Quotes about learning
page 56

“One should make movies innocently — the way Adam and Eve named the animals, their first day in the garden…Learn from your own interior vision of things, as if there had never been a D. W. Griffith, or a Eisenstein, or a [John] Ford, or a [Jean] Renoir, or anybody.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Quoted in The Orson Welles Story.

Way, Animals

“The marvelous is of necessity a lie, a distortion. At best it is a metaphor which leads to the truth. I think that I know what causes the World’s Pain, lady. Or at least I think I know what contributes to that Pain.”
“And what would that be, Ulrich von Bek?”
“By telling a single lie to oneself or to another, by denying a single fact of the world as it has been created, one adds to the World’s Pain. And pain, lady, creates pain. And one must not seek to become saint or sinner, God or Devil. One must seek to become human and to love the fact of one’s humanity.”
I became embarrassed. “That is all I have learned, lady.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

“It is all that Heaven demands,” she said.
Source: The von Bek family, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 16 (p. 158)

Love, God, Pain, Truth

“School was strange, rather amusing - with a teacher standing at the front telling you what to write. The camaraderie was interesting. I tend to remember the things you can't recreate on your own - queuing up for your dinner, learning team games, which were a complete mystery to me. I remember having to pretend I knew how to play hockey, that kind of thing.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Mail on Sunday - 06/02/2000
Childhood

School, Game, Teachers, Hockey

“Since most subjects studied in school consist largely of theories… language education must include not only the serious study of what truth and falsehood mean in the context of a subject, but also what is meant by a fact, an inference, an assumption, a judgment, a generalization… In this way students will be learning both the language of a subject and the methods of inquiry in that subject, since inquiry consists of nothing else but the generation of questions, the invention of definitions and metaphors, the separation of facts from inferences, the forming of generalizations…”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)

Truth, Education, School, Way

“"Thank God for the French army." When we read about Germany, when we watch with surprise and distress the tumultuous insurgence of ferocity and war spirit, the pitiless ill-treatment of minorities, the denial of the normal protections of civilised society to large numbers of individuals solely on the ground of race—when we see that occurring in one of the most gifted, learned, scientific and formidable nations in the world, one cannot help feeling glad that the fierce passions that are raging in Germany have not found, as yet, any other outlet but upon themselves. It seems to me that, at a moment like this, to ask France to halve her army while Germany doubles hers… to ask France to halve her air force while the German air force remains whatever it is… such a proposal, it seems to me, is likely to be considered by the French Government at present, at any rate, as somewhat unseasonable.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1933/mar/23/european-situation#S5CV0276P0_19330323_HOC_299 in the House of Commons (23 March 1933) shortly after Hitler became Chancellor The 1930s

God, War, World, Feeling

“Look at England, whose mighty power is now felt, and for centuries has been felt, all around the world. It is worthy of special remark, that precisely those parts of that proud island which have received the largest and most diversified populations, are to day the parts most distinguished for industry, enterprise, invention and general enlightenment. In Wales, and in the Highlands of Scotland the boast is made of their pure blood, and that they were never conquered, but no man can contemplate them without wishing they had been conquered. They are far in the rear of every other part of the English realm in all the comforts and conveniences of life, as well as in mental and physical development. Neither law nor learning descends to us from the mountains of Wales or from the Highlands of Scotland. The ancient Briton, whom Julius Caesar would not have as a slave, is not to be compared with the round, burly, amplitudinous Englishman in many of his qualities of desirable manhood.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Life, World, Law, Mountain

“I discovered the works of Euler and my perception of the nature of mathematics underwent a dramatic transformation. I was de-Bourbakized, stopped believing in sets, and was expelled from the Cantorian paradise. I still believe in abstraction, but now I know that one ends with abstraction, not starts with it. I learned that one has to adapt abstractions to reality and not the other way around. Mathematics stopped being a science of theories but reappeared to me as a science of numbers and shapes.”

Alexander Stepanov (1950) Russian programmer

Bjarne Stroustrup: Evolving a language in and for the real world: C++ 1991-2006. ACM HOPL-III. June 2007., 2008-04-25, http://web.archive.org/web/20071120015600/http://www.research.att.com/~bs/hopl-almost-final.pdf, 2007-11-20 http://www.research.att.com/~bs/hopl-almost-final.pdf,

Way, Mathematics, Nature, Reality

“They were a lot of fun but at the time I had two children. I’m just a mother at heart, so I decided it was time to retire from the screen. I would hate to be around today. In my time you learned your craft with small roles. They always handed you a script and told you, ‘This is your role.’ Now, you have to read for a part, over and over. 2,000 people have to approve before you get anything. I liked my era, where you were groomed.”

