Quotes about doubt
page 28

“The real difficulties which beset this question, do not arise from anything in Ireland, so much as from the constitution of the Government. This House, and the other House of Parliament, are almost exclusively aristocratic in their character. The Administration is therefore necessarily the same, and on the Treasury benches aristocracy reigns supreme. Not fewer than seven Members of the Cabinet are Members of the House of Lords; and every other Member of it is either a Lord by title, or on the very threshold of the peerage by birth or marriage. I am not blaming them for this; it may even be that from neither House of Parliament can fourteen better men be chosen to fill their places. But I maintain that in the present position of Ireland, and looking at human nature as it is, it is not possible that fourteen Gentlemen, circumstanced as these are, can meet round the Council table, and with unbiassed minds fairly discuss the question of Ireland, as it now presents itself to this House, to the country, and to the world.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1848/aug/25/employment-of-the-poor-ireland in the House of Commons (25 August 1848). 1840s

Men, Marriage, World, Birth

“I recognize that the findings in our report may leave some to wonder how the department’s findings can differ so sharply from some of the initial, widely reported accounts of what transpired. I want to emphasize that the strength and integrity of America’s justice system has always rested on its ability to deliver impartial results in precisely these types of difficult circumstances – adhering strictly to the facts and the law, regardless of assumptions. Yet it remains not only valid – but essential – to question how such a strong alternative version of events was able to take hold so swiftly, and be accepted so readily.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Justice, Law, Strong

“It is above all over the question of the State that socialists are divided. Two main currents can be discerned in the factions that exist among us which correspond to differences in temperament as well as in ways of thinking, but above all to the extent that one believes in the coming revolution.
There are those, on the one hand, who hope to achieve the social revolution through the State by preserving and even extending most of its powers to be used for the revolution. And there are those like ourselves who see the State, both in its present form, in its very essence, and in whatever guise it might appear, an obstacle to the social revolution, the greatest hindrance to the birth of a society based on equality and liberty, as well as the historic means designed to prevent this blossoming. The latter work to abolish the State and not to reform it.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Source: The State — Its Historic Role (1897), I

Hope, Way, Birth, Thinking

“A group which has a simple structure may offer difficult questions when operating as a transformation group. For example, the ways in which a cyclic group of order 2 can operate on a manifold, even on E 3, are far from completely known.”

Deane Montgomery (1909–1992) American mathematician

[Properties of finite-dimensional groups, Proceedings of the International Mathematical Congress held in Cambridge, Mass. in 1950, 442–446, University of Toronto Press, 1952, http://www.mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1950.2/Main/icm1950.2.0442.0446.ocr.pdf] (quote from p. 442)

Way

“Hitchens: I've got another question for you, which is this: How many religions in the world do you believe to be false?
Craig: I don't know how many religions in the world there are, so I can’t answer.
Hitchens: Well, could you name... fair enough. I'll see if I can't narrow that down. That was a clumsily asked question, I admit. Do you regard any of the world's religions to be false?
Craig: Excuse me?
Hitchens: Do you regard any of the world's religions to be false preaching?
Craig: Yes, I think—yes, certainly.
Hitchens: Would you name one, then?
Craig: Islam.
Hitchens: That's quite a lot.
Craig: Pardon me?
Hitchens: That's quite a lot.
Craig: Yes.
Hitchens: Do you, therefore—do you think it's moral to preach false religion?
Craig: No.
Hitchens: So religion is responsible for quite a lot of wickedness in the world right there?
Craig: Certainly.
Hitchens: Right.
Craig: I'd be happy to concede (laughs) that. I would agree with that.
Hitchens: So if I was a baby being born in Saudi Arabia today, would you rather it was me or a Wahhabi Muslim?
Craig: Would I be—you rather be what?
Hitchens: Would you rather it was me—it was an atheist baby or a Wahhabi baby?
(Audience and Dr. Craig laugh):
Craig: I-I don't have any preference as to whether you would be... (laughing)
Hitchens: You don’t? As bad as that, O. K. Are there any—I'm sorry. I've only got a few seconds. It's a serious question. I shouldn't squander it. Are there any Christian denominations you regard as false?
Craig: Certainly.
Hitchens: Could I know what they are?
Craig: Well, I am not a Calvinist, for example. I think that certain tenets of Reformed Theology are incorrect. I would be more in the Wesleyan Camp myself. But these are differences among brethren. These are not differences on which we need to put one another in some sort of a cage. So within the Christian camp, there's a large diversity of perspectives. I'm sure there are views that I hold that are probably false, but I'm trying my best to get my theology straight, trying to do the best job. But I think all of us would recognize that none of us agree on every point of Christian doctrine, on every dot and tittle.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Craig vs Christopher Hitchens debate, Biola University, La Mirada, California, 4th April 2009 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/does-god-exist-craig-vs-hitchens-apr-2009#section_6

World, Religion, Thinking, Baby

“The question is, whether, like the Divine Child in the Temple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom, and whether, understanding more of the mysteries of life, we are feeling more of its sacred law; and whether, having left behind the priests and the scribes and the doctors and the fathers, we are about our Father's business, and becoming wise to God.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 617.

Life, Wisdom, God, Law

““I asked participants who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question, I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

Strong, Learning, Time

“A cat is the ideal literary companion. A wife, I am sure, cannot compare except to her disadvantage. A dog is out of the question. It may do at a butcher's – it would be out of place in a bookseller's. A cat for a bookseller is a different creature temperamentally from the same animal at a fishmonger's or a baker's. In these shops the cat is a useful animal – I suppose it is employed to eat fish entrails or to keep down rats and mice – but in my shop its function is that of a familiar. It is at once decorative – contemplative – philosophical, and it begets in me great calm and contentment.”

William Darling (politician) (1885–1962) Scottish politician

Source: The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947), p. 48

Dogs, Cats, Fish, Animals

“"Pray, my dear," quoth my mother, "have you not forgot to wind up the clock?" — "Good G—!" cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, — "Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?"”

Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Book I, Ch. 1.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

World, Time

“So I am skeptical about the argument that the subprime mortgage problem will contaminate the whole mortgage market, that housing construction will come to a halt, and that the economy will slip into a recession. Every step in this chain is questionable and none has been quantified. If we have learned anything from the past 20 years it is that there is a lot of stability built into the real economy.”

Robert Lucas Jr. (1937) American economist

Robert E. Lucas, "Mortgages and Monetary Policy", The Wall Street Journal WEDNESDAY, September 19, 2007

Problem, Learning, Past, Housing

“One of the difficulties that confronts anyone who attempts to answer the question, "Who rules in a pluralist democracy?" is the ambiguous relationship of leaders to citizens.”

