Saul Quotes

Mine was the sort of heart that had to overcome melancholy and free itself from many depressing weights. ~ Saul Bellow

The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man's life is not a business. ~ Saul Bellow

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue. ~ Saul Alinsky

Some powerful magnificence not human in other words, seemed under me. And it was the same mild pink colour, like the water of a watermelon, that did it. At once I recognised the importance of this, as throughout my life I had known these moments when the dumb begin to speak, when I hear the voices of objects and colours; then the physical universe starts to wrinkle and change and heave and rise and smooth, so it seems even the dogs have to lean against a tree, shivering. ~ Saul Bellow

The world was a wonderful place. Full of nightmares. ~ Saul Black

Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring value. ~ John Ralston Saul

Saul of Tarsus. The young man's face was aflame with the same fiery vengeance that filled Ezra's heart. The elders dropped their cloaks of office by Saul's feet and moved forward as the crowd unfolded. That was how it seemed to Ezra. They were a human fist, cloaked not in their robes but in rage, and they flexed their fingers in preparation of doing away with the man who dared offend the Sanhedrin. ~ Janette Oke

I feel pretty vulnerable all the time. ~ Saul Williams

An era of turmoil and ideological confusion, the principal phenomenon of the present age. ~ Saul Bellow

Anything that just adds information you can't use is plain dangerous. Anyway, there's too much of everything of this kind, that's come home to me, too much history and culture to keep track of, too many details, too much news, too much example, too much influence, too many guys who tell you to be as they are, and all this hugeness, abundance, turbulence, Niagara Falls torrent. Which who is supposed to interpret? Me? I haven't got that much head to master it all. I get carried away. It doesn't give my feelings enough of a chance if I have to store up and become like an encyclopedia. Why, just as a question of time spent in getting prepared for life, look! a man could spent forty, fifty, sixty years like that inside the walls of his own being. And all high conversation would take place within those walls. And all achievement would stay within those walls. And all glamour too. And even hate, monstrousness, enviousness, murder, would be inside them. This would be only a terrible, hideous dream about existing. It's better to dig ditches and hit other guys with your shovel than die in the walls. ~ Saul Bellow

The most common definition of [the word information] is: the action of informing; formation or molding of the mind or character, training, instruction, teaching; communication of instructive knowledge.
This definition remained fairly constant until the years immediately following World War II, when it came in vogue to use 'information' as a technological term to define anything that was sent over an electric or mechanical channel. 'Information' became part of the vocabulary of the science of messages. And, suddenly, the appellation could be applied to something that didn't necessarily have to inform. This definition was extrapolated to general usage as something told or communicated, whether or not it made sense to the receiver. Now, the freedom engendered by such an amorphous definition has, as you might expect, encouraged its liberal deployment. It has become the single most important word of our decade, the suspense of our lives and our work. ~ Richard Saul Wurman

Teaching is a personal matter of the nursery of the mind and should not be on public display. ~ Saul Gorn

Imagination is a force of nature. ~ Saul Bellow

I will say that growing up as a kid in an urban environment and having lived in cities all my life, the one achievement that everyone can look forward to is getting the perfect parking spot. ~ Saul Perlmutter

Jay Z and President Bush have a lot in common, that same brash confidence. ~ Saul Williams

Questions are fiction, and answers are anything from more fiction to science-fiction. ~ Saul Steinberg

But I was afraid I'd have to give up on an ideal explanation of her past life. Oh well, there didn't have to be one necessarily. ~ Saul Bellow

Most of us do not even know how to ask a question. Most of us do not see the root of the word 'question' is 'quest'. Most of us don't have a quest in our life. ~ Richard Saul Wurman

I want to connect music to its highest power - which is heightening consciousness and affecting people's reality. That can't be done in normal ways, not according to my experience. ~ Saul Williams

Those who read the fiction assume that, because I'm also a historian, I know what I'm talking about. ~ Saul David

Language is a spiritual mansion in which you live and nobody has the right to evict you. ~ Saul Bellow

For almost a century, the Universe has been known to be expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. However, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating is astounding. If the expansion will continue to speed up, the Universe will end in ice. ~ Saul Perlmutter

History, memory - that is what makes us human, that, and our knowledge of death: 'by man came death'. For knowledge of death makes us wish to extend our lives at the expense of others. And this is the root of the struggle for power. ~ Saul Bellow

The key to making things understandable is to understand what it's like not to understand. ~ Richard Saul Wurman

Everyone spoke of an information overload, but what there was in fact was a non-information overload. ~ Richard Saul Wurman

Was she not so simple and free of ulterior motives as she looked? Well, neither was I. ~ Saul Bellow

Emancipation resulting in madness. Unlimited freedom to choose and play a tremendous variety of roles with a lot of coarse energy. ~ Saul Bellow

