Quotes about ideas and thoughts
page 50

“"My name is Mrs. Smith, I've made apples out of bread and dripping, a bit of green paint, and corrugated iron." "No, these are horrible apples, Mrs. Smith. Go away, Mrs. Smith! Go away until your daughter has a baby." "Shag, daughter, shag! It's a marketing idea, shag for babies! [mimes running back] My daughter's had a baby, I'm Granny Smith now!" "Come in, Granny Smith! You wonderful idea, you! Come in with your shiny apples."”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Definite Article (1996)

Baby, Painting, Daughters

“An educated person is one who, through the travail of his own life, has assimilated the ideas that make him representative of his culture.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: Reforming Education: The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling (1977), p. 255

Life, Education, Personality

“The real point of honor [for a scientist] is not to be always right. It is to dare to propose new ideas, and then to check them.”

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (1932–2007) French Physicist

Le vrai point d'honneur [d'un scientifique] n'est pas d'être toujours dans le vrai. Il est d'oser, de proposer des idées neuves, et ensuite de les vérifier.
As quoted in La Science des Rêves, Science et Vie Junior, 214, (18 May 2007), p. 13

“Contemporary theories of politics tend to portray politics as a reflection of society, political phenomena as the aggregate consequences of individual behavior, action as the result of choices based on calculated self-interest, history as efficient in reaching unique and appropriate outcomes, and decision making and the allocation of resources as the central foci of political life. Some recent theoretical thought in political science, however, blends elements of these theoretical styles into an older concern with institutions. This new institutionalism emphasizes the relative autonomy of political institutions, possibilities for inefficiency in history, and the importance of symbolic action to an understanding of politics. Such ideas have a reasonable empirical basis, but they are not characterized by powerful theoretical forms. Some directions for theoretical research may, however, be identified in institutionalist conceptions of political order.”

Johan Olsen (1939) Norwegian political scientist

James G. March and Johan P. Olsen. "The new institutionalism: organizational factors in political life." American political science review 78.03 (1983): 734-749; Abstract.

Life, Behavior, History, Understanding

“The evidence of evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy (Darwin's chief sources), but from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences. To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write. Doubts about the power of Darwin's idea of natural selection to explain this evolutionary process are still intellectually respectable, however, although the burden of proof for such skepticism has become immense…”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Life, People, World, Nature

“I hold to the idea that civility, understood as the willingness to engage in public discourse, is the first virtue of citizens.”

Mark Kingwell (1963) Canadian philosopher

Preface, p. viii.
The World We Want (2000)

“Mr. Hussein used sectarianism and nationalism as tools against his internal enemies when he was weak. Today's Iraqi Shiite parties are doing worse: they are legitimizing their rule on a sectarian basis. The idea of Iraq as a multiethnic country is being abandoned, and the same dynamic is at work in Syria.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"The Arab Spring started in Iraq", The New York Times (April 6, 2013)

Country

“When we are told that the record is scanty and unreliable, we can reply, with the support of the highest scholarship, that we know enough to be sure of his basic ideas and experiences, and that his personality looms up more brilliantly than the Morning Star.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

The Personality of Jesus (1932)

Star, Support, Personality

“Psycho-pathologists very often have to deal with people whose thinking is thus “compulsive.” And when analysis is possible, it is usually found that such persistent ideas are associated with some unconscious impulse. It is characteristic of all compulsive thinking that it is not the outgrowth of conscious reasoning and cannot be modified by evidence. Persons whose thinking is compulsive often seek to “rationalize” it—that is, they resort to ingenious devices to render it plausible or to explain away that which would contradict it. This sort of thinking, as I have tried to show, is a common characteristic of the crowd mind. The thinking of the crowd is dogmatic as a result of causes which are similar to those which render compulsive that of certain neurotics. And dogma is a common element in religion.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Mystery of Religion (1924), pp. 52-53

People, Religion, Thinking, Personality

“The expected effects of a sea-level rise typify the many consequences of a global warming. On the one hand, they are so big we literally can't understand them. If there is a significant polar melting, the Earth's center of gravity will shift, tipping the globe in such a way that the sea level might actually drop at Cape Horn and along the coast of Iceland—I read this in a recent EPA report and found that I didn't really understand what it meant to tip the Earth, through I was awed by the idea. On the other hand, the changes ultimately acquire a quite personal dimension: Should I put in a wall in front of my house? Does this taste salty to you? And, most telling of all, the human response to the problems, the utterly natural human attempt to preserve the old natural way of life in this postnatural world, creates entirely new consequences. The ocean rises; I build a wall; the marsh dies, and, with it, the fish.”

Bill McKibben book The End of Nature

Source: The End of Nature (1989), p. 117-118

Life, World, Way, Understanding

“To every insult we receive we will offer a proposal, to every defamatory remark, an idea, and to every exaggeration, a smile.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

Meeting in the Vistalegre Palace, Madrid, 23rd April 2007. As President, 2007 Source: Nota de prensa Zapatero: "Responderemos a cada insulto con una propuesta, a cada descalificación con una idea" en la web oficial del PSOE http://www.psoe.es/ambito/alcaladehenares/news/index.do?action=View&id=133350, Ya: Zapatero al PSOE: "A cada insulto, una propuesta, a cada descalificación, una idea y a cada exageración una sonrisa" http://noticias.ya.com/espana/22/04/2007/zapatero-psoe-mitin.html

Smile

“How close men, despite all their knowledge, usually live to madness? What is truth but to live for an idea? When all is said and done, everything is based on a postulate; but not until it no longer stands on the outside, not until one lives in it, does it cease to be a postulate. (Dialectic - Dispute)”

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

Journals of Søren Kierkegaard 1A75, 1835
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

Men, Truth, Knowledge, Madness

“It is commonly agreed that Keynes came up with the idea that public works are the best way to help the economy during a recession.
As a result, Keynesian economists seem to have developed a blind faith in the government in general, and in the system of public works in particular.
I do not share the same faith in the government.
I do not share the same faith in public works.<p”

Xavier Sala-i-Martin (1962) Catalan economist

http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/keynes/keynes2.htm And this may help explain why. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Xavier Sala-i-Martin's Home Page http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/keynes/keynes1.htm.

