J > J's Quotes

“This business of petty inconvenience and indignity, of being kept waiting about, of having to do everything at other people’s convenience, is inherent in working-class life. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into a passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that ‘they’ will never allow him to do this, that, and the other. Once when I was hop-picking I asked the sweated pickers (they earn something under sixpence an hour) why they did not form a union. I was told immediately that ‘they’ would never allow it. Who were ‘they’? I asked. Nobody seemed to know, but evidently ‘they’ were omnipotent.”
― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

“Hence 8197. He liked 97 because it was the largest two-digit prime number, and he loved 81 because it was absolutely the only number out of all the literally infinite possibilities whose square root was also the sum of its digits. Square root of eighty-one was nine, and eight and one made nine. No other nontrivial number in the cosmos had that kind of sweet symmetry. Perfect.”
― Lee Child, Bad Luck and Trouble

“Play is the work of childhood.”
― Jean Piaget

“Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.”
― Jean Piaget

“I thought I heard you—one of you—saying it was a pity—umph—a pity I never had—any children … eh? … But I have, you know … I have …” The others smiled without answering, and after a pause Chips began a faint and palpitating chuckle. “Yes—umph—I have,” he added, with quavering merriment. “Thousands of ’em … thousands of ’em… and all boys.”
― James Hilton, Goodbye, Mr. Chips

“And so it stood, a warm and vivid patch in his life, casting a radiance that glowed in a thousand recollections.”
― James Hilton, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

“And sometimes, when the bell rang for call-over, he would go to the window and look across the road and over the School fence and see, in the distance, the thin line of boys filing past the bench. New times, new names . . . but the old ones still remained . . . Jefferson, Jennings, Jolyon, Jupp, Kingsley Primus, Kingsley Secundus, Kingsley Tertius, Kingston . . . where are you all, where have you all gone to?”
― James Hilton, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

“but chiefly I remember all your faces. I never forget them. I have thousands of faces in my mind—the faces of boys. If you come and see me again in years to come—as I hope you all will—I shall try to remember those older faces of yours, but it's just possible I shan't be able to—and then some day you'll see me somewhere and I shan't recognize you and you'll say to yourself, 'The old boy doesn't remember me.' [Laughter] But I DO remember you—as you are NOW. That's the point. In my mind you never grow up at all.”
― James Hilton, Goodbye, Mr. Chips!

“Those who knew him will be sorry to hear that he was killed last week, on the Western Front." He was a little pale when he sat down afterward, aware that he had done something unusual. He had consulted nobody about it, anyhow; no one else could be blamed. Later, outside the Chapel, he heard an argument:— "On the Western Front, Chips said. Does that mean he was fighting for the Germans?" "I suppose it does." "Seems funny, then, to read his name out with all the others. After all, he was an ENEMY." "Oh, just one of Chips's ideas, I expect. The old boy still has 'em.”
― James Hilton, Goodbye, Mr. Chips!