Series 1 (as Reginald Perrin, Sunshine Desserts)

 * "Eleven minutes late, staff difficulties, Hampton Wick."
 * "Eleven minutes late, signal failure at Vauxhall."
 * "Eleven minutes late, staff shortages, Nine Elms."
 * "Eleven minutes late, derailment of container truck, Raynes Park."
 * "Eleven minutes late, seasonal manpower shortages, Clapham Junction."
 * "Eleven minutes late, defective junction box, New Malden."
 * "Eleven minutes late, overheated axle at Berrylands."
 * "Eleven minutes late, defective axle at Wandsworth."
 * "Eleven minutes late, somebody had stolen the lines at Surbiton."

Series 2 (as Martin Wellbourne, Sunshine Desserts)

 * "Seventeen minutes late, defective bogey at Earlsfield."
 * "Seventeen minutes late, water seeping through the cables at Effingham Junction - there was a lot of Effingham and a good deal of Blindingham!"

Series 2 (as Reginald Perrin, Grot)

 * "Twenty-two minutes late, black ice at Norbiton."
 * "Twenty-two minutes late, obstacles on the line at Berrylands."
 * "Twenty-two minutes late, badger ate a junction box at New Malden."
 * "Twenty-two minutes late, fed up by train delays, came by bike. Slow puncture at Peckham."
 * "Twenty-two minutes late, escaped puma, Chessington North."

Series 1 (Sunshine Desserts)
Geoff Maynard, Randall's Farm, Nether Somerby, Dear Sir, Thank you for your letter of the 7th inst. I am sorry that you are finding it inconvenient to change over to the Metzinger scale. Let me assure you that many of our suppliers are already finding the new scale is the most realistic method of grading plums and greengages. With the advent of metrification, [the phone starts to ring] I feel confident that [the phone is still ringing] the bloody phone will ring all day...

L.D. Mayhew, Mile End Farm, Bumstead St. Peter, Dear Sir, Thank you for your letter of the 8th. I'm sorry but we won't be able to renew the contract for your rhubarb due to the new Common Market agreement we have undertaken to buy the new Euro-rhubarb from France,in exchange for Euro-plums which are re-exported to Italy in exchange for Dutch greengages from Austria. In the circumstances, I... [he feels ill and leaves for a check-up with Doc Morrissey].

The Traffic Manager, British Rail (Southern Region), Dear Sir, Every morning my train is eleven minutes late. This is infuriating. This morning I took a later train. This also was eleven minutes late. This also was infuriating. Why don't you re-time all your trains to arrive eleven minutes late? - then they will all be on time.

The Manager, Get-It-Quick Supermarket, Get-It-Quick House, 77 Car Park Rd., Birmingham, Dear Sir, Thank you for your comments of the 27th ult. Your complaints about late delay are not only completely unjustified, but also ungrammatical. The fault lies in your inability to fill in an order form correctly. You are, in effect, a pompous illiterate baboon.

The Traffic Manager, British Rail (Southern Region), Dear Sir, Despite my letter of Friday last, I see you have still taken no action in the matter of the late-arrival of trains at Waterloo. This morning my train arrived, as always, eleven minutes late. It is rapidly becoming apparent to me that you are not only not competent enough to hold your job, but you could not even run a game of strip-poker in a Turkish brothel. It should be obvious, even to a retarded Belgian hamster, that all of your trains should be re-timed to take eleven minutes longer. Yours Faithfully, Reginald I. Perrin PS: During the pollen season, Peter Cartwright's sneezing is rather offensive to those of us who, like myself, are allergic to sneezing. Today he blew his nose on the Greater Manchester Development Plan supplement, which is of sound enough environmental comment, but not a pretty sight. Why don't you divide your carriages into 'sneezers' and 'non-sneezers'?

Series 2 (Grot)
The Manager, Grot shop, Radford, Dear Sir, I am sorry to hear you have not yet received your supply of edible furniture. This can only be due to the non-arrival of supplies. I am, however, deeply disturbed to hear that you have not yet received our new range of dentures for pets, which are proving so popular with bloody silly idiots who put little doggie dentures in glasses of water beside their kennels, and little budgie dentures in even smaller glasses of water beside their cages....