Faith, Way, Help

“The painting is finished when it has erased the idea.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

as quoted in Georges Braque: A Life (2005), p. 191 https://books.google.com/books?id=G2aWVKnJWaYC&pg=PA191 posthumous quotes

Painting

“There is the world of ideas and there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)

World

“Since the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, mass media has ushered in a new era of collective consciousness – a set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes that operate as a unifying force within society. Notwithstanding the danger of assimilation akin to the Borg in Star Trek, the Internet is accelerating collective consciousness and revolutionizing economy, politics, and education, among others.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

Education, Star

“The worship of images is intimately connected with that of the saints. They were rejected by the primitive Christians; but St Irenæus, who lived in the second century, relates that there was a sect of heretics, the Carpocratians, who worshipped, in the manner of Pagans, different images representing Jesus Christ, St Paul, and others. The Gnostics had also images; but the church rejected their use in a positive manner, and a Christian writer of the third century, Minutius Felix, says that “the Pagans reproached the Christians for having neither temples nor simulachres;” and I could quote many other evidences that the primitive Christians entertained a great horror against every kind of images, considering them as the work of demons. It appears, however, that the use of pictures was creeping into the church already in the third century, because the council of Elvira in Spain, held in 305, especially forbids to have any picture in the Christian churches. These pictures were generally representations of some events, either of the New 5 In his Treatise given below. 11 or of the Old Testament, and their object was to instruct the common and illiterate people in sacred history, whilst others were emblems, representing some ideas connected with the doctrines [008] of Christianity. It was certainly a powerful means of producing an impression upon the senses and the imagination of the vulgar, who believe without reasoning, and admit without reflection; it was also the most easy way of converting rude and ignorant nations, because, looking constantly on the representations of some fact, people usually end by believing it. This iconographic teaching was, therefore, recommended by the rulers of the church, as being useful to the ignorant, who had only the understanding of eyes, and could not read writings.6 Such a practice was, however, fraught with the greatest danger, as experience has but too much proved. It was replacing intellect by sight.7 Instead of elevating man towards God, it was bringing down the Deity to the level of his finite intellect, and it could not but powerfully contribute to the rapid spread of a pagan anthropomorphism in the church.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Source: A Treatise of Relics (1543), p. 10-11

God, People, Way, Quotes

“The principles upon which this nation was founded are those upon which its survival, no less than its prosperity, depend. These are the principles upon which we believe our freedom and prosperity as individuals, and that of our children depend. These principles are simple and familiar enough for anyone to understand who wishes to understand. Selfish motives, miseducation, or ideological blindness may lead some to deny or disparage them. But nothing can obscure their shining truth… Lincoln at Gettysburg said that the nation, at its birth, had been dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Earlier, Lincoln had said that the proposition of equality was the 'central idea' of the founding, from which all its minor thoughts emanated.”

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

2000s, God Bless America (2008)

Men, Children, Truth, Motivation

“We find in the history of ideas mutations which do not seem to correspond to any obvious need, and at first sight appear as mere playful whimsies — such as Apollonius' work on conic sections, or the non-Euclidean geometries, whose practical value became apparent only later.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

as quoted by Michael Grossman in the The First Nonlinear System of Differential and Integral Calculus (1979).
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959)

History, Appearance

“The motivation for an "information highway" was expressed in 1937, just prior to the advent of computer technology, when Wells was promoting the concept of a "World Brain" based on a "permanent world encyclopaedia" as a social good through giving universal access to all of human knowledge. He remarks: "our contemporary encyclopaedias are still in the coach-and-horses phase of development, rather than in the phase of the automobile and the aeroplane. Encyclopaedic enterprise has not kept pace with material progress. These observers realize that the modern facilities of transport, radio, photographic reproduction and so forth are rendering practicable a much more fully succinct and accessible assembly of facts and ideas than was ever possible before."”

Brian R. Gaines (1938) British computer scientist

(Wells, 1938) </blockquote>
First paragraph
Convergence to the Information Highway (1996)

World, Motivation, Knowledge, Universe

“I don't follow any particular one [religion]. Ultimately I think I'm sort of a freethinker and kind of open. So many bad things–as well as good things–have happened based on people just sort of blindly following religion that I kind of feel like I want to stay away from any type of specific denomination or any religion period. If for no other reason than just that. I don't want to be involved with anything or condone any school of thought that at some point and in some way causes the death of innocent people, or tragedies where initial fantastic ideas [are] distorted. Like the life, for example, of Jesus is well-documented. It's corroborated by different people, who had different backgrounds, and different levels of education. And they wrote about it. We know that this guy existed, and we know pretty much what he said, and it's pretty simple. Everything from that point on in terms of wars and fighting over land and territories and religious things, none of that was even included in anything he said. His message was pretty simple, be really nice to each other and everything will be okay.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Talking about religions ** THE STANDARD chris cornell#2, YouTube, 30 March 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGtbjYezJ8g&feature=youtu.be&t=4m3s, On religion

Life, Death, War, People

“Though I do, of course agree with the principles you have mentioned, I am returning the paper unsigned, as I do not want to belong to a group. A group of people with one aim is not as yet a single-minded group and as this does not exist, a consistent group remains impossible. And a larger group only makes sense for joint exhibitions and for spreading ideas. I will therefore not participate in the other group either, but I have promised my collaboration in this respect. If you definitely want to form a group, you can always invite myself and others who are proved to be suitable. Only on such a basis I will collaborate with the other group as well.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote of Mondrian, in a letter to Theo van Doesburg, 1930; as cited in De Stijl 1917-1931 - The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art, by H.L.C. Jaffé http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/jaff001stij01_01/jaff001stij01_01.pdf; J.M. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 1956, p. 30 Van Doesburg had attempted to form a small union of Parisian painters and sculptors who all subscribed to the principles of abstraction, the group was to be called 'Abstraction-création'. A periodical of this group appeared under the title 'Art Concret' 1930's

People, Sense

“All my sermons are prepared in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. As recreation is most pleasant and profitable in the sun, so homiletic creativity is best nourished before the Eucharist. The most brilliant ideas come from meeting God face to face. The Holy Spirit that presided at the Incarnation is the best atmosphere for illumination. Pope John Paul II keeps a small desk or writing pad near him whenever he is in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament; and I have done this all my life — I am sure for the same reason he does, because a lover always works better when the beloved is with him.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Treasure in Clay : The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen (1980)