Elyse Knox (1917–2012) American actress

Interview with Ekyse Knox http://www.westernclippings.com/interview/elyseknox_interview.shtml

Hate, Children, People, Time

“It would grant me much relief to learn your sons were engaged matrimonially to other white men if I was previously faced with the spectre of those same sons wedding negro women, slave or free, and siring negro sons that could presume to claim inheritance of your namesakes and property, or worse, equality with your purer grandchildren.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

1860, Senate debate on legal status of interracial relationships.
1860s

Women, Men, Wedding

“Human love is not love. Love is natural to every body but it becomes human love as the person learns from society to confuse love with sex.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

The Way In (2000)

Love, Sex, Nature, Personality

“I have to be true to that - I can't take certain things away. I do have a political background. I’m only in England, learning this language and building a life in this society, because of political reasons. Why would I deny that?”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

Sourced quotes

Life

“Wisdom never learned silence, and it is most annoying when least wanted.”

Patricia A. McKillip book The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

Source: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974), Chapter 10, p. 272.

Wisdom, Silence

“[W]e still depend on crisis as the midwife of change, and we must learn to arrange things so that we may depend on it less. Yes, but the particular forms of the advance always remain obscure and controversial. We cannot even agree whether they should occur chiefly at the subnational, national, or supranational levels; whether the ideas that animate them should appear as local heresies—or as a universalizing heresy—doctrines, as liberalism and socialism were in their day that convey a message to all humanity; and how we should understand and practice the relation between change of institutions and changes of consciousness. Because the forms of change are obscure and controversial, they will continue to give rise to conflict and even to war. They will be dangerous. Yes, but all of this will take place, or fail to take place, in the long time of history, not in the short time of biography. We cannot wait; we must find a solution for ourselves nowː a way of foreshadowing in life as we can now live it that which the species has yet collectively failed to achieve.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger book The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound

Source: The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound (2007), p. 143-4

Life, War, Way, History

“But that story has in it the only constructive thing I ever learned about women - that no matter what happened to them and how they turned, you should try to disregard all that and remember them only as they were on the best day they ever had.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

On his short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Pt. 2, Ch. 9
Papa Hemingway (1966)

Women

“I was trying to prove that I was the Clash and it wasn't Mick (Jones). I learned that that was kind of dumb. I learned that it wasn't anybody, except maybe a great chemistry between us four, and I really learned it was over the day we sacked Topper, and not the day we sacked Mick. There was quite some time between them. We played a whole tour between those times. But it was the day we sacked Tops.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

Strummer on Man, God, Law and the Clash (31 January 1988)

Time

“The most learned of all Romans.”
Vir Romanorum eruditissimus.

Marcus Terentius Varro (-116–-27 BC) ancient latin scholar

Quintilian Institutio Oratoria Bk. 10, ch. 1, para. 95; translation by H. E. Butler. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/10A*.html#1.95 Criticism

“We seek a saviour, someone to rescue us from the problems of the world. A saviour is the simple story, the easy option and that is why it is so compelling. You don't have to do anything except believe. There's no need to negotiate with other people, or figure out how to create a robust system within the bizarre and contradictory parameters of human nature. I must admit I fell prey to this when I first met Julian Assange. He was going to lead the way to a bold new age. Instead I learned that power when concentrated is dangerous no matter who holds it or for whatever good intention. The real revolution happens in our own minds, when we stop believing there is someone or some agency who has all the answers, who is infallible and will save us, and instead come to realise we have that ability within ourselves. We may be susceptible to cults of personality, but we can build a check against this into our political systems.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Pages 237-238.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

People, Age, World, Way

“The Lord… said: Unless a man shall eat my flesh, he shall not have in himself eternal life. Certain of his disciples, the seventy to wit, were scandalised, and said: This is a hard saying; who can understand it? And they departed from him, and walked with him no more. His saying… seemed to them a hard one. They received it foolishly: they thought of it carnally. For they fancied, that the Lord was going to cut from his own body certain morsels and to give those morsels to them. Hence they said: This is a hard saying. But they themselves were hard: not the saying. For, if, instead of being hard, they had been mild, they would have… learned from him what those learned, who remained while they departed. For, when the twelve disciples had remained with him after the others had departed,… he instructed them, and said unto them: It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words, which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. As if he had said: Understand spiritually what I have spoken. You are Not about to eat this identical body, which you see; and you are Not about to drink this identical blood, which they who crucify me will pour out. I have commended unto you a certain sacrament. This, if spiritually understood, will quicken you. Though it must be celebrated visibly, it must be understood invisibly.”

George Stanley Faber (1773–1854) British theologian

Source: Christ's Discourse at Capernaum: Fatal to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation (1840), pp. 144-147

Life, Drink, Understanding

“We learn from a passage in Strabo, that it was a dogma of the Gaulish Druids that the universe was immortal, but destined to survive catastrophes both of fire and water. That this doctrine was communicated to them from the East, with much of their learning, cannot be doubted.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.2, p. 22
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Communication, Universe, Water

“These ten commandments come to us as a Divine Revelation, as a document signed by God Himself [-] But these books contain a higher wisdom besides. Not the wisdom of the street corners, nor the wisdom of the learned schools, but the conduct which God requires of us”

Michael von Faulhaber (1869–1952) German Roman Catholic Cardinal

Sermon Two

Wisdom, God, Books, School

“I have always considered the price of perfection prohibitive and allowed mistakes as a part of the learning process. I prefer a dash of daring and persistence to perfection. I have always supported learning on the part of my team members by paying vigilant attention to each of their attempts, be they successful or unsuccessful.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 58.

