Quotes about doubt (5301 quotes, page 36)

“Classification in documentation is a tool for selection. It is essentially a 'finding system' for subject items… It is an artificial language, designed as a tool to aid in the selection of information from a store in response to search questions. The classification serves to standardise subject description, so that the description of a subject used by indexer and inquirer are more likely to coincide, thus maximising the probability of finding all items relevant to an inquiry.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Classification and indexing in science (1958), Chapter 1: The need for classification, p. 12-13.

Search

“Now can I ask you a question," "Why is it that we're lucky to have so many Chinese students? Is it because of the weather? Is it because we have so many French restaurants? Is it because we have so many communist bicycles?"”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

2010s, 2013

Weather

“Hunter was picked as a promising electronics technician because he aced the Air Force radio-tech exam. Hunter shrugged off the the triumph. Tests were easy. You didn't have to know about radio and electronics; you just needed to be savvy in answering multiple-choice questions. He scored so high, the military thought he was the second coming of Marconi.”

William McKeen (1954) American academic

Source: Outlaw Journalist (2008), Chapter 2, Square Peg, Round Hole, p. 23

“I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago. When I was eight, I was confused at being called “bossy,” because I wanted to direct the plays that we would put on for our parents — but the boys were not.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

UN Speech on the HeForShe campaign (2014)

Boy , Parent , Time

“A world view is a coherent collection of concepts and theorems that must allow us to construct a global image of the world, and in this way to understand as many elements of our experience as possible.
Societies, as well as individuals, have always contemplated deep questions relating to their being and becoming, and to the being and becoming of the world. The configuration of answers to these questions forms their world view. Research on world views, although we are convinced of its practical value and necessity, will always be primarily an expression of a theoretical interest. It reflects the unlimited openness of the human mind to reality as a whole. Even if this research would not appear to be of any immediate value or necessity – quod non – we still should promote and encourage it energetically, because it also expresses the most unselfish striving of humanity “the desire to know,” a property of “Homo sapiens sapiens.””

Diederik Aerts (1953) Belgian theoretical physicist

Source: World views. From Fragmentation to Integration (1994), p. 8

World , Way , Understanding , Reality

“Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Internationale Situationist (no. 1, Paris, June 1958).

Art , Past

“When the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions.”

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) Hungarian sociologist

Ideology and Utopia (1929)

“Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things, our dream-life, the true life that scorns questions and does not see them.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

quote from Franz Marc's note in 1907, he wrote down on his return from Paris; as cited by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 126
1905 - 1910

Life , Truth , Dreams , Art

“The question about “good origins” becomes the crux for enlightenment. It becomes more and more clear that this idea of origin has not a temporal but a Utopian reference. The Good is still nowhere to be found, except in the wishful human spirit.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 56

Idea

“Hans Haacke's "Visitor's Profile" encouraged visitors to interact with a computer by inputting personal information, which was then tabulated to output statistical data on the exhibition's audience. Such demographic research - as art - opened up a critical discourse, following Foucault and others, on the exclusivity of cultural institutions and their patrons, revealing the myth of public service as a thin veneer justifying the hierarchical values that reify extant social relations. Similarly, "Interactive Paper Systems" by Sonia Sheridan, engaged museum-goers in a creative exchange with the artist and 3M's first commercially available color photocopying machine, dissolving conventional artist-viewer-object relations. In "The Seventh Investigation (Art as Idea as Idea)" Joseph Kosuth utilized multiple forms of mass media and distribution (a billboard, an newspaper advertisement, a banner, and a museum installation) to question the conceptual and contextual boundaries between art, philosophy, commerce, pictures, and texts.”

Edward A. Shanken (1964) American art historian

Edward A. Shanken. " The House That Jack Built: Jack Burnham's Concept of "Software" as a Metaphor for Art http://www.artexetra.com/House.html" in Leonardo Electronic Almanac 6:10 (November, 1998)

Art , Color , Idea , Personality

“Yes, Peter. Are you going to ask that question with shades on?… I'm interested in the shade look, seriously…. For the viewers, there’s no sun.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Teasing Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten during a White House press conference, unaware that Wallsten suffers from Stargardt’s disease and is partly blind.
"Bush shows his sensitive side, telling blind journalist: 'I'm interested in the shade look'" http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1089264.ece, The Independent, June 16, 2006.
2000s, 2006

Sun

“Optimism has always seemed to me the cunning alibi of egoists, anxious to cover up their state of chronic self-satisfaction. They are optimists in order to avoid pitying other men and their misfortune. ~~ Yet pity is a vexed question.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.38

Men , Optimism

“Every day in this world has its work; and every day as it rises out of eternity keeps putting to each of us this question afresh, "What will you do before to-day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again? " And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing — Time? That men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious and irreparable hour in the garden of Gethsemane — they go to sleep.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 120.

Life , Men , World , Sleep

“I never worked with T. I. Here's the back story to that Wikipedia nugget: I was a guest on TRL and happened to get my hands on the list of goofy, un Andrew-Miller-like questions I was going to be asked before I walked on set. One of the questions was "Who do you like more, T. I. or [I forgot the other southern rap artist]?" So I snuck to the bathroom and searched "T. I." on my Blackberry. I memorized as much information as I could and then announced that we were working together.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

On how rumors got started that he was working with rapper T.I. (and how they made it to Wikipedia).
Mayer, John (2007). "10 ANSWERS FOR ANDREW MILLER" http://www.johnmayer.com/blog#274 JohnMayer.com (accessed January 25, 2007)

Search

“The time has come for the dismantling of fantasies. That is already happening to our universe. Now that we have this one chance of survival we must finally rid ourselves of fantasies and seize that chance!
For centuries our race has built on false assumptions. If you build a fantasy based on a false assumption and continue to build on such a fantasy, your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant in others who are too lazy or too busy to question its truth.
In this manner you threaten the very existence of reality, because, by refusing to obey its laws, those laws engulf and destroy you. The human race has for too long been manufacturing convenient fantasies and calling them laws. For ages this was so. Take war, for instance. Politicians assume that something is true, assume that strife is inevitable, and by building on such false assumptions, lo and behold, they create further wars which they have, ostensibly, sought to prevent.
We have, until now, accepted too many fantasies as being truths, too many truths as fantasies. And we have one last chance to discover the real nature of our existence. I am prepared to take it!”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: The Sundered Worlds (1965), Chapter 7 (pp. 229-230)

War , Truth , Lie , Age

“For me, I can still say music is God, music is the face of God. That's everybody, that's the hearts of men. And that's important to me. But that's not the way everybody sees it. And, of course, what happened in interviews, especially in collective interviews, was that people would ask me questions and I would talk about development and ideals, about which I already have talked too much this afternoon, and these questions would be posed to the other musicians and they would say, "We don't want to feel that way at all, we're not into that."”