Life, God, Lovers, Sun

““But then—you’re telling me they brought unrestricted communications with them?” he asked.
“Yup.” Rachel looked up from her console. “We’ve been trying for years to tell your leaders, in the nicest possible way: information wants to be free. But they wouldn’t listen. For forty years we tried. Then along comes the Festival, which treats censorship as a malfunction and routes communications around it. The Festival won’t take no for an answer because it doesn’t have an opinion on anything; it just is.”
“But information isn’t free. It can’t be. I mean, some things — if anyone could read anything they wanted, they might read things that would tend to deprave and corrupt them, wouldn’t they? People might give exactly the same consideration to blasphemous pornography that they pay to the Bible! They could plot against the state, or each other, without the police being able to listen in and stop them!”
Martin sighed. “You’re still hooked on the state thing, aren’t you?” he said. “Can you take it from me, there are other ways of organizing your civilization?”
“Well—” Vassily blinked at him in mild confusion. “Are you telling me you let information circulate freely where you come from?”
“It’s not a matter of permitting it,” Rachel pointed out. “We had to admit that we couldn’t prevent it. Trying to prevent it was worse than the disease itself.”
“But, but lunatics could brew up biological weapons in their kitchens, destroy cities! Anarchists would acquire the power to overthrow the state, and nobody would be able to tell who they were or where they belonged anymore. The most foul nonsense would be spread, and nobody could stop it—” Vassily paused. “You don’t believe me,” he said plaintively.
“Oh, we believe you alright,” Martin said grimly. “It’s just—look, change isn’t always bad. Sometimes freedom of speech provides a release valve for social tensions that would lead to revolution. And at other times, well—what you’re protesting about boils down to a dislike for anything that disturbs the status quo. You see your government as a security blanket, a warm fluffy cover that’ll protect everybody from anything bad all the time. There’s a lot of that kind of thinking in the New Republic; the idea that people who aren’t kept firmly in their place will automatically behave badly. But where I come from, most people have enough common sense to avoid things that’d harm them; and those that don’t, need to be taught. Censorship just drives problems underground.”
“But, terrorists!”
“Yes,” Rachel interrupted, “terrorists. There are always people who think they’re doing the right thing by inflicting misery on their enemies, kid. And you’re perfectly right about brewing up biological weapons and spreading rumors. But—” She shrugged. “We can live with a low background rate of that sort of thing more easily than we can live with total surveillance and total censorship of everyone, all the time.” She looked grim. “If you think a lunatic planting a nuclear weapon in a city is bad, you’ve never seen what happens when a planet pushed the idea of ubiquitous surveillance and censorship to the limit. There are places where—” She shuddered.”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 14, “The Telephone Repairman” (pp. 296-297)

People, Disease, Way, Communication

“I love coming in with a battle plan, but I also love the freedom to make things up with my actors, and my DP, too. Sometimes we’ll be in a scene and I see new things we can do, so I will throw whatever stuff that has been cooking away in my brain for a long time because I think what I'm coming up with on the set might serve the film better. You know, your instinct will tell you, “This is a better way, try this other way instead,” and that's very important for me, and that is my style of filmmaking, for better or for worse. That's how I like to approach it. And a lot of it comes to me when I'm designing the script, the screenplay. I'm generally very involved in the screenplay, even the ones I'm not on officially as a writer, I'm still extremely involved in how I craft the screen with the writers. I like to get in there and I really craft the world so I can have an idea of how all that will play out before I go on set. Then when I go on set, I like to keep it free, so that I can improvise with my actors.”

James Wan (1977) Malaysian-born Australian film director, screenwriter and producer

Interview: James Wan on His Creative Process, Returning to Horror with The Conjuring 2 and His Approach to Aquaman https://dailydead.com/interview-james-wan-creative-process-returning-horror-conjuring-2-approach-aquaman/ (June 9, 2016)

Love, World, Way, Thinking

“When I purchase a food item at the supermarket, I can be confident that the label will state how much riboflavin is in it. The United States government requires this, and for a good reason, which is: I have no idea. I don't even know what riboflavin is. I do know I eat a lot of it. For example, I often start the day with a hearty Kellogg's strawberry Pop-Tart, which has, according to the label, a riboflavin rating of 10 percent. I assume this means that 10 percent of the Pop-Tart is riboflavin. Maybe it's the red stuff in the middle. Anyway, I'm hoping riboflavin is a good thing; if it turns out that it's a bad thing, like "riboflavin" is the Latin word for "cockroach pus," then I am definitely in trouble.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway (2001)

Food, Hope, Confidence

“Ideas, like men, can become dictators. We Americans have so far escaped regimentation by our rulers, but have we escaped regimentation by our own ideas? I doubt if there exists today a more complete regimentation of the human mind than that accomplished by our self-imposed doctrine of ruthless utilitarianism.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"The Farmer as a Conservationist" [1939]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 259.
1930s

Men

“Those of us who are sympathetic to Kantian ethics usually are so because we regard it as an ethics of autonomy, based on respect for the human capacity to govern our own lives according to rational principles. Kantian ethical theory is grounded on the idea that the moral law is binding on me only because it is regarded as proceeding from my own will.”

Allen W. Wood (1942) academic

Kantian Ethics (2008)

Law

“The major difference between Astaire and Kelly is a difference, not of talent or technique, but of levels of sophistication. On the face of it, Kelly looks the more sophisticated. Where Kelly has ideas, Astaire has dance steps. Where Kelly has smartly tailored, dramatically apt Comden and Green scripts, Astaire in the Thirties made do with formulas derived from nineteenth-century French Farce. But the Kelly film is no longer a dance film. It's a story film with dances, as distinguished from a dance film with a story. When Fred and Ginger go into their dance, you see it as a distinct formal entity, even if it's been elaborately built up to in the script. In a Kelly film, the plot action and the musical set pieces preserve a smooth community of high spirits, so that the pressure in a dance number will often seem too low, the dance itself plebeian or folksy in order to "match up" with the rest of the picture.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Arlene Croce, in Croce, Arlene. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book, W.H. Allen, London, 1974. p. 7. ISBN 0491001592.

Music, Communication, Dance

“I'll tell you a wonderful story. Coming with all of these ideas that I had, and still have, and still feel because I never change and still believe in the same things. Soon after I was there in Hollywood, for some reason I was at a luncheon with Robert Taylor sitting next to me, and I asked him, ‘Now, what are your ideas or what do you want to do,' and his answer was that he wanted to have 10 good suits to wear, elegant suits of all kinds, that was his idea. I practically fell under the table.”