The Manager, Grot shop, Ebbw Vale (near Hamburg), Welsh Wales, Dear Sir, It has come to my notice that you have been serving Welsh people in your shop. I wouldn't have thought I'd have to tell you about this. I want no more Welsh people served from now on. Yours etc., yachy da.

Tony Webster
He found a new catchphrase for series 2 and 3, describing things as though the nouns were...
 * "Great!" (series 1&2)
 * "Knockout!" (series 3)

Series 2

 * "Dramatic happenings in Jelly City"
 * "Sensations in Triflesville"
 * "Panic City"
 * "Rushed-off-our-feetsville"

Series 3

 * "Success City, Arizona"
 * "Cards-on-the-tablesville"
 * "Crudesville, Arizona"
 * "Good Newsville, Arizona"
 * "Culture City, Arizona"
 * "Titty City, Arizona"
 * "Aggression City, Arizona"
 * "Machismoville, Wyoming"
 * "Dullsville, Arizona"
 * "Bad News City, Arizona"
 * "Results City, Arizona"
 * "Ciao City, Arizona"

1982 Xmas Special

 * "Gatheringville, Arizona"
 * "Generosityville, Arizona"

David Harris-Jones

 * "Super!"

Series 1

 * "I'm not a heat person"
 * "I'm a fish person"
 * "I'm not a cricket person"
 * "I'm a coffee person"

Series 2

 * "I'm not a mystery person"
 * "I'm not a cork person"
 * "I'm not a basket person"
 * "I'm not a thanks person"
 * "I'm not a pig person"
 * "I'm a cold and wet person"
 * "I'm not really a campaign person"
 * "I'm not really a slogan person"
 * "I'm a publicity person"
 * "I'm not a flower person"
 * "I'm not a champagne person"
 * "I'm a happiness person"

Series 3

 * "I'm not a sport person"
 * "I'm not a joke person"
 * "I'm not a 'pulling my weight' person"
 * "I'm very much a house-buying person"
 * "I'm are people people person"
 * "I'm not a 'testing things on animals' person"
 * "I'm not a goodbye person"

Series 4 (Legacy of Reginald Perrin)

 * "I'm not a money person"
 * "I'm not an absurdity person"
 * "I'm not a commitment person"
 * "I'm not a Greek dancing person"
 * "I'm not a pomposity person"
 * "I'm a maturity person"
 * "I'm not a slogan person"
 * "I'm a traditional jazz band person"

Wines and spirits

 * Prune
 * Fig
 * Sprout
 * Turnip
 * Parsnip
 * Nettle
 * Banana gin
 * Pineapple gin
 * Rhubarb
 * Passion fruit
 * Fig nouveau
 * Cauliflower Chardonnay

Dialogue
Reggie: So come on, Jimmy, who are you going to fight when this balloon of yours goes up?

Jimmy: Forces of anarchy: wreckers of law and order. Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, neo-Trotskyists, crypto-Trotskyists, union leaders, Communist union leaders, atheists, agnostics, long-haired weirdos, short-haired weirdos, vandals, hooligans, football supporters, namby- pamby probation officers, rapists, papists, papist rapists, foreign surgeons - headshrinkers, who ought to be locked up, Wedgwood Benn, keg bitter, punk rock, glue-sniffers, Play For Today, squatters, Clive Jenkins, Roy Jenkins, Up Jenkins, up everybody's, Chinese restaurants - why do you think Windsor Castle is ringed with Chinese restaurants?

Reggie: You realise the sort of people you're going to attract, don't you Jimmy? Thugs, bully-boys, psychopaths, sacked policemen, security guards, sacked security guards, racialists, Paki-bashers, queer-bashers, Chink-bashers, basher-bashers, anybody-bashers, Rear Admirals, queer Admirals, Vice-Admirals, fascists, neo-fascists, crypto-fascists, loyalists, neo- loyalists, crypto-loyalists. Jimmy: Do you really think so? I thought support might be difficult.

Elizabeth: Have a nice day at the office!

Reggie: I won't!

Elizabeth: Did you have a good day at the office?

Reggie: No ... what's for dinner?

Doc Morrissey: Do you find you can't finish the crossword like you used to, nasty taste in the mouth in the mornings, can't stop thinking about sex, can't start doing anything about sex, wake up with a sweat in the mornings, keep falling asleep during "Play For Today"?

Reggie: That's extraordinary, Doc! That's exactly how I've been feeling.