Support, Success, Parting, Perfection

“There is no question that Whoopi Goldberg's foolish comments at a John Kerry fundraiser hurt Kerry — who had no idea how to handle the situation. Chevy Chase should have learned from that. Even he has to know that calling the president of the United States an "F" is not going to be accepted by most Americans. Now you don't see this kind of thing on the right. You don't see prominent conservatives cursing out Democratic members of Congress, for example. Now I know talk radio can get rough but nothing like what these Hollywood nitwits are throwing out there.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

2004-12-17
Disrespecting the Office of the Presidency
The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News
Television
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141845,00.html
2007-09-20

Idea, Question, Hurt

“Studies in painting: Non. He learned to express himself by means of art in the same way as the child learns to talk. No teaching is needed for the one who is born an artist, and even the expression 'self-taught' is a phony, he thinks.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in a questionnaire, Max Ernst filled out in 1948, the U.S; as cited in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 7
1936 - 1950

Art, Way, Thinking, Study

“The observer usually will see what his fears and hopes and learning teach him to see. But if he can escape these demands that hold up a mirror to himself, then perhaps some of the implications of the work may be felt. But whatever is seen of felt it should be remembered that for me these paintings had to be something else. It is the price one has to pay for clarity when one’s means are honoured only as an instrument of seduction or assault.”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

Letter to Dorothy Miller February 5, 1952; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 193
1950s

Fear, Hope, Painting

“A lot of musicians don’t learn the business. You just have to be well-rounded in both areas. You have to understand publishing. You have to understand how you make money, what’s in demand, what helps you make the most out of your talent.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

Showcase article: [Polta, Anne, Continuing Journey: Bradley Joseph sustains music career with songwriting, recording, West Central Tribune, 2007-02-08, http://www.newspaperprints.com/index.cfm?page=search_results&paper=West%20Central%20Tribune&selectedDate=2007-02-08&start=16&perpage=5, 2007-02-18]

Money, Understanding, Business, Help

“The farmer needs to learn different skills if he wants to cultivate, just as the doctor and hunter need to learn many things if they are to heal or hunt. And so must he who wishes to gain from the scripture and from Christ learn all rational and logical skills. He must go to geometry, music, grammar and philosophy itself and take from them what is useful, in order to defend his faith against those who plot to destroy it. If he does not do this, he is, as Plato says, like the athlete who turns up unprepared for the games.”

Eric Osborn (1922–2007)

Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge University Press: 2008), p. 63

Faith, Music, Game, Christ

“The third article was union. […] By working shoulder to shoulder, together we can increase the bounty of all. We have discovered that every child who learns, every man who finds work, every sick body that is made whole—like a candle added to an altar—brightens the hope of all the faithful. So let us reject any among us who seek to reopen old wounds and to rekindle old hatreds. They stand in the way of a seeking nation. Let us now join reason to faith and action to experience, to transform our unity of interest into a unity of purpose. For the hour and the day and the time are here to achieve progress without strife, to achieve change without hatred—not without difference of opinion, but without the deep and abiding divisions which scar the union for generations.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Inaugural address (1965)

Faith, Hope, Way, Change

“The Bobbit case, which brought to life the ancient mythic archetype of woman as castrator, demonstrated that women are as aggressive as men and that sex is a dark, dangerous force of nature. But of course the feminist establishment, stuck in its battered-woman blinders, learned nothing as usual from this lurid refutation of its normal views. Classic art works like Bizet’s Carmen tell us more about the irrationality of love, jealousy and revenge than do all the pat formulas of the counseling industry.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 42

Love, Life, Women, Men

“The green movement, in other words, is the red movement stripped of the veneer of reason and science and bent on the destruction of reason and science rather than take the trouble to learn what reason and science actually are. The green movement is the red movement no longer in its boisterous, arrogant youth, but in its demented old age.”

George Reisman (1937) American economist

Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)

Youth, Age, Science

“You feel chilled because you have no character. You’re a depressing assemblage of pop culture influences and cancelled emotions, driven by the sputtering engine of only the most banal form of capitalism. You spend your life feeling as if you’re perpetually on the brink of being obsolete — whether it’s labour market obsolescence or cultural unhipness. And it’s all catching up with you. You live and die by the development cycle. You’re glamorized drosophila flies, with the company regulating your life cycles at whim. If it isn’t a budget-driven eighteen-month game production schedule, it’s a five-year hardware obsolescence schedule. Every five years you have to throw away everything you know and learn a whole new set of hardware and software specs, relegating what was once critical to our lives to the cosmic slag heap.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

JPod (2006)

Life, Feeling, Game

“A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.”

