Rubber Quotes

“She never sent the castle to sleep”, said Granny, “that’s just an old wife’s tale. She just stirred up time a little. It’s not as hard as people think, everyone does it all the time. It’s like rubber, is time, you can stretch it to suit yourself.”
Magrat was about to say: That’s not right, time is time, every second lasts a second, that’s its job. Then she recalled weeks that had flown past and afternoons that had lasted forever. Some minutes had lasted hours, some hours had gone past so quickly she hadn’t been aware they’d gone past at all.
“But that’s just people’s perception, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes”, said Granny, “of course it is, it all is, what difference does that make?”
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

“Millions of dead' appears nowhere in the rich oral tradition of my ancestors, nor in Lumumba's speeches. Nor does it appear with Mobutu, who was born and raised in the Equator province, where the ABIR and the Anversoise exploited rubber.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“The much-criticised rubber regime of Leopold II had only a brief heyday and disappeared from the tables of Congolese resources shortly after 1900 in favour of palm oil and palm nuts. The production tables also show that the population increased from 1890 onwards and was not exterminated. In 1888, And revenue from the 'red' rubber largely went to the Free State for public expenditure, including road construction and the army. These budgets, too, are never cited by the narrators, ever. Ditto for the rubber tables, which show that far more rubber arrived in Antwerp from French Congo and Angola than from the Free State in the early period. Rubber from Congo Free State accounted for barely 10 per cent of world production. The big supplier was the Amazon with 70%.”
― Marcel Yabili, The Greatest Fake News of All Time: Leopold II, The Genius and Builder King of Lumumba

“Excellence is making a rubber shoe initially; later making a leather shoe; then later making a leather shoe with gold medal on top and then making a golden shoe with diamond medal on top; going to make a real diamond shoe!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes

“Be glad that I haven't take out the pen, the rubber and the pencil once taken... all will die.”
― Deyth Banger

“Perhaps this is why not one of 800 sexologists attending a conference raised a hand when asked if they would trust a thin rubber sheath to protect them during intercourse with a known HIV-infected person. I don't blame them. They're not crazy, after all. Yet they're perfectly willing to tell your generation that "safe sex" is within reach and you can sleep around with impunity. It is a terrible lie.”
― James C. Dobson, Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“The main street in Harbel was nothing more than a slight widening of the road leading to the entry of the Firestone Plantation. Looking like a town in a “Western Movie,” it consisted of a branch of Citibank, which had been the “Bank of Monrovia” prior to the 1950’s. The Firestone Trading Company, and the adjourning Coca Cola Bottling Company which were wholly owned business’ belonging to the Firestone Rubber Company. There was also an “Arabic Company named the “Abidjan Trading Post,” which I figured was a company headquartered in Abidjan the former capital city and currently the economic center of the Ivory Coast. Although Farrell Lines expected us to deal with Firestone, the Arabs were always less expensive. On the street there was also a government run Telegraph and Postal Office, as well as the American Foundation for Tropical Medicine. Small as Harbel it still had the second largest population in the country. Somewhat removed from the main street, on the street going to the piers were the buildings used by the Firestone Plantation Company, including, what seemed to be a huge, vehicle repair facility and the Firestone Fire Department. Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford had been friends for years and although neither was still living, their legacy continued. Firestone used only Ford vehicles and Ford only used Firestone tires.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater Two...."

“When I worked at Columbia University and Dartmouth College we would handle the rubber filled mercury mirror support system with bare hands and no respiratory protection. What was ironic was that we were visually inspecting it for leaks and that microscopic leaks could be entering our bodies through our bare skin and respiratory tracts. I had no industry recognized training in correctly handling mercury systems, dealing with unexpected spills, the health hazards and the correct storage protocols. When I reflect on the mercury filled rubber mirror support band, it was just one of the many incompetence's that astronomers were subjecting their unsuspecting staff to.”
― Steven Magee

“The smartest person in the store is wearing a hazmat suit, gas mask, googles and rubber gloves.”
― Steven Magee

“Hele stukken van Congo werden nooit bezet bij gebrek aan personeel: in 1908 waren er maar een paar honderd blanken op ca. 100 posten voor een gebied zo groot als West-Europa (76 x België) met 10 à 15 miljoen inwoners. De oorspronkelijke koningen en chefs bestuurden hun gebied in naam van Leopold II en daarna van België. Ze kozen de kant van de kolonisator in ruil voor westerse goederen en een afzetmarkt voor hun ivoor”
― Amandine Lauro, Koloniaal Congo - Een geschiedenis in vragen

“The rubber quotas imposed on natives in this 15 percent of the territory were enforced by native soldiers working for the companies or for the EIC itself. In many areas, the rubber came with ease and the natives prospered. The rubber station at Irengi, for instance, was known for its bulging stores and hospitable locals, whose women spent a lot of time making bracelets and where “no one ever misses a meal,” noted the EIC soldier George Bricusse in his memoirs. Elsewhere, however, absent direct supervision, and with the difficulties of meeting quotas greater, some native soldiers engaged in abusive behavior to force the collection. Bricusse noted these areas as well, especially where locals had sabotaged rubber stations and then fled to the French Congo to the north. In rare cases, native soldiers kidnapped women or killed men to exact revenge. When they fell into skirmishes, they sometimes followed long-standing Arab and African traditions by cutting off the hands or feet of the fallen as trophies, or to show that the bullets they fired had been used in battle. How many locals died in these frays is unclear, but the confirmed cases might put the figure at about 10,000, a terrible number.”
― Bruce Gilley, King Hochschild’s Hoax: An absurdly deceptive book on Congolese rubber production is better described as historical fiction.