91 quotes found
"I got myself into a lovely little—shall we say controversy—with André Breton, by pointing out that the discipline of spontaneity, which he was asking his surrealist neophytes to adopt, was new for language but something that composers had been practicing for centuries."
"Derangement is the signature expression of the Great Backlash, a style of conservatism that first came snarling onto the national stage in response to the partying and protests of the late sixties. While earlier forms of conservatism emphasized fiscal sobriety, the backlash mobilizes voters with explosive social issues — summoning public outrage over everything from busing to un-Christian art — which it then marries to pro-business economic polices. Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends. And it is these economic achievements — not the forgettable skirmishes of the never-ending culture wars — that are the movement’s greatest monuments. The backlash is what has made possible the international free-market consensus of recent years, with all the privatization, deregulation, and de-unionization that are its components. Backlash ensures that Republicans will continue to be returned to office even when their free-market miracles fail and their libertarian schemes don’t deliver and their "New Economy" collapses. It makes possible the police pushers’ fantasies of “globalization” and a free-trade empire that are foisted upon the rest of the world with such self-assurance. Because some artist decides to shock the hicks by dunking Jesus in urine, the entire planet must remake itself along the lines preferred by the Republican Party, U.S.A.The Great Backlash has made the laissez-faire revival possible, but this does not mean that it speaks to us in the manner of the capitalists of old, invoking the divine right of money or demanding that the lowly learn their place in the great chain of being. On the contrary; the backlash imagines itself as a foe of the elite, as the voice of the unfairly persecuted, as a righteous protest of the people on history’s receiving end. That is champions today control all three branches of government matters not a whit. That its greatest beneficiaries are the wealthiest people on the plant does not give it pause."
"Old-fashioned values may count when conservatives appear on the stump, but once conservatives are in office the only old-fashioned situation they care to revive is an economic regimen of low wages and lax regulations. Over the last three decades they have smashed the welfare state, reduced the tax burden on corporations and the wealthy, and generally facilitated the country’s return to a nineteenth-century pattern of wealth distribution. Thus the primary contradiction of the backlash: it is a working-class movement that has done incalculable, historic harm to working class people.The leaders of the backlash may talk Christ, but they walk corporate. Values may "matter most" to voters, but they always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won. This is a basic earmark of the phenomenon, absolutely consistent across its decades-long history. Abortion is never halted. Affirmative action is never abolished. The culture industry is never forced to clean up its act."
"Grandstanding leaders never deliver, their fury mounts and mounts, and nevertheless they turn out every two years to return their right-wing heroes to office for a second, a third, a twentieth try. The trick never ages; the illusion never wears off. Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. Vote to make our country strong again; receive deindustrialization. Vote to screw those politically correct college professors; receive electricity deregulation. Vote to get government off our backs; receive conglomeration and monopoly everywhere from media to meatpacking. Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization. Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated then ever before in our lifetimes, in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining."
"[The right] may never bring prayer back to schools, but it has rescued all manner of rightwing economic nostrums from history’s dustbins. Having rolled back the landmark economic reforms of the sixties (the war on poverty) and those of the thirties (labor law, agricultural price supports, banking regulation), its leaders now turn their guns on the accomplishments of the earliest years of progressivism (Woodrow Wilson’s estate tax; Theodore Roosevelt’s anti-trust measures). With a little more effort, the backlash may well repeal the entire twentieth century."
"Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. What makes one a member of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility, and the rest of the qualities that our punditry claims to spy in the red states that voted for George W. Bush. The nation’s producers don’t care about unemployment or a dead-end life or a boss who makes five hundred times as much as they do. No. In red land both workers and their bosses are supposed to be united in disgust with those affected college boys at the next table, prattling on about French cheese and villas in Tuscany and the big ideas for running things that they read in books.This sounds like a complicated maneuver, but it should be quite familiar after all these years. We see it in its most ordinary, run-of-the-mill variety every time we hear a conservative pundit or politician deplore "class warfare" — meaning any talk about the failures of free-market capitalism — and then, seconds later, hear them rail against the "media elite" or the haughty, Volvo driving "eastern establishment.""
"The idea of a liberal elite is not intellectually robust. It’s never been enunciated with anything approaching scholarly rigor, it has been refuted countless times, and it falls apart under any sort of systematic scrutiny.Yet the idea persists. It did not die with Richard Nixon or peter out with the busing controversy or depart the national scene with the wily Bill Clinton. Indeed, it has greater currency on the street today than do twenty years’ worth of blue-ribbon studies and a lifetime of responsible sociology."