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

As quoted in The New York Times (2 July 1978)

Books

“We are a multitude of selves, and the sooner we learn that, the better. And in that rich alliance of psychological Aspects lies the very secret of our practical operative stability. Only because we change our positions constantly in reference to the psyche and the world are we able to manipulate physically and translate inner experience into sense terms.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 272

Secret, World, Sense, Change

“Bare Attention first allows things to speak for themselves, without interruption by final verdicts pronounced too hastily. Bare Attention gives them a chance to finish their speaking, and one will thus get to learn that, in fact, they have much to say about themselves, which formerly was mostly ignored by rashness or was drowned in the inner and outer noise in which ordinary man normally lives. Because Bare Attention sees things without the narrowing and leveling effect of habitual judgments, it sees them ever anew, as it for the first time; therefore it will happen with progressive frequency that things will have something new and worthwhile to reveal. Patient pausing in such an attitude of Bare Attention will open wide horizons to one’s understanding, denied to the strained efforts of an impatient intellect. Owing to a rash or habitual limiting, labeling, misjudging, and mishandling of things, important sources of knowledge often remain closed.”

Nyanaponika Thera (1901–1994) German Buddhist monk

Source: The Heart of Buddhist Meditation (1965), p. 35

Understanding, Knowledge, Effort, Chance

“In esoteric circles, there is much learned talk about the Law of Karma which is, after all, only the Eastern name for the great Law of Cause and Effect; the emphasis is ever upon evil karma and how to avoid it. Yet I would guarantee that… there is far more general good karma than evil; I say this in spite of the world war, the unutterable horror by which we have been and are still surrounded… The evil and the misery will pass but happiness will remain; above everything else will come the realisation that… ours is now the opportunity to build a new and better world.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter I, Part 1

War, Happiness, World, Law

“No one knows everything. The learned are few. There is no guarantee that the smart bring wisdom. Knowledge is not available for all.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Tripadis

Wisdom, Knowledge

“The biggest thing I learned was, especially the way I operate and how I am as a person, if I'm going to do a creative endeavor, I need to have full, complete control. Top to bottom. And with my book and website, I always had that. With the website, definitely, with the book, basically, with the movie…I didn't in a lot of ways. Nils and I, we had a lot of control, more control probably than almost any first time movie makers do within a normal studio system. We were in the middle between independent and not, because someone else paid for everything, and they kind of let us do what we wanted, but then once the movie was done creatively, it went in a direction that I did not want it to go, and there was nothing I could really do about it. It's hard enough to swim in that movie current by yourself, but when you've got weights tied to you and someone pulling you in a different direction, it's almost impossible. You need to pick a direction and go with it. If you're going to be a big studio movie, go be that, and if you're going to go be a rogue independent film, go be that. We had different people with different levels of authority on the movie that pulled us in different directions, and it just doesn't work. Either be in control or let someone else do it, but don't…too many chefs. I'm going to be better next time. Failure instructs, failure improves. Failure shouldn't deter you, unless you're just bad at it.”

Tucker Max (1975) Internet personality; blogger; author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC6zdVKoNr8 (March 2010).

People, Books, Way, Failure

“It was at St. Mary’s that I met and learned to love the greatest man I’ve ever known. His name was Brother Matthias. He was the father I needed. He taught me to read and write — and he taught me the difference between right and wrong.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Recalling Brother Matthias Boutlier, in The Babe Ruth Story; reproduced in "Photo of the Day: Babe Ruth Bows Out" http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2016/05/photo-day-761-2/ by Lux, at Whale Oil Beef Hooked (May 3, 2016)

Love, Reading

“Beware! By Allah the son of Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr) dressed himself with it (the caliphate) and he certainly knew that my position in relation to it was the same as the position of the axis in relation to the hand-mill. The flood water flows down from me and the bird cannot fly upto me. I put a curtain against the caliphate and kept myself detached from it.
Then I began to think whether I should assault or endure calmly the blinding darkness of tribulations wherein the grown up are made feeble and the young grow old and the true believer acts under strain till he meets Allah (on his death). I found that endurance thereon was wiser. So I adopted patience although there was pricking in the eye and suffocation (of mortification) in the throat. I watched the plundering of my inheritance till the first one went his way but handed over the Caliphate to Ibn al-Khattab after himself.
(Then he quoted al-A`sha's verse):
My days are now passed on the camel's back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir's brother Hayyan.
It is strange that during his lifetime he wished to be released from the caliphate but he confirmed it for the other one after his death. No doubt these two shared its udders strictly among themselves. This one put the Caliphate in a tough enclosure where the utterance was haughty and the touch was rough. Mistakes were in plenty and so also the excuses therefore. One in contact with it was like the rider of an unruly camel. If he pulled up its rein the very nostril would be slit, but if he let it loose he would be thrown. Consequently, by Allah people got involved in recklessness, wickedness, unsteadiness and deviation.
Nevertheless, I remained patient despite length of period and stiffness of trial, till when he went his way (of death) he put the matter (of Caliphate) in a group and regarded me to be one of them. But good Heavens! what had I to do with this "consultation"? Where was any doubt about me with regard to the first of them that I was now considered akin to these ones? But I remained low when they were low and flew high when they flew high. One of them turned against me because of his hatred and the other got inclined the other way due to his in-law relationship and this thing and that thing, till the third man of these people stood up with heaving breasts between his dung and fodder. With him his children of his grand-father, (Umayyah) also stood up swallowing up Allah's wealth like a camel devouring the foliage of spring, till his rope broke down, his actions finished him and his gluttony brought him down prostrate.
At that moment, nothing took me by surprise, but the crowd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like the herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying:
That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur'an, 28:83)
Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Known as the Sermon of ash-Shiqshiqiyyah (roar of the camel), It is said that when Amir al-mu'minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu'minin began looking at it, when Ibn `Abbas said, "O' Amir al-mu'minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it." Thereupon he replied, "O' Ibn `Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided." Ibn `Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu'minin could not finish it as he wished to.
Nahj al-Balagha

