W. D. Hamilton Quotes

The most identifiable trait of Anglo-Saxons is that we always mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.

I graduated a the top of my class in the '84 Olympic Games; I won a gold medal.

Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?

But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea, but of course I never really much got the chance to do it.

No, I don't make my work in order to challenge or confuse other people's expectations - I only do what I find natural.

I just try to touch people's hearts in a way through skating, so they're not just witnessing a performance, they're feeling a performance and they're a part of it.

What you compose with is neither here nor there, you compose with words, or you compose with stone plants and trees, or you compose with events; the Sheriff's officer, or whatever.

I grew up going to the store, seeing the products [of L'Oréal ], seeing the commercials and the ambassadors. I never in a million years thought I'd be associated with them.

Each movement is only learned after you've perfected the one before it.

When you're expected to win and you have the press saying that you are going to win the Olympic gold medal, and you're the only sure thing in the Olympics, it can undermine your confidence.

A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master.

Most of the monsters... are based on some sort of mythology. Every culture and even some geographical areas have monsters and mythology that is their own.

I'm convinced many of America's heroes are public school teachers and administrators. Many of these people do what they do because of their faith.

I'm very lonely now, Mary, For the poor make no new friends; But oh they love the better still The few our Father sends!

I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry about things that are already in print

If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.

The true principle of government is this - make the system compleat in its structure; give a perfect proportion and balance to its parts; and the powers you give it will never affect your security.

But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still.

A man can never be idle with safety and advantage until he has been so trained by work that he makes his freedom from times and tasks more fruitful than his toil has been.

Rationality is not one of this industry's attributes.

He strains his conversation through a cigar.

Genius can do much, but even genius falls short of the actuality of a single human life.

For me concrete poetry was a particular way of using language which came out of a particular feeling, and I don't have control over whether this feeling is in me or not.

From the fall of October, 1980 to March, 1984 I never lost a competition.

Be prepared for the creation of an intrusive bureaucracy to police the ordinance by examining the books and payroll ledgers of businesses.

Real freedom comes from the mastery, through knowledge, of historic conditions and race character, which makes possible a free and intelligent use of experience for the purpose of progress.

I didn't want to be the sissy figure skater, you know.

It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it.

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.

This [a state militia system] appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.

A newspaper is a private enterprise owing nothing whatsoever to the public, which grants it no franchise. It is therefore affected with no public interest.

States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.

The [president] has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction. . . .

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print

While some misuse their freedom to perpetrate evil, millions respond by feeling compelled to use their freedom to do good.

The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.

When you turn professional, you become an entertainer, and like every other entertainer, you don't want to get a bad review.

The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.

Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith.

The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.

Fear will keep you alive; indifference won't.

Well, I think it's important to stand as an advocate for the mentally ill.

There can be no intelligent control of the lead danger in industry unless it is based on the principle of keeping the air clear from dust and fumes.

It was also my experience at Hull-House that aroused my interest in industrial diseases.

One half of the world's people live on less than two dollars a day. This should concern our national security policy as well as our conscience.

People think of science as rolling back the mystery of God. I look at science as slowly creeping toward the mystery of God.

I'm really not into the idea of just faking songs with a synthesizer. That just isn't the music I'm making at all.

Democracy makes us articulate our views, defend them, and refine them.

Hatred makes us all ugly.

Hatred is a cold fire, and it gives no warmth.