Robert A. Dahl book Who Governs?

Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City (1961), p. 89

Democracy

“Aspiration, worthy ambition, desires for higher good for good ends — all these indicate a soul that recognizes the beckoning hand of the good Father who would call us homeward towards Himself — all these are the ground and justification for a Christian discontent; but a murmuring, questioning, fault-finding spirit has direct and sympathetic alliance with nothing but the infernal.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 15.

Soul

“The first question that I was asked on my post retirement was how does it feel to finish with 619 wickets without spinning the ball. I said it is nice that it took 18 years to realise that.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

India became a sporting nation in the last decade: Kumble

Feeling

“The question of what is good acting has got to be paramount in order to keep developing. If you cease to think about it, you cease to develop. There's the showy style and the acting that doesn't look like acting. I go for the latter.”

Timothy Dalton (1944) British actor of stage, film and television

On acting. [Several Interviews with Timothy Dalton on his 007 portrayal, including ‘Licence to Act: Timothy Dalton Uses James Bond To Get What He Wants’ by Marshall Fine, taken from ‘Lifestyle’ magazine, 11 July 1989., http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Film/7518/Bond_Eng/Bond_Eng.htm, http://web.archive.org/20000304095759/www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Film/7518/Bond_Eng/Bond_Eng.htm, 2000-03-04].
Attributed

Thinking

“To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 220
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“If anyone was questioning whether or not Peter Schiff was truly a Republican, he's certainly made it clear today. After eight years of the Bush Administration's lax regulation and market-first mentality, the last thing we need is to further reduce regulation and allow Wall Street to run the show. Chris Dodd is leading the way to put a balance back into a system that for years has been too far out of whack and ensure that consumers are protected first and foremost.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

2010 Senate Campaign, Quotes made by Connecticut Democratic Party spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan

Way

“Well, first—that term, 'women artists.' I was talking to Joan Mitchell at a party about 10 years ago when a man came up to us and said, 'What do you women artists think…' Joan grabbed my arm and said, 'Elaine, let's get the hell out of here.' That was my first response to Linda Nochlin's article ['Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?']. I was curious about how a man would react. Alex Katz thought it would be a cop-out to answer the piece. Sherman thought it would be a cop-out not to answer it. John Cage thought the question 'divisive and an over-simplification.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

I agree with all of them.
n.p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

Women, Hell, Thinking

“What I was actually trying to do in my early movies was show how people can meet other people and what they can do and what they can say to each other. That was the whole idea: two people getting acquainted. And then when you saw it and you saw the sheer simplicity of it, you learned what it was all about. Those movies showed you how some people act and react with other people. They were like actual sociological 'For instance's. They were like documentaries, and if you thought it could apply to you, it was an example, and if it didn't apply to you, at least it was a documentary, it could apply to somebody you knew and it could clear up some questions you had about them.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 3: Senility

People, Idea, Learning

“I would like to clarify the answer published in my name in last month’s issue of Moment Magazine. First of all, the opinions published in my name are solely my own, and do not represent the official policy of any Jewish movement or organization. Additionally, my answer, as written, is misleading. It is obvious, I thought, that any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion. Fundamental to the Jewish faith is the concept that every human being was created in the image of G-d, and our sages instruct us to support the non-Jewish poor along with the poor of our own brethren. The sub-question I chose to address instead is: how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields. I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed (on both sides!)—when one’s own family and nation is mercilessly targeted from those very people and places. Furthermore, some of the words I used in my brief comment were irresponsible, and I look forward to further clarifying them in a future issue. I apologize for any misunderstanding my words created.”

Manis Friedman (1946) American rabbi

Clarification of previous statement http://momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/a-statement-from-rabbi-friedman/ On the Israeli-Arab conflict

Women, War, Children, People

“Boris Johnson, people always ask me the same question, they say, 'Is Boris a very very clever man pretending to be an idiot?”

Ian Hislop (1960) Satirical comedian, Editor, Television and radio presenter

And I always say, 'No.'
Parkinson, ITV, 19 November 2006.

People

“The ascetic, when he wishes to act within the world … must become afflicted with a sort of happy closure of the mind regarding any question about the meaning of the world, for he must not worry about such questions. Hence, it is no accident that inner-worldly asceticism reached its most consistent development on the foundation of the Calvinist god's absolute inexplicability, utter remoteness from every human criterion, and unsearchableness as to his motives. Thus, the inner-worldly ascetic is the recognized "man of a vocation," who neither inquires about nor finds it necessary to inquire about the meaning of his actual practice of a vocation within the whole world, the total framework of which is not his responsibility but his god's.”

Max Weber book Economy and Society

Source: Economy and Society (1922), pp. 547-548

God, World, Motivation, Affliction

“It wasn't a question of if I get killed, it was merely a question of when I get killed.”

Arnold Ridley (1896–1984) Playwright, actor

Biography on Spartacus

“There continue to be complex debates about what Nietzsche understood truth to be. Quite certainly, he did not think, in pragmatist spirit, that beliefs are true if they serve our interests or welfare: we have just seen some of his repeated denials of this idea. The more recently fashionable view is that he was the first of the deniers, thinking that there is no such thing as truth, or that truth is what anyone thinks it is, or that it is a boring category that we can do without. This is also wrong, and more deeply so. Nietzsche did not think that the ideal of truthfulness went into retirement when its metaphysical origins were discovered, and he did not suppose, either, that truthfulness could be detached from a concern for the truth. Truthfulness as an ideal retains its power, and so far from his seeing truth as dispensable or malleable, his main question is how it can be made bearable.”

Bernard Williams (1929–2003) English moral philosopher

Source: Truth and Truthfulness (2002), p. 16

Truth, Idea, Fashion, Thinking

“On-the-job democracy isn't just a lofty concept but a better, more profitable way to do things. We all demand democracy in every other aspect of our lives and culture. People are considered adults in their private lives, at the bank, at their children's schools, with family and among friends--so why are they suddenly treated like adolescents at work? Why can't workers be involved in choosing their own leaders? Why shouldn't they manage themselves? Why can't they speak up--challenge, question, share information openly?”