John McLaughlin (1942) guitarist, founder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra

On the visionary differences between McLaughlin and amongst other members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, as quoted in Fripp, Robert. "Coffee and Chocolates for Two Guitars". Musician No. 45, July 1982. https://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_John_McLaughlin_by_Robert_Fripp_in_Musician

Men , God , People , Music

“Do you believe in God, Andrei? No. Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know. What do you mean? Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do—then, I know they don't believe in life. Why? Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

We The Living (1936)
Source: We The Living Part One Chapter 9

Life , God , People , Dreams

“Like basic distrust, manipulation as a style of relating is a deeply rooted part of the personality. It emerges from early conditioning experiences which put the primary focus on achievement, goal orientation and winning. … Some have more of that dehumanized jungle ability to manipulate than others. It cannot really be taught because it is not a question of a handful of moves but rather a constant, all-pervasive style that is always in operation.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

The "Secrets" of Success, p. 43
The New Male (1979)

Parting , Personality

“There is, I think, no more nutritive or suggestive truth… than that of the perfect dependence of the "moral" sense of a work of art on the amount of felt life concerned in producing it. The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist's prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

The Portrait of a Lady.
Prefaces (1907-1909)

Life , Truth , Art , Spring

“But the questioning for me started in the spring of 1970 after an unauthorized demonstration in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to "free the political prisoners." Why was I doing this rather than using my intellect? Perhaps I was empowered by the anger and relieved that I could now strike back at the faceless oppressor. But why was I conceding my intellect and rather fighting much like a brute? This I could not answer, except to say that I was tired of being restrained.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Spring , Fight , Anger

“Unlike pure theorists, we shall not assume at the outset that rational behavior exists or that rational behavior constitutes the topic of economic analysis. We shall study economic behavior as we find it. In describing and classifying different reactions, as well as the circumstances that elicit them, we shall raise the question whether and in what sense certain reactions may be called “rational.” After having answered that question and thus defined our terms, we shall study the fundamental problem: Under what conditions do more and under what conditions do less rational forms of behavior occur?”

George Katona (1901–1981) American psychologist

George Katona (1951). Psychological Analysis of Economic Behavior. McGraw-Hill, New York. p. 16; as cited in: Erik Angner and George Loewenstein. "Behavior economics," in: Philosophy of Economics, (2012), p. 657

Behavior , Problem , Sense , Study

“Star Trek never really caught on with audiences, ran for three seasons, and was canceled. I wish I had taken notes at the time, because you people sure do have a lot of questions about it.”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at large, by William Shatner and Chris Regan (2011), "Shatner Rules Deluxe: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large" https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1101564148 William Shatnerwith Chris Regan

People , Star , Time , Season

“Mr. Trent puzzled him. He seemed friendly, like he really wanted to help find out who had murdered Alicia, wanted to help Jason remember what had really happened that day, but at the same time there was something strange about his questions. Jason used the word strange for want of a better word. He couldn't figure Trent out or what he wanted Jason to say. Sometimes he seemed unfriendly, like Jason had done something wrong, had broken a rule, a rule Jason didn't even know about. And those eyes of his. Like black marbles but alive, that didn't blink very much, that seemed to look right into your brain.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 98

Time , Help

“George Dillon: [I]t's easy to answer the ultimate questions – it saves you bothering with the immediate ones.”

John Osborne (1929–1994) English playwright

Epitaph for George Dillon, Act II (1957)
Co-written with Anthony Creighton.

“Einstein's pioneer application in 1917 of his newly developed general relativity to the problem of world-structure ushered in a new phase in the theoretical approach to the subject. Then, some seven years later, Hubble's discovery of Cepheid variables in the Andromeda nebula finally settled the long-debated question concerning this and similar nebulae in the Milky Way.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

"Theories of the Universe" (10 Apr 1958)

World , Way , Problem

“Only those of us, I think, who were born under Queen Victoria know what it feels like to assume, without questioning, that England is permanently top nation, that foreigners do not matter, and that if the worst comes to the worst, Lord Salisbury will send a gunboat.”

Ronald Knox (1888–1957) English priest and theologian

God and the Atom (1945). London: Sheed & Ward, pp. 53–54

Feeling , Thinking

“Oh, absolutely. No question about it. And the state of Texas, when I was governor, we built an awful lot of prisons. And to be frank with you, I made a deal, and the deal was that I would help pass the legislation and be for building a lot more prisons in Texas if I could get rehab programs for people who were alcoholics and drug abusers because I knew that over 80 percent of the crime committed in Texas was committed by people under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”

Ann Richards (1933–2006) American politician

Ann Richards Discusses Texas, Politics and Humor on Larry King Live http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0101/23/lkl.00.html, CNN, January 23 2001
2001

