Quotes about doubt
page 51

“If sin must be kept alive, then hell must be kept alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to see the essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to deserve such punishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of the duration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; and would only say in passing, that the notion that a creature born imperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could not help having, a creature to whom the true face of God was never presented, and by whom it never could have been seen, should be thus condemned, is as loathsome a lie against God as could find place in heart too undeveloped to understand what justice is, and too low to look up into the face of Jesus.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

From ‘’Justice’’ in Unspoken Sermons Series III (1889)

God, Hell, Justice, Understanding

“CHARLIE ROSE: Let me rephrase the question, then. Is there anybody that you know who you respect who comes to a different conclusion than you do?”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes from Interviews

“Rush Limbaugh, who has made a career preaching that anybody who does drugs has got to go right to jail -- do not pass go, no questions asked, right to jail -- gets caught doing thirty oxycontin a day.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Thirty oxycontin?! Do you have any idea how high that is?! I don't, and I've been pretty high!
I'm Swiss (2005)

“Now, what is a myth? The dictionary definition of a myth would be stories about gods. So then you have to ask the next question: What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe - the powers if your own body and of nature.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth (book), p. 28

God, Nature, Universe, Motivation

“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know?”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.
from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

People, Learning, Search

“The enormous privileges given to Brahmins by the Vedas were sacrosanct only as long as they went unchallenged. The challenge rose in the Tamil country like a whirlwind spearheaded by an iconoclast who questioned the Vedas and the gods as well. He took apparently extremist positions on some issues, but the fundamental nature of the social revolution he wrought was clear even to its victims. The political perspectives of Tamil Nadu and with it much of India, were altered with as seeming finality by Ramaswamy Naicker.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) Tamil politician and social reformer

Quoted from "Makers of Millennium India" in Express Publications in Fuzzy and Neutrosophic Analysis of Periyar's Views on Untouchability by W. B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Florentin Smarandache, K. Kandasamy http://books.google.co.in/books?id=hgb-MKcsSR0C&pg=PA380, p. 103. About Periyar

God, Country, Nature

“Very often we will have the impression of having reached the end of the task, because we will find (or they will bring us) similar hairs of the one we seek; but since it is not known of any case where a hair has a knot in the middle without human hand intervention, we will almost always end up with the knot in question being a mere thickening of the caliber of the hair (although we do not know of any similar case) or a deposit of some silicate or any oxide produced by a long stay against a wet surface. It is probable that we will advance in this way through various sections of major and minor pipes, until we reach that place where no one will decide to penetrate: the main drain heading in the direction of the river, the torrential meeting of detritus in which no money, no boat, no bribe will allow us to continue the search.”

Julio Cortázar book Historias de cronopios y de famas

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money, Way, Search

“Which brings us again, after this long way about, to Jane Austen and her novels, and that troublesome question about them. She was great and they were beautiful, because she and they were honest, and dealt with nature nearly a hundred years ago as realism deals with it to-day. Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material, and Jane Austen was the first and the last of the English novelists to treat material with entire truthfulness. Because she did this, she remains the most artistic of the English novelists, and alone worthy to be matched with the great Scandinavian and Slavic and Latin artists.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

William Dean Howells, Criticism and Fiction (1891), Chapter 15

Beauty, Nature, Truth, Way

“Why do the characters in Jane Austen give us a slightly new pleasure each time they come in, as opposed to the merely repetitive pleasure that is caused by a character in Dickens? Why do they combine so well in a conversation, and draw one another out, without seeming to do so, and never perform? The answer to this question can be put in several ways; that, unlike Dickens, she was a real artist, that she never stooped to caricature, etc. But the best reply is that her characters, though smaller than his, are more highly organized. They function all round, and even if her plot made greater demands on them than it does, they would still be adequate.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

E.M. Forster, Aspects of The Novel (1927)

Drawing, Time, Pleasure, Way

“This is a reflection sad but important to the modern Governments now fallen anarchic, That they had not spiritual talent enough. And if this is so, then surely the question, How these Governments came to sink for want of intellect? is a rather interesting one. Intellect, in some measure, is born into every Century; and the Nineteenth flatters itself that it is rather distinguished that way!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

Way, Sadness

“Insurrections!—The world, with its Wealth of Nations, Supply-and-demand and such like, has of late days been terribly inattentive to that question of work and wages. We will not say, the poor world has retrograded even here: we will say rather, the world has been rushing on with such fiery animation to get work and ever more work done, it has had no time to think of dividing the wages; and has merely left them to be scrambled for by the Law of the Stronger, law of Supply-and-demand, law of Laissez-faire, and other idle Laws and Un-laws.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Time, Law, Wealth, Animals

“For Men of Letters, as for all other sorts of men. How to regulate that struggle? There is the whole question. To leave it as it is, at the mercy of blind Chance; a whirl of distracted atoms, one cancelling the other; one of the thousand arriving saved, nine hundred and ninety-nine lost by the way; your royal Johnson languishing inactive in garrets, or harnessed to the yoke of Printer Cave; your Burns dying broken-hearted as a Gauger; your Rousseau driven into mad exasperation, kindling French Revolutions by his paradoxes: this, as we said, is clearly enough the worst regulation. The best, alas, is far from us!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters

Chance, Heart, Way, Madness

“With a zero sum game, it almost always ends up being a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Both people involved will perceive the other to have started it.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Game, People

“Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion. Whether you think it deeply unjust, lamentable but inevitable, or obvious and unproblematic, this is hardly news. It is true in most societies and has been true in the United States for at least as long as we have thought to ask the question and had sufficient data to verify the answer.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

School, Family, Children, Thinking

“A sane society would be asking questions about the very nature of a society and culture that creates so much trauma for children.... We live in a society that prioritizes profits for large corporations and power for large institutions. We live in a society in which, for example, the cause of depression and suicide has been, for decades, falsely attributed by psychiatry and Big Pharma to a chemical imbalance theory long known to be untrue—an untruth that has made billions of dollars for drug companies and increased power for psychiatry through increased use of antidepressants which are known to actually increase suicide... just one of many examples that we do not live in a sane society.”