Ricardo Semler book The Seven-Day Weekend

The Seven-Day Weekend (2004)

Children, People, School, Family

“Well, now the American people have returned the Republican party to power; and the question is, what will it do? … For a dozen years and more the Republican party has seemed in a measure paralyzed in the presence of high-handed fraud and brutal violence toward its newly-made citizens. The question now is, will it regain its former health, activity, and power? Will it be as true to its friends in the South as the Democratic party has been to its friends in that section, or will it sacrifice its friends to conciliate its enemies? … Not only the negro but all honest men, north and south, must hold the Republican party in contempt, if it fails to do its whole duty at this point. The Republican party has made the colored man free; and the Republican party must make him secure in his freedom, or abandon its pretensions.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

Men, People, Health, Color

“But on the other hand, the understanding, reflection, is also a gift of God. What shall one do with it, how dispose of it if one is not to use it? And if one then uses it in fear and trembling not for one’s own advantage but to serve the truth, if one uses it that way in fear and trembling and furthermore believing that it still is God who determines the issue in its eternal significance, venturing to trust in him, and with unconditional obedience yielding to what he makes use of it: is this not fear of God and serving God the way a person of reflection can, in the somewhat different way than the spontaneously immediate person, but perhaps more ardently. But if this is the case, does not a maieutic element enter into the relation to other man or to various other men. The maieutic is really only the expression for a superiority between man and man. That is exists cannot be denied-but existence presses far more powerfully upon the superior one precisely because he is a maieutic (because he has the responsibility) than upon the other. As far as I am concerned, there has been no lack of witnesses. All my upbuilding discourses are in fact in the form of direct communication. Consequently there can be a question only about this, something that has occupied me for a long time (already back in earlier journals): should I for one definitely explain myself as author, what I declare myself to be, how I from the beginning understood myself to be a religious author. But now is not the time to do it; I am also somewhat strained at the moment, I need more physical recreation.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

JP VI 6234 (Pap. IX A 222 1848)
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

Men, God, Truth, Fear

“BBC Interviewer: Mr. Prime Minister, the introduction as Sinhalese as the official language by your government [Sri Lankan Government], appears to have damaged the good relations, which previously existed between Sinhalese and Tamils, how do you justify this act?
S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike: Well, when our country became independent, naturally the question aroused… of national language. superseding English as the official language of the country. Sinhalese, we decided upon, as the official language, because 70% of the people of Ceylon are Sinhalese. At the same time, we naturally realized that the Tamil minority had a language that was also old, very rich language, literature… so on, and therefore we decided, also, to give a reasonable use to the Tamil language, as a language of a national minority. In such matters, and education, examinations, and the public service, and so on: We fear that that is the fairest way, for a problem to be settled.”

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike (1899–1959) Sri Lankan politician

S. W. R. D. Interview with BBC, 1956 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP13RWkd4vM

People, Education, Fear, Way

“It's the role of us to run our government, the government by the people, for the people, and I don't think our government is listening to the people. It's our role as patriots to question them, because we elected them. And if they're not fairly and accurately representing us, it's the job of the people, the patriots, to take their country back.”

Maynard James Keenan (1964) musician

George Varga (October 31, 2004) "Fired up and emoting on the state of politics, and more", The San Diego Union-Tribune, p. F-5.

People, Thinking, Country

“The Protestant churches generally hold that the elements of the sacrament are flesh and blood only in a tropical sense; they nourish our souls as meat and the juice of it would our bodies. But the Catholics maintain that they are literally just that; although they possess all the sensible qualities of wafer-cakes and diluted wine. But we can have no conception of wine except what may enter into a belief, either —
# That this, that, or the other, is wine; or,
# That wine possesses certain properties.
Such beliefs are nothing but self-notifications that we should, upon occasion, act in regard to such things as we believe to be wine according to the qualities which we believe wine to possess. The occasion of such action would be some sensible perception, the motive of it to produce some sensible result. Thus our action has exclusive reference to what affects the senses, our habit has the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon our senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon. Now, it is not my object to pursue the theological question; and having used it as a logical example I drop it, without caring to anticipate the theologian's reply. I only desire to point out how impossible it is that we should have an idea in our minds which relates to anything but conceived sensible effects of things. Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects; and if we fancy that we have any other we deceive ourselves, and mistake a mere sensation accompanying the thought for a part of the thought itself. It is absurd to say that thought has any meaning unrelated to its only function. It is foolish for Catholics and Protestants to fancy themselves in disagreement about the elements of the sacrament, if they agree in regard to all their sensible effects, here or hereafter.
It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The final sentence here is an expression of what became known as the Pragmatic maxim, first published in "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" in Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 12 (January 1878), p. 286

Soul, Motivation, Idea, Reality

“Everything we did was done in form and with propriety, and the result of our proceedings is the document [the Quebec Resolutions] that has been submitted to the imperial government as well as to this house and which we speak of here as a treaty. And that there may be no doubt about our position in regard to that document we say, question it you may, reject it you may, or accept it you may, but alter it you may not.”

Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825–1868) Canadian politician

Hear, hear.
Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865 (Known in Ottawa as "The curse of D'Arcy Mcgee")

Housing

“Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice. And all talk about them, in matters of government, is mere absurdity.”

Lysander Spooner book No Treason

Source: No Treason (1867–1870), No. I, p. 8

Justice

“How we come to have the world-views we do is an interesting question. No doubt reason plays a part, but human needs for meaning and purpose are usually more important. At times personal taste may be what decides the issue. There is nothing to say that, when all the work of reason is done, only one view of the world will remain. There may be many that fit everything that can be known. In that case you might as well choose the view of the world you find most interesting or beautiful. Adopting a world-view is more like selecting a painting to furnish a room than testing a scientific theory. The test is how it fits with your life.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Freedom for Über-Marionettes: What Science Won't Tell You (p. 150)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

Life, World, Beauty, Time

“From birth it is clear to him that this narrow world, strewn with prohibitions, can only be called in question by absolute violence.”

Frantz Fanon book The Wretched of the Earth

Source: The Wretched of the Earth (1961), p. 37.

World, Birth

“Here is a list of some of the questions and their short answers (…) The interesting thing is to recognize how totally unavoidable they are, provided you place your confidence in science to provide the answers
Is there a God? No.
What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.
What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.
What is the meaning of life? Ditto.
Why am I here? Just dumb luck.
Does prayer work? Of course not.
Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?
Is there free will? Not a chance!
What happens when we die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us.
What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them.
Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral.
Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don't like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes.
What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don't look for it; it will find you when you need it.
Does history have any meaning or purpose? It's full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.
Does the human past have any lessons for our future? Fewer and fewer, if it ever had any to begin with.”

Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)

Love, Life, God, Feeling

“In this great problem which is facing the country in years to come, it may be from one side or the other that disaster may come, but surely it shows that the only progress that can be obtained in this country is by those two bodies of men—so similar in their strength and so similar in their weaknesses—learning to understand each other, and not to fight each other…we are moving forward rapidly from an old state of industry into a newer, and the question is: What is that newer going to be? No man, of course, can say what form evolution is taking. Of this, however, I am quite sure, that whatever form we may see…it has got to be a form of pretty close partnership, however that is going to be arrived at. And it will not be a partnership the terms of which will be laid down, at any rate not yet, in Acts of Parliament, or from this party or that. It has got to be a partnership of men who understand their own work, and it is little help that they can get really either from politicians or from intellectuals. There are few men fitted to judge, to settle and to arrange the problem that distracts the country to-day between employers and employed. There are few men qualified to intervene who have not themselves been right through the mill. I always want to see, at the head of these organisations on both sides, men who have been right through the mill, who themselves know exactly the points where the shoe pinches, who know exactly what can be conceded and what cannot, who can make their reasons plain; and I hope that we shall always find such men trying to steer their respective ships side by side, instead of making for head-on collisions.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1925/mar/06/industrial-peace in the House of Commons (6 March 1925). 1925

Men, Hope, Shoe, Understanding

“Without question, our public lands are America’s treasure and are rich in diversity. I fully recognize and appreciate that there are lands that deserve special recognition and are better managed under the John Muir model of wilderness, where man is more of an observer than an active participant.”

Ryan Zinke (1961) 52nd and current United States Secretary of the Interior and former Congressman from Montana

“They knew, however, that self-government is still government, and that the authority of the Constitution and the law is still authority. They knew that a government without power is a contradiction in terms. In order that their President and their Congress might not surpass the bounds of the authority granted to them, by the Constitution which the people had made, and so infringe upon the liberties of the people, they established a third independent department of the government, with the power to interpret and declare the Constitution and the law, the inferior courts and the Supreme Court of the United States. No President, however powerful, and no majority of Congress however large, can take from an individual, no matter how humble, that freedom and those rights which are guaranteed to him by the Constitution. The Supreme Court has final authority to determine all questions arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

People, Law, Freedom

“I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate. There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering.”

Sonia Sotomayor (1954) U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Address to the Raising the Bar symposium (2001)

People, Hope, Decision, Change

“The results of this study are presented under three general headings. The first, and most extensive, section consists of data relating to the factors that lead to positive and negative attitudes toward the job. It will be recalled that the major question this study set out to investigate was whether different kinds of factors were responsible for bringing about job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p. 57

Study

“One could go on forever as to whether the paint should be thick or thin, whether to paint the woman or the square, hard-edge or soft, but after a while such questions become a bore. They are merely problems in aesthetics, having only to do with the outer man. But the painting I have in mind, painting in which inner and outer are inseparable, transcends technique, transcends subjects and moves into the realm of the inevitable.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Barbara Rose, ‎Lee Krasner, ‎Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1983) Lee Krasner: a retrospective. p. 134.

Problem, Painting

“A college education was for me life-changing. It gave me a life-long passion for reading and learning. It challenged my narrowness and parochialism-really forced open my mind. It deepened my commitment to culture in general and to the higher forms of pleasure. Thus it enriched my life-permanently-by confirming me in habits of mind that would benefit me all my life long. Anyone observing could have seen that happening to me (and my fellow students) at the time. A real education is life-changing. You don't go to classes during the week and get drunk in dance bars on the weekend. You discover a higher level of life and pleasure, and you start living it. If the education takes, you keep living it the rest of your life. […] Education releases you for real joy in the midst of a culture that is abysmally cheap and shabby. The people around you pursue TV, sports, and shopping-- obey the commands of their masters to indulge themselves in every way and not to question the value of what they are fed by the media. But the educated man is critical and even self-critical: he THINKS about things-even things like pleasure. Mindless self-indulgence is no longer enough when you have learned to think.”

Donald Vroon (1942) American music critic

"Critical Convictions", American Record Guide, May/Jun 2002

Life, People, Pleasure, Education

“Computer science is an empirical discipline. […] Each new machine that is built is an experiment. Actually constructing the machine poses a question to nature; and we listen for the answer by observing the machine in operation and analyzing it by all analytical and measurement means available. Each new program that is built is an experiment. It poses a question to nature, and its behavior offers clues to an answer.”

Allen Newell (1927–1992) American cognitive scientist

Source: Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search (1975), p. 114.

Behavior, Nature, Science

“In 1821, Major Stephen H. Long made an expedition to the area now known as Weld County and declared the land was not fit for human prosperity. Almost two centuries later it is without question that Major Long did not have the vision or the admiration for this great place as those of Weld County have today.”

Jared Polis (1975) American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and US Representative

Jared Polis, "Happy 150th Birthday to Weld County, Colorado", Congressional Record, November 4, 2011.

“We're going to win by a landslide. It will be the biggest surprise in recent American political history. It will rekindle the whole question on why the media played this race as a nailbiter where in fact Romney's going to win by quite a bit.”

Dick Morris (1947) American political commentator and consultant

On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren
Television
2012-11-05
Fox News, quoted in * Dick Morris Stands By Prediction: Romney Will Win 325 Electoral Votes
2012-11-05
Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/05/dick_morris_stands_by_prediction_romney_will_win_325_electoral_votes.html
President Obama won with 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney's 206.

History

“Poincaré wrote, "If a phenomenon admits of a complete mechanical explanation it will admit of an infinity of others which will account equally well for all the peculiarities disclosed by experiment." This was the statement made by Phædrus in the laboratory; it raised the question that failed him out of school.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 22; the quote is from Poincaré's The Foundations of Science, ch. 12, "Optics and Electricity".

School

“It may also be noted that the authoritarian states are in trouble internationally. Some regard this as intentional, as part of the diversion and scapegoat technique, while others think that it is more or less inevitable because of the very co-ordination of the economic activities of the individual nations in question.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Notes on the Theory of Organization," 1937, p. 40

Thinking, Parting

“For the intimate fusion of touch, temperature and sometimes also taste and smell sensations into a single unified total impression raises the question of whether we do not have here Gestalt qualities which are built up upon a foundation belonging to several sensory regions. As can easily be recognized, it is just as possible that a complex of, say, touch and temperature sensations should provide the foundation for a Gestalt quality as should a complex of sound sensations. Indeed no a priori objection can be raised even against the idea that there should exist sound-colour-Gestalten spanning the data of the senses of sound and vision as something like a bridge - even though we do not believe that we can detect anything of this sort in sensation.”

Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932) Austrian philosopher

Source: "On Gestalt Qualities," 1890, p. 97

Idea, Sense

“There's actually a network that I could think of that [does not ask difficult questions] for a living, which is tell the people at home the same answer all the time, because it makes them feel good. And they don't like hearing arguments on that network, the people that watch it. There are people out there that — there was a great scene at the end of Carnal Knowledge — remember that old movie — where Jack Nicholson is going to the hooker, and he wants it exactly the same every time. And when she— when Rita Moreno, who played the hooker, said something just a little bit different in their normal sort of business they did, and he couldn't do it. They want it exactly the same way, these people who watch Fox. Every night they want it the same way. They can't do it if it's not exactly the same way.”

Chris Matthews (1945) American news anchor

Real Time with Bill Maher, 27 August 2004; regarding the Fox News Channel

People, Way, Feeling, Home

“And I don't want to question or even celebrate
All the joy you took and then gave back too late.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Echo
Lyrics, Echo (1999)

Joy

“Fundamentally, a manager is looking to answer these questions: ‘what to change?’,’ what to change to?’ and ‘ how to cause the change?”

Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1947–2011) Israeli physicist and management guru

The goal: a process of ongoing improvement (1984)

Change

“There's no question young drivers have far more accidents than older ones-but is it our aim to keep them off the roads? Or to allow only rich young people (who can afford the premiums) to drive?”

Andrew Tobias (1947) American journalist

Source: The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know (1982), Chapter 11, Too Many Underwriters, Too Many Agents, p. 196.

People

“At dinner time, Nasreddin finds no meat on the table. He asks his wife, "What happened to the meat?"
His wife replies, "The cat ate it."
Nasreddin breezes into the kitchen, puts the cat on the scales, and discovers the cat to be weighing three pounds. Nasreddin quizzically questions the result, "If the meat I brought home weighed three pounds, then, where is the cat? And, if this happens to be the cat, then what happened to the meat?"”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Hasan Bülent Paksoy, Alpamysh: Central Asian Identity Under Russian Rule (1979, 1989), , p. 5–6

Home, Cats, Time

“We are in no position to withstand a prolonged static war. Wherever the allies concentrate their forces they will break through. For us there can be no question of military victory or of winning the war. Our only hope is to hold on long enough to allow some development on the political front to save Germany from complete collapse.”

Gerd von Rundstedt (1875–1953) German Field Marshal during World War II

Quoted in "Hitler's last gamble: the Battle of the Bulge" - Page 61 - by Jacques Nobécourt - History - 1967

War, Hope, Victory

“Physicists continue to debate whether Bell's theorem is airtight or not. However, the real question is not whether Bell can prove beyond doubt that reality is non-local, but whether the world is in fact no-local.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 13, The Future Of Quantum Reality, p. 238

World, Reality

“Superficial nonconformism… leaves our rational structures indifferent. Questions of moral action and of physical appearance are increasingly irrelevant; they are categorized either as justified self-expression or conversely as suitable subjects for agitated public debate. In either case they are harmless vents.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

Appearance, Indifference

“The Irish, as a race, have the oral tradition in their blood. A direct question to them is an anathema, but in other cases, a mere syllable of a hero's name will elicit whole chapters of stories.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

As quoted in No Word for Time: The Way of the Algonquin People (2001) by Evan T. Pritchard

“What he dreads is that, during a lull in the conversation, someone will come up with what he calls The Question—“What led you, Mrs. Costello, to become a vegetarian?”—and that she will then get on her high horse and produce what he and Norma call The Plutarch Response. … The response in question comes from Plutarch's moral essays. His mother has it by heart; he can reproduce it only imperfectly. “You ask me why I refuse to eat flesh. I, for my part, am astonished that you can put in your mouth the corpse of a dead animal, am astonished that you do not find it nasty to chew hacked flesh and swallow the juices of death-wounds.” Plutarch is a real conversation-stopper: it is the word juices that does it. Producing Plutarch is like throwing down a gauntlet; after that, there is no knowing what will happen.”

J.M. Coetzee book The Lives of Animals

Source: The Lives of Animals (1999), p. 38

Death, Heart, Animals, Horse

“…mention is made of evidences in favour of the big bang, like the microwave background. It is a relic radiation supposed to have formed very early after the big bang. As the universe expanded it cooled down and its present temperature is at 2.7 K. The only fact which is measurable or has been measured is that there is a background of 2.7 K temperature. Saying that this is left over from the early universe is a speculation. It is a part of a theoretical structure I am supposed to have built which enables me to say that it is a relic of that early-on era. We have given a different explanation. Helium forms by fusion of hydrogen inside a star like the sun, leading to radiation. One can ask the following question: if all the helium that you find in the universe was formed in stars sometime or the other, how much radiation will be formed and what would its temperature be? The answer is 2.7 K. If you ask a big bang person why his relic radiation today has a temperature of 2.7 K he doesn’t know. This alternative explanation that I’m giving is able to do more than what the big bang does. So I don’t see any reason to say we have a very positive proof of the big bang happening.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

Jayant Narlikar's Cosmology

Star, Universe, Sun, Parting

“What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave's actions — a control which is habitually for the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of sundry gradations. Remembering that originally the slave is a prisoner whose life is at the mercy of his captor, it suffices here to note that there is a harsh form of slavery in which, treated as an animal, he has to expend his entire effort for his owner's advantage. Under a system less harsh, though occupied chiefly in working for his owner, he is allowed a short time in which to work for himself, and some ground on which to grow extra food. A further amelioration gives him power to sell the produce of his plot and keep the proceeds. Then we come to the still more moderated form which commonly arises where, having been a free man working on his own land, conquest turns him into what we distinguish as a serf; and he has to give to his owner each year a fixed amount of labour or produce, or both: retaining the rest himself. Finally, in some cases, as in Russia before serfdom was abolished, he is allowed to leave his owner's estate and work or trade for himself elsewhere, under the condition that he shall pay an annual sum. What is it which, in these cases, leads us to qualify our conception of the slavery as more or less severe? Evidently the greater or smaller extent to which effort is compulsorily expended for the benefit of another instead of for self-benefit. If all the slave's labour is for his owner the slavery is heavy, and if but little it is light. Take now a further step. Suppose an owner dies, and his estate with its slaves comes into the hands of trustees; or suppose the estate and everything on it to be bought by a company; is the condition of the slave any the better if the amount of his compulsory labour remains the same? Suppose that for a company we substitute the community; does it make any difference to the slave if the time he has to work for others is as great, and the time left for himself is as small, as before? The essential question is—How much is he compelled to labour for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labour for his own benefit? The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

The Man versus the State (1884), The Coming Slavery

Life, Food, Communication, Idea

“If you want to think what nobody else thinks, ask a question that nobody else asks.”