People , Alcohol , Help

“Punk: I can't help but feel a little resp… hell, who am I kidding? I feel like I started this whole thing. This is all my fault. I've been at the epicenter of everything controversial ever since you took over—actually, since before that, I'm sure you remember, John-Boy.
Cena: I was there.
Punk: You were there. I'm the guy that made walking out look cool. The thing about is I think everybody in the parking lot having a picnic right now have completely misunderstood what I was trying to do. See, I didn't break my contract, I didn't break my word. My contract expired, and I was trying to prove a point to an entire company, not just one man. If anybody has any reason to walk out of the WWE, well you can probably put me at the top of that list. I mean, my microphone constantly cuts out, your friend Kevin Nash runs through the… well, slowly, briskly runs through the crowd, jumps me and screws me not once, but twice. Somebody here doesn't want me to be the WWE Champion. The thing about it is this entire industry is based on men solving their problems in between these ropes. This is the company that gives you Hell in a Cell, this is the company that gives you the Elimination Chamber. I don't wanna sound like a broken record, but "unsafe working environment"? I thrive on that! Hell, this is professional wrestling, this ain't ballet! If you believe in something, you stand and you fight, and you fight on the front line; you don't have a hippie sit-in and grill tofu dogs in the parking lot like a bunch of hippies. [To Triple H] When I had a problem with you and your authority, I dealt with you personally. [To Cena] And you, you big boy scout, when I had a problem with you being the poster boy for this company, I dealt with you personally. Shea-Mo, I'm sure sooner or later, you're gonna step on my toes, I will deal with you personally. Now, I know you three smiley good guys look across the ring from me, and I'm the last guy you expect to see here, [to Triple H] and I know I'm the last guy you expect to see in the foxhole with you. But you know what? Here I am. So… so I got a question—what do we do now?
Triple H: "What do we do now?" That's a big question, "what do we do now?" I say we do what we do on Monday Night Raw—we shut up and fight! How about this? As long as you guys are in agreement, Sheamus, you got yourself a match, fella. Tonight, right here, right now, you will go one-on-one with… [Punk raises his hand] one John Cena. And since I'm the only guy kinda wearing stripes out here, I'll referee. And, foxhole buddy, I got a whole table over there lined up with headphones and pipe bombs just waiting for you with your name on it. And if you want, you can go over there and say anything you feel like.
Punk: You want me to do commentary?!
Triple H: I want you to do commentary.
Punk: Can I wear your blazer?!
Triple H: You can even wear my blazer!
Punk: I'm in!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

October 10, 2011
WWE Raw

Men , Dogs , Guy , Feeling

“The central question that emerges—and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal—is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes—the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way; and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

Editorial, National Review (1957-08-24).

World , Way , Communication , Time

“If the question is do people (in the Liberal Party) believe that human beings are the main cause of the planet warming, then I'd say a majority don't accept that position”

Nick Minchin (1953) Australian politician

Xinhua News Agency http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/10/content_12423488.htm

People

“Sometimes it is more difficult to formulate the criterion for a problem than to state the question itself.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: Information and Decision Processes (1960), p. xi

Problem

“Modern natural history deals only incidentally with the identity of plants and animals, and only incidentally with their habits and behaviors. It deals principally with their relations to each other, their relation to the soil and water in which they grow, and their relations to the human beings who sing about 'my country' but see little or nothing of its inner workings. This new science of relationships is called ecology, but what we call it matters nothing. The question is, does the educated citizen know he is only a cog in an ecological mechanism? That if he will work with that mechanism his mental wealth and his material wealth can expand indefinitely? But that if he refuses to work with it, it will ultimately grind him to dust? If education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Natural History: The Forgotten Science" [1938]; Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 63-64.
1930s

Education , Behavior , History , Nature

“All these people come to see the White House and they see practically nothing that dates back before 1948. Every boy who comes here should see things that develop his sense of history. For the girls, the house should look beautiful and lived-in. They should see what a fire in the fireplace and pretty flowers can do for a house; the White House rooms should give them a sense of all that. Everything in the White House must have a reason for being there. It would be sacrilege merely to "redecorate" it -- a word I hate. It must be restored -- and that has nothing to do with decoration. That is a question of scholarship.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Interview with Hugh Sidey, according to Kennedy Library https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Jacqueline-Kennedy-in-the-White-House.aspx (1 September 1961)

Hate , People , Beauty , History

“The question is not merely what we can feel, but what we can do for Christ; not how many tears we can shed, but how many sins we can mortify; not what raptures we can experience, but what self-denial we can practice; not what happy frames we can enjoy, but what holy duties we can perform; not simply how much we can luxuriate at sermon or at sacrament, but how much we can exhibit of the mind of Jesus in our intercourse with our fellow men; not only how far above earth we can rise to the bliss of heaven, but how much of the love and purity of heaven we can bring down to earth; in short, not how much of rapt feeling we can indulge, but how much of religious principle we can bring to bear on our whole conduct.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 126.

Love , Men , Feeling , Tear

“She broke in with a question that staggered him.
"Does your idea mean that the next world is a sort of great reservoir of truth, and that what is true in us just pours into it like raindrops?"
"Well!" said he, alarmed and puzzled: "the figure is not perfectly correct, but the idea is a little of that kind."
"After all I wonder whether that may not be what Niagara has been telling me!" said Esther, and she spoke with an outburst of energy that made Strong's blood run cold.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Esther Dudley and George Strong in Ch. IX
Esther: A Novel (1884)

Truth , World , Idea , Strong

“I tend to think young people get it. Young people, you see them, their lives revolve around their cell phone. They realize if I want to know about their life, I collect data from their phone…Do we want to live in a world where the government knows everything about us? Do we want to live in a world where the government has us under constant surveillance? They’ll say we’re not looking at it. We’re just keeping it in case we want to look at it. The danger is too great to let government collect your information. And I think there is a valid question whether or not simply the collecting of your information is something that goes against the Constitution.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

2015-05-20
Full Transcript: Rand Paul’s Filibuster of the PATRIOT Act, Hour 2
Breitbart
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/20/full-transcript-rand-pauls-filibuster-of-the-patriot-act-hour-2/
2015-06-13
2010s

Life , People , World , Thinking

“The pro-feminist male is a wretched, guilt-ridden creature who must at every turn make certain he is not impeding the progress of women in any way. He willingly accepts guild for crime against women he never committed, perpetuated by men he has never met. He must question… admiration he might have for traditional role models- for fear that he is perpetuating cultures of honor or patriarchy that could somehow result in the oppression of or violence against women. He must be careful to include women in every activity, even if he would prefer not to… He is encouraged to work with women to support their interests with little or no regard for how those interests might have a negative impact of men… The only "freedom" that feminism offers men is the freedom to do exactly what women want men to do.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

"Mother May I" Masculinity
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

Women , Men , Fear , Way

“The only thing to think over was Me, of course. And the real problem about Me was, What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to be nothing but God? I had tried the God business and found it too limited. It was a job for a simple-minded egomaniac. There had to be something else for me to do—something more meaningful, more expressive of my true self. I’m convinced of it! That is my problem, and that is the question I ask of you: What am I to do with myself?”