Bruce E. Levine American psychologist

The Groundbreaking Public Health Study That Should Change U.S. Society—But Won’t https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/19/the-groundbreaking-public-health-study-that-should-change-u-s-society-but-wont/, (19 July 2019)

Children, Nature, Falseness, Suicide

“All types of conniving methods are still being used to keep Negroes from becoming registered voters. Complex literacy tests are often given, with questions that a Ph. D. in any field or a person with a law degree from any great law university in the world could not answer to the even more difficult question of, how many bubbles do you find on a bar of soap? They tell me that occasionally they will ask that question in Mississippi and Alabama. And there are still millions of Negroes who are not registered to vote because of these methods being used.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Law, Personality, Universe, World

“There is also need for leadership and concern on the part of white people of good will in the North, if this problem is to be solved. Genuine liberalism on the question of race. And what we too often find in the North is a sort of quasi-liberalism based on the principle of looking objectively at all sides, and it is a liberalism that gets so involved in looking at all sides, that it doesn’t get committed to either side. It is a liberalism that is so objectively analytical that it fails to get subjectively committed. It is a liberalism that is neither hot nor cold but lukewarm. And we must come to see that his problem in the United States is not a sectional problem, but a national problem. No section of our country can boast of clean hands in the area of brotherhood. It is one thing for a white person of good will in the North to rise up with righteous indignation when a bus is burned in Anniston, Alabama, with freedom riders, or when a nasty mob assembles around a University of Mississippi, and even goes to the point of killing and injuring people to keep one Negro out of the university, or when a Negro is lynched or churches burned in the South; but that same person of good will must rise up with the same righteous indignation when a Negro in his state or in his city cannot live in a particular neighborhood because of the color of his skin, or cannot join a particular academic society or fraternal order or sorority because of the color of his or her skin, or cannot get a particular job in a particular firm because her happens to be a Negro. In other words, a genuine liberalism will see that the problem can exist even in one’s front and back yard, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Justice, Freedom, Country, Personality

“The Mexicans are a good people. They live on little and work hard. They suffer from the influence of the Church, which, while I was in Mexico at least, was as bad as could be. The Mexicans were good soldiers, but badly commanded. The country is rich, and if the people could be assured a good government, they would prosper. See what we have made of Texas and California — empires. There are the same materials for new empires in Mexico. I have always had a deep interest in Mexico and her people, and have always wished them well. I suppose the fact that I served there as a young man, and the impressions the country made upon my young mind, have a good deal to do with this. When I was in London, talking with Lord Beaconsfield, he spoke of Mexico. He said he wished to heaven we had taken the country, that England would not like anything better than to see the United States annex it. I suppose that will be the future of the country. Now that slavery is out of the way there could be no better future for Mexico than absorption in the United States. But it would have to come, as San Domingo tried to come, by the free will of the people. I would not fire a gun to annex territory. I consider it too great a privilege to belong to the United States for us to go around gunning for new territories. Then the question of annexation means the question of suffrage, and that becomes more and more serious every day with us. That is one of the grave problems of our future.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

On Mexicans and Mexico's future, pp. 448–449 https://archive.org/details/aroundworldgrant02younuoft/page/n4 1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879)

Country, Bad luck, Future, Suffering

“Our party is for the building of the temple to Lord Ram, and we should, if possible, work towards an amicable settlement which, while upholding the principles of secularism, enables the construction of the temple to start, with the approval and support of all concerned. ... The key issue appears to be whether or not there was a temple erected to Lord Ram at the site where the Babri Masjid stands today. This question of historical fact would appear to hold the key to a resolution of the problem to the satisfaction of all reasonable, secular-minded persons of all communities.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

Rajiv Gandhi 1990, [cit. Indian Express, 2 Dec. 1990, repr. Aggarwal & Chowdhry 1991:123]. Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2012). The argumentative Hindu. New Delhi : Aditya Prakashan. Chapter: Ayodhya’s three history debates.
Quote

Support, Personality, Communication, Problem

“Among the most momentous questions that every thinking person asks are: Where do we come from? Who are we? And where do we go at death?...It is questions like these that occur to the thinking mind when it also reflects upon the nature, origin, and destiny of the worlds which bestrew the spaces of infinitude. Whence came they? What are they? What is their destiny? They are questions which must have answers. The mere fact that these things are, shows that there are answers to be had somewhere.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 1

Personality, Nature, Thinking, World

“The strength of the doctrine of reincarnation lies in itself, in its appeal to our intellectual and logical faculties, in its own persuasiveness, in the manner in which it answers problems, in the hope that it gives, in the light that it sheds upon collateral questions of human life, and indirectly upon the problems of the physical world surrounding us. It is through and by reincarnation as a natural fact, that we learn the beauty of the inner life and thereby grow, developing a larger comprehension, not only of ourselves, but of the loveliness inherent in the harmony of the universal laws. For there is back of all things beauty, and bliss, and truth.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 10

Law, Light, Beauty, Hope

“It is a question of relativity. In order to understand it more clearly we must cleanse our minds of old ideas instilled into us by false education, both religious and scientific, and philosophic too”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Ch 2
Man in Evolution (1941)

