As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own apprehension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity; "teleological activity." He is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some concrete, objective, impersonal end. By force of being such an agent, he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort. ~Thorstein Veblen
#quotes #thorstein-veblen #human

I vote in every general election, but I'm not a party member or an ideologue. I've never told anyone who I've voted for. ~Brian Lamb
#quotes #brian-lamb #elections

I'm a mixed race lad from Liverpool. I get to play a lot of hard characters, and some people perceive that's what I'm like, but it's great for me 'cos they're always the most interesting characters. ~Stephen Graham
#quotes #stephen-graham

A world of few choices, whether in jeans or mates, is a world in which individual differences become sources of alienation, unhappiness, even self-loathing. If no jeans fit, you'll feel uncomfortable or inferior. If no housing developments reflect your taste for unique architecture, you'll write screeds against philistine mass culture. ~Virginia Postrel
#quotes #virginia-postrel #jeans #society

I try to write like the writers I admire, I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase. So I'm always looking for that angle in my own work. ~Brad Paisley
#quotes #brad-paisley #writing #music

We have been playing to a 70-30 black to white audience. And we are just doing what should come next, trying to attract a larger house, trying to reach an audience that's half black and white. ~Valerie Simpson
#quotes #valerie-simpson #entertainment #black

Girls who wear certain kind of dresses, who show certain areas of the body, are not going to like my clothes. You can't please everyone. ~Prabal Gurung
#quotes #prabal-gurung #clothing

I think children learning to cook can be such a wonderful thing. It can help build confidence, make them feel good about themselves. It helped me build my ego and even start to get acceptance at school. I would bring things to class that I had cooked at home. ~Giada De Laurentiis
#quotes #giada-de-laurentiis #cooking #childhood

Clever father, clever daughter; clever mother, clever son. ~Russian Proverb
#proverbs #russian-proverbs #parents #family

I am a believer in discipline; it takes a lot to do well. You need discipline for those little excursions into the chaotic that make life interesting. ~Linda Ronstadt
#quotes #linda-ronstadt #life #discipline

The starting point of my career in money management in 1973-74 was the time of the only true bear market any living non-Japanese investor has seen in major markets. Equities, real estate, you name it, everyone got run over. ~Paul Singer
#quotes #paul-singer #economy #money

From a director's point of view, if I can create different characters which impress the audience, that is fantastic for me. ~Stephen Chow
#quotes #stephen-chow #movies

Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one. ~Edith Wharton
#quotes #edith-wharton #hardship

Love is a flower which turns into fruit at marriage. ~Finnish Proverb
#proverbs #finnish-proverbs #love #marriage

Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty; it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it. ~George Eliot
#quotes #george-eliot #feelings #human

All the seven deadly sins are self destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages at least, lust and gluttony, averice and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numbed with fear, never ceasing in its appetite, and it knows no gratification, but endless self torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat, which gnaws its own foot in an effort to escape. ~Angus Wilson
#quotes #angus-wilson #pride #sin

No social ties can be formed in the absence of alcohol. ~Chinese Proverb
#proverbs #chinese-proverbs #alcohol

One of the things that always fascinated me about the Renaissance was that it was a time both of great scientific discovery and also of superstition and belief in magic. And so it was a period in which Galileo invented the telescope, but also a time when hundreds were burned at the stake because people thought they were witches. ~Marie Rutkoski
#quotes #marie-rutkoski #galileo #time #science #superstition

The fear among economists across the political spectrum was that we were rapidly plummeting toward a second Great Depression. So in the weeks and months that followed, we undertook a series of difficult steps to prevent that outcome. And we were forced to take those steps, largely without the help of an opposition party, which, unfortunately, after having presided over the decision-making that had led to the crisis, decided to hand it over to others to solve. ~Barack Obama
#quotes #barack-obama #government #economy

Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is three-score years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
#quotes #franklin-d-roosevelt #life #nation

For eight years Republicans worked around the clock to delegitimize Bill Clinton. For the next eight years, Democrats tried to delegitimize Bush. Now Barack Obama is enduring the rage of his conservative opposition. ~Joe Scarborough
#quotes #joe-scarborough #republicans #democrats #politics

There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite. ~Jorge Luis Borges
#quotes #jorge-luis-borges #evil #ethics

The pressure to entertain, to sell ourselves, and never to be visibly anxious keeps ratcheting up. ~Susan Cain
#quotes #susan-cain #entertainment

My feeling about the Internet or anything else is that the more it tends to become a cult, the more I want to call it into question. ~Bill Keller
#quotes #bill-keller #internet

I never really expected to win the hearts of the masses. ~Juliana Hatfield
#quotes #juliana-hatfield #music