"They, the conservatives, are the real outsides, they tell us, gazing with disgust upon the ludicrous manners of the high and mighty. Or, they tell us, they are rough-and-ready proles, laughing along with us at the efforts of our social "betters" to reform and improve us. That they are often, in fact, people of privilege doing their utmost to boost the fortunes of a political party that is the traditional tool of the privileged is a contradiction that does not trouble them."
"Apparently, there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been cemented over a beer."
"Thanks to its chokehold on the nation’s culture, liberalism is thus in power whether its politicians are elected or not; it rules over us even though Republicans have prevailed in six out of the nine presidential elections since 1968; even though Republicans presently control all three branches of government; even though the last of the big-name, forthright liberals of the old school (Humphrey, McGovern, Church, Bayhm, Culver, etc.) either died or went down to defeat in the seventies; and even though no Democratic presidential nominee has called himself a "liberal" since Walter Mondale. Liberalism is beyond politics, a tyrant that dominates our lives in countless ways great and small, and which is virtually incapable of being overthrown.Conservatism, on the other hand, is the doctrine of the oppressed majority. Conservatism does not defend some established order of things: It accuses; its rants; it points out hypocrisies and gleefully pounces on contradictions. While liberals use their control of the airwaves, newspapers, and schools to persecute average Americans — to ridicule the pious, flatter the shiftless, and indoctrinate the kids with all sorts of permissive nonsense — the Republicans are the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, the forgotten. They are always the underdog, always in rebellion against a haughty establishment, always rising up from below.All claims of the right, in other words, advance from victimhood. This is another trick the backlash has picked up from the left. Even though republicans legislate in the interests of society’s most powerful, and even though conservative social critics typically enjoy cushy sinecures at places like the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal, they rarely claim to speak on behalf of the wealthy of the winners in the social Darwinist struggle. Just like the leftists of the early twentieth century, they see themselves in revolt against a genteel tradition, rising up against a bankrupt establishment that will tolerate no backtalk.Conservatism, on the other hand, can never be powerful or successful, and backlashers revel in fantasies of their own marginality and persecution."
"The great goal of the backlash is to nurture a cultural class war, and the first step in doing so, as we have seen, is to deny the economic basis of social class. After all, you can hardly deride liberals as society’s "elite" or present the GOP as the party of the common man if you acknowledge the existence of the corporate world — the power that creates the nation’s real elite, that dominates its real class system, and that wields the Republican Party as its personal political system."
"In a land of quince jelly, apple butter, apricot jam, blueberry preserves, pear conserves, and lemon marmalade, you always get grape jelly."
"What is it in man that for a long while lies unknown and unseen only one day to emerge and push him into a new land of the eye, a new region of the mind, a place he has never dreamed of? Maybe it's like the force in spores lying quietly under asphalt until the day they push a soft, bulbous mushroom head right through the pavement. There's nothing you can do to stop it."
"At any particular moment in a man's life, he can say that everything he has done and not done, that has been done and not been done to him, has brought him to that moment. If he's being installed as Chieftain or receiving a Nobel Prize, that's a fulfilling notion. But if he's in a sleeping bag at ten thousand feet in a snowstorm, parked in the middle of a highway and waiting to freeze to death, the idea can make him feel calamitously stupid."
"Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?"
"Instead of insight, maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while. Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain. An inheritance of wonder and nothing more."
"Boredom lies only with the traveler's limited perception and his failure to explore deeply enough. After a while, I found my perception limited."
"I can't say, over the miles, that I had learned what I had wanted to know because I hadn't known what I wanted to know. But I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know."
"Nowadays, when a pitcher gets a ball close to the hitter, the hitter comes back to the bench and says: "You know, I think he's throwing at me." That shows you how times have changed. When I broke in, you knew damned well they were throwing at you."
"There comes a time at least once in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them."
"Maybe, but I don't have another life to live to wait around for it."
"I guess this means they fired me. I'll never make the mistake of being 70 years old again."
"This makes a man think. You look up and down the bench and you say to yourself, "Can't anybody here play this game?""