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 7 (p. 53)

God , Business , Problem , Thinking

“The proletariat thus shared its dictatorship with nobody. As to the question of the "majority", this never troubled Lenin much. In an article "Constitutional Illusions" (Aug. 1917; Works, vol. 25, p. 201) he wrote: "in time of revolution it is not enough to ascertain the ‘ will of the majority’ – you must prove to be stronger at the decisive moment and at the decisive place; you must win … We have seen innumerable examples of the better organized, more politically conscious and better armed minority forcing its will upon the majority and defeating it." (pg. 503) Trotsky, however, answers questions [in The Defence of Terrorism] that Lenin evaded or ignored. "Where is your guarantee, certain wise men ask us, that it is just your party that expresses the interests of historical development? Destroying or driving underground the other parties, you have thereby prevented their political competition with you, and consequently you have deprived yourselves of the possibility of testing your line of action." Trotsky replies: "This idea is dictated by a purely liberal conception of the course of the revolution. In a period in which all antagonisms assume an open character; and the political struggle swiftly passes into a civil war, the ruling party has sufficient material standard by which to test its line of action, without the possible circulation of Menshevik papers. Noske crushes the Communists, but they grow. We have suppressed the Mensheviks and the S. R. s [Socialist Republics] … and they have disappeared. This criterion is sufficient for us" (p. 101). This is one of the most enlightening theoretical formulations of Bolshevism, from which it appears that the "rightness" of a historical movement or a state is to be judged by whether its use of violence is successful. Noske did not succeed in crushing the German Communists, but Hitler did; it would thus follow from Trotsky’ s rule that Hitler "expressed the interests of historical development". Stalin liquidated the Trotskyists in Russia, and they disappeared – so evidently Stalin, and not Trotsky, stood for historical progress.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

pg. 510
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age

Men , War , Idea , Decision

“What we mean by information — the elementary unit of information — is a difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. The pathways are ready to be triggered. We may even say that the question is already implicit in them.”

Gregory Bateson book Steps to an Ecology of Mind

Source: Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972), p. 459, Chapter " Form, Substance and Difference http://www.rawpaint.com/library/bateson/formsubstancedifference.html#Anchor-39583"

Travel

“According to mainstream non-religious sources, a fool is one who too readily accepts improbable assertions from questionable sources on insufficient evidence. So it is no wonder that the Bible and the Qur’an both use the opposite definition, so that the wise are called foolish and only fools are wise. By definition, one would have to be a fool to be fooled by either book. As for “putting things right”, the only way to do that is to identify unsupported assertions and examine what the facts really indicate, and that always goes against faith.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

Books , Faith , Fools , Way

“So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Interview "Milton Friedman Responds" in Chemtech (February 1974) p. 72.

Money , Law , Business

“And what sort of country shall you build upon that watchword, General?" Lord Lyons asked. "You cannot be left entirely alone; you are become, as I said, a member of the family of nations. Further, this war has been hard on you. Much of your land has been ravaged or overrun, and in those places where the Federal army has been, slavery lies dying. Shall you restore it there at the point of a bayonet? Gladstone said October before last, perhaps a bit prematurely, that your Jefferson Davis had made an army, the beginnings of a navy, and, more important than either, a nation. You Southerners may have made the Confederacy into a nation, General Lee, but what sort of nation shall it be?" Lee did not answer for most of a minute. This pudgy little man in his comfortable chair had put into a nutshell his own worries and fears. He'd had scant time to dwell on them, not with the war always uppermost in his thoughts. But the war had not invalidated any of the British minister's questions- some of which Lincoln had also asked- only put off the time at which they would have to be answered. Now that time drew near. Now that the Confederacy was a nation, what sort of nation would it be? At last he said, "Your excellency, at this precise instant I cannot fully answer you, save to say that, whatever sort of nation we become, it shall be one of our own choosing.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

It was a good answer. Lord Lyons nodded, as if in thoughtful approval. Then Lee remembered the Rivington men. They too had their ideas on what the Confederate States of America should become.
Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 183

Men , War , Fear , Family

“The “brightness” of the 15 percent might or might not indicate a profound feeling for the causes of things; it is largely verbal and symbol-manipulating, and is almost certainly partly an obsessional device not to know and touch risky matter, just as Freud long ago pointed out that the nagging questions of small children are a substitute for asking the forbidden questions.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 85.

Children , Feeling

“In spite of the insurmountable computational limits, we continue to pursue the many problems that possess the characteristics of organized complexity. These problems are too important for our well being to give up on them. The main challenge in pursuing these problems narrows down fundamentally to one question: how to deal with systems and associated problems whose complexities are beyond our information processing limits? That is, how can we deal with these problems if no computational power alone is sufficient?”

George Klir (1932–2016) American computer scientist

Source: Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic (1995), p. 2-3.

Problem

“It will rightly be asked: What is the synthetic principle on which this obviously highly important product of y-methylcyclopentenophenanthrene is built up in nature, and why is it that this particular type which, as founda tion of many substances indispensable to life and of extreme physiological and biological importance, plays such a vital role in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? However, the time has not yet come when we can give an answer to questions so fundamental and so important to an understanding of the workings of Nature. But I am firmly convinced that this problem - like all others - will eventually be solved.”

Otto Diels (1876–1954) German chemist

"Description and Importance of the Aromatic Basic Skeleton of the Steroids" (Nobel Lecture), 1950.

Life , Understanding , Nature , Problem

“In the criminal code we find no feminine pronouns, as "He," "His," "Him," we are arrested, tried and hung, but singularly enough, we are denied the highest privileges of citizens, because the pronouns "She," "Hers" and "Her," are not found in the constitutions. It is a pertinent question, if women can pay the penalties of their crimes as "He," why may they not enjoy the privileges of citizens as "He?"”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton book The Woman's Bible

The Woman's Bible (1898)

Women , Penalty

“Needless to deny that the normal London plumber is a dishonest man. We do not even allow ourselves to think so. That question, as to the dishonesty of mankind generally, is one that disturbs us greatly; — whether a man in all grades of life will by degrees train his honesty to suit his own book, so that the course of life which he shall bring himself to regard as soundly honest shall, if known to his neighbours, subject him to their reproof. We own to a doubt whether the honesty of a bishop would shine bright as the morning star to the submissive ladies who now worship him, if the theory of life upon which he lives were understood by them in all its bearings.”