Luise Rainer (1910–2014) German-born Austrian and American film actress

Article in Movie Maker http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/article/luise_rainer_3324/

Feeling, Change

“The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow. All pioneers of truth have been, and still are, reviled; they have been, and still are, persecuted. But did they ask humanity to pay the price? Did they seek to bribe mankind to accept their ideas? They knew too well that he who accepts a truth because of the bribe, will soon barter it away to a higher bidder…
Proud and self-reliant characters prefer hatred to such sickening artificial love. Not because of any reward does a free spirit take his stand for a great truth, nor has such a one ever been deterred because of fear of punishment.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

The Failure of Christianity (1913)

Love, Truth, Fear

“In the 1950s and 1960s we put several thousand nuclear weapons into Europe. To be sure, we had no precise idea of what to do with them.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Statement of 1973, as quoted in Canadian and World Politics (2005) by John Ruypers, Marion Austin, Patrick Carter, and Terry G. Murphy
1970s

“I love philosophy. It's fascinating to try to discover how perception, or experience, or memory works. I've always been a diehard relativist at heart, and I find it very interesting to read other people's philosophical ideas and how they see the world through their particular lens.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

Love, People, World, Memory

“Firstly for the design I decided that the two joined figures should be depicted upright [in Zadkine's first attempt the two brothers were sitting shoulder to shoulder].... two or three days later I was able to send him a photo of my new attempt, in which the two brothers are not only standing, but where the bond – the main idea is projected onto the statue in a hollow, in the heart of the composition the viewer can see a knot of hands, a symbol of the double inspiration.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

Source: 1940 - 1960, Les frères Van Gogh, origine et justification', c. 1955, pp. 67-69

Photo, Heart

“It is curious to observe how the Cross is regaining its old place in this country. A hundred years ago our Protestant females would have been shocked at the idea of wearing a cross. Now they all have crosses dangling from their necks; and our priests generally prevail to have it elevated on the tops of our new churches. They say it is not an object of adoration. True : but all in its proper time. It will not be elevated on the church and the altar for nothing. A prudent Pope, availing himself of the powers given to him by the Council of Trent, would not find it difficult to effect a reconciliation between the Papal See and the Protestant Church of England. The extremes are beginning to bend to the circular form.”

Godfrey Higgins (1772–1833) British archaeologist

Celtic Druids (1827), p. 131.

Time, Country

“People say, "get us out of the UN, we don't need the UN", we invented the UN. This is us, we are the ones who founded the idea of nations working together, and I think that's something we need to do. And it's, it's messy, and it's really complicated, and there's going to be a lot of countries out there that expect us to clean up there mess, or just want to see us fall on (our) face. And they love that, which is what I think president Obama said brilliantly at the UN, when he basically said, "that ok". If I'm paraphrasing, I don't think he's ever said "ok" in his life, he's probably said "well". But basically he said, "look, for the last eight years you've been on our case about going it alone, you know, we're imperialists, we're hegemonic, we're going it alone, we're going it alone… Ok, we're not going it alone anymore, we're going to listen to you, but you better ante up and kick in. Because, you don't have the right to have an opinion, if you can't back it up. It's put up or shut up time". And I was so happy when he said that, and the way he handled the Latin (American) countries, when he was dealing with the crisis in Central America, the coups in Honduras. And he said, "the very same countries who accuse us of doing nothing, are also the same ones who accuse us of being imperialistic. You can't have it both ways."”

Max Brooks (1972) American author

Lecture of Opportunity | Max Brooks: World War Z https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGG5E04cog

Love, Life, People, Way

“Major parties have lived more for patronage than for principles; their goal has been to bind together a sufficiently large coalition of diverse interests to get into power; and once in power, to arrange sufficiently satisfactory compromises of interests to remain there. Minor parties have been attached to some special idea or interest, and they have generally expressed their positions through firm and identifiable programs and principles. Their function has not been to win or govern, but to agitate, educate, generate new ideas, and supply the dynamic element in our political life. When a third party's demands become popular enough, they are appropriated by one or both of the major parties and the third party disappears. Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter III, part I, p. 97

Life, Education, Bee

“Military doctrine is universally, and has been since the time of Napoleon, imbued with the "Spirit of the Offensive." There are some very good reasons for this, which we shall review elsewhere. As with many other ideas which have a sound basis in reason, constant and fervent reiteration has created distortions, like the attitude, for example, which regards a healthy respect for enemy capabilities as defenseminded and hence ignoble.”

Bernard Brodie (1910–1978) American nuclear strategist

Pg. 43
Strategy in the Missile Age

Universe, Time

“Before the prospect of an intelligence explosion, we humans are like small children playing with a bomb. Such is the mismatch between the power of our plaything and the immaturity of our conduct. Superintelligence is a challenge for which we are not ready now and will not be ready for a long time. We have little idea when the detonation will occur, though if we hold the device to our ear we can hear a faint ticking sound.”

Nick Bostrom book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Source: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014), Ch. 15

Children, Intelligence, Time

“The basic idea of karma is not punishment. Karma presents the opportunity for development; to make use of opportunities that were not taken advantage of, to fill in gaps of ignorance, to enlarge understanding through experience, to do what should be done.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 388, Page 158
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 8

Understanding

“Von Bertalanffy also studied the works of, a pre-Socratic philosopher. Anaxogoras said that 'everything was everything else.' Therefore all categories of thinking were relative and all contradictions only apparent. According to Cusanus the knowledge of infinite God cannot be grasped by human mind it can only be approached from different directions. The idea of God has many aspects which appear to be contradictory. It is similar to a human face which may present different appearances when perceived from different perspectives.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) (1989), p. 4

God, Knowledge, Thinking, Study

“You sharpen your ideas by reducing yourself to the level of the people you are with and a sense of humour and a complete relaxation, even when you’re discussing serious things, does help to mobilise friends around you. And I love that.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Nelson Mandela on humour, From an interview with Tim Couzens, Verne Harris and Mac Maharay for Mandela: The Authorized Portrait, 2006 (13 August 2005). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes 2000s

Love, People, Sense, Help

““Organization theory,” a term that appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, has multiple meanings. When it first emerged, the term expressed faith in scientific research as a way to gain understanding of human beings and their interactions. Although scientific research had been occurring for several centuries, the idea that scientific research might enhance understanding of human behavior was considerably newer and rather few people appreciated it. Simon (1950, 1952-3, 1952) was a leading proponent for the creation of “organization theory”, which he imagined as including scientific management, industrial engineering, industrial psychology, the psychology of small groups, human-resources management, and strategy. The term “organization theory” also indicated an aspiration to state generalized, abstract propositions about a category of social systems called “organizations,” which was a very new concept. Before and during the 1800s, people had regarded armies, schools, churches, government agencies, and social clubs as belonging to distinct categories, and they had no name for the union of these categories. During the 1920s, some people began to perceive that diverse kinds of medium-sized social systems might share enough similarities to form a single, unified category. They adopted the term “organization” for this unified category.”

