„Helena, do you ever have times when your heart's suddenly struck with the feeling, "Now, now something must happen —"“

Kontext: (Answering "What made you step up to making your own record?") I felt like I may not get opportunities to do this ever again, so it’s about time—it’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something—I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.

Quelle: The Killing Dance

"Oceans", as translated by Robert Bly; quoted in Opening Our Moral Eye : Essays, Talks & Poems Embracing Creativity & Community (1996) by Mary Caroline Richards.

Quelle: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 33

Quelle: Change of Heart

Letter to Fanny McCullough (23 December 1862); Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler
1860s
Kontext: In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once.

Quelle: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Quelle: Anna Karenina

Quelle: Uncle Tom's Cabin

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2006-10-05
Hour 2
Comment in response to a caller on the issue of Talk Radio Host Mike Gallagher granting the Westboro Baptist Church airtime in exchange for not protesting at the funerals of Amish schoolgirls killed in a school shooting at the West Nickel Mine Amish School in Bart Township (Lancaster County, Pennsylvania).
2000s

2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Kontext: Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character. But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.

Quelle: Treasure Box

Quelle: The Golden Lily

Quelle: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Quelle: Speak

Living to Tell the Tale (2002)

Quelle: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide

2000s, Thus Spake Stallman (2000)
Kontext: Religious people often say that religion offers absolute certainty about right and wrong; "god tells them" what it is. Even supposing that the aforementioned gods exist, and that the believers really know what the gods think, that still does not provide certainty, because any being no matter how powerful can still be wrong. Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now; suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral.

Joe Joseph, "Elementary lessons in logic for enquiry's bemused counsel", The Times, 18 January 1994.
Evidence to the Scott Inquiry, 17 January 1994. Major was speaking of his time as Foreign Secretary in 1989 when the guidelines for arms exports to Iraq had been relaxed, although he had not been told. At one point, when the decision to relax the guidelines was criticised, it was decided to defend the Government by claiming that the guidelines were changed only in wording and unchanged in effect.
1990s, 1994