We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, "What is real?" Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power, that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. ~Philip K. Dick
#quotes #philip-k-dick #society #government #media #religion
quotistI started off with a company, InfoSpace, with my own funding. The company was listed among the most successful companies and I went on to start Intelius and Moon Express. Now, I focus my time on using the skills of an entrepreneur to solve many of the grand challenges facing us in the areas of education, healthcare, clean water and energy. ~Naveen Jain
#quotes #naveen-jain #entrepreneurship
Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism. ~Benazir Bhutto
#quotes #benazir-bhutto #extremism #government #society
We all know of course, that we should never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever fiddle around in any way with electrical equipment. Never. ~Daniel Handler
#quotes #daniel-handler #electric
When you do portraits professionally it's not a desire, it's for money. ~Imogen Cunningham
#quotes #imogen-cunningham #photography #money
Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it. ~Marie de Rabutin Chantal
#quotes #marquise-de-sevigne #marie-de-rabutin-chantal #feelings
The unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg
#quotes #verlyn-klinkenborg
It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian "wall of separation" between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church. ~Jon Meacham
#quotes #jon-meacham #religious #christianity #politics #united-states
The garden is the poor man's apothecary. ~German Proverb
#proverbs #german-proverbs
proverbiosIt's very important to me to love what I do. It was important to me to find a career that I truly enjoy. You can find something that sort of excites you, that's half the battle of life. ~Adam Brody
#quotes #adam-brody #career #life #love
Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty. ~Henry Ward Beecher
#quotes #henry-ward-beecher #society #law #humanity #government
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds. ~Emile Durkheim
#quotes #emile-durkheim #society #mind
Gray hairs are death's blossoms. ~English Proverb
#proverbs #english-proverbs #death
I realized that even in a world of proliferating media venues, online and in print, and on TV and on countless cable channels, the idea that I could be considered an expert on chronic knee pain was I think troubling for society, but very exciting for me. ~John Hodgman
#quotes #john-hodgman #thinking #media
I was once fired as opening act for Seals and Crofts because I got loaded and introduced them as Arts and Crafts. ~George Miller
#quotes #george-miller #art
Authors are far closer to the truths enfolded in mystery than ordinary people, because of that very audacity of imagination which irritates their plodding critics. As only those who dare to make mistakes succeed greatly, only those who shake free the wings of their imagination brush, once in a way, the secrets of the great pale world. If such writers go wrong, it is not for the mere brains to tell them so ~Gertrude Atherton
#quotes #gertrude-atherton #writing #reality
Choose neither a woman nor linen by candlelight. ~Italian Proverb
#proverbs #italian-proverbs
I race in two or three classic races a year and I may carry on for 10 more years or I may stop tomorrow. ~Barry Sheene
#quotes #barry-sheene #race #competition
It blows a snowing gale in the winter of the year; The boats are on the sea and the crews are on the pier. The needle of the vane, it is veering to and fro. A flash of sun is on the veering of the vane. Autumn leaves and rain. The passion of the gale. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
#quotes #robert-louis-stevenson #seasons #nature
The trauma said. Don't write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones. ~Andrea Gibson
#quotes #andrea-gibson #sorrow
A friendship built on business can be glorious, while a business built on friendship can be murder. ~John D. Rockefeller
#quotes #john-d-rockefeller #friendship #business
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention; of barbarian invention; is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition; then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. ~Robert Green Ingersoll
#quotes #robert-green-ingersoll #books #religion
There is a theory that creativity arises when individuals are out of sync with their environment. To put it simply, people who fit in with their communities have insufficient motivation to risk their psyches in creating something truly new, while those who are out of sync are driven by the constant need to prove their worth. ~Gary Taubes
#quotes #gary-taubes #motivation #creativity #science
I don't pay a lot of attention, frankly, to what Barack Obama says. ~Dick Cheney
#quotes #dick-cheney #barack-obama #attention
The South African government, unlike a lot of African governments, isn't poor. ~Charlayne Hunter Gault
#quotes #charlayne-hunter-gault #government #poverty #south-africa