Understanding, Falseness, Education, Idea

“In general, the best thing to do when you suspect people of trying to distract you from the truth is not to actively confront them in the beginning, but in fact to encourage them to continue by showing interest in what they are saying or doing. You want them to talk more, to reveal more signs of tension and contrivance. At the right moment you must surprise them with a question or remark that is designed to make them uncomfortable, revealing you are onto them. Pay attention to the microexpressions and body language they emit at such moments. If they are really deceiving, they will often have a freeze response as they take this in, and then quickly try to mask the underlying anxiety. This was the favorite strategy of detective Columbo in the television series of the same name—facing criminals who had tried to reverse engineer the evidence to make it look like someone else had done it, Columbo would pretend to be perfectly friendly and harmless but then would suddenly ask an uncomfortable question and then pay extra attention to the face and body.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Truth, Making love, People

“As part of this experiment we must not only accept human nature but work with what we have to make it productive. We inevitably feel the need for status and recognition, so let’s not deny it. Instead, let’s cultivate such status and recognition through our excellent work. We must accept our need to belong to the group and prove our loyalty, but let’s do it in more positive ways—by questioning group decisions that will harm it in the long run, by supplying divergent opinions, by steering the group in a more rational direction, gently and strategically.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 14 : Resist the Downward Pull of the Group
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Nature, Decision, Way, Loyalty

“There’s no question. My biggest enemies are the hard left. The hard left poses a far greater danger to the American future than the hard right. I’m not worried about a few dozen people with Swastikas who want to replace the Jews, because they’re our past. They have no resonance on the University campuses today. But the hard, hard left? Anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity, intolerance for speech, it’s the future. These are our leaders… And that’s why we have to worry much more about what’s going on, on university campuses, than in Charlottesville.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Interview by Dennis Prager in No Safe Spaces 2019 documentary. Clip from film published on Feb 12, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc86fPirz3A

Past, Future, People, Universe

“The prosecution is perfectly happy to have the truth of guilt come out but it, too, has a truth to hide: it wants to make sure the process by which the evidence was obtained is not truthfully presented, because, as often as not, that process will raise questions.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

U.S. News & World Report (August 9, 1982)

Truth, Making love, Happiness

“The national question is not a phantasm of capitalist modernity. Nevertheless it was capitalist modernity which imposed the national question on society. The national society replaced religious community. However, the transition to a national society needs to overcome capitalist modernity if the nation is not to remain a disguise for repressive monopolies.”

Abdullah Öcalan (1949) Founder of the PKK

The Political Thought of Abdullah Ocalan (2017), Democratic Confederalism

Communication

Abdullah Öcalan (1949) Founder of the PKK

Source: The Political Thought of Abdullah Ocalan (2017), Democratic Confederalism, p. 47

Communication

“Fear is not something to be ashamed of. We cannot condemn fear without simultaneously condemning the fact that we are alive. It is part of being alive. Fear is valuable. Take every opportunity where you feel fear, to step into the feeling of the fear, explore it. Bring awareness to it. And question it fully.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Fear, Feeling, Parting

“Productivity can only be the result of inspiration. When one is inspired, the productivity takes no effort. Manifestation and fruition is the quick and natural byproduct of being in the flow of creation. Creation is the result of inspiration. Inspiration ensures that any action we take, is backed by universal energy, the same energy that creates worlds. So the real question is not how do I become more productive, it is how do I become more inspired?”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Nature, Universe, World, Effort

“[My father] impressed upon me from the first, that the manner in which the world came into existence was a subject on which nothing was known: that the question, “Who made me?””

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

cannot be answered, because we have no experience or authentic information from which to answer it; and that any answer only throws the difficulty a step further back, since the question immediately presents itself, “Who made God?”
Source: Autobiography (1873), Ch. 2: Moral Influences in Early Youth. My Father's Character and Opinions.

World

“Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an eye?"”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye.
Part 2: "The Virus of Faith"
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

“Our ethics and our politics assume, largely without question or serious discussion, that the division between human and 'animal' is absolute. 'Pro-life', to take just one example, is a potent political badge, associated with a gamut of ethical issues such as opposition to abortion and euthanasia.
What it really means is pro-human-life. Abortion clinic bombers are not known for their veganism, nor do Roman Catholics show any particular reluctance to have their suffering pets 'put to sleep'. In the minds of many confused people, a single-celled human zygote, which has no nerves and cannot suffer, is infinitely sacred, simply because it is 'human.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

No other cells enjoy this exalted status. But such 'essentialism' is deeply un-evolutionary. If there were a heaven in which all the animals who ever lived could frolic, we would find an interbreeding continuum between every species and every other. For example I could interbreed with a female who could interbreed with a male who could ... fill in a few gaps, probably not very many in this case ... who could interbreed with a chimpanzee. We could construct longer, but still unbroken chains of interbreeding individuals to connect a human with a warthog, a kangaroo, a catfish. This is not a matter of speculative conjecture; it necessarily follows from the fact of evolution. A successful hybridisation between a human and a chimpanzee. Even if the hybrid were infertile like a mule, the shock waves that would be sent through society would be salutary. This is why a distinguished biologist described this possibility as the most immoral scientific experiment he could imagine: it would change everything! It cannot be ruled out as impossible, but it would be surprising. Richard Dawkins Chimpanzee Hybrid? The Guardian, Jan 2009 https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jan/02/richard-dawkins-chimpanzee-hybrid?commentpage=2

Sleep, Suffering, People, Animals

“Well, what if I'm wrong, I mean — anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot. You happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in a Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings, you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up and ask me the question, "What if I'm wrong?"”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

What if you're wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea? Answering audience questions after a reading of The God Delusion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Posed question: "This is probably going to be the most simplest one for you to answer, but: What if you're wrong?"