"It's a good likeness of The Dutchman. It's perfect the way they have him holding a bat in his big hands. He was good with the bat but he was a terror with that glove, too. And my, how he could run the bases. Come to think of it, he was as good a ball player as I ever saw. Maybe the best. John McGraw always said Wagner was the greatest and I'm inclined to agree with him. He was certainly the best I ever played against. Wagner was a huge man with huge hands. He could cover ground and he could throw. Amazing thing about him was his arm. It was only as good as the runner. If you were an average runner, he'd just beat you with his throw. And if you were fast, he'd just beat you again."
"I've been talking only of some of the things Wagner did in the field. But he was a terror with that bat. The only other right-handed batter I could compare him with was Rogers Hornsby. Wagner could hit line drives into right field all day long. And when you started to shade him toward right field, he'd flip that bat, fake the third baseman into a bunt and hit it past him. And how he could run, too, even with his bowlegs. Honus had as much baseball instinct as I ever saw in a player. It was an education to play against him and a delight to watch him."
"Now the secret to successful managing is to break down your club. The first 15 guys you don't have to bother with. They are always playing and don't need the manager. The next five play only occasionally, so you got to keep buttering them up. The last five you gotta watch all the time because they're plotting to get you fired."
"There ain't nothin' to it. You go into the fancy meeting room and you just sit there and never open your yap. As long as you don't say nuthin' they don't know whether you're smart or dumb. When the question of a loan comes up, if it's a friend of yours, you vote to give it to him and if he ain't a friend, you don't."
"The new park sure holds the heat. The heat took the press right out of my pants."
"Oh yes, THAT Robason. Well, I seen Mr. Paige and I seen Rogan and I seen Mr. Josh Gibson, did you ever see that centerfield wall in Pittsburgh? Well, he hit one-out-of-three over it and I would have to say Mr. Robason shouldn't think he was the only man was brought in the big leagues was a wizard, why, he hit the lousiest popup I ever seen in a World Series [...] he, this wizard Mr. Robason hit the ball clear to the pitcher's mound and Mr. Billy Martin catches it and we beat Mr. Robason's team for the fourth time in five. And the time they beat us, he wasn't in the lineup, he took the day off in the seventh game, you could look it up, so it's possible a college education doesn't always help you if you can't hit a lefthanded changeup as far as the shortstop, but I'm not bragging, you understand, as I don't have a clear notion myself about atomics and physics."
"Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in."
"Without losers, where would the winners be?"
"We had a lot of fun with Casey all through the Series. There never was anything abusive about him. We rode him just to hear his clownish comebacks. I know I kidded him plenty. And when he won the the 1 to 0 game, he ran around the bases with his thumb to his nose and his hand pointed to the Yankee bench. I think it was meant for me in particular as he tried to show me he, too, knew how to hit home runs. Ruppert didn't like it and later said it was undignified. But we didn't mind Casey having his fun."
"He was like a father to me, and I mean that. My dad died after I had been with the Yankees a year and I guess Casey felt it was up to him to bring me up right. He kept me when I wasn't ready for the big leagues. He had confidence in me. He taught me to think, to play hard from the first pitch to the last."
"The role of the manager is overrated, anyhow. Look at Stengel. When he was with the Yankees, loaded with material, he was a winner. When he moved over to the Mets, he finished last. They voted Casey the greatest living manager. That's a lot of bull—a joke. The only thing a manager has to do is relate to the players. Who did Casey ever relate to? Nobody but himself."
"The Scorpio period of the year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) is the time when the life force withdraws from all outer forms in nature and is concentrated in the seed. It is striking that the cultural symbol for this time of the year in the United States is the Halloween pumpkin with its insides removed, leaving only an empty shell with a blankly staring face. In fact, the jack-o-lantern is a symbol of death, a symbolic skull with the glimmering remains of the departed life force represented by the candle within it. Traditionally, the Halloween feast (the Eve of All Saints Day) was a time when the dead came back to life and when human beings in the physical body could most immediately contact departed spirits of all kinds, as well as their own patron saints. It is significant that children are allowed at this time to wander out at night, past their usual bed time, and that they are not supposed to go from house to house begging for food until the Sun (the symbol of physical life) has completely set!"
"The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge."
"TV—a clever contraction, derived from the words Terrible Vaudeville. We call it a medium, because nothing's well done."
"Late that last night, as I sat alone watching the interviews and the speeches and the what-not, she shouted to turn that thing off and come to bed. Once again politics had made estranged bedfellows."
