Modern World Quotes - Page 11

• Everyone wants to be young, beautiful and rich. I don't say that scornfully: there are worse things to want to be. But that's why, for example, people don't begrudge Kate Moss how much she earns for a day's work but will fulminate over the take-home pay of some fat, old Water Board exec.

  Nigella Lawson

  Beautiful, Home, America

  "Never mind the size, just feel the price". www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2000.

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• Why do Britons keep stabbing each other in August? Why do seaside hotels burn down in August? Why do children disappear in August, examinations get easier and Heathrow become the world's worst airport? The answer lies not in reality but in appearance. News editors abhor a vacuum. Half an hour of airtime and 10 pages of news must be filled each day, whatever the weather.

  Simon Jenkins

  Children, Lying, Reality

  "The state has only aided our seasonal spates of thuggery" by Simon Jenkins, www.theguardian.com. August 21, 2007.

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• Nowhere in politics is there such a mismatch between public and private realm as in transport. Everyone on the M6 last weekend would have agreed with Transport Minister Alasdair Darling's reported hatred of cars. They too wanted drivers off the roads and on to public transport. Go to it, Mr Darling, they cried in unison, get rid of all those cars. Except, of course, their own. Other people's cars are traffic. My car is the outward essence of my being. It is my hat, stick and cane. It embodies my freedom as a citizen and my right as a democrat. My car is my soul in flight.

  Simon Jenkins

  Weekend, Essence, America

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• An Englishman's car is his castle on wheels.

  Simon Jenkins

  America, Car, Castles

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• Yesterday, I tried to call Northwest Airlines' customer-service line over a couple of hours. I couldn't get through. The recording said, "Due to a high volume of calls" Well, you could put it that way - "Due to a high volume of calls". Or you could say, "Due to an insufficient number of employees..."

  Jay Nordlinger

  Couple, Yesterday, Numbers

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• Most big companies don't like you very much, except hotels, airlines and Microsoft, which don't like you at all.

  Bill Bryson

  America, Microsoft, World

  Bill Bryson (2000). “The Complete Notes”, Random House

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• Like most parents, I've been stumped by homework, the big questions, such as: 'What is the point of geography - the pilot always knows where we are going?'. Answer: 'If you didn't know any geography, people would think you were an American, and you wouldn't be able to put them right because you wouldn't know where they live.'

  A. A. Gill

  Thinking, America, People

  A.A. Gill (2010). “Paper View: The Best of The Sunday Times Television Columns”, p.127, Hachette UK

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• What is the English for 'Refreshing towelette'?

  Mary Wakefield

  America, World, Modern

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• Only in England is the perversion of language regarded as a victory for democracy.

  Anthony Burgess

  America, Victory, Democracy

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• I'm not from around these parts. I'm from a little place called England: we used to run the world before you.

  Ricky Gervais

  Running, America, World

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• We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.

  John Mortimer

  America, World, Scum

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• The streets, at least in this part of town, seemed impossibly clean in comparison to London. The public telephones were unvandalised. For a London telephone booth to look like that it would have to be guarded around the clock by the SAS.

  Clive James

  America, Looks, World

  Clive James (1985). “Flying Visits”

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• In between the Queen and the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, sat Tony Richardson, looking very calm. Later on it emerged that this was because, having not been apprised of the placement until he was about to sit down, he had died of fright. To have expired was to be fortunate.

  Clive James

  Queens, America, World

  Clive James (2013). “Snakecharmers In Texas”, p.187, Pan Macmillan

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• Large motorway flyovers are the cathedrals of the modern world.

  Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn

  Bridges, World, Modern

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• For although there is not a single aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic culture is not traceable, nowhere is it so clear and momentous as in the genesis of that power which constitutes the permanent distinctive force of the modern world, and the supreme source of its victory, natural science and the scientific spirit.

  Robert Briffault

  Islamic, Growth, Victory

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• Is there any man here or any woman, let me say is there any child here, who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?

  Woodrow Wilson

  Children, War, Men

  "A Day of Dedication".

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• The difference between God and the devil is in nothing except in unselfishness and selfishness. The devil knows as much as God, is as powerful as God; only he has no holiness that makes him a devil. Apply the same idea to the modern world: excess of knowledge and power, without holiness, makes human beings devils.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Powerful, Differences, Knowledge And Power

  Swami Vivekananda, Swami Adiswarananda (2006). “Vivekananda, World Teacher: His Teachings on the Spiritual Unity of Humankind”, p.102, SkyLight Paths Publishing

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• To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves... The modern world in comparison, ignores it.

  C. S. Lewis

  World, Modern, Humans

  C. S. Lewis (1971). “The Four Loves”, p.69, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Thinking, Expression

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• As we consider the fast pace of scientific and technological progress in our modern world, we must not lose our moral compass and give way to 'free market eugenics'.

  Sam Brownback

  Eugenics, Giving, Progress

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• Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.

  Tom G. Palmer

  Pluralism Is, Liberty, World

  Tom G. Palmer (2009). “Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice”, p.39, Cato Institute

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• I now resolved to go to bed early, with a firm purpose of also rising early the next day to revisit this charming walk; for I thought to myself, I have now seen this temple of the modern world imperfectly; I have seen it only by moonlight.

  Karl Philipp Moritz

  Journey, Next Day, Hiking

  Karl Philipp Moritz (1886). “Travels in England in 1782”

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• I have sometimes called this 'double listening'. Listening to the voice of God in Scripture, and listening to the voices of the modern world, with all their cries of anger, pain and despair.

  John Stott

  Pain, Voice, Listening

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• Ads represent the main channel of intellectual and artistic effort in the modern world.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Effort, Intellectual, World

  Commonweal, Volume 58 (p. 557), 1953.

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• China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.

  Lin Yutang

  World, Facts, Modern

  Yutang Lin (1935). “The Little Critic: Essays, Satire and Sketches on China (second Series: 1933-1935)”

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