xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“Most people today still believe, perhaps unconsciously, in the heliocentric universe … every newspaper in the land has a section on astrology, yet few have anything at all on astronomy.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.

“The peer review system is satisfactory during quiescent times, but not during a revolution in a discipline such as astrophysics, when the establishment seeks to preserve the status quo.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 197.

“I have no trouble publishing in Soviet astrophysical journals, but my work is unacceptable to the American astrophysical journals.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 197.

“Students using astrophysical textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of plasma concepts, despite the fact that some of them have been known for half a century. The conclusion is that astrophysics is too important to be left in the hands of astrophysicists who have gotten their main knowledge from these textbooks. Earthbound and space telescope data must be treated by scientists who are familiar with laboratory and magnetospheric physics and circuit theory, and of course with modern plasma theory.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 197.

“The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.
Context: Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. An infinitely old universe, always evolving, may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end. Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.

“Scientists tend to resist interdisciplinary inquiries into their own territory.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 192.
Context: Scientists tend to resist interdisciplinary inquiries into their own territory. In many instances, such parochialism is founded on the fear that intrusion from other disciplines would compete unfairly for limited financial resources and thus diminish their own opportunity for research.

“As the owners of heaven forbade chocolate to mortals, so the owners of earth forbade it to commoners.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

As quoted in Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone (2009), p. 7

“He discovered or described hundreds of afflictions and cures, and by testing remedies he concluded “Laughter is the best medicine””

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

As quoted in Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone (2009), p. 64

“Scientists say that human beings are made of atoms, but a little bird told me that we are also made of stories.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

Source: Democracy Now!, 8 May 2013, Eduardo Galeano, Chronicler of Latin America’s “Open Veins,” on His New Book “Children of the Days” https://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/8/eduardo_galeano_chronicler_of_latin_americas,

“The big bankers of the world, who practise the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no-one: they limit themselves to applauding the show.
Their officials, international technocrats, rule our countries: they are neither presidents nor ministers, they have not been elected, but they decide the level of salaries and public expenditure, investments and divestments, prices, taxes, interest rates, subsidies, when the sun rises and how frequently it rains.
However, they don't concern themselves with the prisons or torture chambers or concentration camps or extermination centers, although these house the inevitable consequences of their acts.
The technocrats claim the privilege of irresponsibility: 'We're neutral' they say.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

Galeano (1991) Professional Life/3 p. 108; As cited in: Paul Farmer (2005) Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.. p. 10

“The dominant culture of the world teaches us that The Other is a threat, that our fellow human beings are a danger. We will all continue to be exiles in one form or another as long as we continue to accept the paradigm that the world is a racetrack or a battlefield.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

as interviewed by Jonah Raskin, "Saying More with Less," Monthly Review, vo. 61, n. 5, October 2009.

“The wages Haiti requires by law belong in the department of science fiction: actual wages on coffee plantations vary from $.07 to $.15 a day”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

Galeano (1973) Vagamundo , p. 112

“p>Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that, one magical day, good luck will suddenly rain down on them - will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn't rain down, yesterday, today, tomorrow or ever. Good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day on their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no-ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.”

Eduardo Galeano book The Book of Embraces

The Nobodies; Cied in Mother Jones Magazine (1991) The Book of Embraces. March-April 1991. p. 71
The Book of Embraces (1991)

“The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

Eduardo Galeano (1973), as cited in: Riley E. Dunlap (2002), Sociological Theory and the Environment, 183

“We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.”

Eduardo Galeano book The Book of Embraces

somos todos mortales hasta el primer beso y el segundo vaso
The Book of Embraces (1991)

“The results of civilization were surprising: our lives became more secure but less free, and we worked a lot harder.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

As quoted in Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone (2009), p. 17

“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

Galeano, in: David Barsamian (2004) Louder Than Bombs: Interviews from The Progressive Magazine. p. 146

“We live in a world where the funeral matters more than the dead, the wedding more than love and the physical rather than the intellect. We live in the container culture, which despises the content.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

“Every one in the world ought to do the things for which he is specially adapted. It is the part of wisdom to recognize what each one of us is best fitted for, and it is the part of education to perfect and utilize such predispositions. Because education can direct and aid nature but can never transform her.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

“In the vivid description of the Gospel, it would seem that we must help the Christ hidden in every poor man, in every prisioner, in every sufferer. But if we paraphrased the marvelous scene and applied it to the child, we should find that Christ goes to help all men in the form of the child.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

The Secret of Childhood, p. 106