So it's possible that someday, by understanding a little bit more about how the world works, it will come back to help us in some other way that will be surprising. ~ Saul Perlmutter

Many of the lower middle class are members of labor unions, churches, bowling clubs, fraternal, service, and nationality organizations. They are organizations and people that must be worked
with as one would work with any other part of our populations - with respect, understanding, and sympathy. ~ Saul Alinsky

Conflict is the essential core of a free and open society. If one were to project the democratic way of life in the form of a musical score, its major theme would be the harmony of dissonance. ~ Saul D. Alinsky

Even if I am not the honestest type in the world I don't want to lie more than is average. ~ Saul Bellow

The music aids the message, it's there to punctuate and abbreviate and shape the silence. ~ Saul Williams

Langmuir is a regular thinking machine. Put in facts, and you get out a theory. ~ Saul Dushman

Have you ever thought that radical ideas threaten institutions, then become institutions, and in turn reject radical ideas which threaten institutions? ~ Saul Bass

The only nonpartisan people are those who are dead. ~ Saul Alinsky

I often think that presentations are more difficult than the work itself. ~ Saul Bass

I am a true adorer of life, and if I can't reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation. ~ Saul Bellow

Mark Twain once put it, "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." Power ~ Saul D. Alinsky

He who burns with ambition to become aedile, tribune, praetor, consul, dictator, cries out that he loves his country and he loves only himself. ~ John Ralston Saul

Take the fact that people generally were full of loathing and it cost them an effort to look at one another. Mostly they wanted to be let alone. And they dug for unreality more than for treasure, unreality being last great hope because then they could doubt that what they knew about themselves was true. ~ Saul Bellow

But Max said: "Last summer I spent working these peace booths at state fairs. We'd go around in this bigole pickup with this knocked-down booth in the back and boxes of literature. People'd come up to me and hear me talking about colonialism or the bomb or who was responsible for the Cold War, and they'd start railing on Communists. Communists, these damn Communists. And I'd say hey, hold on now, you're talkin' about my mother. They'd look at me like I'd turned into a Russky before their very eyes. It certainly shut 'em up." He smiled to remember, delighted. "They were good people. Country people. Didn't want to say anything bad about a fellow's mom." Saul ~ John Crowley

Bodies could be beacons, too, Saul knew. A lighthouse was a fixed beacon for a fixed purpose; a person was a moving one. But people still emanated light in their way, still shone across the miles as a warning, an invitation, or even just a static signal. People opened up so they became a brightness, or they went dark. They turned their light inward sometimes, so you couldn't see it, because they had no other choice. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

My face too blind, my mind too limited, my instincts too narrow. But this intensity, doesn't it mean anything? ~ Saul Bellow

There is no limit to the amount of intelligence invested in ignorance when the need for illusion runs deep. ~ Saul Bellow

Fidelity is for phonographs ~ Saul Bellow

Democracy is the only system capable of reflecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. The key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen. ~ John Ralston Saul

The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters. ~ Saul Bellow

He looked down through the green transparency to the stony bottom webbed with golden lines. Never still. If his soul could cast a reflection so briljant, and so intensely sweet, he might beg God to make such use of him. But that would be too childish. The actual sphere is not clear like this, but turbulent, angry. A vast human action is going on. Death watches. So if you have some happiness, conceal it. And when your heart is full, keep your mouth shut also. ~ Saul Bellow

Of course! Easily or not at all. People were mad to be knocking themselves out over difficulties because they thought difficulty was a sign of the right thing. ~ Saul Bellow

That's so often what it is with machinery: be somewhat in doubt and it carries the decision. ~ Saul Bellow

Susannah Heschel's The Aryan Jesus is a brilliant and erudite investigation of the convergence between major trends in German Protestantism and Nazi racial anti-Semitism. By concentrating on the history of the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life, Heschel describes in forceful detail the Nazification of all aspects of Protestant theology, including the Aryanization of Jesus himself. This is a highly original and important contribution to our understanding of the Third Reich. ~ Saul Friedlander

Again! It was like the question asked by Tennyson about the flower in the crannied wall. That is, to answer it might involve the history of the universe. ~ Saul Bellow

To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life. ~ Saul D. Alinsky

I'm very excited about the resurgence of vinyl which seems to parallel a growing interest in live performance. ~ Saul Williams

What's wrong with hip-hop is the system that controls the definition of it. There needs to be more balance on the airwaves. ~ Saul Williams

Throughout my career I've struggled to encourage people to read my books on a more metaphorical level. I'm less attached to my settings than, for example, Saul Bellow. The setting of a novel for me is just a part of the technique. I choose it at the end. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