God, Faith, Time, Mountain

“Don’t ever be lazy enough, defeatist enough, cowardly enough to say “I don't understand it so it must be a miracle - it must be supernatural - God did it”. Say instead, that it’s a puzzle, it’s strange, it’s a challenge that we should rise to. Whether we rise to the challenge by questioning the truth of the observation, or by expanding our science in new and exciting directions - the proper and brave response to any such challenge is to tackle it head-on. And until we've found a proper answer to the mystery, it's perfectly ok simply to say “this is something we don't yet understand - but we're working on it.””

Richard Dawkins book The Magic of Reality

It's the only honest thing to do. Miracles, magic and myths, they can be fun. Everybody likes a good story. Myths are fun, as long as you don't confuse them with the truth. The real truth has a magic of its own. The truth is more magical, in the best and most exciting sense of the word, than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic - the magic of reality. Duke University, 01/03/2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcOoqxuroI&t=54m51s The Magic Of Reality (2012)

God, Understanding, Truth, Science

“Conformity to nature has no connection whatever with right and wrong. The idea can never be fitly introduced into ethical discussions at all, except, occasionally and partially, into the question of degrees of culpability. To illustrate this point, let us consider the phrase by which the greatest intensity of condemnatory feeling is conveyed in connection with the idea of nature - the word "unnatural."”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

That a thing is unnatural, in any precise meaning which can be attached to the word, is no argument for its being blamable; since the most criminal actions are to a being like man not more unnatural than most of the virtues.
Source: On Nature (1874), p. 102

Nature, Idea, Feeling

“My theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. "Would you hit a woman with a child?”

E.E. Cummings book EIMI

No, I'd hit her with a brick." Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement.
EIMI (1933)

Quotes

“The Church, poor old benighted creature, had at least taken care of that: the noble aspiring soul, not doomed to choke ignobly in its penuries, could at least run into the neighboring Convent, and there take refuge. Education awaited it there; strict training not only to whatever useful knowledge could be had from writing and reading, but to obedience, to pious reverence, self-restraint, annihilation of self,—really to human nobleness in many most essential respects. No questions asked about your birth, genealogy, quantity of money-capital or the like; the one question was, "Is there some human nobleness in you, or is there not?"”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

The poor neat-herd's son, if he were a Noble of Nature, might rise to Priesthood, to High-priesthood, to the top of this world,—and best of all, he had still high Heaven lying high enough above him, to keep his head steady, on whatever height or in whatever depth his way might lie!
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

Money, Soul, Reading, Knowledge

“If you’re told that’s how you behave in order to survive and flourish, then you actually question far less in your 20s and 30s because you think: ‘Oh, nothing’s as bad as that.’ So it’s a real issue. No one wants their teenage daughter thinking that’s what you should expect from your life.”

Saffron Burrows (1972) English actress, model and writer

On women starting out young in the modeling or film industry in “Saffron Burrows: ‘I was raised to feel like I could love who I wanted’” https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/feb/19/saffron-burrows-i-was-raised-to-feel-like-i-could-love-who-i-wanted in The Guardian (2020 Feb 19)

Bad luck, Daughters, Thinking, Life

“Indeed I reply in a single word to the sentiments of the saints on these questions about nature; in theology, to be sure, the force of authorities is to be weighed, in philosophy, however, that of causes. Therefore, a saint is Lactantius, who denied the rotundity of the earth; a saint is Augustine, who, admitting the rotundity, yet denied the antipodes; worthy of sainthood is the dutiful performance of moderns who, admitting the meagreness of the earth, yet deny its motion. But truth is more saintly for me, who demonstrate by philosophy, without violating my due respect for the doctors of the church, that the earth is both round and inhabited at the antipodes, and of the most despicable size, and finally is moved among the stars.”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Translation by Burtt, ibid., Vol. III. p. 156
Secondary works, Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)

Truth, Star, Nature

“History is a powerful subject which can be used to create a true historical consciousness. Unfortunately, it can also he misused and we often sec how politician distort it to whip up the emotion of people in older to achieve their political agenda. As they have a large following their version of history becomes popular among their followers. If not corrected the falsification of history is accepted as the absolute truth. This reaise the question whether historians should challenge the popular emotions of the people and correct historical facts or keep silent and let the falsification go on unchecked.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

What History Tells Us, Chapter: Task of the Historian, p. 25
History, What History Tells Us

Truth, People, History

“Our questions and answers are in part determined by the historical tradition in which we find ourselves. We apprehend truth from our own source within the historical tradition.
The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophising is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

On My Philosopy (1941)

Time, Dependency, Past, Truth

“Men were not created in order to obey laws. Laws are created to obey men. They are established by men and should serve men. The laws and rules which officials inflict upon poor people prevent them from functioning harmoniously in society. There is no disagreements about this function of law in any circle-the disagreement arises from the question of which men laws are to serve. Such lawmakers ignore the fact that it is the duty of the poor and unrepresented to construct rules and laws that serve their interest better. Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation.”