William H. Starbuck (1934) American academic

William H. Starbuck and Philippe Baumard (2009). "The seeds, blossoming, and scant yield of organization theory," in: Jacques Rojot et. al (eds.) Comportement organisationnel - Volume 3 De Boeck Supérieur. p. 15

People, School, Faith, Way

““The innovative ideas of social democracy are emerging in other forums, in the networks of creative small business and social entrepreneurs.””

Mark Latham (1961) Australian politician

Unsourced

Democracy, Business

“We did not suspend our democracy in our darkest hours why are we suspending it now? the fawning over Thatcher had gone too far. We have had enough of this, It has gone on too long and it has gone too far. This put the tin hat on it the idea that we should suspend a vital part of our democratic process for a party political and private funeral, Mr Churchill didn’t ask for Parliament to be silenced, for confrontations across the House to be forbidden. When our soldiers were being laid waste in the Norway debate, the House of Commons perhaps rose to its finest 20th Century moment. Nobody said: ‘Our armed forces have suffered a disaster, the House of Commons cannot meet, the clash of ideas cannot be heard, we must muffle the drums and silence ourselves The so-called Beast of Bolsover said the argument was about class and that it was "one rule for those at the top and another for those at the bottom. We are here talking about the thing that we sometimes suggest has gone away class, That's what it is, it's about class. It's about the fact that people out there have to live their lives in a different way and there's one rule for those at the top and there's another for those at the bottom. It's never changed, I wish it had, but it hasn't. So when I heard about the chain of events it seemed to grow like topseed - first of all there was going to be some sort of ceremonial funeral, and then the next thing you (Mr Speaker) tell us that the chimes of Big Ben are going to stop and then we hear about the fact that we are going to abandon Prime Minister's question time, I mean, what's it all about? That's why the people out there are angry, a lot of them.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

The Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-fawning-gone-far-1836314 George Galloway blasts cancellation of PMQs for Margret Thatchers funeral 16 April, 2013

People, Way, Democracy, Question

“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1960s, Farewell address (1961)

Money, Fashion, Universe, Change

“Sleep, Napoleon! It was not your ideas they wanted, it was your corpse.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter Four

Sleep

“Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land, emerging from an ancient civilization, shaped by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

The 125th Anniversary Jubilee Lecture, St. Stephen's College, Delhi, November 12 2005, "India: from Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond" Available Online http://www.shashitharoor.com/books/midnight/lecture.html 2000s

Democracy, History

“There is an intelligent man, who never questions his ideas," said Dorsenne to himself, when the Marquis had left him. "He is like the Socialists. What vigor of mind in that old wornout machine!”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Source: Cosmopolis (1892), Ch. 2 "The Beginning of a Drama"

Intelligence, Question

“At first it was believed that Christ was a direct descendant from David. At that time the disciples of Christ, of course, were Jews. The Messiah was expected through the blood of David.—For that reason, the genealogy of Joseph, a descendant of David, was given. It was not until long after, that the idea came into the minds of Christians that Christ was the son of the Holy Ghost. If they, at the time the genealogy was given, believed that Christ was in fact the son of the Holy Ghost, why did they give the genealogy of Joseph to show that Christ was related to David? In other words, why should the son of God attempt to get glory out of the fact that he had in his veins the blood of a barbarian king? There is only one answer to this. The Jews expected the Messiah through David, and in order to prove that Christ was the Messiah, they gave the genealogy of Joseph. Afterward, the idea became popularized that Christ was the son of God, and then were interpolated the words “as was supposed” in the genealogy of Christ.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

God, Time, Christ

“Thus it has come about that our theoretical and critical literature, instead of giving plain, straightforward arguments in which the author at least always knows what he is saying and the reader what he is reading, is crammed with jargon, ending at obscure crossroads where the author loses its readers. Sometimes these books are even worse: they are just hollow shells. The author himself no longer knows just what he is thinking and soothes himself with obscure ideas which would not satisfy him if expressed in plain speech.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

On War (1832), Book 2

Books, Literature, Thinking, Reading

“You know there’s no advantage to be gained by murdering idiots—it doesn’t teach the idiot anything and it might give onlookers the idea that you take them seriously.”

Charles Stross book Halting State

Source: Halting State (2007), Chapter 6, “Elaine: Death or Coffee” (p. 42)

“The Japanese have a term called Ikigai. Ikigai is the Japanese translation of the French 'raison d’etre' or 'reason for being.' When Plato wrote about government, what Plato said was that the most preferred form of governor was what we know as the true statesman. -- The philosopher king who knows his place and his task. My purpose is to be a builder of new ideas and companies. I live to put new ideas together and advance the conversation. It is my Ikigai. I simply love to do it. There is nothing more exciting to me than helping new ideas spring up out of the ground.”

Robert Agresta (1983)

Public Release May, 2011, Politicker NJ

Love, Spring, Help

“A very sincere and serious freshman student came to my office with a question that had clearly been troubling him deeply. He said to me, “I am a devout Christian and have never had any reason to doubt evolution, an idea that seems both exciting and well documented. But my roommate, a proselytizing evangelical, has been insisting with enormous vigor that I cannot be both a real Christian and an evolutionist. So tell me, can a person believe both in God and in evolution?” Again, I gulped hard, did my intellectual duty, and reassured him that evolution was both true and entirely compatible with Christian belief—a position that I hold sincerely, but still an odd situation for a Jewish agnostic.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Non-Overlapping Magisteria", p. 270
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

God, Question, Personality, Sincerity

“None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Idea.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Referring to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, in "Congress's Shameful Retreat From American Values" in The Chicago Tribune (4 October 2006) http://www.truthout.org/article/garrison-keillor-congresss-shameful-retreat-from-american-values

Women, Men, Law

“…but suppose we were an influence (as we might be), an idea, a thing invulnerable, intangible, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile as a whole, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head, we might be a vapor, blowing where we listed. Our kingdoms lay in each man's mind, as we wanted nothing material to live on, so perhaps we offered nothing material to the killing. It seemed a regular soldier might be helpless without a target. He would own the ground he sat on, and what he could poke his rifle at.”