Whenever I write a dramatic poem I can't understand why the characters should ever want to be anything but poets themselves. ~ Saul Bellow

---all's love, yet all's law. ~ Robert Browning

Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest, ehrlich. Don't have a loud mouth. The more you love people the more they'll mix you up. A child loves, a person respects. Respect is better than love. ~ Saul Bellow

It seems hard for the American people to believe that anything could be more exciting than the times themselves. What we read daily and view on the TV has thrust imagined forms into the shadow. We are staggeringly rich in facts, in things, and perhaps, like the nouveau riche of other ages, we want our wealth faithfully reproduced by the artist. ~ Saul Bellow

Saul Alinsky advised his followers to level sharp attacks against their opponents with the goal of goading them into rash counterattacks that would then discredit them. To avoid falling into this trap, those of us who are interested in civil discussion should prepare ourselves to refrain from reacting in fear or anger to those who disagree with us or even attack us. ~ Ben Carson

The more south we were, the more deep a sky it seemed, till, in the Valley of Mexico, I thought it held back an element too strong for life, and that the flamy brilliance of blue stood off this menace and sometimes, like a sheath or silk membrane, shoed the weight it held in sags. So when later he would fly high over the old craters on the plain, coaly bubbles of the underworld, dangerous red everywhere from the sun, and then coats of snow on the peak of the cones - gliding like a Satan - well, it was here the old priests, before the Spaniards, waited for Aldebaran to come into the middle of heaven to tell them whether or not life would go on for another cycle, and when they received their astronomical sign built their new fire inside the split and emptied chest of a human sacrifice. And also, hereabouts, worshipers disguised as gods and as gods in the disguise of birds, jumped from platforms fixed on long poles, and glided as they spun by the ropes - feathered serpents, and eagles too, the voladores, or fliers. There still are such plummeters, in market places, as there seem to be remnants or conversions or equivalents of all the old things. Instead of racks or pyramids of skulls still in their hair and raining down scraps of flesh there are corpses of dogs, rats, horses, asses, by the roads; the bones dug out of the rented graves are thrown on a pile when the lease is up; and there are the coffins looking like such a rough joke on the female form, sold in the open shops, bl ~ Saul Bellow

I've had all the monstrosity I want. ~ Saul Bellow

Disease is a speech of the psyche.
...the psyche is a polyglot, for if it converts fear into symptoms it also converts hope. ~ Saul Bellow

If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community, I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out. ~ Saul Alinsky

Jeff says he enjoyed his physics course in high school, and got top grades, but "ever since I have had physics at the university I have had much trouble with it. This was a huge blow to me because I was used to doing well in school. I thought there was nothing I couldn't do if I just wanted it bad enough."

My reply will go like this: "You might want to read the picaresque novel The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. The epiphany at the end, as I recall, is that we shouldn't be seeking harrowing challenges, but rather tasks we find natural and interesting, tasks we were apparently born to perform. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I might have added, as it entered my mind to do, that some people found satisfaction in being. Being. Others in becoming. Being people have all the breaks. Becoming people are very unlucky, always in a tizzy. The Becoming people are always have to make explanations or offer justifications of the Being people. While the Being people provoke these explanations. ~ Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow once said, 'A writer is a reader who has moved to emulation' - which I think is true. I just started writing and made that jump from reader to writer and learned how hard it was, but also how much fun it was - losing myself in these imaginary worlds. ~ Stewart O'Nan

You can always tell you're in deep trouble when people start thinking money's real. ~ John Ralston Saul

Radicals, on the other hand, want to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization. They hope for a future where the means of economic production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful. They feel that this minority control of production facilities is injurious to the large masses of people not only because of economic monopolies but because the political power inherent in this form of centralized economy does not augur for an ever expanding democratic way of life. ~ Saul Alinsky

Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each other's errors ... Only a sailor can set them straight. ~ John Ralston Saul

I was always making up rhymes. But I never thought that poetry would become my life. ~ Saul Williams

Management cannot solve problems. Nor can it stir creativity of any sort. It can only manage what it is given. If asked to do more, it will deform whatever is put into its hands. ~ John Ralston Saul

The prayer of David traditionally assigned to this story is Psalm 57. While there are lines in that psalm that convey David's fugitive state at the time, its overwhelming impression is of energetic and ebullient praise of God. This means that while Saul was the occasion for David's being in the wilderness, Saul neither defined nor dominated the wilderness. The wilderness was full of God, not Saul. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

One must bear in mind the odd angle or slant that the rays of love have to take in order to reach a heart like mine. ~ Saul Bellow

Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society. ~ John Ralston Saul

My love is my soul's imagination ...
how do I love you ... imagine. ~ Saul Williams