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) English novelist (1815-1882)

The Plumber (1880)

Life , Books , Star , Thinking

“One of the century’s most famous intellectual pronouncements comes at the beginning of The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” Reading this for the first time I was puzzled and continued to be throughout much of the essay, since despite the work’s persuasive logic and eloquence there was a lot that eluded me, and I always came back to grapple vainly with the initial hypothesis, unable to deal with the premise that anyone should come close to wishing to kill himself in the first place. A later short novel, The Fall, I admired with reservations; the guilt and self-condemnation of the lawyer-narrator, gloomily spinning out his monologue in an Amsterdam bar, seemed a touch clamorous and excessive, but at the time of my reading I was unable to perceive that the lawyer was behaving very much like a man in the throes of clinical depression. Such was my innocence of the very existence of this disease.”

William Styron book Darkness Visible

Source: Darkness Visible (1990), II

Life , Disease , Problem , Suicide

“The question is as follows: if the Arabs settle among us and make enough children to become a majority, will Israel continue to be a Jewish state? Do we have to accept that the Arab majority will decide? Obviously, nobody in Israel can accept this. Because to accept this would amount to being anti-Zionist!”

Meir Kahane (1932–1990) American/Israeli political activist and rabbi

G-d's Law: an Interview with Rabbi Meir Kahane https://web.archive.org/web/20090219141224/http://kahane.org/meir/interview.htm

Children

“That's one of the most stupid questions I've heard. I'll go with Mascherano.”

Alex Ferguson (1941) Scottish footballer and manager

When asked, after losing the UEFA Champions League final against Barcelona, which Barcelona's talent he would sign for the next season in case he would have a blank cheque.
Sbnation.com (27 May 2011) http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2011/5/28/2195275/champions-league-2011-barcelona-manchester-united]

Stupidity

“The other major impression to emerge from Magick Without Tears is that -- as odd as it sounds -- one of Crowley's chief drawbacks was his sense of humour. This is a disability he shares with Bernard Shaw: both were driven by a strange compulsion to be flippant. But when he becomes absorbed in an idea, Shaw can remain serious for a sufficiently long time to convince the reader of his intellectual stature. In Crowley, the flippancy has the tone of a schoolmaster trying to be funny for the benefit of the sixth form, or a muscular Christian trying to convince you that he isn't really religious. 'How can a yogi ever feel worried?... That question I have been expecting for a very long time!' (Crowley has never learned that exclamation marks give the impression of a gushing schoolgirl.) 'And what you expect is to see my middle stump break the wicket-keeper's nose, with the balls smartly fielded by Third Man and Short Leg!' It makes us aware that there was something wrong with Crowley's 'self-image.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

He is one of those people who, no matter how hard they try, never feel quite grown up.
Source: Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast (1987), p. 150

People , Feeling , Idea , Sense

“I could not get my feelings straight. I did not believe in evil as an active force, only as a matter of viewpoint, yet I had seen enough to make me question my philosophy. If the Lady were not evil incarnate, then she was as close as made no difference.”

Glen Cook The Black Company

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 6, “Lady” (p. 205)

Feeling , Evil

“That’s why paradigm shifts are so disruptive and painful: they bring into question the operating assumptions that underlie the existing economic and social models as well as the belief system that accompanies them and the worldview that legitimizes them.”

Jeremy Rifkin (1945) American economist

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism (2014)

Pain

“Whenever I face a hard decision or a risky situation in life (personally or professionally), all my thinking, all my analysis, all my planning can be boiled down to four simple questions:
1. What is the best thing that can happen if I do this?
2. What is the worst thing that can happen if I do this?
3. What is the best thing that can happen if I don't do it?
4. What is the worst thing that can happen if I don't do it?”

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

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 21

Life , Thinking , Decision , Personality

“The old theory that [the Great Pyramid] was built as a vault or tomb for an Egyptian king is unworthy of credence; for, as we shall see, it required more than the wisdom of the present day, to say nothing of that of Egypt four thousand years ago, to design such a structure. Besides, it contains nothing in the way of a casket, mummy or inscription. It was not until we had come into the time called in Daniel's prophecy "the Time of the End", when knowledge should be increased, and the wise should understand God's plan (Dan. 12:4, 9, 10), that the secrets of the Great Pyramid began to be understood, and our questions began to have a reasonable answer.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 319.

Wisdom , God , Secret , Way

“In restaurants we argue
over which of us will pay for your funeral though the real question is
whether or not I will make you immortal.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

"They eat out"
Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)

“For some time now, Apple has faced questions about its growth and what rabbits it can pull out of its hat next … Apple's immediate future looks sunny, but its long-term outlook has begun to look partly cloudy. In a world that seems to care less and less about beautiful hardware and more about services that help you from afar, over the air, without your ever having to touch a machine, Apple risks becoming an anachronism.”

Farhad Manjoo (1978) American journalist

Apple Needs to Reinvent Itself. It Just Might Be Doing So. http://nytimes.com/2017/06/06/technology/apple-reinvent-itself.html in The New York Times (6 June 2017)

World , Beauty , Time , Future

“Like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life's mundane matters. "Who are the best musicians for these songs?" "Am I recording in the right studio?" "Is this song in the right key?" Some things never change, even in 400 years. Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my songs literature?" So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Nobel Banquet Speech

Life , Literature , Change , Time

“MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you prefer?
SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes?
MODERATOR 1: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that question? [Laughter, applause]
MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not. [Applause]”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Townterview Hosted by KTR http://web.archive.org/web/20101204161545/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/12/152294.htm, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State. KTR Studio, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (December 2, 2010)
Secretary of State (2009–2013)

Laughter , Clothes

“For the question inevitably remains, is Polletti’s admission of fear a magnificent conquest of the unconquerable, or a mere admission of the inadmissable?”

Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) American writer

Source: The 10th Victim (1965), Chapter 2 (p. 26)

Fear

“The decay of our culture since 1941 can be measured by the fact that academic historians today are no longer interested in historical truth or interested in it only marginally; what really interests them is jobs. They match the anthropologists and geneticists who, with practiced effrontery, can say that all races are equal and there is no difference between them. There are now 'scientists' who boast they are so versatile they can prove anything, for a suitable fee, while others abuse spectroscopes to prove that a painted rag is a 'Holy Shroud,' or use quantum mechanics to prove that the old Jew-god converted mud into Adam. 'Truth' is whatever pays the most. The academicians have conformed to what is now the American ethic. Whether any nation so decadent and depraved can or should survive is a question I am unwilling to consider.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"A World Grown Grey With Their Breath", Liberty Bell magazine (January 1988)
1970s, 1980s

God , Truth , Painting

“Now at the end, we come back to the beginning: to the situation of the world here and now, from which all understanding must start and to which it must return. In all existential thinking it is we ourselves, the questioners, who are ultimately in question.”