Doc Morrissey: So have I. I wonder what it is? Take two aspirins.

Reggie: Look, I came here for a balanced three-course meal - ravioli, ravioli and ravioli. I like ravioli.

Reggie: Time and motion wait for no man.

C.J.: The computer has processed the results of the smelling.

Reggie: Ah!

C.J.: Exactly. As you so rightly say "Ah!" This is what smell number one reminded its smellers of: five people - mountains, four people - snow, three people - fresh water, two people - large forest, one person - Bolivian unicyclist's jockstrap!

Reggie: This is extraordinary, C.J.!

C.J.: Smell number two: nine people - herbs, one each for: lavender, thyme, marjoram, spice factory, heather and Bolivian unicyclist's jockstrap!

Reggie: This is astonishing, C.J.!

C.J.: Smell number three, and a greater degree of unanimity: fourteen people - roses. But!

Reggie: But!

C.J.: One person - Bolivian unicyclist's jockstrap!

Reggie: I can hardly credit this, C.J.

C.J.: It's the same sorry story for all ten smells.

Reggie: Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.

C.J.: I didn't get where I am today by everything smelling of Bolivian unicyclist's jockstraps!

Colin Pillock: Mr. Perrin. Are you trying to tell me that you're providing a valuable social service?

Reggie: No.

Colin Pillock: But you just said you did.

Reggie: Exactly. I'm not trying to tell you, I'm succeeding. If I'd said "I like squashy bananas" I would have been failing to say "I am providing a valuable social service", but I didn't say "I like squashy bananas", I said "I am providing a valuable social service", thus succeeding brilliantly in saying "I am providing a valuable social service".

Labour Exchange Clerk : Why did you leave Sunshine Desserts?

Reggie: I was, er, ooh, sacked. When I say "I don't want to commute", I am prepared to travel a small distance, of course.

Labour Exchange Clerk : Why were you sacked?

Reggie: Well, I sort of staged a fake suicide and, er, came back as my long lost friend from... The company car isn't absolutely essential and I am prepared to work weekends.

Colin Pillock: It's my great pleasure to welcome back Reginald Perrin, the former head of the amazing Grot shops chain. I understand you're now running a community called "Perrins", Mr. Perrin?

Reggie: Yes.

Colin Pillock: It's been described as a community for the middle-aged and the middle-class in what used to be Middlesex.

Reggie: Yes.

Colin Pillock: Tell me, Mr. Perrin, are you running this community for the benefit of humanity, or simply to make money, or is it a giant confidence trick?

Reggie: Yes.

Colin Pillock: I hope you're not going to tie yourself to this monosyllabic repetition of "yes".

Reggie: No.

Colin Pillock: Oh good, because our viewers might think it a waste of time for you to come here and say nothing BUT "yes".

Reggie: Yes.

Colin Pillock: So, which of them is it, Mr. Perrin? A social venture for the benefit of mankind? Purely a commercial venture? Or a con trick?

Reggie: Yes. It's all three of them. That's the beauty of it.

Colin Pillock: What kind of people come to this community?

Reggie: Well, at the moment we've got a stockbroker, an overworked doctor, an underworked antiques shop owner, a disillusioned imports manager, and an even more disillusioned exports manager. Three sacked football managers, a fortune teller who's going to have a nervous breakdown next April, a schoolteacher who's desperate because he can't get a job, a schoolteacher who's even more desperate because he has got a job, an extremely shy vet, an overstressed car salesman and a pre-stressed concrete salesman. People with sexual problems, people with social problems, people with work problems, people with identity problems. People with sexual, social, work and identity problems. People who live above their garages, and above their incomes, in little boxes on prestige estates where families are two-tone, two-car and two-faced. Money has replaced sex as a driving force, death has replaced sex as a taboo, and sex has replaced bridge as a social event for mixed foursomes, and large deep freezes are empty except for twelve sausages. They come to Perrins in the hope that they won't be ridiculed as petty snobs, but as human beings who are bewildered at the complexity of social development, castrated by the conformity of a century of mass production, and dwarfed by the immensity of technological progress which has advanced more in fifty years than in the rest of human existence put together, so that when they take their first tentative steps into an adult society shaped by humans but not for humans, their personalities shrivel up like private parts in an April sea.

Colin Pillock: I, er, I see...