Huey P. Newton (1942–1989) Co-founder of the Black Panther Party

"In Defense of Self-defense" I (June 20, 1967)
To Die For The People

Men, People, Law

“You can tell you’ve found a really interesting question when nobody wants you to answer it.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 8 (p. 92)

“To an atheist […], there is no all-seeing all-loving god to keep us free from harm. But atheism is not a recipe for despair. I think the opposite. By disclaiming the idea of the next life, we can take more excitement in this one. The here and now is not something to be endured before eternal bliss or damnation. The here and now is all we have, an inspiration to make the most of it. So atheism is life-affirming, in a way religion can never be. Look around you. Nature demands our attention, begs us to explore, to question. Religion can provide only facile, ultimately unsatisfying answers. Science, in constantly seeking real explanations, reveals the true majesty of our world in all its complexity. People sometimes say "There must be more than just this world, than just this life."”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

But how much more do you want? We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they’re never going to be born. The number of people who could be here, in my place, outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here, the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world. End of the part 2: "The Virus of Faith" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMUG6qd98wc The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

Despair, God, Love, Religion

“People in Hong Kong still believe in democracy – the big question after the Umbrella Movement is how we can achieve it.”

Benny Tai (1964) Hong Kong activist and writer

"There will be darker times ahead for Hong Kong but the sun will rise again" (April 19, 2019)

Democracy, People

“While others make obtuse remarks about the state of our roads and some turn into anthropological visitors who come to ogle the condition of our people, we cannot stand by as a society and do nothing. We have an obligation to answer this difficult question of poverty and also do something about it. First, we need to understand poverty in a very basic way and how it is impacting our society.”

Samuel Sejjaaka (1964) Ugandan businessman

When our potholes, poverty become tourist attractions https://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-potholes-poverty-tourist-attractions-politicians/689364-5472846-14ittep/index.html (February 29, 2020), Daily Monitor.

Understanding, People, Way, Making love

“Undoubtedly, even for enlightened men, however determined they may be, it is very difficult to go against the system. The question posed today is what must we do to prevent ourselves from being taken over by the system? Engaging in political or economic conflict does not seem to be the answer.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Zen Keys (1994), p. 150

Men

“The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism’s nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Thinking

“We know all the people. We know all the good people. It's a question I asked the doctors before. Some of the people we cut, they haven't been used for many, many years, and if we ever need them, we can get them very quickly. And rather than spending the money — I'm a businessperson, I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need 'em, when we need 'em, we can get them back very quickly.”

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

Asked about his consistent budget cuts to the CDC, the NIH, and the WHO.

White House press conference, , quoted in * 2020-02-28

As the World Reaches for Face Masks, Trump Buries His Head in the Sand

Jonathan Chait

New York Magazine

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/trump-coronavirus-response.html
2020s, 2020, February

Money, People

“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?”

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

p 43
Costly Grace (1937)

Fight, Religion, Forgiveness

“Every questioning is a seeking. Every seeking takes its direction beforehand from what is sought. Questioning is a knowing search for beings in their thatness and whatness.”

Martin Heidegger book Being and Time

Introduction: The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being (Stambaugh translation)
Being and Time (1927)

“But in fact there is no circle at all in the formulation of our question. Beings can be determined in their being without the explicit concept of the meaning of being having to be already available. If this were not so there could not have been as yet any ontological knowledge. And probably no one would deny the factual existence of such knowledge. It is true that "being" is "presupposed" in all previous ontology, but not as an available concept-not as the sort of thing we are seeking.”

Martin Heidegger book Being and Time

Introduction: The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being (Stambaugh translation)
Being and Time (1927)

Knowledge

“Now it is all over. The great work is accomplished. And the results of the work!... Get all you can, gorge yourselves, grow a fat paunch; it is no longer a question of being a great people, of being a powerful people, of being a free nation, of casting a bright light; France no longer sees its way to that.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Napoleon the Little (1852), Book V, IX
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Way, Light, People

“I preside over a government that is made up of three independent parties who have built consensus around the issues we will collectively pursue. The fact that we will work together collaboratively does not diminish the identities of those parties. There are a number of reasons why confidence and supply is a form of arrangement that will suit the needs of particular parties and why others will prefer coalition. I have no trouble, and I do not question my role or authority simply by allowing a party to speak to that issue themselves.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

On why the Greens are outside of cabinet.
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Self-confidence, Confidence

“I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants;
but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 42 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up Couplets

Love, Making love

“DESOLATE are the mansions of the fair, the stations in Minia, where they rested, and those where they fixed their abodes! Wild are the hills of Goul, and deserted is the summit of Rijaam.
The canals of Rayaan are destroyed: the remains of them are laid bare and smoothed by the floods, like characters engraved on the solid rocks.
Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!
The rainy constellations of spring have made their hills green and luxuriant: the drops from the thunder-clouds have drenched them with profuse as well as with gentle showers:
Showers, from every nightly cloud, from every cloud veiling the horizon at day-break, and from every evening cloud, responsive with hoarse murmurs.
Here the wild eringo-plants raise their tops: here the antelopes bring forth their young, by the sides of the valley: and here the ostriches drop their eggs.
The large-eyed wild-cows lie suckling their young, a few days old—their young, who will soon become a herd on the plain.
The torrents have cleared the rubbish, and disclosed the traces of habitations, as the reeds of a writer restore effaced letters in a book;
Or as the black dust, sprinkled over the varied marks on a fair hand, brings to view with a brighter tint the blue stains of woad.
I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants; but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41-42. First Stanza, lines 1-10 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881)

Spring, Lie, Books, Love

“There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands,
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

Time, Indecision, Tea

“My hope is that... I will open Democrats' and other progressives' eyes to the many values shared by the Left and Right... like the desire to end corporate welfare and convert to a renewable energy (solar) economy. ...the way to defeat Trump... is to embrace (not marginalize) issues such as raising the minimum wage. ...It is a question of do or just further fade away.”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