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935) British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat

The Evolution of A Revolt (1920)

“For this manifestation to be as forceful as it possibly can, we have to work to find solidarity in each other’s stories, as differing as their inciting perspectives may be. The patriarchy sands out the edges of our rightful infuriation, making it harder to see in any light but our own. This blindness is part of what denies us community-forming solidarity and part of what has allowed widespread sexual assault and harassment to continue for so long. The sinister idea that there is a limit to the total number of accusations of "sexism" that society will bear has made us trend toward the egotistical in our understanding of oppression, but it is happening to all of us, and it is happening all of the time.”

Lauren Duca (1991) American journalist

Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017)

Communication, Understanding, Light, Time

“Educated men — "civilized," as Fourier used to say with disdain — tremble at the idea that society might some day be without judges, police, or gaolers.”

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

Here Kropotkin seems to be refering to the French philosopher Charles Fourier, and not the French scientist Joseph Fourier.
Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)

Men, Education

“The next phase of the work was when Joseph LeDoux and I came up with the idea of the interpreter. Twenty-five years into studying these patients we finally got around to asking the patients, "Why did you do that?" after they had a response with the left hand that was being governed by the separated, silent, speechless right hemisphere. We began to understand that the left hemisphere "made up" a story as to why the patient did what he/she did, and in that moment we began to see the cardinal feature of the left hemisphere: the ability to interpret actions generated outside its realm of conscious awareness.”

Michael S. Gazzaniga (1939) American neuroscientist

Understanding, Study

“What ideas are convenient to express inevitably becomes the important content of a culture.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Ch 1: Medium is the Metaphor, p. 7
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)

“Strike a Bedu and he will kill you either then or later. It is easy for strangers to give offence without meaning to do so. I once put my hand on the back of bin Kabina’s neck and he turned on me and asked furiously if I took him for a slave. I had no idea that I had done anything wrong.”

Wilfred Thesiger book Arabian Sands

Source: Arabian Sands (1959), p. 148.

“You start out with simple concepts,.. All of this beautiful edifice of geometry, for example, comes out of this configuration of lines and points… Think of the simple opening--dum dum dum dum!--of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. In music you start out with a trivial motif and it turns into this beautiful, intricate composition,… Again, it all stems from this small, very simple idea.”

Noam Elkies (1966) American mathematician

Talking about "a stark, basic principle underpins even the most complex symphony or mathematical application."
Music + Math: A Common Equation?, 1988

Beauty, Music, Thinking

“The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance…This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance.”

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

The Dilemma of Determinism (1884) p.153
1880s

Chance

“It is not the word that is the original material of poetry, rather the letter.
Word is:
1. Composition of letters
2. Sounds
3. Description (meaning)
4. Vehicle for idea associations
Art is uninterpretable, unending; material must be unequivocal in a consistent formation.”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

1920s
Source: 'Consistent Poetry Art', Schwitters' contribution to 'Magazine G', No. 3, 1924, ed. Hans Richter.

Art

“A man once said that the pinnacle of success
Was when you've finally lost interest
In money, compliments, and publicity
A noble enough idea I suppose
How on Earth he does this heaven only knows
I know I need a lot more of all three of those
Before I'll ever have the nerve to turn up my nose
At any money, or compliments, or publicity”

Todd Snider (1966) American singer

Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number 10).
The Excitement Plan (2009)

Money, Success

“As our young master paced the terrace alone, that idea of the necessity of the Creator's being incomprehensible to the created, recurred to him. The hour that succeeded was probably the most important in Roswell Gardiners life. So intense were his feelings, so active the workings of his mind, that he was quite insensible to the intensity of the cold; and his body keeping equal motion with his thoughts, if one may so express it, his frame actually set at defiance a temperature that might otherwise have chilled it, warmly and carefully as it was clad.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

The Sea Lions or The Lost Sealers (1849)

Life, Feeling

“Plausible as the idea of the United States of Europe as a peace arrangement may seem to some at first glance, it has on closer examination not the least thing in common with the method of thought and the standpoint of social democracy... At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. Europe no more forms a special unit within world economy than does Asia or America.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Peace Utopias (1911)

World, Peace, Democracy

“He was a terrific writer and was the most responsible for the success and development of Batman. He really was the background for Batman; Bob Kane had ideas while Bill sort of organized them.”

Bill Finger (1914–1974) American comic strip and comic book writer

George Roussos, quoted in "Interviews with George Roussos", Dark Knight Archives, vol. 2, DC Comics, page 8
About

Success

“Neither in the arts, nor in logic, nor in life should an idea by in any way treated as a thing.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Life, Art, Way

“Our children grow up in a culture permeated with the idea that there are "smart people" and "dumb people". The social construction of the individual is as a bundle of aptitudes. There are people who are "good at math" and people who "can't do math." Everything is set up for children to attribute their first unsuccessful or unpleasant learning experiences to their own disabilities. As a result, children perceive failure as relegating them either to the group of "dumb people" or, more often, to a group of people "dumb at x" (where, as we have pointed out, x often equals mathematics). Within this framework children will define themselves in terms of their limitations, and this definition will be consolidated and reinforced throughout their lives. Only rarely does some exceptional event lead people to reorganize their intellectual self-image in such a way as to open up new perspectives on what is learnable.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

Children, People, Way, Mathematics

“There is nothing compulsory. One is not asked to violate cherished beliefs or accept any of the ideas presented. Rather, a healthy skepticism is encouraged.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

Robert Fripp, a student of Gurdjieff's philosophy, in An Introduction to Guitar Craft (1988). This has sometimes been quoted as a remark by Gurdjieff on the Fourth Way.
Misattributed

“Another thing. This idea of "I'm offended". Well I've got news for you. I'm offended by a lot of things too. Where do I send my list? Life is offensive. You know what I mean? Just get in touch with your outer adult. And grow up. And move on. Reasonable people don't write letters because… A: They have lives and B, they understand it's just TV. C: If they see something they don't like, something they do like might be on later. I've seen many comics I've hated. I've seen many shows that have offended me. I've never written a letter. I just go about my life.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Interview with Howard Stern

Life, Hate, People, Understanding

“I know of people living in this country right now who think that white people came from Adam and Eve, and that there are all these other races that are separate creations and that aren't related at all. And I know from prior research that many different religious groups have believed this sort of thing for thousands of years, but the idea that any seemingly educated official would believe that during my lifetime is rather disturbing.”