Reggie: Not too monosyllabic for you, I hope?

Source

 * Official Reginald Perrin web site at LeonardRossiter.com

title: The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin


text:
Steve Ballmer

Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer (born 24 March 1956) is an American businessman and investor who was the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft from January 13, 2000, to February 4, 2014.

1990s

 * When we tell the story about what's happening today with browsers ten years from now, I want the thing that replaces Windows to be Windows. I don't want to wake up in a position one day where the guys at Netscape say, "Isn't Windows just that little thing that we use to put up menus and draw lines? Let's just write our own and suck it up into our client."
 * Interview by CNET (May 1996)

2000s

 * I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft.

 * Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Come on! Get up, get up! Come on! Come on, give it up for me! Whoo! Whoo! Come on! Who said 'sit down'? I have four words for you. I. Love. This. Company. Yes!
 * 25th Anniversary Event of Microsoft at Seattle (5 September 2000).

 * We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is "stolen".

 * Most people still steal music.

 * Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
 * "Microsoft CEO takes launch break with the Sun-Times" (1 June 2001) Chicago Sun Times

 * I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

 * I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value.

 *  Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers.

 * There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.

 * [Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum. … If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue.
 * Worth Watching: Steve Ballmer in the heart of Silicon Valley in ZDNet (26 September 2008)

 * All the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android.
 * Ballmer sees Mac as a main competitor, iPhone as just buzz in AppleInsider (24 February 2009)

 * You can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phones.
 * TechCrunch Interview With Steve Ballmer in YouTube (24 September 2009)

 * Let's face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That's why they've got 75,000 applications — they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.
 * Ballmer: "The Internet Was Designed For The PC. The Internet Is Not Designed For The iPhone" in Business Insider (21 October 2009)

2010s

 * Whatever device you use... Windows will be there. … Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise.
 * Live from Microsoft's CES 2011 keynote in Engadget (5 January 2011)

 * We are in the Windows era — we were, we are, and we always will be.
 * Ballmer: We Will ALWAYS Be In The Windows Era in Business Insider (15 November 2011)

 * I don't think anyone has done a [tablet] product that I see customers wanting.

 * We like our model, as we are evolving it. In every category Apple competes, it's the low-volume player, except in tablets. In the PC market, obviously the advantage of diversity has mattered since 90-something percent of PCs that get sold are Windows PCs. We'll see what winds up mattering in tablets.

 * Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware-software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch.
 * Steve Ballmer says Microsoft plans to compete with Apple in every market in AppleInsider (10 July 2012)
 * Computer science is the operating system for all innovation.
 * "Ballmer Boosts Harvard Computer Science Faculty" (13 November 2014)
 * I think fully accepting that things are not the way they need to be, and going to work on those issues in a way that people understand you are serious about, as opposed to the tech industry generally appearing arrogant, I understand that.
 * Business Insider: "Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has advice for Facebook and Google: Don't make the mistake we did" (23 June 2018)
 * Is there fake news on Facebook? Of course there is. I could go right now on Facebook and say there’s an earthquake, Richter scale 7, in Washington, D.C. And should I be allowed to do that or should that be something that somehow Facebook has a way to control? I don’t know. I get how Facebook could control advertising. I don’t get how they’re a value proposition, which people – the world does like. I don’t understand how it works at all if you have no freedom of speech, even if you are saying things that are patently false.
 * Yahoo Finance: "Ex-Microsoft CEO Ballmer: How Silicon Valley should handle some of its most vexing questions" (22 June 2018)
 * My dad said, "What the heck is software?" and my mom said, "Why would a person ever need a computer?" They said, "OK, OK, we hear you, but if it doesn't work out, you'll go back to business school right?" And I said "Right," and I never came back.
 * CNBC: "How Steve Ballmer went from making $50,000 a year as an assistant at Microsoft to becoming a billionaire" (27 July 2018)

Attributed

 * Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google.
 * Attributed by Mark Lucovsky in court documents.
 * In a statement, Ballmer described Lucovsky's recollection as a "gross exaggeration. Mark's decision to leave was disappointing and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterization of that meeting is not accurate."

 * Google’s not a real company. It's a house of cards.
 * 2005 court records as quoted by Kurt Eichenwald in Microsoft's Lost Decade Vanity Fair (August 2012)

title: Steve Ballmer