"There's a crisis of truth in the pulputs today in our land. That in the name of tolerance, even in the name of love, we are redefining love that is not on God's terms! Jesus is God, there is no other god besides Jesus: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! All the world religions, they can say what they say, there is no other god but Jesus, there is no other standard of truth. Jesus alone is the standard of truth! He defines morality! He defines marriage! He defines life! He defines righteousness! And in our allegiance to Him, we say what He says. It's time to come out in the open. It's time to go public. Regardless what it costs us. We love you, Jesus! The only god!"
"The Second Coming will probably happen within the lifetime of people living today."
"The Harlot Babylon is preparing the nations to receive the Antichrist. The Harlot Babylon will be a religion of affirmation, toleration, no absolutes, a counterfeit justice movement. They will feed the poor, have humanitarian projects, inspire acts of compassion for all the wrong reasons. They won’t know it, beloved they will be sincere, many of them, but their sincerity will not in any way lessen the impact of their deception. The fact that they are sincere does not make their deception less damaging. I believe that one of the main pastors, as a forerunner to the Harlot movement, it’s not the Harlot movement yet, is Oprah. She is winsome, she is kind, she is reasonable, she is utterly deceived, utterly deceived. A classy woman, a cool woman, a charming woman, but has a spirit of deception and she is one of the clear pastors, forerunners to the Harlot movement."
"In the dark ages before the invention of the electronic vacuum tube there were many legends of living statues and magic pictures. One of the commonest devices of sorcerers and witches was the model of an enemy which somehow embodied his soul, so that injury to the model would be reflected by suffering or death of the original... Idolatry, witchcraft and other superstitions are so deeply rooted and widespread that it is possible that even the most detached scientific activity may be psychologically equivalent to them; such activity may help to satisfy the desire for power, to assuage the fear of the unknown or to compensate for the flatness of everyday existence."
"In any case there is an intense modern interest in machines that imitate life. The great difference between magic and the scientific imitation of life is that where the former is content to copy external appearance, the latter is concerned more with performance and behavior."
"[Walter even gave the tortoises a mock-biological name, Machina speculatrix] because they illustrate particularly the exploratory, speculative behaviour that is so characteristic of most animals."
"[E]xperiments with a simple little machine, designed to mimic certain elementary features of animal behavior... Consisting only of two vacuum tubes, two motors, a photoelectric cell and a touch contact, all enclosed in a tortoise-shaped 'shell, the model was a species of artificial creature which could explore its surroundings and seek out favorable conditions. It was named Machine speculatrix."
"The mechanism of learning is of course one of the most enthralling and baffling mysteries in the field of biology."
"These models are of course so simple that any more detailed comparison between them and living creatures would be purely conjectural."
"[A]n electro-mechanical creature which behaves so much like an animal that it has been known to drive a not usually timid lady upstairs to lock herself in her bedroom, an interesting blend of magic and science."
"The first notion of constructing a free goal-seeking mechanism goes back a wartime talk with the psychologist, , whose untimely death was one of the greatest losses Cambridge has suffered in years. When he was engaged on a warjob for the Government, he came to get the help of an automatic analyzer with some very complicated curves he had obtained, curves relating to the aiming errors of air gunners. Goal-seeking missiles were literally much in the air in those days; so, in our minds, were scanning mechanisms. Long before the home study was turned into a workshop, the two ideas, goal-seeking and scanning, had combined as the essential mechanical conception of a working model that would behave like a very simple animal."
"Not in looks, but in action, the model must resemble an animal. Therefore it must have these or some measure of these attributes: exploration, curiosity, free-will in the sense of unpredictability, goalseeking, self-regulation, avoidance of dilemmas, foresight, memory, learning, forgetting, association of ideas, form recognition, and the elements of social accommodation. Such is life."
"Some of these patterns of performance were calculable, though only as types of behaviour, in advance; some were quite unforeseen."
"Simon, always a fool for simplicity, accepted. Punch took an envelope out of his pocket and scribbled on the back of it. He said, 'This has a simple arithmetical proof but no rational explanation of the paradox.' He gave it to Simon. Simon read it, looked at Punch with raised eyebrows, hunched his shoulders, shook his head sadly, and got up and left the room without a word."
"Rapidly going over what I could recall of Jim Bursley's information about pathological curves confirmed the conjecture. The snowball curve, derived from an equilateral triangle, is a perimeter of infinite length enclosing a finite area. The angles or points of the perimeter are uncountable. An equilateral triangle projected integrally in the third dimension is a triangular pyramid of equal surfaces. The three-dimensional snowflake derived from this pyramid--hence its diamantine appearance--is a finite volume enclosed in a surface of infinite area. The convolutions of such a surface, to be gathered around its defined content extrude a number of discrete angles or points beyond all possibility of computation. The pressure on each point is infinitesimal, unmeasurably small; the total external pressure exerted on any part of the surface is an aggregate of infinitesimal values, itself infinitesimal."