Death, Hunger, Children, People

“Don't be shy you learn to fly.
And see the sun when day is done.
If only you see
Just what you are beneath a star
That came to stay one rainy day
In autumn for free.
Yes, be what you'll be.”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Things Behind the Sun
Pink Moon (1972)

Star, Autumn, Sun, Flying

“Both Socrates and Christ taught economic man to be at least slightly ashamed of himself when he failed to sacrifice the lower capacity to the higher. Freud is America’s great teacher, despite his ardent wish to avoid that fate. For it was precisely the official and parental shams of high ideals that Freud questioned. In their stead, Freud taught lessons which Americans, prepared by their own national experience, learn easily: survive, resign yourself to living within your moral means, suffer no gratuitous failures in a futile search for ethical heights that no longer exist—if they ever did.”

Philip Rieff (1922–2006) American sociologist

The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966)

Fate, Search, Failure, Question

“It can be argued that in trying to see behind the formal predictions of quantum theory we are just making trouble for ourselves. Was not precisely this the lesson that had to be learned before quantum mechanics could be constructed, that it is futile to try to see behind the observed phenomena?”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

"Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Experiments", included in Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics (1987), p. 82 https://books.google.com/books?id=FGnnHxh2YtQC&pg=PA82

“We’ve gotta roll with the punches
Learn to play all of our hunches.
Makin’ the best of whatever comes your way.
Forget that blind ambition
And learn to trust your intuition.
Plowin’ straight ahead come what may.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

Cowboy in the Jungle
Song lyrics, Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)

Way, Forgetting

“When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to unlearn what you have learned."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Antisthenes, 4.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 6: The Cynics

“I read your letters with my sister, and they give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please us two, when you talk in a religious strain,—not but we are offended occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of mysticism, more consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter—you say, “it is by the press [sic], that God hath given finite spirits both evil and good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and good men), a portion as it were of His Omnipresence!” Now, high as the human intellect comparatively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge, a distance between the Divine Mind and it, which makes such language blasphemy? Again, in your first fine consolatory epistle you say, “you are a temporary sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature.” What more than this do those men say, who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the second person of an unknown Trinity,—men, whom you or I scruple not to call idolaters? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily remind him of dependence; man, a weak and ignorant being, “servile” from his birth “to all the skiey influences,” with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a head generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the pride of speculation, forgetting his nature, and hailing in himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge; I wish not to cavil; I know I cannot instruct you; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New Testament (our best guide), is represented to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent: and in my poor mind ’tis best for us so to consider of Him, as our heavenly Father, and our best Friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of His nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of “dear children,” “brethren,” and “co-heirs with Christ of the promises,” seeking to know no further… God love us all, and may He continue to be the father and the friend of the whole human race!”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Lamb's letter to Coleridge in Oct. 24th, 1796. As quoted in Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (1905). Letter 11.

Love, Men, God, Children

“Just at the time I got your letter Mr. Angus sent me the 'Scotsman' [magazine]. You say some critics have thought it fair to make it the basis of a personal attack, and it is very critic-like. Critic means knife, means dissection, means wisdom, means perfection. Art is stupid, art-less. That is a hard job for the critic to understand. I like your book because it is 'stupid', like Japanese; which means done for the love of it in itself; not for gain or success. You don't go to criticise a Japanese drawing and say it is out of shape, out of drawing, no perspective nor anatomy. This is only for the critic to show his knowledge by killing the things; those stupid fellows do harm, like Whistler says, with their learnings. They must have schools and applications of knowledge. Thackeray calls them scavengers - scavengers are at least necessary, those fellows are for no good..”

Matthijs Maris (1839–1917) Dutch painter

Quote of Matthijs Maris, in his letter to David Croal Thomson (Oct. 1890), as cited in: The Brothers Maris (James – Matthew – William), ed. Charles Holme; text: D.C. Thomson https://ia800204.us.archive.org/1/items/cu31924016812756/cu31924016812756.pdf; publishers, Offices of 'The Studio', London - Paris, 1907, p. BMxv p. BMxviii

Love, Wisdom, Books, Stupidity

“It would be no vindication of the right of speech to prove that certain gentlemen of great distinction, eminent for their learning and ability, are allowed to freely express their opinions on all subjects - including the subject of slavery. Such a vindication would need, itself, to be vindicated. It would add insult to injury. Not even an old-fashioned abolition meeting could vindicate that right in Boston just now. There can be no right of speech where any man, however lifted up, or however humble, however young, or however old, is overawed by force, and compelled to suppress his honest sentiments.”

