“How simple it seems now. We thought the Sermon on the Mount was a nice allegory and nothing more. What we didn't understand until we got to be a little older was that it was the whole answer, the whole truth.”

— Mario Cuomo

Address at Iona College (1984)
Context: How simple it seems now. We thought the Sermon on the Mount was a nice allegory and nothing more. What we didn't understand until we got to be a little older was that it was the whole answer, the whole truth. That the way — the only way — to succeed and to be happy is to learn those rules so basic that a shepherd's son could teach them to an ignorant flock without notes or formulae. <!-- p. 934

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Mario Cuomo 39

American politician, Governor of New York 1932–2015

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

C. West Churchman, Challenge to Reason (1968), p. 2; cited in '" C. West Churchman — 75 years" by Werner Ulrich, in Systems Practice (December 1988), Volume 1, Issue 4, p. 341-350
1960s - 1970s

“Looking at the universe as a whole; cosmology, the birth, life and death of the whole universe, we used to have a nice simple model. Then we had to add things like dark energy, and our nice simple picture is getting messier and messier and messier.”

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943) British scientist

Beautiful Minds (2010)

“We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it.”

J. M. Barrie book Margaret Ogilvy

Source: Margaret Ogilvy (1897), Ch. 8

“What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe?”

David Hume book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Philo to Cleanthes, Part II
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
Context: What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

“We would do absolutely nothing. Now that's a blunt, truthful answer.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

When asked what a Labor government would do if Indonesia were to invade East Timor, in an interview three days before the invasion. Sydney Morning Herald (5 December 1975)

“Our dignity is not in what we do, but in what we understand. The whole world is doing things.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion (1913), p. 199

“But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

“There's only two paragraphs in there about George Washington … little or nothing about Martin Luther King, a whole section on slavery and how evil we are, a whole section on Japanese internment camps and how we slaughtered millions of Japanese with our bombs… I think most people when they finish that course, they'd be ready to go sign up for ISIS … We have got to stop this silliness crucifying ourselves.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

As quoted in "Fox News' Ben Carson Thinks New AP U.S. History Course Will Make Students Join ISIS" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/ben-carson-ap-us-history_n_5910982.html, The Huffington Post (January 10, 2014)

“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”

Ronald David Laing (1927–1989) Scottish psychiatrist and author

Attributed to R.D. Lang in: Jack Lee Seymour, Margaret Ann Crain, Joseph V. Crockett (1993) Educating Christians. p. 53

“Sir Impey Biggs: Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Clouds of Witness

Clouds of Witness (1926)

“How simple it seems now. We thought the Sermon on the Mount was a nice allegory and nothing more. What we didn't understand until we got to be a little older was that it was the whole answer, the whole truth.”

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