William Barrett (philosopher) book Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Source: Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958), Chapter Eleven, The Place Of The Furies, p. 237

World , Understanding , Thinking

“In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable feature of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with different probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always have such a situation when we make predictions. Thus the question remains: What is the reality described by quantum theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact that our predictions come with probability distributions to the fact that not all relevant data for the predictions are known to us, in particular important features of the initial state.”

Gerardus 't Hooft (1946) Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Q&A: Gerard 't Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/, Physics Today, 11 July 2017

World , Reality , Science

“I am SO tired of this trope. It may indeed be the case that we can’t justify a priori via philosophical lucubrations that we arrive at the truth about nature only by using the methods of science. My answer to that is increasingly becoming, “So bloody what?” The use of science is justified because it works, not because we can justify it philosophically. If we are interested in finding out what causes malaria, no amount of appeal to a deity, philosophical rumination, listening to music, reading novels, or waiting for a revelation will answer that question. We have to use scientific methods, which, of course, is how causes of disease are found.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" A belated reply from Francis Spufford, who defends his faith http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/a-belated-reply-from-francis-spufford-who-defends-his-faith/" October 2, 2012

Truth , Disease , Music , Nature

“You have seized upon the most important of our social and political questions in the laws affecting the transfer of land. It is astonishing that the people at large are so tacit in their submission to the perpetuation of the feudal system in this country as it affects the property in land, so long after it has been shattered to pieces in every other country except Russia. The reason is, I suppose, that the great increase of our manufacturing system has given such an expansive system of employment to the population, that the want of land as a field of investment and employment for labour has been comparatively little felt. So long as this prosperity of our manufactures continues, there will be no great outcry against the landed monopoly. If adversity were to fall on the nation, your huge feudal properties would soon be broken up, and along with them the hereditary system of government under which contentedly live and thrive.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to James White, MP for Brighton (22 November 1857), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), p. 679.
1850s

People , Law , Country

“By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a jamboree?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, July, 2017 National Scout Jamboree (July 24, 2017)

Way

“The great question which confronted this body in 1945 is still before us: whether man's cherished hopes for progress and peace are to be destroyed by terror and disruption, whether the "foul winds of war" can be tamed in time to free the cooling winds of reason, and whether the pledges of our Charter are to be fulfilled or defied — pledges to secure peace, progress, human rights and world law.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, UN speech

War , World , Peace , Law

“To be conservative in politics is to take one’s bearings not from the latest bright idea about how to make a better world, but by looking carefully at what the past reveals both about the kind of people we are and the problems that concern us. As we get older, we often become conservative in our habits, in our family practices, and in our recognition of the richness of our civilization, but this evolution of our character into a set of habits in no way blocks adventurousness. The old no less than the young may be found starting new enterprises, sailing around the world, and solving arcane academic questions. But it is in the ordinary business of life that we find our excitement, not in foolish collective dreams of political perfection.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

Kenneth Minogue " The Elusive Oakeshott: Michael Oakeshott taught conservatism as practical wisdom, not philosophy http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-elusive-oakeshott/" on theamericanconservative.com, October 1, 2009.

Life , People , World , Family

“One of the conditions for the advancement of a society is having someone opposing and questioning every achievement. This is how a society creates a positive struggle that will lead to a positive change”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

Change

“It seems silly and churlish to attack others for their private beliefs, unless one is entirely convinced of the greater view that harm is caused by the persistence of that belief in society; but when pressed into engaging on the matter, I recall the question I asked myself many times until I found my own faith breaking down: Bearing in mind we can all utterly convince ourselves of things that are not true – and that therefore important truths about the universe must surely always be based on more solid foundations than what my easily fooled, fickle feelings tell me – what is it that supports this belief other than my own already-existing conviction?”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Truth , Faith , Fools , Feeling

“I am more and more engrossed with the single poetic theme of Life and Death, for there doesn't seem to be any question more directly relevant than this one of what survives of all the beloved.”

Alun Lewis (1915–1944) Welsh poet

Letter written in 1943; cited from Jeremy Hooker and Gweno Lewis (eds.) Selected Poems of Alun Lewis (London: Unwin, 1987) p. 108.

Life , Death

“It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?”

Jeff VanderMeer book City of Saints and Madmen

"The Strange Case of X", p. 196
City of Saints and Madmen (2001–2004)

World , Literature , Nature , Sense

“But I repeat my question: "Who indicates everyone's place within an elite and who sizes up everyone? Who establishes the selection and consecrates the members of the new elite?"”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

I answer: "The previous elite."
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

“The founders of the English laws have with excellent forecast contrived, that no man should be called to answer to the king for any capital crime, unless upon the preparatory accusation of twelve or more of his fellow subjects, the grand jury: and that the truth of every accusation, whether preferred in the shape of indictment, information, or appeal, should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours, indifferently chosen, and superior to all suspicion. So that the liberties of England cannot but subsist, so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, (which none will be so hardy as to make) but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it; by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial, by justices of the peace, commissioners of the revenue, and courts of conscience. And however convenient these may appear at first, (as doubtless all arbitrary powers, well executed, are the most convenient) yet let it be again remembered, that delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters; that these inroads upon this sacred bulwark of the nation are fundamentally opposite to the spirit of our constitution; and that, though begun in trifles, the precedent may gradually increase and spread, to the utter disuse of juries in questions of the most momentous concern.”

William Blackstone book Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book IV, ch. 27 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch27.asp: Of Trial, And Conviction.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

Truth , Secret , Peace , Justice

“I am not Deep Throat, and the only thing I can say is that I wouldn't be ashamed to be, because I think whoever [it was] helped the country, no question about it.”

