Modern Life Quotes - Page 3

• Nobody is sicker than the man who is sick on his day off.

  Charles E. McKenzie

  Men, Sick, Days Off

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• Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Character, Water, Drink

  Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations”, p.49, Melville House

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• The people who are always hankering loudest for some golden yesteryear usually drive new cars.

  Russell Baker

  People, Car, Yesteryear

  Russell Baker (1992). “Poor Russell's almanac”

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• Writing is both bomb and bomb disposal-a necessary shattering of cliche and assumption, and a powerful defusing of the soul-destroying messages of modern life (that nothing matters, nothing changes, money is everything, etc). Writing is a state of being as well as an act of doing.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Powerful, Writing, Soul

  "Creative writing professor Hanif Kureishi says such courses are 'a waste of time'" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. March 4, 2014.

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• Run for your lives-the computers are invading. Awesomely powerful computers tackling ever more important tasks with awkward, old-fashioned interfaces. As these machines leak into every corner of our lives, they will annoy us, infuriate us, and even kill a few of us. In turn, we will be tempted to kill our computers, but we won't dare because we are already utterly, irreversibly dependent on these hopeful monsters that make modern life possible.

  Alan Cooper

  Running, Powerful, Hopeful

  Alan Cooper (1999). “The Inmates are Running the Asylum”, Sams Publishing

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• The resources of nature, like those of spirit, are running out, and all that a conscientious man can aspire to be is a literal conservative, hoarding what remains of culture and of natural wealth against the fierce appetites of modern life.

  Russell Kirk

  Running, Men, Hoarding

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.362, Regnery Publishing

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• The child learns more of the virtues needed in modern life-of fairness, of justice, of comradeship, of collective interest and action-in a common school than can be taught in the most perfect family circle

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Children, School, Circles

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (2015). “Women and Economics - A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution: From the famous American writer, feminist, social reformer and a respected sociologist who holds an important place in feminist fiction, well-known for her stories The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland”, p.121, e-artnow

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• Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Humorous, Doctors, Medicine

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.1222, Delphi Classics

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• Thus, for followers of Christ, calling neutralizes the fundamental position of choice in modern life. “I have chosen you,” Jesus said, “you have not chosen me.” We are not our own; we have been bought with a price. We have no rights, only responsibilities. Following Christ is not our initiative, merely our response, in obedience. Nothing works better to debunk the pretensions of choice than a conviction of calling. Once we have been called, we literally “have no choice.

  Os Guinness

  Jesus, Responsibility, Rights

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• We three belong to the Middle Ages. We have this need of heroism, and there is no place for such feelings in modern life. That is our tragedy. Once I wanted to be a saint. It seemed the only absolute act left to do, for what is most powerful in me is the craving for purity, greatness.

  Anais Nin

  Powerful, Greatness, Feelings

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• It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the party was trying to achieve.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Party, Insecurity

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.60, Arcturus Publishing

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• The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.

  David Foster Wallace

  Keys, Boredom, Sides

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• Every reiteration of the idea that _nothing matters_ debases the human spirit. Every reiteration of the idea that there is no drama in modern life, there is only dramatization, that there is no tragedy, there is only unexplained misfortune, debases us. It denies what we know to be true. In denying what we know, we are as a nation which cannot remember its dreams--like an unhappy person who cannot remember his dreams and so denies that he does dream, and denies that there are such things as dreams.

  David Mamet

  Dream, Drama, Unhappy Person

  David Mamet (1986). “Writing in restaurants”, Viking Adult

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• I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mysterious, Secrecy, Thrive

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Joseph Bristow, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts”, p.171, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Chris Ofili's suave, stippled, visually tricked-out paintings of the nineties, with their allover fields of shimmering dots and clumps of dung, are like cave paintings of modern life. They crackle with optical cockiness, love, and massive amounts of painterly mojo.

  Jerry Saltz

  Caves, Suave, Cave Paintings

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• Billions of photos are shot every year, and about the toughest thing a photographer can do is invent an original, deeply personal, instantly recognizable visual style. In the early nineties, Wolfgang Tillmans did just that, transforming himself into a new kind of artist-photographer of modern life.

  Jerry Saltz

  Artist, Years, Style

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• Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.

  Will Rogers

  Years, Goes On, Lasts

  Will Rogers, Bryan B. Sterling (1995). “Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (writers, Politicians, Comedians, Browsers ...)”, M Evans & Company

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• To be, in a word, unborable.... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish

  David Foster Wallace

  Keys, Boredom, Accomplish

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• I wonder why you can always read a doctor's bill and you can never read his prescription.

  Finley Peter Dunne

  Get Well Soon, Doctors, Bills

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• It is possible to speak with our heart directly. Most ancient cultures know this. We can actually converse with our heart as if it were a good friend. In modern life we have become so busy with our daily affairs and thoughts that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with our heart.

  Jack Kornfield

  Art, Good Friend, Essentials

  Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.12, Random House

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• Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress.

  Jacques Ellul

  Growing Up, Class, Numbers

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• The frenetic pace of modern life can lead to an obscuring or even a loss of what is truly human... Perhaps more than in other periods of history, our time is in need of that genius which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance.

  Pope John Paul II

  Faith, Inspiration, Loss

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• Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?

  Peg Bracken

  Memorable, Cutting, Two

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• I am constantly amazed when I talk to young people to learn how much they know about sex and how little about soap.

  Billie Burke

  Sex, People, Littles

  Billie Burke, Cameron Shipp (2016). “With Powder on My Nose”, p.21, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• There are no private lives. This a most important aspect of modern life. That one of the biggest transformations we have seen in human life in our society is the diminution of the sphere of the private. That we must reasonably now all regard the fact that there are no secrets and nothing is private. Everything is public.

  Philip K. Dick

  Secret, Important, Our Society

  "Philip K. Dick: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations".

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