The thing I've been talking about with daughter is the idea of - and I'm talking about essentially in America - the possibility of, a lost generation. I've been listening to a lot of music - as a fan, as a critic, as somebody who likes to dance - but I hear, you know, within these songs and half the people I hear, these philosophies encoded and embedded in these songs. ~ Saul Williams

But when he sat down for a moment on the bed, all the comedy of it was snatched away and torn to pieces. He was wrong about the woman's expression: he was trying to transform it into something he could bear. The truth was probably far different. He had started out to see what had happened with her eyes and had ended by substituting his own, thus contriving to put her on his side. ~ Saul Bellow

Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer. ~ Saul D. Alinsky

There is a kitsch of death. For example, death transformed into sweet sleep: The 'good night, sweet prince' of the last scene of Hamlet. ~ Saul Friedlander

I didn't ever want to make a rap album. I considered it too limiting. Now that's exactly what I've gone and done. ~ Saul Williams

She'd been in Budapest for over four weeks and her sister Vivian had been silent since her arrival. All Sarah had was the final note her dead sister made her write telling her that Armond Stuart had fled to Hungary. ~ Jonas Saul

Saul answered, "But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?" (1 Samuel 9:21). "But Lord," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family" (Judges 6:15). But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" (Exodus 3:11). When God calls, you will probably be in the most unlikely circumstances to receive that call. You will be in the midst of a crisis, you will lack resources and you will not have the skills you think you need. This is the way of God. God works this way because He wants you to know that your call is based on His ability, not yours. When you think it is based on you, you possess a false humility, which is unbelief and disobedience on your part. ~ Os Hillman

Can we find nothing good to say about TV? Well, yes, it brings scattered solitaries into a sort of communion. TV allows your isolated American to think that he participates in the life of the entire country. It does not actually place him in a community, but his heart is warmed with the suggestion (on the whole false) that there is a community somewhere in the vicinity and that his atomized consciousness will be drawn back toward the whole. ~ Saul Bellow

For Hillary, gangsterism is not merely a matter of means; it is also her end. Hillary wants to be the crime boss of America. That is the only way to satisfy her unquenchable desire for money, power, and social control. As we will see in this book, Hillary is a criminal who found the criminal practices of Saul Alinsky to be too weak-kneed for her taste, and Alinsky was a gangster who found the criminal practices of the Al Capone gang to be a tad sentimental. In short, Hillary is the true Democrat, the gangster par excellence. I suspect this is why the Democratic establishment lined up so quickly behind her. While the Republicans had a real primary, hotly contested, the Democrats had a primary in which Bernie seemed to win again and again but never seemed to make a dent in Hillary's lead. That's because the Democratic super-delegates were uniformly in her camp, even though there was throughout the campaign the risk that she would be indicted. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

If you think about it long enough, you'll see that it's obvious. ~ Saul Gorn

All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new. ~ Saul Alinsky

Sometimes clients have a sophisticated view of their design problem, sometimes they do not. I often spend time with the client redefining the problem, going back to the beginning. Often the problem is just a symptom. Sometimes you have to move back in order to move forward to understand what the nature of the solution should be. ~ Saul Bass

brushed with the first crimson of sunrise. On the oval track the comb marks of the rakes in the dirt showed no footsteps; Saul always ran better on fresh earth. He stripped and tossed ~ James Cannon

Given the gruesome fate of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, and the fact that five of the previous 12 Romanov rulers were also murdered, it is easy to regard Russia's imperial dynasty as cursed. ~ Saul David

I don't actually take much stock in the collapsing culture bit. I'm beginning to see it instead as the conduct of life without input from your soul. ~ Saul Bellow

So things go on as before with those who think a great deal and effect nothing, and those who think nothing evidently doing it all... ~ Saul Bellow

But fathers are soft on daughters. Look how Dad favors Angela. He gave her ten times more. Because she reminded him of Mae West. He was always smiling at her boobs. He wasn't aware of it. Mother and I saw it. ~ Saul Bellow

If you have to design something, choose things that we need as opposed to frivolous things that we might just want for a month or two for bragging rights. ~ Saul Griffith

When a man's breast feels like a cage from which all the dark birds have flown - he is free, he is light. And he longs to have his vultures back again. He wants his customary struggles, his nameless, empty works, his anger, his afflictions and his sins. ~ Saul Bellow

Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing. In short, radicals must have a degree of control over the flow of events. ~ Saul Alinsky

Henry Kissinger is perhaps the best-known American statesman of the 20th century. ~ Saul David

I celebrated success in the art world, which was quite sudden, and I suddenly had $1,000 a month, when formerly I had nothing, basically. So what we did with this money: we had a baby, we bought a car, and we celebrated by going to Rome, because it would be warmer and better looking. ~ Peter Saul

I can't say that I always want to get out of bed, you know. ~ Saul Williams