To the Ramparts (2018)

Way, Hope

“I am interested in how we interrogate architecture in terms of its social functions and meanings. Architectural historians writing on eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain have tended to see social history as the answer to this question. But the social history of architecture or the histories of specific social groups which operated in and around the architecture or building(s), or indeed the spaces created by them or for them, provide only a backdrop or loose historical context.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 4 : A class performance : Social histories of architecture

History

“‘Architecture’ may at first appear to be a more fixed and finite term. It has a threedimensional, tangible, useable form. But questions remain about what can be considered architecture and what cannot, and by this I mean that we usually understand architecture to incorporate aesthetic as well as functional consideration into its structure. Anything that does not fall into this category can be described as ‘just a building’. This may seem too simple. Can architecture be determined solely by the use of refined architectural style – high or polite architecture instead of vernacular?”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 1 : Reading the past : What is architectural history?

Appearance, Understanding

“One can and should debate whether the tests in question are appropriate for the purposes at hand, but one shouldn’t be surprised when normal curves behave normally.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 2, “Local, Social, and Business Issues” Chapter 11, “Company Charged with Ethnic Bias in Hiring” (p. 61)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

“It’s time to let the secret out: mathematics is not primarily a matter of plugging numbers into formulas and performing rote computations. It is a way of thinking and questioning that may be unfamiliar to many of us, but is available to almost all of us.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Introduction (p. 3)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Time, Thinking, Secret, Mathematics

“What is the question, to which this is the answer?”

Nancy Kopell (1942) American mathematician

In an interview on DSweb. https://dsweb.siam.org/The-Magazine/Article/interview-with-nancy-kopell Also quoted by Alexandros Gelastopoulos in Synchronization properties and functional implications of parietal beta1 rhythm. https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/38796 Doctoral dissertation, Boston University (2019). Preface.

“[Q: Very simple question; does the buck stop with you? And on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your response to this crisis?] I'd rate it a 10. I think we've done a great job. And it started with the fact that we kept a very highly infected country, despite all of the—even the professionals saying no, it's too early to do that, we were very, very early with respect to China. And we would have a whole different situation in this country if we didn't do that. I would rate it a very, very—I would rate ourselves and—and the professionals—I think the professionals have done a fantastic job.”

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

Coronavirus task force press briefing, , quoted in * 2020-03-16

Trump: I'd Rate My Response To Coronavirus a 10

Ian Schwartz

RealClearPolitics

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/16/trump_id_rate_my_response_to_coronavirus_a_10.html
2020s, 2020, March

Thinking, Country

“The clever part is that it changes the question from, Who should I believe? to, What should I do? After all, the physical world is unaffected by our beliefs. It reacts only to our actions.”

Greg Craven American teacher and writer

Source: What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate (2009), Chapter 1 "The Decision Grid" (p. 19)

World, Change, Parting

“However, the question who built Taj Mahal no longer remains a mystery. Surely it was not built by Shah Jahan but by architects, calligraphers, masons, stone-cutters, and metal workers and ordinary laborers who built it and made it a symbol of creative mind of the Indian society.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

In Search of History, Chapter: Conspiring against Taj Mahal, p. 47
History, Architecture

“Of course, everybody says they're for peace. Hitler was for peace. Everybody is for peace. The question is: "What kind of peace?"”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1960s–1980s, 1980s, Talk at University of California, Berkeley, 1984

Peace

“Humans already massively intervene in Nature, whether through habitat destruction, captive breeding programs for big cats, "rewilding", etc. So the question is not whether humans should "interfere", but rather what ethical principles should govern our interventions.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

" The Antispeciesist Revolution https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/pearce20130726", Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 26 Jul. 2013

Cats, Nature

“I simply don't think it is reasonable to use IQ tests to produce results of questionable value, which may then serve to justify racists in their own minds and to help bring about the kinds of tragedies we have already witnessed earlier in this century.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"Alas, All Human" in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
General sources

Thinking, Help

“If my years as a shatterling had taught me anything, it was that not all questions had answers. Societies had reduced themselves to radioactive dust because they could not accept that single unpalatable truth.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Source: House of Suns (2008), Chapter 8 (pp. 84-85)

Truth

“The question is: do you trust me? Sometimes.”

Alastair Reynolds book Pushing Ice

Bella smiled. “That’s exactly the right attitude: trust your leaders, but be careful not to trust them too much.”
Source: Pushing Ice (2005), Chapter 27 (p. 397)

“This premise -- that technology only came to promote progress -- puts us in great danger since there is no questioning of its functionality, problem-solving, advantages and disadvantages. Without consciousness of the use of digital technologies, we end up being cast in a way that is imposed on us. Having a critical approach is necessary to shape the technologies to respect our culture, customs and needs.”