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

1880s, Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1880)

Fashion

“Playboy: Then for now, aren't you asking home-computer buyers to invest $3000 in what is essentially an act of faith?
Jobs: In the future, it won't be an act of faith. The hard part of what we're up against now is that people ask you about specifics and you can't tell them. A hundred years ago, if somebody had asked Alexander Graham Bell, "What are you going to be able to do with a telephone?" he wouldn't have been able to tell him the ways the telephone would affect the world. He didn't know that people would use the telephone to call up and find out what movies were playing that night or to order some groceries or call a relative on the other side of the globe. But remember that first the public telegraph was inaugurated, in 1844. It was an amazing breakthrough in communications. You could actually send messages from New York to San Francisco in an afternoon. People talked about putting a telegraph on every desk in America to improve productivity. But it wouldn't have worked. It required that people learn this whole sequence of strange incantations, Morse code, dots and dashes, to use the telegraph. It took about 40 hours to learn. The majority of people would never learn how to use it. So, fortunately, in the 1870s, Bell filed the patents for the telephone. It performed basically the same function as the telegraph, but people already knew how to use it. Also, the neatest thing about it was that besides allowing you to communicate with just words, it allowed you to sing.
Playboy: Meaning what?
Jobs: It allowed you to intone your words with meaning beyond the simple linguistics. And we're in the same situation today. Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won't work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are "slash q-zs" and things like that. The manual for WordStar, the most popular word-processing program, is 400 pages thick. To write a novel, you have to read a novel—one that reads like a mystery to most people. They're not going to learn slash q-z any more than they're going to learn Morse code. That is what Macintosh is all about. It's the first "telephone" of our industry. And, besides that, the neatest thing about it, to me, is that the Macintosh lets you sing the way the telephone did. You don't simply communicate words, you have special print styles and the ability to draw and add pictures to express yourself.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs, Playboy, Feb 1985, as quoted in “Steve Jobs Imagines 'Nationwide' Internet in 1985 Interview” https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/steve-jobs-imagines-nationwide-internet-in-1985-intervi-1671246589, Matt Novak, 12/15/14 2:20pm Paleofuture, Gizmodo. 1980s

People, World, Faith, Way

“He was listening, too, for it is through the eyes and ears that one learns. A spiderweb of facts can tie up the lion of action; not to know is bad; not to strive to know is worse.”

Andre Norton (1912–2005) American writer of science fiction and fantasy

Source: Dragon Magic (1972), Chapter 3, “Sirrush-Lau” (p. 84)

“How many children, discontented with the exercise of needful authority, might learn submission and thankfulness from the lot of others; such a temper as that we have been describing is very uncommon; the treatment of children oftener errs on the side of over-indulgence than aught else. How many might be taught better to appreciate the blessings which surround them by considering what some, less fortunate than themselves, are called upon to endure!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Children, Exercises

“…On the return of Moozuffur Khan to Guzerat, he learnt that in the western Puttun district the Ray of Jehrend, an idolater, refused allegiance to the Mahomedan authority. To this place Moozuffur Khan accordingly marched, and exacted tribute. He then proceeded to Somnat, where having destroyed all the Hindoo temples which he found standing, he built mosques in their stead; and leaving learned men for the propagation of the faith, and his own officers to govern the country, returned to Puttun in the year AH 798 (AD 1395).”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Muzaffar Shãh I of Gujarat (AD 1392-1410)Somnath (Gujarat)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Men, Faith, Country

“You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Letter to Frances Turnbull (9 November 1938), in A Life in Letters (1994), p. 368
Quoted, Letters

People, Time, Heart

“We must learn to respect each other's views and to differ without anger or ill will.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

14 July 2005
Additional remarks about the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission

Anger

“The spider-men came first, and presented her Majesty with a table full of mathematical points, lines and figures of all sorts of squares, circles, triangles, and the like; which the Empress, notwithstanding that she had a very ready wit, and quick apprehension, could not understand; but the more she endeavoured to learn, the more was she confounded”

Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) English aristocrat, a prolific writer, and a scientist

Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World (1666)

Men, Mathematics, Understanding

“To die to sin is to live to God, If we would God discern, the world we must despise, his love and hate must learn, see all things with His eyes to be emptied of self and detached from all that pleases or displeases, leads to the Kingdom of God; heart and desire must close to things of earth to open to God and things eternal, if we desire to taste and see that the Lord is sweet”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 124

Love, God, Hate, World

“I have never learned to draw a hand well enough, so why should I stop trying now?”

Jack Levine (1915–2010) American artist

Selden Rodman, Conversations With Artists, 1956.