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

Youtube, Other, Biblical Family Values https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bldw8X5apnY (July 11, 2015)

People, Education, Thinking, Country

“Donald Trump and producer Mark Burnett are reportedly considering creating a Broadway musical based on The Apprentice. The pair came up with the idea when neither one of them could find a match to set fire to a pile of money.”

Amy Poehler (1971) American actress

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04jupdate.phtml
Weekend Update samples

Money, Music

“I always look for people whose ideas coincide with mine, and then I'm ready to give them a chance to make a name for themselves.”

Michael Balcon (1896–1977) English Film producer

Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2001 ed): Art. Michael Balcon p. 28

People, Chance

“My idea, my dream, my goal, is to go out and legitimize this sport and compete at the Olympic Games with my peers in the football arena.”

Emmitt Smith (1969) American football player and sports broadcaster

Doug Robinson (February 10, 1996) "Honest! Emmitt Is Going For Gold", The Deseret News, p. D1.

Dreams, Game, Sport, Football

“Life is so beautiful that even the idea of death must be born before it can be realized.”

Machado de Assis book Dom Casmurro

A vida é tão bela que a mesma idéia da morte precisa de vir primeiro a ela, antes de se ver cumprida.
Source: Dom Casmurro (1899), Ch. 133, p. 255

Life, Death, Beauty

“Houses, are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition. I admit, doubtfully, as exceptions, snail-shells and caravans. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting-place.”

Arthur Ransome (1884–1967) English author and journalist

Racundra's First Cruise (Chapter 1), 1923

Youth, World, Thinking, Animals

“His nation of liberty was founded on the backs of Negro slaves and at the cost of exterminating the aborigines. As far as I can tell, the Yankee’s idea of freedom is his right to carry a pistol with which he may shoot strangers in the street.”

Kage Baker book Mendoza in Hollywood

Part 3 “The Island Out There” Chapter 1 (p. 287)
Mendoza in Hollywood (2000)

Freedom

“What is the democratic peace? In the literature on or referring to the democratic peace, this means the idea or fact that democracies do not (or virtually never) make war on each other.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

“What Is The Democratic Peace?” https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.IS_WHAT.HTM

War, Peace, Democracy, Literature

“Opticks was out of harmony with the ideas of 19th-century physics. …an exposition of the "wrong" (i. e., corpuscular) theory of light,—even though it also contained many of the basic principles of the "correct" (i. e., wave) theory. Not only had Newton erred in his choice… but also he apparently had found no insuperable difficulty in simultaneously embracing features of two opposing theories. …by adopting a combination of the two theories at once, he had violated one of the major canons of 19th-century physics… Today our point of view is influenced by the theory of photons and matter waves, or the… complementarity of Niels Bohr; and we may read with a new interest Newtons ideas on the interaction of light and matter or his explanation of the corpuscular and undulatory aspects of light.”

I. Bernard Cohen (1914–2003) American historian of science

I. Bernard Cohen, Preface to Opticks by Sir Isaac Newton (1952)

Light, Reading

“Even then he had those piercing cat's eyes of his and when he had said something, finished up by saying: "If I'm wrong, put me right." And so I began to understand that you didn't speak for the sake of speaking, to say that you had done this or that, what you had eaten or drunk, but to work out an idea, to find out what makes the world go round.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The moon and the bonfire (1950), Chapter XVII, p. 98

World, Cats, Understanding

“It considers not only how we relate to others, but how we relate to our ideas of others — so that a completely phony, non-human replica of a dead wife can inspire the same feelings that the wife herself once did. That is a peculiarity of humans: We feel the same emotions for our ideas as we do for the real world, which is why we can cry while reading a book, or fall in love with movie stars. Our idea of humanity bewitches us, while humanity itself stays safely sealed away into its billions of separate containers, or "people."”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/solaris-2002 of Solaris (22 November 2002) Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Love, People, Books, World

“There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your mind creates. It is self-created in the sense that at its very centre is the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from other things. (…).”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Mind
Source: I am That, P.121.

World, Sense, Falseness

““So what is this Final Secret? Any Ideas?” Spider asked, trying to sound reasonable.
“We don’t know. We just don’t know. All we know is what the Vores have communicated to us so far.”
“Right,” Spider said, nodding, hating every moment of this nonsense. “And when you say ‘we’ and ‘us’, what you really mean is ‘you’, yes?”
“They communicate through a living channel, yes, and that is, of course, me.””

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 18 (p. 219)

Hate, Secret, Communication

“It was India's Karma, her fate, to be conquered, and in her turn, to conquer her conqueror. She has already done so with her Mohammedan victors: Educated Mohammedans are Sufis, scarcely to be distinguished from Hindus. Hindu thought has permeated their civilisation; they assumed the position of learners. And England will be conquered in her turn. Today she has the sword, but it is worse than useless in the world of ideas. You know what Schopenhauer said of Indian thought. He foretold that its influence would be as momentous in Europe, when it became well known, as the revival of Greek and Latin; culture after the Dark Ages.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Source: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. 5, p. 190

Fate, Age, World, Education

“After that I was infused with a pleasant sense of abandon. Our rope was not long enough for us to abseil down the red step, and the idea of climbing down it without support from above was not to be contemplated; therefore we just had to reach the summit.”

Eric Shipton (1907–1977) British explorer

[Eric Shipton, w:Eric Shipton, Illustrations by Biro, That Untravelled World, 1969, 2nd edition, 1977, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 0-340-21609-3]
Shipton was climbing with the novice Bill Tillman on the first ascent of the difficult West Ridge Route up Batian.

