42 Relevance Quotes

Unfortunately, it's possible to be able to do something extremely well that nobody ever wants done.

I confess that Fermat's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, because I could easily lay down a multitude of such propositions, which one could neither prove nor dispose of.

Even if great poetry continues to be written, it has retreated from the center of literary life. Though supported by a loyal coterie, poetry has lost the confidence that it speaks to and for the general culture.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

Most books, after all, are ephemeral; their specifics, several years later, inspire about as much interest as daily battle reports from the Hundred Years' War.

All this contains much that is obviously true, and much that is relevant; unfortunately, what is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true.

Actions o' th' last age are like almanacks o' th' last year.

It doesn't matter what you think/who you are/what your name is!

It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present, and go to that past to seek large views of what is of lasting importance to the human race.

You must pursue facts for their own sake, but penetrated with a vivid sense of the problems of your own time. This is not a principle of perversion, but a principle of selection. You must have some principle of selection, and you could not have a better one than to pay special attention to the history of the social problems which are agitating the world now, for you may be sure that they are problems not of temporary but of lasting importance.

To remain on earth you must be useful, otherwise Nature regards you as old metal, and is only watching for a chance to melt you over.

Nay, if there's room for poets in the world A little overgrown, (I think there is) Their sole work is to represent the age, Their age, not Charlemagne's,-this live, throbbing age, That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires, And spends more passion, more heroic heat, Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing-rooms, Than Roland with his knights, at Roncesvalles.

In any case, rather like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayers they chant, we shall go on for quite a long time talking of books and writing books, pretending all the while not to notice that the church is empty and the parishioners have gone elsewhere to attend other gods, perhaps in silence or with new words.

I think she is still relevant. It's nice to see people reinvent themselves. She was a great performer and a great singer. I like that song, you know the one, 'It's me, I'm Cathy...' I love that song. I remember listening to it growing up.

Of course she's still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like 'Wuthering Heights' still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician.

:modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.

I like when they bring a comedian on stage, they always tell you what else they do. But fuck, this is enough, isn't it? He's here tonight performing, because that is his job! But no, it's gotta be, 'He laid bricks in Philadelphia. And he repaired a car in Oklahoma. He has an umbrella store in Philadelphia. That's the only city that comes to mind right now. Philadelphia, 'cause you can say 'Philly' and the people from Philadelphia will not get mad. Like if you say 'Frisco,' San Francisco people say, 'Fuck off!' But if you say 'Philly' they say, 'Alright!' Because I don't always have time to say 'Philadelphia.' Sometimes I just need that word to be two syllables. Phil-a-del-phi-a. Fuck, five! Your town would be called Philly too if it had five syllables!

His focus, almost exclusively, has been on U.S. foreign policy, a narrowness that would exert a conservative influence even for a radical thinker. If urging increased involvement in politics goes against the potentially subversive tide toward less and less involvement, Chomsky's emphasis on statecraft itself gravitates toward acceptance of states. And completely ignoring key areas (such as nature and women, to mention only two), makes him less relevant still. --John Zerzan, 1996 [196]

People are wasting time on dissident relics like Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky is a pretty good dissident: he's persistent, he means what he says, and he's certainly very courageous, but this is the 21st century, and Stallman is a bigger deal. Lawrence Lessig is a bigger deal. --Bruce Sterling, July 26, 2002 [264]

Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage.

She tried out the chamber pot, although she really had nothing to contribute.

For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance.

Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they have few followers now.

The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.

Literature is news that STAYS news.

The thing that fascinates me is: who cares what an actor thinks? [on his reluctance to give interviews] (2004)

Of course [Kate Bush] is still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like 'Wuthering Heights' still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician.

It is one of the chief skills of the philosopher not to occupy himself with questions which do not concern him.

My teacher Stefan Wolpe was a Marxist and he felt my music was too esoteric at the time. And he had his studio on a proletarian street, on Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. . . . He was on the second floor and we were looking out the window, and he said, 'What about the man on the street?' At that moment . . . Jackson Pollock was crossing the street.

Somebody said that Reason was dead. Reason said: No, I think not so.

I'll worry about Ron Paul if he gets to the general election.

The day of Roehm's execution, Hitler blandly announced that he had 'relieved...Roehm of his position and ejected him from the Party', and under colour of this macabre euphemism appointed Viktor Lutze as Roehm's successor. But Lutze was no Roehm, and the SA was never again to play a significant role in the power politics of the Third Reich.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.