"In a modest villa on the outskirts of Bristol lives Dr Grey Walter, a neurologist, who makes robots as a hobby. They are small, and he doesn’t dress them up to look like men – he calls them tortoises. And so cunningly have their insides been designed that they respond to the stimuli of light and touch in a completely life-like manner. This model is named Elsie, and she sees out of a photo-electric cell which rotates about her body. When light strikes the cell, driving and steering mechanisms send her hurrying towards it. If she brushes against any objects in her path, contacts are operated which turn the steering away, and so automatically she takes avoiding action. Mrs Walter’s pet is Elmer, Elsie’s brother, in the darker vest. He works in exactly the same way. Dr Walter says that his electronic toys work exactly as though they have a simple two-cell nervous system, and that, with more cells, they would be able to do many more tricks. Already Elsie has one up on Elmer: when her batteries begin to fail, she automatically runs home to her kennel for charging up, and in consequence can lead a much gayer life."
"His popular and academic reputation encompassed a heterogeneous series of roles ranging from robotics pioneer, home guard explosive experts, wife swapper, t.v.-pundit, experimental drugs user, and skindiver to anarcho-syndicalist champion of leucotomy and electro-convulsive therapy."
"[A] famous photograph... showing McCulloch (1898–1969) and Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) with British Cyberneticians Ross Ashby (1903–1972) and Grey Walter (1910–1977), first appeared in de Latil (1953) with the caption "The four pioneers of Cybernetics get together in Paris", and encapsulates a view of the development of cybernetics that has slowly become more accepted: that there were important British contributions from the outset."
"Hey Vsauce, Michael here."
"And as always, thanks for watching."
"The pyramids of Giza were as old to the ancient Romans as the ancient Romans are to us."
"Compared to what human life has mainly been like here on earth, our current societies are WEIRD."
"What I'm trying to say is... I'm not going to say, "I hate" anything I ever made — but I will say this: My mother is much more proud of what I do now than all of the fart-joke videos I did in the past."
"We are finite creatures. Our lives are small and can only scientifically consider a small part of reality. What's common for us is just a sliver of what's available. We can only see so much of the electromagnetic spectrum. We can only delve so deep into extensions of space. Common sense applies to that which we can access. But common sense is just that- common. If total sense is what we want, we should be prepared to accept that we shouldn't call infinity weird or strange. The results we've arrived at by accepting it are valid, true within the system we use to understand, measure, predict and order the universe. Perhaps the system still needs perfecting, but at the end of the day, history continues to show us that the universe isn't strange. We are."
"It's a truly eerie experience — because you can find the permanent location for any 3200-character text. You can find in this library the description of your birth, every possible description of your death, every poem, every joke, every lie — everything that could be said, can be found on this site. This … thing … blurs the line between invention and discovery; did you really discover or invent that thing, if it's description already existed? 105000 different pages are offered by the Library of Babel. In comparison, there are only 1080atoms in the observable universe. I searched for what I just said, and sure enough, in this hexagon, in this wall, in this shelf, in this volume, on this page, it's there. Hello. But deep down, we feel like there's a difference between this program, permuting something unknowingly and a person actually meaning it, intending it, saying it because they wanted to, with agency. We use a finite number of symbols to say things. For that reason, a library of every finite combination of those symbols can be made. But just because it can be made doesn't mean it has been said. That is the power we have. Perhaps you and I were born too late to explore the world and too early in history to explore the stars, but we were born at just the right time, which is pretty much all times ever — to explore language — to explore what can be said. What should be said? What should we send out to space? What, that can be said, will you be the first to say?"
"Skeletons are scary and spooky, but you know what else is? Teenagers."
"Animals are among the first inhabitants of the mind's eye. They are basic to the development of speech and thought. Because of their part in the growth of consciousness, they are inseparable from the series of events in each human life, indispensable to our becoming human in the fullest sense."
"Longer than memory we have known that each animal has its power and place, each a skill, virtue, wisdom, innocence — a special access to the structure and flow of the world. Each surpasses ourselves in some way. Together, sacred, they help hold the cosmos together, making it a joy and beauty to behold, but above all a challenge to understand as story, drama, and sacred play."