Drawing

“By feeling insecure about our making love, Nina, you make the inference that we are a pair of cheap people involved in some cheap pleasant friction. Pull on the pants and walk away, adding up the score. I think we're interested in each other, involved with each other, curious about each other. This was a part of exploring and learning. When it's good you learn something about yourself too. If the spirit is involved, if there is tenderness and respect and awareness of need, that's all the morality I care about.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Travis McGee series, (1964)

Love, People, Making love, Feeling

“Pedophiles are almost certainly "born that way". Again, we go to evolutionary conditioning. Seek the youngest, strongest, most healthy, for breeding purposes. A sure (or as sure as it gets) way to guarantee the survival of your genes. Pedophilia also brings along a big heaping helping of learned responses, however. In a society like ours, where "normal" sex is considered by many to be filthy and disgusting, "abnormal" sex is of course even moreso. "Abnormal" in this case meaning anything—even simple physical attraction—that is not "age-appropriate", heterosexual, and strictly for procreation. Preferably missionary position. Thus, any confused individual who finds himself attracted to young girls is likely to find himself attracted to increasingly younger girls, as part of his pattern of self-loathing. So much emotional torment—in victims and victimizers—would surely be set aside if our society was sexually liberated enough to even be able to say "Sure, it's okay to be attracted to eleven year olds. Just don't do anything about it!"”

John Byrne (1950) American author and artist of comic books

2010
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=35811&TPN=4
Pedophilia

Age, Sex, Way, Girl

“The best way to learn a topic is by teaching it. Similarly the best way to understand a new proof is by writing an expository article about it.”

Doron Zeilberger (1950) Israeli mathematician

[Kathy O'Hara's constructive proof of the unimodality of the Gaussian polynomials, Amer. Math. Monthly, 96, 1989, 592 of 590–602, http://www.maa.org/programs/maa-awards/writing-awards/kathy-oharas-constructive-proof-of-the-unimodality-of-the-gaussian-polynomials]

Way, Understanding

“The plan is to always have a plug into my past, where I am from. And how deep that is and having that gave me confidence to be able to expand. I am confident that I have something (music) that is backing me and that is always there for me… so that I can explore more, learn and grow more as an artiste and as a musician.”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

Quote, I am not torchbearer of Indian classical music: Zakir Hussain

Music, Confidence, Past

“One could divine pretty nearly where the force lay, since the last ten years had given to the great mechanical energies — coal, iron, steam — a distinct superiority in power over the old industrial elements — agriculture, handwork, and learning; but the result of this revolution on a survivor from the fifties resembled the action of the earthworm; he twisted about, in vain, to recover his starting-point; he could no longer see his own trail; he had become an estray; a flotsam or jetsam of wreckage; a belated reveller, or a scholar-gipsy like Matthew Arnold's. His world was dead. Not a Polish Jew fresh from Warsaw or Cracow — not a furtive Yacoob or Ysaac still reeking of the Ghetto, snarling a weird Yiddish to the officers of the customs — but had a keener instinct, an intenser energy, and a freer hand than he — American of Americans, with Heaven knew how many Puritans and Patriots behind him, and an education that had cost a civil war.”

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

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

War, World, Education, Dead

“The ability to learn faster than competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Arie P. de Geus, " Planning as learning https://hbr.org/1988/03/planning-as-learning/ar/1." Harvard Business Review, March/April 1988: 70-74.

“Our books have informed us that the pre-eminence in chivalry and learning once belonged to Greece. Then chivalry passed to Rome, together with that highest learning which now has come to France. God grant that it may be cherished here, and that it may be made so welcome here that the honour which has taken refuge with us may never depart from France: God had awarded it as another's share, but of Greeks and Romans no more is heard, their fame is passed, and their glowing ash is dead.”

Chrétien de Troyes Cligès

At Wikisource, Vv. 1-44
Cliges

God, Books, Dead

“Since September 11, 2001, I have often thought that perhaps it was fortunate for the world that the attackers targeted the World Trade Center instead of the Statue of Liberty, for if they had destroyed our sacred symbol of democracy I fear we as Americans would have been unable to keep ourselves from indulging in paroxysms of revenge of a sort the world has never seen before. If that had happened, it would have befouled the meaning of the Statue of Liberty beyond any hope of subsequent redemption — if there were any people left to care. I have learned from my students that this upsetting thought of mine is subject to several unfortunate misconstruals, so let me expand on it to ward them off. The killing of thousands of innocents in the World Trade Center was a heinous crime, much more evil than the destruction of the Statue of Liberty would have been. And, yes, the World Trade Center was a much more appropriate symbol of al Qaeda's wrath than the Statue of Liberty would have been, but for that very reason it didn't mean as much, as a symbol, to us. It was Mammon and Plutocrats and Globalization, not Lady Liberty. I do suspect that the fury with which Americans would have responded to the unspeakable defilement of our cherished national symbol, the purest image of our aspirations as a democracy, would have made a sane and measured response extraordinarily difficult. This is the great danger of symbols — they can become too "sacred."”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

An important task for religious people of all faiths in the twenty-first century will be spreading the conviction that there are no acts more dishonorable than harming "infidels" of one stripe or another for "disrespecting" a flag, a cross, a holy text.
Breaking the Spell (2006)