Paul Sloane (1950) British author and puzzle designer

Thinking

“I was on this German talk show and this woman said to me, she said, "Mr. Williams, why do you think there's not so much comedy in Germany?" I said, "Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?" [laughter and applause] And…it was…and here's where it got interesting. She didn't bat an eyelash. She just went "No". At that point, even God's going, "Do you get it?!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

German comedy: "Knock-knock--We ask the questions!".
Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

God, People, Thinking, Laughter

“I believe that new art must differ totally in its manifestation from art as we know it, and people may be very reluctant to accept this. It is perhaps true to say, as someone did of cubism, that 'To sum up: since art is a need to create rather than imitate, the 'cubists' rousing themselves from the sentimentality born of the picturesque aspect of some natural spectacle or other, disengage the fleeting aspects from those which are constant and absolute, and with the aid of these two elements, construct a reality equivalent to that which they see before them'. Thus it is a question of finding the true equivalence (that, offered by Cubism is still not true equivalence), and this can only be 'that which is not nature at all, and is nonetheless one with nature”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

like in Neo-Plasticism / De Stijl
Quote in Mondrian's letter to Lodewijk van Deyssel (who reacted as Dutch art critic on Mondrians essay: 'Le Néo-plasticisme'] Paris, February 1921; as cited in Mondrian, - The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 136
1920's

People, Art, Nature, Reality

“On all questions of principle, the party is not only Liberal, but clear grit in the real sense of the word…. pure sand without a particle of dirt in it!”

Alexander Mackenzie (1822–1892) 2nd Prime Minister of Canada

on campaign trail for Ontario provincial election in Strathroy 1871 Thomson

Sense

“An old oriental saying tells us, ‘when our willpower is concentrated upon a stone, it can pass through it. When our willpower is focused and in harmony with the universe, it can command the wind, rain and thunder’. But from where does our willpower come? Those who understand and answer this question are those who accomplish important tasks. When we coordinate mind and body by stilling the waves of our mind to imperceptible, infinitely decreasing ripples, we can send forth our great willpower that moves the universe.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

19 : Willpower
Ki Sayings (2003)

Understanding, Universe

“As for drugs, my impression is that their effect was almost completely negative, simply removing people from meaningful struggle and engagement. Just the other day I was sitting in a radio studio waiting for a satellite arrangement abroad to be set up. The engineers were putting together interviews with Bob Dylan from about 1966-7 or so (judging by the references), and I was listening (I'd never heard him talk before — if you can call that talking). He sounded as though he was so drugged he was barely coherent, but the message got through clearly enough through the haze. He said over and over that he'd been through all of this protest thing, realized it was nonsense, and that the only thing that was important was to live his own life happily and freely, not to "mess around with other people's lives" by working for civil and human rights, ending war and poverty, etc. He was asked what he thought about the Berkeley "free speech movement" and said that he didn't understand it. He said something like: "I have free speech, I can do what I want, so it has nothing to do with me. Period."”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

If the capitalist PR machine [term used in the question] wanted to invent someone for their purposes, they couldn't have made a better choice. Reply (via email) to Douglas Lain, June 1994 https://web.archive.org/web/20021214024709/http://www.douglaslain.com/diet-soap.html Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994

Life, War, People, Understanding

“…[I]n three notable instances the Court has suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds. The first of these was the Dred Scott case. … There the Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott, a negro, not being a citizen could not sue in the United States Courts and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories. … [T]he grave injury that the Court sustained through its decision has been universally recognized. Its action was a public calamity. … [W]idespread and bitter attacks upon the judges who joined in the decision undermined confidence in the Court. … It was many years before the Court, even under new judges, was able to retrieve its reputation.…[The second instance was] the legal tender cases decided in 1870. … From the standpoint of the effect on public opinion there can be no doubt that the reopening of the case was a serious mistake and the overruling in such a short time, and by one vote, of the previous decision shook popular respect for the Court.… [The third instance happened] [t]wenty-five years later, when the Court had recovered its prestige, [and] its action in the income tax cases gave occasion for a bitter assault. … [After questions about the validity of the income tax] had been reserved owing to an equal division of the Court, a reargument was ordered and in the second decision the act was held to be unconstitutional by a majority of one. Justice Jackson was ill at the time of the first argument but took part in the final decision, voting in favor of the validity of the statute. It was evident that the result [holding the statute invalid] was brought about by a change in the vote of one of the judges who had participated in the first decision. … [T]he decision of such an important question by a majority of one after one judge had changed his vote aroused a criticism of the Court which has never been entirely stilled.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

"The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Foundation, Methods and Achievements," Columbia University Press, p. 50 (1928). ISBN 1-893122-85-9.

Justice, Confidence, Decision, Suffering

“Everywhere, unthinking mobs of "independent thinkers" wield tired clichés like cudgels, pummeling those who dare question “enlightened” dogma. If “violence never solved anything,” cops wouldn’t have guns and slaves may never have been freed. If it’s better that 10 guilty men go free to spare one innocent, why not free 100 or 1,000,000? Clichés begin arguments, they don’t settle them.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.starbucks.com/retail/thewayiseeit_featuredauthor_goldberg.asp Starbucks "The Way I See It" #22] 2000s, 2005

Men

“Liberty becomes a question of morals more that politics.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Selected Writings of Lord Acton, ed. J. Rufus Fears, 3 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985-88), 3:490

“There is no direct observational evidence for the curvature [of space], the only directly observed data being the mean density and the expansion, which latter proves that the actual universe corresponds to the non-statical case. It is therefore clear that from the direct data of observation we can derive neither the sign nor that value of the curvature, and the question arises whether it is possible to represent the observed facts without introducing the curvature at all. Historically the term containing the 'cosmological constant λ' was introduced into the field equations in order to enable us to account theoretically for the existence of a finite mean density in a static universe. It now appears that in the dynamical case this end can be reached without the introduction of λ.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Joint memoir with Einstein (1932) as quoted by Gerald James Whitrow, The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Universe, Appearance

“The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent was: Shall France remain here, or shall she not?”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Introduction Montcalm and Wolfe http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14517/14517-8.txt (1884)

