Half A Century Quotes - Page 2

whatever San Francisco is or is not, it is never dull. Life there is in a perpetual ferment. It is as though the city kettle had been set on the stove to boil half a century ago and had never been taken off. The steam is pouring out of the nose. The cover is dancing up and down. The very kettle is rocking and jumping. But by some miracle the destructive explosion never happens.

Inez Haynes Irwin

Taken, California, San Francisco

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With little knowledge of what it meant to be a Jew, I found myself passionately defending the Jewish people. Now, half a century later, I have to defend my son. Anti-Semitism, I've seen, is like a disease that goes dormant, flaring up with the next political trigger.

Michael Douglas

Son, People, Political

"Michael Douglas Pens Op-Ed on Anti-Semitism: 'We Can Stop the Spread of This Madness" by Lorena O'Neil, www.hollywoodreporter.com. March 16, 2015.

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Perhaps the best testimony to the effectiveness of the reforms of 1852 is the fact, that men of a slightly later generation, familiar with the working of the courts half a century after, find it difficult to believe that such abuses as are plainly described by the legislation of that year, should really have existed in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Edward Jenks

Believe, Men, Years

Edward Jenks (1922). “A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919”

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Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century.

Gustave Flaubert

Book, Envy, Half

Willa Cather, Gustave Flaubert (2007). “Rites of Compassion”, Feminist Press

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...and was disposed too often to idealize as a virtue that habit of mean subservience to wealth and social position which, after more than half a century of political democracy, is still the characteristic and odious vice of the Englishman.

R. H. Tawney

Mean, Political, Democracy

R. H. Tawney (2016). “Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism”, p.166, Verso Books

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The issue [Israeli-Palestinian conflict], already lasting more than half a century, has brought deep suffering to the Palestinian people and remains an important reason of extended turbulence in the Middle East region.

Xi Jinping

Issues, People, Suffering

"China Rebukes Israel Ahead of Netanyahu Visit". edition.cnn.com. May 07, 2013.

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The wealth gathered by Jamsetji Tata and his sons in half a century of industrial pioneering formed but a minute fraction of the amount by which they enriched the nation. The whole of that wealth is held in trust for the people and used exclusively for their benefit. The cycle is thus complete; what came from the people has gone back to the people many times over.

J. R. D. Tata

Son, People, Gone

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Nearly half a century has passed since Watson proclaimed his manifesto. Today, apart from a few minor reservations, the vast majority of psychologists, both in this country and in America, still follow his lead. The result, as a cynical onlooker might be tempted to say, is that psychology, having first bargained away its soul and then gone out of its mind, seems now, as it faces an untimely end, to have lost all consciousness.

Cyril Burt

Country, America, Cynical

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"The pattern established at the outset has remained to this day, and the Spaniards still do nothing save tear the natives to shreds, murder them and inflict upon them untold misery, suffering and distress, tormenting, harrying and persecuting them mercilessly." According to Las Casas, atrocities continued unabated in the Americas, even half a century after the discovery.

Bartolome de las Casas

Discovery, Suffering, Tears

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The motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has gone by; for nearly half a century almost its entire trust has been in the Republican party and the dollar--mainly the dollar. I recognize that I am only making an assertion and furnishing no proof; I am sorry, but this is a habit of mine; sorry also that I am not alone in it; everybody seems to have this disease.

Mark Twain

God, Sorry, Lying

Mark Twain (2016). “Mark Twain in Eruption (Abridged, Annotated)”, p.37, BIG BYTE BOOKS

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In the Shadow of Slavery covers two and a half centuries of black life in New York City, and skillfully interweaves the categories of race and class as they affected the formation of African American identity. Leslie Harris has made a major contribution to our understanding of the black experience.

Eric Foner

New York, Race, Class

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Our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own.

Gore Vidal

Government, People, Done

Gore Vidal (2002). “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated, Causes of Conflict in the Last Empire”, p.10, CLAIRVIEW BOOKS

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The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a "hypothesis," but the word "hypothesis," though euphonious, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word "guess." If Darwin had advanced his views as a guess they would not have survived for a year, but they have floated for half a century, buoyed up by the inflated word "hypothesis." When it is understood that "hypothesis" means "guess," people will inspect it more carefully before accepting it.

William Jennings Bryan

Mean, Acceptance, Science

"God and Evolution". The New York Times, February 26, 1922.

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Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.

David Cameron

Leadership, Kings, Real

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If half a century of living has taught me anything at all, it has taught me that nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Dale Carnegie

Peace, Humanity, Half

Dale Carnegie (2010). “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”, p.177, Simon and Schuster

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My father, when he went, made my childhood a gift of a half a century.

Antonio Porchia

Father, Childhood, Half

"Voices". Book by Antonio Porchia, 1943.

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Students using astrophysical textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of plasma concepts, despite the fact that some of them have been known for half a century. The conclusion is that astrophysics is too important to be left in the hands of astrophysicists who have gotten their main knowledge from these textbooks. Earthbound and space telescope data must be treated by scientists who are familiar with laboratory and magnetospheric physics and circuit theory, and of course with modern plasma theory.

Hannes Alfven

Knowledge, Science, Hands

"Hannes Alfvén: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents". Book by Anthony L. Peratt, p. 197, 1998.

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No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before.

Colin Greenwood

Gun, Use, Half

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Indeed, we need not look back half a century to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences and arts which have been made within that period. Some of these have rendered the elements themselves subservient to the purposes of man, have harnessed them to the yoke of his labors and effected the great blessings of moderating his own, of accomplishing what was beyond his feeble force, and extending the comforts of life to a much enlarged circle, to those who had before known its necessaries only.

Thomas Jefferson

Life, Art, Science

Thomas Jefferson (1964). “Crusade Against Ignorance”

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He recognized her despite the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath: “Only God knows how much I loved you

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Grief, Grateful, Eye

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She wanted to be herself again, to recover all that she had been obliged to give up in half a century of servitude that had doubtless made her happy but which, once her husband was dead, did not leave her even the vestiges of her identity.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Giving Up, Husband, Identity

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From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be confused for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes. In about one and a half centuries - after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs - the metropolitan cities will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Towns will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples invisible.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Couple, Confused, Eye

Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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A friendship will be young after the lapse of half a century; a passion is old at the end of three months.

Sophie Swetchine

Friendship, Passion, Three

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Over half a century on and they're still complaining about it. Compare it to the fact that Garden State didn't win an Oscar and they seem a little petty if you ask me. I guess that just goes to show what kind of people they really are.

Zach Braff

Winning, Garden, People

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For almost half a century, Fermilab has occupied center stage as physicists have sought to understand the fundamental structure of the universe. The lab deserves a good history, and I'm happy to say that in this book it has one. The authors present a compelling, nuanced, and richly detailed account of the place from its beginnings to the present.

James Trefil

Book, Fundamentals, Half

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