Ross Macdonald (1915–1983) Novelist
The Goodbye Look (1969)
Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: Ibn Rushd's ideas were silenced in their time. And throughout the Muslim world today, progressive ideas are in retreat. Actually Existing Islam reigns supreme, and just as the recently destroyed "Actually Existing Socialism" of the Soviet terror-state was horrifically unlike the utopia of peace and equality of which democratic socialists have dreamed, so also is Actually Existing Islam a force to which I have never given in, to which I cannot submit.
There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.
Ross Macdonald (1915–1983) Novelist
The Goodbye Look (1969)
J. B. Bury (1861–1927) Irish historian and freethinker
Introduction<!-- pp. 3-4 -->
The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its Origin and Growth (1921)
Context: Science has been advancing without interruption during the last three of four hundred years; every new discovery has led to new problems and new methods of solution, and opened up new fields for exploration. Hitherto men of science have not been compelled to halt, they have always found ways to advance further. But what assurance have we that they will not come up against impassable barriers?... Take biology or astronomy. How can we be sure that some day progress may not come to a dead pause, not because knowledge is exhausted, but because our resources for investigation are exhausted... It is an assumption, which cannot be verified, that we shall not reach a point in our knowledge of nature beyond which the human intellect is unqualified to pass.
Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman
The Des Moines Register https://www.newspapers.com/image/296428181 (11 May 1990)
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
The Art of Propagating Opinion
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part X - The Position of a HomoUnius Libri
Context: Ideas and opinions, like living organisms, have a normal rate of growth which cannot be either checked or forced beyond a certain point. They can be held in check more safely than they can be hurried. They can also be killed; and one of the surest ways to kill them is to try to hurry them.
“There is a point of complexity beyond which a business is no longer manageable.”
Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant
Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 3, p. 681
Jaclyn Moriarty (1968) Australian writer
Source: The Year of Secret Assignments
Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian
On never expressing anger in his comedy in “Trevor Noah interview” https://www.timeout.com/london/comedy/trevor-noah-interview in Time Out <br class="br">Personal life