#ran

I thought theater people wouldn't see me if I hadn't trained. I didn't want to just be the Brideshead guy, to spend the rest of my life wearing waistcoats. I got the chance to try everything. Not just Romeos, but pimps and grandfathers and even one role as a woman in a Naomi Wallace play called Slaughter City. ↗

— Tom Hiddleston

#chance #city #even #everything #got

Imagine a land where people are afraid of dragons. It is a reasonable fear: dragons possess a number of qualities that make being afraid of them a very commendable response. Things like their terrible size, their ability to spout fire, or to crack boulders into splinters with their massive talons. In fact, the only terrifying quality that dragons do not possess is that of existence. Now, the people of this land know about dragons because their leaders have warned them about them. They tell stories about cruel dragons with razor teeth and fiery breath. They recount legends of dragons hunting by night on silent wings. In short, the leaders make sure that the people believe in all the qualities of dragons, including that key quality of existence. And then they control the people — when they need to — with their fear of dragons. The people pay a dragon-slaying tax … everyone stays indoors after dark to avoid being snatched by swooping claws … and nobody ever strays out of bounds for fear of being eaten well and truly up. Perhaps somebody will wonder if dragons aren’t, after all, fictitious because — despite their size — nobody seems to have actually seen one. And so it is necessary from time to time to provide evidence: a burnt tree or two, a splintered rock, the mysterious absence of a villager. The population is controlled by the dragons in its collective mind. It’s contrived superstition, and it is possible because the people do not know enough about the way the world works to know that dragons do not exist. ↗

— David Whiteland

#dragons #existence #faith #ignorance #superstition

Four years ago in speaking of a Jewish nation one ran the risk of being regarded ridiculous. Today he makes himself ridiculous who denies the existence of a Jewish nation. ↗

— Theodor Herzl

#being #denies #existence #four #himself

Justice prevails over transgression when she comes to the end of the race. ↗

— Hesiod

#end #justice #over #prevails #race

Corn is the leading food and feed crop of the United States in geographic range of production, acreage, and quantity of product. The vital importance of a large acreage of this crop, properly cared for, therefore, is obvious. ↗

— David F. Houston

#cared #corn #crop #feed #food

It's really wonderful that it's the whole franchise being recognized and it's a collective award. Each film has anywhere between 2,000 and 6,000 people working on it and so really the award is for each and every one of us. We are like a family. ↗

— David Heyman

#award #being #between #collective #each

Last, in restaurants you spend a lot of time dealing with people who are very unhappy. Soup has been spilled on their laps, they've waited 10 minutes to get their check so they can leave, and you learn how to listen, I think, in a much more proactive way than government does. ↗

— John Hickenlooper

#check #dealing #does #get #government

Life is just repeated attempts at trying to do better. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#dedication #determination #drive #endurance #life

Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges. ↗

— Thomas Wentworth Higginson

#great men #isolated #men #ranges #rarely

Language is a living thing. We can feel it changing. Parts of it become old: they drop off and are forgotten. New pieces bud out, spread into leaves, and become big branches, proliferating. ↗

— Gilbert Highet

#big #branches #bud #changing #drop