“Chopin absolutely was influenced by Bach. We know that before Chopin himself performed in concert, he didn’t play anything other than Bach. His own Preludes are a reference to the Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach, and all Chopin’s students had to play Bach. In whole, Chopin admired Bach most of all composers, and it was nothing less than the Well-Tempered Clavier itself that was his musical diary. I also have said that Chopin is the crowning and climax of piano-playing. It’s something so unique, all-affecting in emotionalism, musical architecture, and structure, that all past giants are present in it: Bach and Mozart. Chopin’s elegance is so singular, that again you need much experience to convey his music in the real and original style. The question of rubato is very sensitive: It’s nothing arbitrary, but much more something well calculated and well proportioned, something that is integrated in the classical strength of form, which is constructed on the profound knowledge of the polyphonic and contrapuntal structures of Bach and Mozart. Whether the Goldbergs may relate to this question? Absolutely! I again want to mention a certain and special term: jeu perlé.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Without this you can’t play Chopin, you can’t play Mozart, and lastly absolutely not the Goldbergs.
Talkings on Bach

Music, Knowledge, Past

“Before I'm through with the big leagues I've got three more ambitions I'd like to realize. […] I'd like to hit 500 home runs before I end my big league career. And I ought to do it easily. I already have 480 in regular season games. […] Another is to play in 10 World Series before I quit. And that's one I think I will realize too. I've already been in nine. […] The third one had the boys guessing. The newspaper man guessed and guessed and never hit upon it. As a matter of fact, it hasn't anything to do with baseball records at all. Maybe I'll realize it and maybe I won't. But my third ambition is to play at least one season at a salary of $100,000 a year. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that now to boost my game and I'm not out with any announcement of my demands. I've played with Colonel Ruppert a long time and we've never had any serious disagreements. I know that if I can show him that I'm worth that much money, he'll give it to me. And I'm out to show him. Understand it's strictly up to me. And I mention it here simply because of the question the newspaper man asked me and the answer I gave him.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

In "Babe Ruth Says: I Would Like to Better Mark," The Austin Statesman (June 25, 1929), p. 11

Money, World, Home, Game

“There is a lot of piety among us, but not enough spirituality. Piety consists in the performance of external devotional practices and is measured by one’s fidelity to these practices. Whether or not the faithful performance of these exercises of piety improves the quality of one’s Christian life is a question that is seldom asked. One is at times surprised that priests, sisters and lay people who are obviously pious are manifestly unfair in their dealings with other people. Some of them show so little of the compassion of Christ and are quite unwilling to forgive others.”

Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) Indian theologian

Kunnumpuram, K. (ed) (2006) Life in Abundance: Indian Christian Reflections on Spirituality. Mumbai: St Pauls
On Spirituality

Life, People, Faith, Exercises

“Since economics deals with human beings, the problems of its scientific treatment involves fundamental problems of the relations between man and his world. From a rational or scientific point of view, all practically real problems are problems in economics. The problem of life is to utilize resources "economically," to make them go as far as possible in the production of desired results. The general theory of economics is therefore simply the rationale of life. - In so far as it has any rationale! The first question in regard to scientific economics is this question of how far life is rational, how far its problems reduce to the form of using given means to achieve given ends. Now this, we shall contend, is not very far; the scientific view of life is a limited and partial view; life is at bottom an exploration in the field of values, an attempt to discover values, rather than on the basis of knowledge of them to produce and enjoy them to the greatest possible extent. We strive to "know ourselves," to find out our real wants, more than to get what we want. This fact sets a first and most sweeping limitation to the conception of economics as a science.”

Frank Knight (1885–1972) American economist

Source: "The limitations of scientific method in economics", 1924, p. 97 (2009 edition); Lead paragraph

Life, World, Knowledge, Problem

“The 43rd Federalist deals definitively with this question. There was no question but that the Constitutional Convention, simply as a convention, had no authority of any kind. It did not form a government. But it said that the ratification of nine states shall then bring this new government into existence. The Congress of the Confederation transmitted the results to the country, the ratifications took place, and the government came into existence.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A

Country

“A horse in movement is not a stationary horse that moves but a horse in a movement, which is to say something other, that should be conceived and expressed as something completely different. It is a question of conceiving objects in movement over and above the motion they carry within themselves. That is, a question of finding a form which is the expression of this new absolute... A question of studying the aspects that life has taken on in haste and in consequent simultaneity.”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

In Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.
1914 - 1916, Pittura e scultura futuriste' Milan, 1914

Life, Study, Horse

“We must become better at asking and do less telling in a culture that overvalues telling. It has always bothered me how even ordinary conversations tend to be defined by what we tell rather than by what we ask. Questions are taken for granted rather than given a starring role in the human drama. Yet all my teaching and consulting experience has taught me that what builds a relationship, what solves problems, what moves things forward is asking the right questions.”

Edgar H. Schein (1928) Psychologist

Edgar H. Schein (2013). Humble Inquiry; The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. p. 3-4

Star, Problem

“It is not necessary to conclude that the managerial groups have assumed complete domination over the concerns in which they are found, although this may be the fact in various instances, but only to reckon with the undoubted truth that the managerial factor in public and private enterprise has taken on a far more significant role than before.
This new role which has puzzled and alarmed the "owners" in industry and the policy-makers in government is not, however, primarily a power role, but a specialization of the evolving and complex character which we now confront in our civilization.
We may, of course, always raise the question-not in point of fact always raised-of what the relation of these managers is to the t! nds of the state or the ends of other groups and to the special techniques of the particular group and to its special social composition. In the complex power pattern of organization how are these managerial element-related to the organization of the consent of the governed, so vital a force in the life of every form of human association? In the struggle for advantage and mastery these larger factors may, indeed, pass unnoticed, but from the point of view of the student of politics and government, they are of supreme importance in judging the trends and possibilities of managerial evolution in modem society.”

Charles Edward Merriam (1874–1953) American political scientist

Source: Systematic Politics, 1943, p. 163-4 ; as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 15-16

Life, Truth

“Religious believers of the world, you are free to continue to debate the simple, narrow question that divides you from atheists, but you have no right, in so doing, to treat the Humanists of the world with contempt. You owe them a deep debt of gratitude, for not only have they shed much light on a naturally dark world but they have very probably helped civilize your own specific religion.”

Steve Allen (1921–2000) American comedian, actor, musician and writer

Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio: Raising Standards of Popular Culture (2001), ISBN 1615927514, p. 344

World, Religion, Nature, Light

“The best paradoxes raise questions about what kinds of contradictions can occur—what species of impossibilities are possible.”

