Arthur B Langlie Quotes

What did "good government" really mean? Langlie and his brotherhood promised an end to political corruption. (There's no evidence that Langlie ever even took a drink, much less a bribe.) The days of "honest graft" were over, at least for a while. But seen from another perspective - that of ordinary citizens without access to Langlie and Abram's elite network - Langlie didn't so much end corruption as legalize it. Langlie wasn't opposed to a government organized around the interests of the greedy; he just didn't want to have to break the law to serve them. ~ Jeff Sharlet

I don't know who I'm supposed to be anymore, and I've always known who I'm supposed to be. ~ B.T. Gottfred

[B]eauty is always an affair of knowledge. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The Irish were regarded as shiftless and drunken; moreover, they were papists, and their fealty to Rome, it was said, meant they could never become loyal Americans. They were subjected to severe discrimination in employment and were despised by genteel society. W.E.B. Du Bois, the black scholar, testified that when he grew up in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the 1870s, "the racial angle was more clearly defined against the Irish than against me". ~ Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

The exercise of a skill is always under the dual control (a) of a fixed code of rules (which may be innate or acquired by learning) and (b) of a flexible strategy, guided by environmental pointers- the lie of the land. ~ Arthur Koestler

If radioactive waste were dissolved as water soluble compounds and then widely dispersed in the oceans, no health or other environmental risks would ever occur. ~ Arthur B. Robinson

This is not rocket science - climate science is very simple. A 12-year-old could probably understand this subject [of climate change]. ~ Arthur B. Robinson

Think what you're doing! When you say I, I, I want to exist, it is not you alone that says this. Everything says it, absolutely everything that has the faintest trace of consciousness. It follows, then, that this desire of yours is just the part of you that is not individual - the part that is common to all things without distinction. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Science is one thing, wisdom is another. Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers. If you look at the results which science has brought in its train, you will find them to consist almost wholly in elements of mischief. See how much belongs to the word "Explosion" alone, of which the ancients knew nothing. ~ Arthur Eddington

In a tribal organization, even in time of peace, service to tribe or state predominates over all self seeking; in war, service for the tribe or state becomes supreme, and personal liberty is suspended. ~ Arthur Keith

Let me repeat: the crimes of violence committed for selfish personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majoram gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to a flag, a leader, a religious faith, or a political conviction. Man has always been prepared not only to kill but also to die for good, bad or completely futile causes. And what can be a more valid proof of the reality of the self-transcending urge than this readiness to die for an ideal? ~ Arthur Koestler

But at some point it becomes obvious that, ultimately, the adventure of faith is the most sensible thing to do, and in fact the only thing worth doing. As Sam says toward the end of The Two Towers, no one remembers the tales in which the characters give up and turn back. Great and heroic deeds remain undone if no one leaps into the dark to do them. That's true when it comes to faith, too. You can't play a meaningful role in the great story by playing it safe. Once you hit the road, there is no going back to life as it was before. When Jesus asks His disciples if they will leave him to, Peter says, "Lord to whom will we go?" (verse 68). It's either walk with Jesus, unsafe as it seems sometimes, or go home. ~ Sarah Arthur

Rhythm. Life is full of it; words should have it, too. But you have to train your ear. Listen to the waves on a quiet night; you'll pick up the cadence. Look at the patterns the wind makes in dry sand and you'll see how syllables in a sentence should fall. Arthur Gordon ~ Arthur Gordon

Whatever gets your goat gets your attention. Whatever gets your attention gets your time. Whatever gets your time gets you. Whatever gets you becomes your master. Take care, lest a little thing horn in and get your goat ~ William Arthur Ward

What is more, in fact, we very soon look upon the world as something whose non-existence is not only conceivable, but even preferable to its existence. Therefore our astonishment at it easily passes into a brooding over that *fatality* which could nevertheless bring about its existence, and by virtue of which such an immense force as is demanded for the production and maintenance of such a world could be directed so much against its own interest and advantage."

―from_The World as Will and Representation_. Translated from the German by E. F. J. Payne. In Two Volumes, Volume II, p. 171 ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Same as you, Arthur. I hitched a ride. After all, with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics it was either that or back to the dole queue on Monday. Sorry I missed the Wednesday lunch date, but I was in a black hole all morning. ~ Douglas Adams

Sky was the first god. Robert knew that there was only one God and he had a Son who was also God, but there were gods who had vanished: the gods of thunder, of fire, of the wide oceans of the earth. ~ Arthur Slade

Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

If it were not for the reporters, I would tell you the truth. ~ Chester A. Arthur

If your project doesn't work, look for the part that you didn't think was important. ~ Arthur Bloch

