“Just knowing that such states exist, that is, having symbols for them, is half the battle.”

— Marvin Minsky

Music, Mind, and Meaning (1981)
Context: Innate sentic detectors could help by teaching children about their own affective states. For if distinct signals arouse specific states, the child can associate those signals with those states. Just knowing that such states exist, that is, having symbols for them, is half the battle.

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Marvin Minsky 65

American cognitive scientist 1927–2016

Lin Carter (1930–1988) American fantasy writer, editor, critic

Source: Time War (1974), Chapter 12, “The Metal Brain” (p. 128)

“The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed,
Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed:
'T was red with the blood of freemen and white with the fear of the foe;
And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst tyrants its symbols know.”

Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American abolitionist, social activist, and poet

"The Flag" in The Atlantic Monthly (April 1863).

“Little Spain is a symbol of the first attempt of a successful Hispanic immigration process to the United States … Almost no one knows that there was a "Little Spain" in Manhattan, just like there's a "Little Italy."”

Artur Balder (1974) Spanish film director

That's what's fascinating.
As quoted in "Artur Balder details Hispanic immigration documentary Little Spain" by Annie Martin at UPI (25 November 2014) http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Movies/2014/11/25/Artur-Balder-details-Hispanic-immigration-documentary-Little-Spain/3261416930429/

“Courage in danger is half the battle.”
Bonus animus in mala re, dimidium est mali.

Plautus Pseudolus

Pseudolus, Act I, scene 5, line 37
Pseudolus

“The first blow is half the battle.”

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act II

“I don't claim that this is correct, or that God exists, but it is just sort of half a joke.”

Paul Erdős (1913–1996) Hungarian mathematician and freelancer

Paul Erdős - SF means Supreme Fascist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qeWugmiGt4
Context: SF means Supreme Fascist — this would show that God is bad. I don't claim that this is correct, or that God exists, but it is just sort of half a joke. … As a joke I said, "What is the purpose of Life?" "Proof and conjecture, and keep the SF's score low."
Now, the game with the SF is defined as follows:
If you do something bad the SF gets at least two points.
If you don't do something good which you could have done, the SF gets at least one point.
And if nothing — if you are okay, then no one gets any point.
And the aim is to keep the SF's score low.

“Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

“I know what it's like to battle everyday of my life, just for acceptance, just to survive.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Water Bound

“You get him out and half the battle is won.”

Arjuna Ranatunga (1963) Sri Lankan cricketer

Arjuna Ranatunga on Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, Sachin Tendulkar: Quotable quotes on the batting legend http://www.khaleejtimes.com/article/20131112/ARTICLE/311129977/1051.

“I have given the United States half the territory they possess, and for them to suffer me to remain in poverty, in consequence of it, will not redound much to their honor hereafter.”

George Rogers Clark (1752–1818) American general

Letter to General Jonathan Clark, George's elder brother (1792-05-11), from William Hayden English, Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, 1778–1783, and Life of Gen. George Rogers Clark (1896), vol. 2, p. 789

“Just knowing that such states exist, that is, having symbols for them, is half the battle.”

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Marvin Minsky 65

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