David Quotes

If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.

The only way I can work is if I care and am passionate about a project, so the challenge is to find projects that I feel that way about.

Keep computations to the lowest level of the multiplication table.

Enjoyment of the landscape is a thrill.

Anything simple always interests me.

Of course you can still paint landscape - it's not been worn out.

Water colours are wet colours in water.

I'm coming 'round to the view that there's only a personal view of the world.

I have got an iPad, what a joy! Van Gogh would have loved it, and he could have written his letters on it as well.

The history of photography needs clearing out. It needs something else now. Because photography always acknowledged there were cameras before photography.

It's all right if you don't mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed Cyclops—for a split second.

Every good artist I know, I always think works hard, we're working all the time.

I never talk when I'm drawing a person, especially if I'm making line drawings. I prefer there to be no noise at all so I can concentrate more.

I worked in the NHS as a hospital orderly during my national service, and people thought it was a noble service. But over the years it's lost its humanity.

Yes, I did, I mean I painted er, in a kind of abstract expressionist way, because of course that was exciting.

The source of the terror in Lebanon as in Iraq is to be found in the Koran and in the despotisms of the Arab Middle East.

Never before in the history of the modern research university have entire departments and fields been devoted to purely ideological pursuits.

It is the human wish to be told lies that keep us as primitive morally and socially as we are. I am persuaded that a lie grounded in human desire is too powerful for mere reason to kill.

Anticipation of pleasure is, in itself, a very considerable pleasure.

Nothing exists without a cause, the original cause of this universe we call God.

Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.

Almost every one has a predominant inclination, to which his other desires and affections submit, and which governs him, though perhaps with some intervals, though the whole course of his life.

Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.

Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.

No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.

The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life.

No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.

Jealousy is a painful passion; yet without some share of it, the agreeable affection of love has difficulty to subsist in its full force and violence.

I never asserted such an absurd thing as that things arise without a cause.

That the sun shines tomorrow is a judgement that is as true as the contrary judgement.

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Alzheimer's is a devastating disease. It was painful for me and my family to watch my grandfather deteriorate. We must find a cure for this horrible disease.

If you have a pre-conceived idea of the world, you edit information. When it leads you down a certain road, you don't challenge your own beliefs.

In terms of the way people see me, it breaks down into two very clear and distinct groups: those who think they know me from reading the papers and those who really know me by reading my books.

I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.

One can fall in love as often as a tree grows leaves. It is perfectly natural but not free of guilt and complications, unless one takes oneself to be a leaf.

I think everything should be in verse. 'The New York Times' should be in verse.

In a climate where people don't understand the numbers, newspapers, campaigners, companies, and politicians can get away with murder

Knowledge is power only when put to use - and then only when the use made of it is constructive.

Believe it can be done. When you really believe something can be done, your mind will find the ways to do it.

There is a good side to every situation.

God's Love is UNCONDITIONAL, which means that it has absolutely nothing to do with us. Thankfully, God doesn't love us for who we are, but because of WHO HE IS.

To me, it's a great day every time I receive a letter from somebody who climbed inside one of my books, inhabited it for a while, learned a little something, and emerged grateful.

Working with Ronnie Barker was always a joy and were without doubt some of the best years of my career

It's time to begin righting the story of your life.

Jesus is coming back - it could even be today.

Every time we deny ourselves in order to serve someone else, we grow in Christ.

When we take voice lessons from the Master, we learn to speak with tenderness.

God has given us His Word to assure us of our relationship with Him so that we may walk as Christians with confidence, knowing that our salvation is in Him.

Live as a credible witness. If our actions don't line up with the message we're proclaiming, we risk losing our credibility.