It was difficult to say which were the more dismal, these deserted streets that wandered away to right and left, or the great main thoroughfare with its narcotic and shadowy life. For the latter appeared vast, interminable, grey, and those who travelled by it were scarcely real, the bodies of the living, but rather the uncertain and misty shapes that come sand go across the desert in an Eastern tale, when men look up from the sand and see a caravan pass them, all in silence, without a cry or a greeting. So they passed and repassed each other on those pavements, appearing and vanishing, each intent on his own secret, and wrapped in obscurity. ~ Arthur Machen

His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with this case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

But what will not be forgotten, and what will and should continue to obsess our imaginations, is this revelation of the possibilities of the universe, this destruction of our ignorant self-complacency, and this demonstration of how narrow is the path of our material existence and what abysses may lie upon either side of it. Solemnity and humility are at the base of all our emotions to-day. May they be the foundations upon which a more earnest and reverent race may build a more worthy temple. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

All right, Watson. Don't look so scared," he muttered in a very weak voice. "It's not as bad as it seems."
"Thank God for that!"
"I'm a bit of a single-stick expert, as you know. I took most of them on my guard. It was the second man that was too much for me."
"What can I do, Holmes? Of course, it was that damned fellow who set them on. I'll go and thrash the hide off him if you give the word."
"Good old Watson!( ... ) ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

For if the choice were given to any individual between his own destruction and that of the world, I do not need to say where it would land in the great majority. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

A great ruler, a great court, a great kingdom, these texts suggest never exist unto themselves, as stable, fully actualized entities, and, therefore, are never experienced in their plenitude in the present. Instead, they are always remembered as something that occured in the past or anticipated as something will reoccur in the future. Insofar as they are experienced in the current time, it is only for a brief and evanescent moment, overshadowed by the knowledge that it will soon vanish.
For a realist, the fact that the excellence of a person, a place, or a time is not appreciated in its own time proves that it was never actually as excellent as it seemed.
For a Romantic, however, there exist a people, places, and times whose excellence can only be appreciated Arthur always has to be - to quote the Alliterative Morte Arthure (ca.1400) - "the once and future king ~ Karen Sullivan

I've been truly blessed. I've been a fly on the wall of history. I've been just so many lucky places just by chance and serendipity, and obviously a huge portion of that serendipity had to do with my relationship with the real president, Ronald Reagan. ~ Arthur Laffer

The journey of true success and lasting leaderships begins with the inward journey to the soul. ~ James Arthur Ray

Life is a business that does not cover the costs. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

If you can't protect yourself with talk, you won't be alive to protect yourself with guns. ~ Arthur Boyd

Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the ruin of literature. No one writes anything that is worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. What in inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there were only a few books, but those excellent! This can never happen as long as money is to be made by writing. It seems as though the money lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins to put a pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or for very little. And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds good, which declares that honour and money are not to be found in the same purse--honra y provecho no caben en un saco. The reason why Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that people write books to make money. A man who is in want sits down and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The secondary effect of this is the ruin of language. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

You will, I am sure, agree with me that ... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had labored to take man to the stars, and, in the moment of success, the stars - the aloof, indifferent stars - had come to him. This was the moment when history held its breath, and the present sheared asunder from the past as an iceberg splits from its frozen, parent cliffs, and goes sailing out to sea in lonely pride. All that the past ages had achieved was as nothing now: only one thought echoed and re-echoed through Reinhold's brain: The human race was no longer alone. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

We only begin to live life when we learn to accept it on its own terms. ~ Arthur Rubinstein

The theatre is not the place for the musician. When the curtain is up the music interrupts the actor, and when it is down the music interrupts the audience. ~ Sir Arthur Sullivan

If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the miseries of boredom. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

And he has guns and dogs that would make the Hound of Baskervilles seem like a bleeding Pekinese. ~ David Baldacci

Optimism, where it is not just the thoughtless talk of someone with only words in his flat head, strikes me as not only absurd, but even a truly wicked way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the unspeakable sufferings of humanity. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

On the delivery plate of the Nutri-Matic Drink Synthesizer was a small tray, on which say three bone china cups and saucers, a bone china jug of milk, a silver teapot full of the best tea Arthur had ever tasted and a small printed note saying Wait. ~ Douglas Adams

Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Half of what we know is wrong, the purpose of science is to determine which half. ~ Arthur Kornberg

Paradise Lost is sometimes Heaven found. ~ Arthur Yorinks

A moral principle in genetic testing is that it should always be done with the consent of the individual. No one wants someone snooping into his DNA. ~ Arthur Caplan

Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay attention to these details. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Daily living by faith on Christ is what makes the difference between the sickly and the healthy Christian, between the defeated and the victorious saint. ~ Arthur W. Pink

Fear, like love, is difficult to explain after it has subsided, probably because it draws away the veils of illusion as it disappears. ~ Arthur Miller

In all ages statesmen have found it hard to understand the psychology of revolutionary governments bound to the wheel of armaments and debts. For it is a cycle that cannot be reversed. It can only be broken or its pace accelerated. ~ Arthur Bryant