David Nemer

(p. 48)
Favela Digital- The other side of technology. (2013)

Way, Problem

“A worker-coop based economy—where workers democratically run enterprises, deciding what, how and where to produce, and what to do with any profits—could, and likely would, put social needs and goals (like proper preparation for pandemics) ahead of profits. Workers are the majority in all capitalist societies; their interests are those of the majority. Employers are always a small minority; theirs are the "special interests" of that minority. Capitalism gives that minority the position, profits and power to determine how the society as a whole lives or dies. That's why all employees now wonder and worry about how long our jobs, incomes, homes and bank accounts will last—if we still have them. A minority (employers) decides all those questions and excludes the majority (employees) from making those decisions, even though that majority must live with their results. Of course, the top priority now is to put public health and safety first. To that end, employees across the country are now thinking about refusing to obey orders to work in unsafe job conditions. U.S. capitalism has thus placed a general strike on today's social agenda. A close second priority is to learn from capitalism's failure in the face of the pandemic. We must not suffer such a dangerous and unnecessary social breakdown again. Thus system change is now also moving onto today's social agenda.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Home, Country, Suffering, Health

“A country that promises it is committed to democracy has never faced the fact that in the enterprise we don’t have democracy. We have a tiny group of people making all the decisions. And that’s not a good idea. And maybe now we can face that the decisions they’ve made, individually and collectively, have plunged us into a situation where we cannot afford the luxury of not facing basic questions about how our economy is organized. We should have done it for the last 50 years. Maybe this new generation of young people coming into the Congress will begin that conversation and, hopefully, bring us along into a national debate on these subjects, which is long overdue.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

We Need a More Humane Economic System—Not One That Only Benefits the Rich (December 26, 2018)

Democracy, Country, People, Decision

“Open your story-cube on the way home and ask it to tell you about causality violation. I did once, because I asked the same question you did. Why should I be limited? What right does the universe have to say what I can and can’t do? I’m intelligent. The universe is just a lot of hydrogen and dirt, going through the motions. But in this instance the universe has the final say.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Introduction to Part 4 (p. 267)
House of Suns (2008)

Home, Intelligence, Universe, Way

“I had read in the story-cube that the speed of light was a universal limit; that in a thousand years of experimentation—despite any number of false dawns—no one had ever managed to circumvent it. This had made me feel hemmed in and claustrophobic—it was like being told I must never run or skip down the long, dreary corridors of the house, but must walk instead, with my neck straight and my hands held behind my back. I felt affronted, as if the speed of light was a personal assault on my liberty. Why should I not go as fast as I pleased? Why should I not skip and run? But I could no more explain why the speed limit existed than I could explain why two and two did not make five. It was simply the way things were, one of those rules—like the edict not to visit certain parts of the house—that were not to be questioned.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Introduction to Part 2 (p. 100)
House of Suns (2008)

Housing, Reading, Light, Personality

“[W]hen our country shall have got a good and cheap government, we can, with clear consciences, recommend the paring of their nails, and the making of them bow to that power which, freed from infernal boroughmongering, will again claim and enforce her dominion of the seas. No American that ever conversed with me upon this subject will deny, that I always said, that I should never die in peace without making them again bow to England; and that bow to her again they should, whenever we shook off the power of the hellish boroughmongers. ... ENGLAND is my country: I must share in all her glory and in all her disgrace; and when it is a question of her honour and well-being, I must cast aside all private recollections and feelings. ... I always said...I never would rest until I saw the Americans acknowledge, explicitly our right to dominion on the seas. I wish them all the happiness that men can enjoy in this world; but a nation may be very happy without being permitted to swagger about and be saucy to England.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (2 June 1832), p. 545
1830s

Peace, Country, Happiness, World

“Once they had occupied academic bodies, once they had captured universities and thereby determined what will be taught, which books will be prescribed, what questions would be asked, what answers will be acceptable, these historians came to decide what history had actually been! As it suits their current convenience and politics to make out that Hinduism also has been intolerant, they will glide over what Ambedkar says about the catastrophic effect that Islamic invasions had on Buddhism, they will completely suppress what he said of the nature of these invasions and of Muslim rule in his Thoughts on Pakistan,3 but insist on reproducing his denunciations of ‘Brahmanism’, and his view that the Buddhist India established by the Mauryas was systematically invaded and finished by Brahmin rulers.
Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they rise in chorus: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream. But they are the ones who have been distorting it in the first place – by suppressing the truth, by planting falsehoods.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998)

History, Nature, Universe, Truth

“I had a teacher who used to reflect back my questions that way. I thought it was the Socratic method, and it impressed me immensely, until I found out he used it whenever he didn’t know the answer.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 4 (p. 60)

Way, Teachers

“Few people seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved a readjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessity of rightness, the application of what has been called the 'Golden Rule' from the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom. Possibly Darwin himself did not quite perceive it. While man was deemed to be a creation apart from all other creations, a secondary or tertiary morality was considered good enough to practise towards the 'inferior' races; but no person who reasons nowadays can escape the trying conclusion that this is not maintainable. And though we may not at present see how the principle of equal justice all round is to be carried out in it entirety, I recognize that the League is grappling with the question.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Letter to the Humanitarian League (1910)

Justice, Personality, People, Animals

“A question for those who mix racism and freedom with the veil debate: who is the racist? he who defends the values of equality, of modernity, as well as the values of the French revolution or the one that advocates a return to medieval values and a dark period in which no equality existed?”

Waleed Al-Husseini (1989) Palestinian essayist and writer

The Islamic veil

Freedom

“But you are a scientist, Michael Poole; and the skill of a scientist is in asking the right question.”

Stephen Baxter book Timelike Infinity

Source: Timelike Infinity (1992), Chapter 7 (p. 218)

“I do not judge them, criticise nor take sides. I address them as representatives of the human race, nothing more. Then I project a picture of the world divided against itself into countless pockets of insanity, and with it the question why this should be so? Why should semi-rational beings behave worse than those with no reason at all- Why ?”

