“We know the axes on which we should judge, and age has never been one.”

—  China Miéville , book The Dusty Hat

The Dusty Hat (p. 203)
Short Fiction, Three Moments of an Explosion (2015)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We know the axes on which we should judge, and age has never been one." by China Miéville?
China Miéville photo
China Miéville 102
English writer 1972

Related quotes

Cressida Cowell photo

“But how can we know that dragons did not exist? We have never actually BEEN to the Dark Ages.”

Cressida Cowell (1966) British writer

Source: A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

Niccolo Machiavelli photo

“In judging policies we should consider the results that have been achieved through them rather than the means by which they have been executed.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

From an undated letter to Piero Soderini (translated here by Dr. Arthur Livingston), in The Living Thoughts of Machiavelli, by Count Carlo Sforza, published by Cassell, London (1942), p. 85

Ronald Reagan photo

“Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Remarks at the Annual Salute to Congress Dinner http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/20481b.htm (4 February 1981)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
Variant: Thomas Jefferson once said, "We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works." And ever since he told me that I stopped worrying.
Context: Thomas Jefferson made a comment about the Presidency and age. He said that one should not worry about one's exact chronological age in reference to his ability to perform one's task. And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

Nelson Mandela photo

“No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Robert Charles Wilson photo

“We live in an enlightened age, however, an age that has learned to see and to value other living things as they are, not as we wish them to be. And the long and creditable history of science has taught us, if nothing else, to look carefully before we judge—to judge, if we must, based on what we see, not what we would prefer to believe.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Blind Lake

Source: Blind Lake (2003), Chapter 22 (p. 258)

David Hilbert photo

“History teaches the continuity of the development of science. We know that every age has its own problems, which the following age either solves or casts aside as profitless and replaces by new ones.”

David Hilbert Mathematical Problems

Mathematical Problems (1900)
Context: History teaches the continuity of the development of science. We know that every age has its own problems, which the following age either solves or casts aside as profitless and replaces by new ones. If we would obtain an idea of the probable development of mathematical knowledge in the immediate future, we must let the unsettled questions pass before our minds and look over the problems which the science of today sets and whose solution we expect from the future. To such a review of problems the present day, lying at the meeting of the centuries, seems to me well adapted. For the close of a great epoch not only invites us to look back into the past but also directs our thoughts to the unknown future.

Kurt Gödel photo

“Our total reality and total existence are beautiful and meaningful…. We should judge reality by the little which we truly know of it. Since that part which conceptually we know fully turns out to be so beautiful, the real world of which we know so little should also be beautiful. Life may be miserable for seventy years and happy for a million years: the short period of misery may even be necessary for the whole.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics
Robert H. Jackson photo

“We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge

Nuremberg Tribunal.
Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials (10 November 1945)
Quotes from the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946)

T. B. Joshua photo

“Judge not, so that you will not be judged. We should talk to people to be saved and not to die. I mean, we should talk salvation, not condemnation. The Bible is my standard. God hates sin, not sinners. When I say, ‘Do not judge so that you will not be judged’, I mean we should hate sin, not the sinner because sinners can change. If you have killed a sinner by judging him, there will be no opportunity for change. Sinners can be delivered. We should hate the act, not the people because our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the ‘spirit beings’ that cause all these acts. If my parents were one, I would not have been given birth to. Those that are asking this question – if your parents were one, you would not have been given birth to. You that are reading me – if your parents were one, you would not be reading this today. God bless the reader and the hearer.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

Answering a question on homosexuality - "Shocking Lesbian Confessions At TB Joshua's Church http://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2014/03/shocking-lesbian-confessions-at-tb.html Linda Ikeji's Blog, Nigeria (March 24 2014)

Related topics