W. Mark Felt (1913–2008) Whistleblower who exposed the Watergate scandal

The New York Times (29 August 1976)

Thinking , Help , Country

“Each of my science books said, “This is why we think this; this is how we figured it out; and this is what we still don’t know.” That I can trust. And it inspires me to contribute. Conversely, religious books claim to already know everything we’ll ever need to know, even thought they never explained everything; and you’re forbidden to question them. Instead, you should believe them without suspicion and simply because they said so (even when they have already been proven wrong). This is why the word ‘confidence man’ describes a criminal swindler. Such people should not be trusted. When is it ever wise to believe someone without question?”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Faith is not a virtue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDal8b6-X5o (June 20, 2012)

People , Books , Confidence , Thinking

“The fine art of executive decision consists in not deciding questions that are not now pertinent, in not deciding prematurely, in not making decision that cannot be made effective, and in not making decisions that others should make. Not to decide questions that are not pertinent at the time is uncommon good sense, though to raise them may be uncommon perspicacity. Not to decide questions prematurely is to refuse commitment of attitude or the development of prejudice. Not to make decisions that cannot be made effective is to refrain from destroying authority. Not to make decisions that others should make is to preserve morale, to develop competence, to fix responsibility, and to preserve authority.
From this it may be seen that decisions fall into two major classes, positive decisions - to do something, to direct action, to cease action, to prevent action; and negative decisions, which are decisions not to decide. Both are inescapable; but the negative decisions are often largely unconscious, relatively nonlogical, "instinctive," "good sense."”

Chester Barnard book The Functions of the Executive

It is because of the rejections that the selection is good.
Source: The Functions of the Executive (1938), p.194, as cited in in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 626

Art , Decision , Sense , Time

“I get paid to ask questions I don't know the answers to and to complain about the things that bother me.”

Jack Cafferty (1942) American journalist

[It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America, Wiley, 9780470144794].
2008

“Looking backward on a period which is finished, we are looking at actually realized returns, costs, etc., as those items are registered in the bookkeeping of business. In such an ex post calculation there is, as we will show later, an exact balance between the invested waiting and the value of gross investment [Phil: he appears to mean savings and investment]. Looking forward there is no such balance except under certain conditions which remain to be ascertained. In the ex ante calculus it is a question not of realized results but of anticipations, calculations, and plans driving the dynamic process forward. Had this distinction been kept in mind, much confusion about “saving and investment” would have been avoided. There is in fact no contradiction at all between the statement of an exact bookkeeping balance ex post and the obvious inference that in a situation in which saving is increasing without a corresponding increase in investment, or perhaps with an adverse movement in investment, there must be a tendency ex ante to disparity.”

Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987) Swedish economist

Source: Monetary Equilibrium (1939), p. 34

Business , Appearance , Waiting

“Putin’s proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine. He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant. As for his reign in Moscow, he is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet. Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"Let’s deal with the Devil: we should work with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Syria" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/12036184/Lets-deal-with-the-Devil-we-should-work-with-Vladimir-Putin-and-Bashar-al-Assad-in-Syria.html, The Telegraph (05 Dec 2015)
2010s, 2015

Death , Housing , Personality

“When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.”

Clive Staples Lewis book A Grief Observed

A Grief Observed (1961)

God , Peace , Understanding

“To be sure, Protestant theology presents a different, supposedly unpolitical doctrine, conceiving of God as the "wholly other," just as in political liberalism the state and politics are conceived of as the "wholly other." We have come to recognize that the political is the total, and as a result we know that any decision about whether something is unpolitical is always a political decision, irrespective of who decides and what reasons are advanced. This also holds for the question whether a particular theology is a political or an unpolitical theology.”

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) German jurist, political theorist and professor of law

Political Theology (1922), Preface to Second Edition (1934)

God , Decision

“Do you enjoy your work? Are you happy to get out of bed each morning and dress for the office? If you answered ‘no’ to either of these questions, you are not alone. In a 2014 Conference Board survey, 52 per cent of Americans claimed to be unhappy at work and in a recent CIPD study 23 per cent of Britons claimed to be looking for a new job. In the same survey only about one-third claim to feel engaged with their work. You can see the effects of this in absence, stress and depression. In fact, you can see it in the rush hour in the tired and sad-looking faces of so many commuters.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Sadness , Feeling , Study , Happiness

“The Work is merely four questions; it's not even a thing. It has no motive, no strings. It's nothing without your answers. These four questions will join any program you've got and enhance it. Any religion you have - they'll enhance it. If you have no religion, they will bring you joy. And they'll burn up anything that isn't true for you. They'll burn through to the reality that has always been waiting.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

Religion , Motivation , Reality , Waiting

“I grew up in the Bible Belt — not the buckle end, as the cliche goes, but the other end where all the holes are. You know what kind of holes. I don't mean to underestimate them, but if you laugh at these idiots enough — show them up as the phonies most of them are — they'll go away.
I'm concerned about another kind of religious fundamentalism: environmentalism. The Greenies have no more respect for scientific truth and individual liberty than the Goddies do. Both operate on faith, rather than fact. And neither of them has any qualms about dusting off the rack, the pincers, the Iron Maiden, and the red hot branding irons in order to see their mythology ensconced as beyond question.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Interview, Ari Armstrong, "Catching Up with L. Neil Smith," http://www.freecolorado.com/2006/12/lneil.html 7 December 2006.

Truth , Faith

“Very well, the starting point would be that claim of Professor Quarrey’s, which had been in the news at the beginning of the year, that the country’s greatest export was noxious gas. And who would like to stir up the fuss again? Obviously, the Canadians, cramped into a narrow band to the north of their more powerful neighbors, growing daily angrier about the dirt that drifted to them on the wind, spoiling crops, causing chest diseases and soiling laundry hung out to dry. So she’d called the magazine Hemisphere in Toronto, and the editor had immediately offered ten thousand dollars for three articles.
Very conscious that all calls out of the country were apt to be monitored, she’d put the proposition to him in highly general terms: the risk of the Baltic going the same way as the Mediterranean, the danger of further dust-bowl like the Mekong Desert, the effects of bringing about climactic change. That was back in the news—the Russians had revised their plan to reverse the Yenisei and Ob. Moreover, there was the Danube problem, worse than the Rhine had ever been, and Welsh nationalists were sabotaging pipelines meant to carry “their” water into England, and the border war in West Pakistan had been dragging on so long most people seemed to have forgotten that it concerned a river.
And so on.
Almost as soon as she started digging, though, she thought she might never be able to stop. It was out of the question to cover the entire planet. Her pledged total of twelve thousand words would be exhausted by North American material alone.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

June “A PLACE TO STAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

War , People , Disease , Way

“A good doctor pursues his calling without any regard to a bad result. Otherwise, teaching in medical school might be called into question and where would we be then?”