Support, Sense

“We have to give the American people a referendum. We will win this referendum if we have it now. If we wait and delay five or six years we will lose this referendum. The public is way ahead of the political class. They get that things are broken. They get that we're spending their kids' inheritance and mortgaging their future. They are ready to be talked to like adults and not like children. So when they see the demagoguery that is directed toward people or ideas that are sincere and are real, it doesn't work anymore. The Democrats are going to come at us with their old playbook. They're going to tap into the emotions of fear, anger, and envy. But that's not aspirational. That's not hope and change, and I don't think it's going to work anymore.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

Source: Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders (2010), p. 15

Children, People, Fear, Hope

“The first remark we have to make, and which — though already presented more than once — cannot be too often repeated when the occasion seems to call for it, — is that what we call principle, aim, destiny, or the nature and idea of Spirit, is something merely general and abstract. Principle — Plan of Existence — Law — is a hidden, undeveloped essence, which as such — however true in itself — is not completely real.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

Law, Nature

“When we talk of parental influence we do not think of terror in connection with it—that is not the primary idea—it is not terror and coercion, but kindness and affection, which may bias the child's mind, and induce the child to do that which may be highly imprudent, and which, if the child were properly protected, he would never do.”

William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley (1801–1881) Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Turner v. Collins (1871), L. R. 7 Ch. Ap. Ca. 340.

Thinking, Parent

“He hated the idea of eulogizing himself. Some tasks are best left to others, surely including obituaries.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Darwinia

Epilogue (p. 318)
Darwinia (1998)

Hate

“The monarch is a responsible person. The fact that a monarch is responsible "to God alone," rather than to an assembly or a popular majority, is rather shocking to an agnostic mind; but while God cannot be fooled, the masses can. While it is perhaps true that "one cannot fool all the people all the time," it seems one can fool millions for centuries. History abounds with such examples, especially the history of religions. In spite of the republican-democratic emphasis on "responsible government," subject to the sanction of not getting re-elected (and if being impeached only in the grossest cases of corruption), the demo-republican government nonetheless derives its authority from anonymous, secretly voting masses on a purely numerical basis. It is even impossible to trace the empowering individual; and thus we get what French authors call the "cult of irresponsibility." The electees, rejecting all responsibility, can easily blame the electors for their "mandates." Thus we get today the immoral idea of making whole nations responsible for the misdeeds of their rulers, regardless of whether these had majority support or not. This collective judgment of moral acts is one of the great maladies of the democratic age.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Liberty or Equality (40th anniversary edition) (1993), p. 158

God, People, Age, Religion

“In church I was told that if I so much as smoked a cigarette or tasted alcohol, I’d be damned in hell for all eternity[…]it didn’t take long for me to start thinking that sounded all wrong […]I didn’t cotton to the idea that your religion should be flaunted to other people. Your religion is for you, and is best kept close to your heart.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

[The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart, 11, Nelson, Willie; Pipkin, Turk, 159240197X, 2006, Gotham]

People, Alcohol, Religion, Hell

“Now look, I'm not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes. Well—I'm not saying that he—I'm not not saying that either. God — what God does is God's business, I have no idea. But I'll tell you this: whether you call it Gaia or whether you call it Jesus — there's a message being sent. And that is, "Hey, you know that stuff we're doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

I'm just sayin'.
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2011-03-14
Ben
Dimiero
Beck: "I'm Not Not Saying" God Is Causing Earthquakes
Media Matters for America
2011-03-14
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103140010
2011-03-19
2010s, 2011

God, Business

“Rothbard is surely right in thinking that what we now call free-market libertarianism was originally a left-wing position. The great liberal economist Frédéric Bastiat sat on the left side of the French national assembly, with the anarcho-socialist Proudhon. Many of the causes we now think of as paradigmatically left-wing—feminism, antiracism, antimilitarism, the defense of laborers and consumers against big business—were traditionally embraced and promoted specifically by free-market radicals. … I like calling the free market a left-wing idea—in fact, I like calling libertarianism the proletarian revolution.”

Roderick Long (1964) American philosopher

"Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later," http://bastiat.mises.org/library/rothbards-left-and-right-forty-years-later Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference (2006).

Business, Thinking

“When entering the studio, I don't know what will happen. I do a so-called trip into myself: I sit down at the piano and the melody might start to evolve from my playing or then I might start to sing it. At that stage I do not yet have clear ideas about what kind of emotions I would like to express. Until I play the completed piece to Roma and Nicky and when I observe their reactions, the music gets its meaning…”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Anna interview (2005)

Music, Singing

“It's sundown on the union that was made in the USA. Sure was a good idea till greed got in the way.”

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

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), Union Sundown

Way

“I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind — my wayward heart creates its own misery — Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child — long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it.”

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) British writer and philosopher

Undated letter to Joseph Johnson (October? 1792), published in The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft (2004), edited by Janet Todd, p. 206.

Silence, Suffering, Heart, Dance

“If something seems possible, that's probably because someone is already doing it. When something seems that it can't possibly work, nobody tries it. Real innovation happens when someone tries anyway, overlooking an obvious flaw, and finds a way to make an idea work.”

Joel Spolsky (1965) American blogger

"How Hard Could It Be? Inspired Misfires, Personal Development Article" http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080201/how-hard-could-it-be-inspired-misfires_pagen_2.html

Way

“Even of old the Christian world, so bitterly antagonistic to any ideas not specifically contained in their creeds and dogmas, made an exception in Socrates’ case. They recognized his likeness to Christ. He was the example that a soul could be Christlike, not through grace, but by nature. Erasmus said: "Holy Socrates, pray for us." To know him is a help to knowing Christ, and it is not hard to know him. We can see him quite clearly. Plato, who drew his portrait, could not, of course, keep himself out of it, any more than Christ’s recorders could; but at least magic did not dog Plato’s footsteps, as it did everyone’s footsteps when the Gospels were written. In the fourth century B. C. Greeks had no leaning to marvels. Also in the centuries that followed no one founded a church on Socrates and built up around him a theology and hung creeds and ceremonials upon him. To see what he was, we do not have to brush anything away, except a bit of Plato. We can use him as a stepping stone to Christ, a first aid in realizing what Christ was.”

Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) American teacher and writer

"The Rediscovery of Christ," Witness to the Truth: Christ and His Interpreters (1962)

World, Dogs, Soul, Nature

Quotes about ideas and thoughts page 50

Quotes about ideas and thoughts
page 50