"Here’s a test you can try at home: put a two-year-old in a playpen with an apple and a rabbit. If it plays with the apple and eats the rabbit, you’ve got a carnivore. According to numerous studies … vegetarians have 60% less cancer than meat-eaters, and a tiny fraction of the heart attack rate. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out we aren’t very well designed to eat meat."
"Until mid 2002, I was a meat eater. I have always instinctively been opposed to cruelty to animals, as all decent and sensible people are, but didn’t know much about how food animals were raised or processed. I assumed humans had always eaten meat because it was natural for us to, and that food animals were raised on farms where they were fairly oblivious to their surroundings and only moderately inconvenienced until their swift and humane execution. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over 95% of animals raised for food are born, live, and die in horribly painful conditions. ... Another misconception I had was about the relative intelligence and awareness of farm animals. Since becoming vegan, I’ve met rescued “food” animals now living natural lives outdoors … Cows, pigs and chickens are as smart, friendly and loving, as dogs and cats, and create friendships with other animals and people in much the same ways. Each has its own personality and its own set of likes and dislikes. If you think you’re an animal advocate because you care about saving dogs and cats in city shelters but still eat meat, think again."
"For me, the essence of veganism is compassion … not just compassion for animals, but all the way around."
"Vivisection is the killing of animals to find cures for the diseases caused by eating animals."
"I suppose I am one: an activist — for animals and a vegan lifestyle. I hear that word, however, and look around to see if someone is indeed referring to me."
"We've all heard it: vegans are cool and plant-based dining is hot. What other diet can promise to keep you trim without working at it, clear clogged arteries, save the lives of animals, and do more to stem climate change than driving a Prius—or not driving at all?"
"Cruelty to animals is an enormous injustice; so is expecting those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder to do the dangerous, soul-numbing work of slaughtering sentient beings on our behalf."
"You never know what a man—or a woman—has inside: how much grit, how much courage, how much willingness to change. When someone draws on those qualities, you're looking at a person of substance. And power. And promise. This world needs more of those."
"Nothing fills us with deep and lasting joy the way that doing a good turn for someone else does. Saving somebody's life, human or animal, is that “good turn” in spades."
"98 percent of the animals raised for food suffer horrifically on factory farms before being slaughtered. Every time you eat a vegan meal, you're voting for something different."
"If you hear yourself saying “I could never give up ice cream” (or something else), realize that you may just be short on vegucation. There are lots of rich, luscious nondairy ice creams on the market … If you have the necessary information and you're still saying “I could never give up...,” listen to yourself. You're affirming weakness. … You're bigger than that. You can eat plants and save lives. You can give your life exponentially more meaning by living in a way that decreases suffering just because you got up and chose a kind breakfast."
"There are as many ways to eat a vegan diet as there are people who discover it. Just about any way you do it, provided you focus on unprocessed foods, include vitamin B12, and make a few adjustments for your individual needs and preferences, can be viable and health-promoting."
"Conscience protections are important for all of us. We enjoy the freedom to differ in opinion from one another. But, whatever view you may hold on this, or any other issue, I think we can all agree the government should not make our choices for us."
"Just because your smart may not be conventional, doesn’t make it any less important or credible."
"I’ve never been one to fit into a box. I’ve never been normal. I think that this is part of the reason why I love this life that I live, and that I am an actor, and I am a chameleon, because I am okay with the not knowing sometimes, and I’m okay with the questioning and I’m okay with being different"
"I play defense as much as anything down there."
"I figured if we could pursue creative solutions for better services to those who were underserved, starting with babies, children and women, then all citizens would benefit."
"I had a lot of hope and passion to help people move the needle in their own lives with the help of education and services designed to reduce the disparities."
"In the early years, Bland voraciously absorbed information she had access to and applied that education to helping her community find better access and pathways of support for its citizens of color and underserved populations."
"Bland’s legacy is one of a dedicated public servant who encouraged young people to further their education and participate in public service."
"Her daughter Arletha Bland-Manlove said she was an “extraordinary public servant” who earned respect from residents in her area."
"One of the most important things that she always wanted people to know was that she was here to help, and she was a servant of God."
"She was very motivated by what she believed to be right"
"Mary Groves Bland was a tireless public servant and an unwavering champion for social justice throughout her life, and I was honored to know and work with her."
"She didn't like to be called a politician; she like to be called a servant of the people."