Alain-René Lesage (1668–1747) French writer

La Tontine (1709)

School

“Although textbooks (and professors) like to make definite statements indicating that they know what they are talking about, there is in fact a great deal of uncertainty and ambiguity in the world. …we will not evade this question but rather explore (overexplore?) it. …great progress is often made when what was long believed to be true is now seen to be perhaps not the whole truth. Thus the text often uses words… to cause you to think about the uncertainess and even the arbitrariness of much of our current conventions and definitions, to ponder about your acceptance of them.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)

Truth , World , Thinking

“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God — the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Who Stands Fast?, p. 5.

Life , God , People , Faith

“Most things that we and the people around us do constantly… have come to seem so natural and inevitable that merely to pose the question, 'Why are we doing this?' can strike us as perplexing – and also, perhaps, a little unsettling. On general principle, it is a good idea to challenge ourselves in this way about anything we have come to take for granted; the more habitual, the more valuable this line of inquiry.”

Alfie Kohn (1957) American author and lecturer

Punished by Rewards

People , Way , Idea , Nature

“Whatever question there may be of his [Thoreau's] talent, there can be none, I think, of his genius. It was a slim and crooked one; but it was eminently personal. He was imperfect, unfinished, inartistic; he was worse than provincial — he was parochial; it is only at his best that he is readable.”

Henry James book Hawthorne

Hawthorne, ch. IV: Brook Farm and Concord.

Thinking , Personality

“In his recent book, 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real', famed Slovenian socialist intellectual Slavoj Zizek tackles the Palestinian question in a most unoriginal manner. What concerns him most is not the foundational racism of Zionism and its concrete offspring, a racist Jewish state, nor the racist curricula of Israeli Jewish schools, the racist Israeli Jewish media representations of Palestinians, the racist declarations of Israeli Jewish leaders on the right and on the left, or the Jewish supremacist rights and privileges guiding Zionism and Israeli state laws and policies -- all of which seem of little concern to him -- but rather Arab 'anti-Semitism' which should not be 'tolerated.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Arabs are in fact reacting to Zionist Jewish colonialism and its commitment to European white supremacy in Jewish guise.
Ibid.
"The legacy of Jean-Paul Sartre"

Books , School , Law

“In enterprise modelling, we want to define the actions performed within an enterprise, and define constraints for plans and schedules which are constructed to satisfy the goals of the enterprise. This leads to the following set of informal competency questions:”

Mark S. Fox (1952) Canadian computer scientist and Professor of Industrial Engineering

Temporal projection - Given a set of actions that occur at different points in the future, what are the properties of resources and activities at arbitrary points in time?
Planning and scheduling - what sequence of activities must be completed to achieve some goal? At what times must these activities be initiated and terminated?
Execution monitoring and external events - What are the effects of the occurrence of external and unexpected events (such as machine breakdown or the unavailability of resources) on a plan or schedule?
Time-based competition - we want to design an enterprise that minimizes the cycle time for a product. This is essentially the task of finding a minimum duration plan that minimizes action occurrences and maximizes concurrency of activities.
Source: Methodology for the Design and Evaluation of Ontologies (1995), p. 3-4

“It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

After the devastation of Dresden by aerial bombing, and the resulting fire storm (February 1945). Quoted in Where the Right Went Wrong (2004) by Patrick J Buchanan, p. 119 ISBN 0312341156
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“One young lady asserted that she had never looked at any of the cards in the cars in which she had been riding for years. When questioned further, it appeared that she knew by heart almost every advertisement appearing on the line (Chicago and Evanston line), and that the goods advertised had won her highest esteem. She was not aware of the fact that she had been studying the advertisements, and flatly resented the suggestion that she had been influenced by them. Some of the goods advertised were known to her only by these advertisements, yet she supposed that they had nothing to do with her esteem of the goods. She supposed that she had always known them, that they were used in her home, or that they had been recommended to her. She did not remember when she had first heard of them.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: The Psychology of Advertising in Theory and Practice, 1908, p. 370-371

Cars , Home , Study , Appearance

“All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?”

Immanuel Kant book Critique of Pure Reason

B 832-833
Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)

Hope , Hope

“My only source of instruction has always been the study of works, whether of the past or contemporary artists, which can offer us an answer to our questions if we formulate these properly... I would never be of much use as a guide or instructor, nor have I ever wanted to be one, even when I have been asked to undertake the job [still, Morandi was art professor - etchings - at the Art Academy of Bologna for many years].”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

the text of this interview was later examined by Morandi and approved in the English translation
interview with Edouard Roditi, in 'Dialogues in Art', 1960; as quoted in Morandi 1894 – 1964, published by Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco - 2008; p. 250
1945 - 1964

Art , Study , Past

“To be clear: there is no question that postmodernism has advanced the struggle against all forms of oppression, including the oppression experienced by trans people, those with disabilities or who face age discrimination, and many other forms of oppression that were neglected before postmodernist theories began to flourish in the 1980s and 1990s…. At the same time, however, postmodernism also arose as a blanket rejection of political generalization, and categories of s and material realities, referred to as "truths," "totalities," and "universalities"--in the name of espousing "anti-essentialism." (To be sure, such a blanket rejection of political generalization is itself a political generalization--which is an inherent contradiction of postmodernist thought!)”

Sharon Smith (writer) (1956) American historian

A Marxist Case For Intersectionality (2017)

People , Truth , Age , Reality

“It is characteristic of the Oxford school of criticism to understand these [metaphysical] fallacies as logical non sequiturs—as though philosophers throughout the centuries had been, for reasons unknown, just a bit too stupid to discover the elementary flaws in their arguments. The truth of the matter is that elementary logical mistakes are quite rare in the history of philosophy; what appear to be errors in logic to minds disencumbered of questions that have been uncritically dismissed as “meaningless” are usually caused by semblances, unavoidable for beings whose whole existence is determined by appearance. Hence, In our context the only relevant question is whether the semblances are inauthentic or authentic ones, whether they are caused by dogmatic beliefs and arbitrary assumptions, mere mirages that disappear upon closer inspection, or whether they are inherent in the paradoxical condition of a living being that, though itself part of the world of appearances, is in possession of a faculty, the ability to think, that permits the mind to withdraw from the world without ever being able to leave it or transcend it.”

Hannah Arendt book The Life of the Mind

Source: The Life of the Mind (1971/1978), p. 45.

Truth , Stupidity , World , School

Quotes about doubt page 36

Quotes about doubt
page 36