William Poundstone (1955) American writer

Source: Labyrinths of Reason (1988), Chapter 1: "Paradox", p. 19

“Why, the question is often asked of me
Do you choose as subjects for painting
So often death, perishing and the grave?
In order to one day live eternally
One must often submit oneself to death.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

in original language - German: Warum, die Frag' ist oft zu mir ergangen / Wählst du zum Gegenstand der Malerei / So oft den Tod, Vergänglichkeit und Grab? / Um ewig einst zu leben / Muss man sich oft dem Tod ergeben.
Quote c. 1812; from Caspar David Friedrich, William Vaughn; London: Tate Gallery, 1972, p. 16–17
1794 - 1840

Death, Painting

“It is so very important to remember that, while all healing is of God, we must find the answer to the question, "Which is the most relevant way of cooperating with God in the case of this particular patient? It may be surgery, or medicine, or psychiatry, or prayer. Prayer is not relevant in many cases, save as an aid to the patient’s mental condition, and God is not going to make of prayer an easy magic, just because we have not used our human resources of money and men in wiser ways.””

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.224

Men, Money, God, Way

“You say they have the right of property in their slaves. Suppose they have, how sacred is this right of property? I want to argue the moral question of it. How sacred is this right of property in the living bodies and souls of men? Just as sacred as it is in a horse? Just as sacred as the tenure of property in a mule? Suppose it is, you own them. As you own a horse or mule. Is the right of property in a horse more sacred than my life? Is the right of property in a mule more sacred than my right to free speech? I tell them, and I tell the people all over the country, if they have a system of an institution that will not allow me to live or speak or read my papers, or worship my God as I please, then I say in God's name that thing must die. My rights I will have!”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838&ndash;64 https://web.archive.org/web/20160319081405/https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA238#v=onepage&q&f=false (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 238 1860s, Speech (October 1860)

Life, Men, God, People

“Akira Toriyama: That's a tough question. I thought of Piccolo first, and I wanted to draw him as a scary character, and it was only afterwards that I had to come up with a species. Since they have antennae, I thought they looked like slugs. So "Namekian" is a play on words, but I didn't think too deeply about it. I don't think they're plants, but they may be hermaphrodites.”

Akira Toriyama (1955) manga artist and video game character designer

"Shonen Jump interviews Akira Toriyama http://www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/read_article.php?topic_id=24686028&union_id=3216 Interview with Shōnen Jump

Thinking, Drawing

“The plans of all of the powers have always been entirely selfish as far as Turkey was concerned. For years Russia has coveted Constantinople, to say nothing of the rest of Turkey along the Black Sea and south of the Caucasus, and Britain has endeavored to keep us just strong enough to prevent Russia from realizing these ambitions. Finally came the Kaiser with his scheme of a chain of German-controlled states from the Baltic to the Persian Gulf. Russia would wipe us off the map, England would keep us weak, and Germany would make us strong. All selfish motives on the face of them, no doubt, but- can you wonder which alternative is the least repugnant to us Turks, especially to us Young Turks, who have done our best to avoid being enmeshed in the nets of British and Russian diplomacy and intrigue which held helpless our predecessors? I think I will not need to say more to answer your question as to why it was Germany obtained the Bagdad railway concession, why the Hedjaz line was built by Germans, and why the Germans are recasting our military establishment.”

İsmail Enver (1881–1922) Turkish military officer and a leader of the Young Turk revolution

Quoted in "The American Review of Reviews" - Page 184 - by Albert Shaw – 1915.

Motivation, Thinking, Strong, Sea

“The whole question of pictures made to order is a darn peculiar form of merchandize. Buyers seem to like the tiresome MP blue, for one thing, and girls having a pleasant chat for another. They must look pleasant like Daybreak and Garden of Allah and not contemplative like Hilltop, Stars and Dreaming, which are not so popular …. There are countless artists whose shoes I'm not worthy to polish — whose prints would not pay the printer! … I'm beginning to doubt my judgment!”

Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966) American painter and illustrator

Letter to A. E. Reinthal (15 February 1929)

Dreams, Shoe, Girl, Star

“He was born into, and seems never to have questioned, that English "class system" which has been so much abused in the present century. Indeed, several governments have announced their intention of abolishing it, and the most recent prime minister to retire showed her egalitarian principles by accepting the title of Baroness Thatcher.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Lewis Carroll in the Theatre (1994)

“Hayek’s move from economic theory to political philosophy was a natural evolution in his ideas. First, he considered the influence of prices in production. Then he considered the larger question of the role of prices in social life. The conclusion he reached was that law should guarantee to each person a protected sphere within which each could live as much as possible as he pleased. Later in his career, he progressed to the idea that whole societies through their customs, morals, and rules are engaged in macrocompetition, the survivor of which would possess the customs, morals, and rules that are the most materially productive and result in the highest standard of living for the most—the economist’s goal.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Life, Law, Idea, Nature

“If, by the grace of God, we have passed the worst of this storm, the future months will be easy. If we shall be called upon to endure more of this period, we must gird ourselves for even greater effort, for today we are writing the introduction to the future history of civilization in America. The question is whether that history shall be written in terms of individual responsibility, and the capacity of the Nation for voluntary cooperative action, or whether it shall be written in terms of futile attempt to cure poverty by the enactment of law, instead of the maintained and protected initiative of our people.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Address to the Gridiron Club (27 April 1931)

God, People, Law, History

“We can see that in putting the question "what is man?" what we mean is: what can man become? That is, can man dominate his own destiny, can he "make himself," can he create his own life? We maintain therefore that man is a process and, more exactly, the process of his actions. If you think about it, the question itself "what is man?" is not an abstract or "objective" question. It is born of our reflection about ourselves and about others, and we want to know, in relation to what we have thought and seen, what we are and what we can become; whether we really are, and if so to what extent, "makers of our own selves," of our life and of our destiny. And we want to know this "today," in the given conditions of today, the conditions of our daily life, not of any life or any man”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971).

Life, Thinking

“Questions of convergence under an infinite time horizon will depend so much on epsilontic refinements in the system of assumptions — and on the infinite constancy of these refinements — that we are humanly speaking absolutely certain of getting infinite time horizon results which have no relevance to concrete reality. And in particular we are absolutely certain of getting irrelevant results if such epsilontic exercises are made under the assumption of a constant technology. 'In the long run we are all dead.' These words by Keynes ought to be engraved in marble and put on the desk of all epsilontologists, in growth theory under an infinite horizon.”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Ragnar Frisch (1970) "Econometrics in the World of Today." University of Oslo, Institute of Economics, 1971; As quoted in Robert Johnston, Graham Clark. Service Operations Management: Improving Service Delivery. Pearson Education, 2005. p. 347
1970s and later

Exercises, Reality, Time, Dependency