Desmond Leslie (1921–2001) British pilot, film maker, writer, and musician

The Amazing Mr. Lutterworth (1958)

World

“The mere word 'design' by itself has no consequences and explains nothing. It is the barrenest of principles. The old question of whether there is design is idle.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

[Pragmatism, William James, Lecture Three: Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered, 80-81, Meridian Books, New York, 1955]https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.114743/2015.114743.Pragmatism-And-Four-Essays-From-The-Meaning-Of-Truth_djvu.txt}}
1900s

“There can be no question of a general overriding ‘Germanic’ or ‘Celtic’ identity amongst the different barbarian groups. Shared language might have facilitated communication and alliance but there is no evidence for or reason to suppose a higher level of ethnic identity on this basis.”

Guy Halsall (1964) English historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (2007), p. 58

Communication

“Creativity is a constant process of call and response taking place inside our heads. If all is going well, the question–answer routine is like the two sides of our brain working together as if in an inner-cranial pas de deux.”

Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist

Think Like an Artist (2015)

“The obstacles to soul cognition are bodily disability, mental inertia, wrong questioning, carelessness, laziness, lack of dispassion, erroneous perception, inability to achieve concentration, failure to hold the meditative attitude when achieved.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

The Light of the Soul: Its Science and Effect : a paraphrase of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with commentary by Alice A. Bailey, (1927)

Soul, Failure

“I have a need to ask questions that unravel the world.”

Nick Harkaway (1972) British writer

wooden egg lying
Gnomon (2017)

World

“Questions of identity have always played a large part in my thinking and writing; and, of course, race is a key component of identity. Certainly for me, and certainly in Britain.”

Caryl Phillips (1958) Kittian-British writer

On the recurring theme of his works in “CARYL PHILLIPS: INTERVIEW” https://mosaicmagazine.org/caryl-phillips-interview/#.Xe58ovlKjcs in Mosaic Magazine (2012 Mar 19)

Thinking, Parting

“Many women are asking: why do some women choose to cover their heads? We have to understand this and other questions. This is one of the biggest challenges for feminism today. What is worrying is that when women are divided into categories it is the status quo – the patriarchy – that benefits.…”

Elif Shafak (1971) Turkish writer

On having a female character wear a veil out of protest in “Elif Shafak: ‘When women are divided it is the male status quo that benefits’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/05/elif-shafak-turkey-three-daughters-of-eve-interview in The Guardian (2017 Feb 5)

Understanding, Women

“I didn’t vote in the referendum [Brexit] although I can see how there is absolutely nothing attractive about the EU. My view has always been that the result of the referendum must be carried through. If the vote had been remain there would be absolutely no question that we would remain. In the interest of true democracy, you cannot argue against the wish of the people. Without the people, nobody in high office gets paid.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

CULTURE Pop Icon Morrissey Says Diversity is Not a Strength https://summit.news/2019/06/24/pop-icon-morrissey-says-diversity-is-not-a-strength/?fbclid=IwAR398wYgRpEduvLPMg8qiO9WQNVnZl3LaNydJ8Bx1-DTF33ahE2rVTHFKuE, June 24 2019 In interviews etc., About politics and society

Democracy, People

“[I]t will not do to act as if the moral question was not the supreme question in public life, and, in a sense, the vera causa of party conflict.”

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

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (21 November 1891), quoted in J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence (eds.), Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, Vol. I (1917), p. 257
1890s

Sense, Life

“What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately. They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!”

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

Tweet, as quoted by * 2020-04-26

Trump says briefings 'not worth the effort' amid fallout from disinfectant comments

Lauren Aratani

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/25/donald-trump-stays-away-from-briefings-amid-fallout-from-disinfectant-comments
2020s, 2020, April

Time, Housing, Hostility, People

“It means "Ask the next question." Ask the next question, and the one that follows that, and the one that follows that. It's the symbol of everything humanity has ever created, and is the reason it has been created. This guy is sitting in a cave and he says, "Why can't man fly?"”

Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985) American speculative fiction writer

Well, that's the question. The answer may not help him, but the question now has been asked. The next question is what? How? And so all through the ages, people have been trying to find out the answer to that question. We've found the answer, and we do fly. This is true of every accomplishment, whether it's technology or literature, poetry, political systems or anything else. That is it. Ask the next question. And the one after that. His explanation of the meaning of a small symbol he used when writing his signature, as quoted in an interview with David Duncan (with an image of his signature) http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/misc/duncan.html, sometime around 1980.

Guy, Flying

“Those that question their theories are dismissed as Marxists!”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Romila Thapar: “The theory of Aryan race and India”, Social Scientist, January-March 1996, p. 17. , quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate https://web.archive.org/web/20100412074243/http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

“To the dumb question "Why me?"”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?

I
2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012)

“Between friends and enemies, there is no question of freedom, only violence and subjugation. This is the reality of politics, a reality that liberals often do not dare to face.”

Jiang Shigong (1967) Chinese legal and political theorist

《乌克兰宪政危机与政治决断》 ["Ukraine's constitutional crisis and political decisions"] (2004), translated by David Ownby in Rethinking China's Rise, p. 27

Freedom, Reality

“The crucial questions in politics are not questions of right and wrong, but of obedience and disobedience. If you do not submit to political authority, then "If I say you're wrong, you're wrong, even if you're right."”

Jiang Shigong (1967) Chinese legal and political theorist

《乌克兰转型中的宪政权威》 ["The authority of the constitution in a Ukraine in transition"] (2004), translated by David Ownby in Rethinking China's Rise https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=761eDwAAQBAJ, p. 27

“Faced with the nonsense question "What is the meaning of a word?"”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

and perhaps dimly recognizing it to be nonsense, we are nevertheless not inclined to give it up.

p. 58
Philosophical Papers (1979)

Quotes about doubt page 51

Quotes about doubt
page 51