Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
The Lord receive my soul, and have mercy on me, and bless this kingdom with peace and charity, that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them.
Many a man owes his advancement very largely to his ability to converse well. The ability to interest people in your conversation, to hold them, is a great power.
The point isn't to live without any regrets. The point is to not hate ourselves for having them.
If my edge is dull, my sword is dull, and I don't want to fight another guy whose sword is dull. If you've got two steel swords going back and forth hitting each other, what's gonna happen? Both of them are going to get sharper. Everybody that's in the industry has lost their edge.
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
I'll walk around the city, and people will come up to me and say, 'Hi,' or 'Keep up the good work,' or whatever, and I'll stop and talk to them.
I gave everything I ever wrote to Johnny Cash. I think he said later in some interview that he would take them home and throw them in the lake with all the other demos. I'm sure he got a million of them.
There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience.
I love being around great actors and film-makers, and I try to hide the fact that I'm in awe of them.
Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy - citizens devoted to the democratic ideals - do not constantly oppose them.
Something to keep in mind, whether you adore Obama or Trump: Drooling toadyism is not a good look on either side, and it paves the way for evil. Because while hate can drive people to do many things, love permits leaders to do all things - none of them good.
So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.
Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.
Determining the value of individual texts has been an ideological scuffle in literary criticism for centuries: but the environmental cost of printing them hauls this dispute from the ivory tower into day-to-day decision-making. Is it right to write? The publishing industry is slowly beginning to commit to using sustainably harvested trees.
I think as long as there are folks on the fringe who want to make movies, the indie scene will still be around. I do think it's getting harder to get them seen though.
Well, there are conjoined twins in real life and we can tell a story about them so long as they're not the brunt of the jokes. In this, they're the heroes of this story; we love these guys.
On the one hand, the press, television, and movies make heroes of vandals by calling them whiz kids.
Every view, and every object I studied attentively, by viewing them again and again on every side, for I was anxious to make a lasting impression of it on my imagination.
The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.
Interestingly, one thing I've found that neither women nor men give up on is the idea of men as protectors. Even in cases where the woman is earning more, they'll often tell me that if there were a fire or something, they would expect the man to be the one to protect them.
Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what to do with eyes, and with his voice. It's very exterior.
Truths begin by a conflict with the police - and end by calling them in.
Fear is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them.
The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.
Who is against democracy? Is it the one who calls for peaceful resistance, or the one who bombs people, sheds their blood and leads them away from the leaders under feeble and dirty pretexts?
The hate and scorn showered on us Negro officers by our fellow Americans convinced me that there was no sense in my dying for a world ruled by them. I made up my mind that if I got through this war I would study law and use my time fighting for men who could not strike back.
If real churches exist, such persons are not called on to make them.
The rule which should guide us in such cases is simple and obvious enough: that the aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of them.
It was good for us, I suppose. Those kinds of times produce qualities in us that make us better for having had them. My parents were not getting along. My mother was quite intolerant of friendships that were being developed.
They think that, if we were just smart enough, we'd be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell 'em, and I do tell 'em, Oh, we're plenty smart, oh yeah - we know what's goin' on. And we don't like what's goin' on. And we're not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.
It seems to me we have been in a rhetorical arms race in this country, with each side unwilling to lay down its weapons for fear - usually justified - the other side would beat them to a pulp.
I've been offered all the reality TV shows but have turned them down. If I did it as 'Johnny,' there'd be no jungle left! It was really hard regaining control of myself, so I am reluctant to let 'Johnny' back out of the box.
The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls, and it is impossible to say that in some among them, drawing and color are better or worse than in others.
Lovers of painting and lovers of music are people who openly display their preference like a delectable ailment that isolates them and makes them proud.