People, World, Fear, Faith

“I remember an old proverb. It says that youth thinks itself wise just as drunk men think themselves sober. Youth is not wise! Youth knows nothing about life! Youth knows nothing about anything except for massive cliches which for the most part through the media of pop songs are just foisted on them by middle-age entrepreneurs and exploiters who should know better. When we start thinking that pop music is close to God, then we'll think pop music is aesthetically better than it is. And it's only the aesthetic value of pop music that we're really concerned. I mean the only way we can judge Wagner or Beethoven or any other composer is aesthetically. We don't regard Wagner or Beethoven nor Shakespeare or Milton as great teachers. When we start claiming for Lennon or McCartney or Maharishi or any other of these pop prophets the ability to transport us to a region where God becomes manifest then I see red. We're satisfied with our little long playing record, ten pop numbers or thereabouts a side. This is great art, we've been told this by the great pundits of our age. And in consequence why should we bother to learn? There's nothing more delightful than to be told: "You don't have to learn, my boy. There's nothing in it. Modern art? There's nothing in it." When you're told these things you sit down with a sigh of relief: "Thank God I don't have to learn, I don't have to travel, I don't have to exert myself in the slightest. I am what I am. Youth is youth. Pop is pop. There's no need to progress. There's no need to do anything. Let us sit down, smoke our marijuana (an admirable thing in itself but not the end of anything), let us listen to our records and life has become a single moment. And the single moment is eternity. We're with God. Finis!”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Pop Music

Life, Men, God, Youth

“You meet them, you see them, you understand them and you know what they stand for; and whether stand for some principles, like Ramana Maharishi, Swami Muktananda, and Sai Baba. You can’t have anything but admiration for such great men. You learn from them. For instance, Mahesh Yogi, he teaches you meditation and it’s great science and great yoga. So, as a person interested in yoga or spiritualism. I came to know them, and to be in their company.”

Ramnath Goenka (1904–1991) Indian politician

Ramnath Goenka’s rare Interview

Men, Understanding, Science, Personality

“The right hon. and learned Member is the man who likes to say yes in Europe — Monsieur Oui, the poodle of Brussels.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Hansard, HC 6 ser, vol 240 col 134 (22 March 1994).
A jibe against the Leader of the Labour Party.
1990s, 1994

“Many workers in the biological sciences — physiologists, psychologists, sociologists — are interested in cybernetics and would like to apply its methods and techniques to their own specialty. Many have, however, been prevented from taking up the subject by an impression that its use must be preceded by a long study of electronics and advanced pure mathematics; for they have formed the impression that cybernetics and these subjects are inseparable.
The author is convinced, however, that this impression is false. The basic ideas of cybernetics can be treated without reference to electronics, and they are fundamentally simple; so although advanced techniques may be necessary for advanced applications, a great deal can be done, especially in the biological sciences, by the use of quite simple techniques, provided they are used with a clear and deep understanding of the principles involved. It is the author’s belief that if the subject is founded in the common-place and well understood, and is then built up carefully, step by step, there is no reason why the worker with only elementary mathematical knowledge should not achieve a complete understanding of its basic principles. With such an understanding he will then be able to see exactly what further techniques he will have to learn if he is to proceed further; and, what is particularly useful, he will be able to see what techniques he can safely ignore as being irrelevant to his purpose.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Preface
An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956)

Mathematics, Idea, Understanding, Knowledge

“[Most people] are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. … Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.”

George Eliot book Scenes of Clerical Life

"The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton" Ch. 5
Scenes of Clerical Life (1858)

People, Soul, Lying, Fashion

“Verily learned to live with constant deception, hiding what he was and what he saw and what he felt and what he did from everyone around him. It was only natural that he should be drawn to the study of law.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 9.

Law, Nature, Study

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.
He saw the townlands
and learned the minds of many distant men,
and weathered many bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
But not by will nor valor could he save them,
for their own recklessness destroyed them all—
children and fools, they killed and feasted on
the cattle of Lord Hêlios, the Sun,
and he who moves all day through the heaven
took from their eyes the dawn of their return.”

Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985) American poet, critic and translator

opening lines
The Odyssey (1961)

Life, Men, Children, Fools

“In the highest class of God's school of suffering we learn not resignation nor patience, but rejoicing in tribulation.”

John Heyl Vincent (1832–1920) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 569.

God, School, Suffering, Patience

“You spend months and months listening to the music, absorbing, practicing, working with real musicians who worked with them and getting as much of that as you can. And then the day you start shooting, you have to throw it all away. Because, they had no self-consciousness. They were natural performers and at that time, it wasn't about how you could synthesize a voice and make it appealing, it was about the natural little hiccups and the way you related a story or wrote the soul in the words you wrote. And 90% of your popularity was your performance and your interpretation of your own song. So, once we learned it all you just have to just kind of hope it all sunk in somewhere and just let it all go, cause they just had incredible confidence.”

Reese Witherspoon (1976) American film actress and producer

On making Walk the Line IGN Interview with Reese Witherspoon http://movies.ign.com/articles/666/666865p1.html (November 15, 2005).

Hope, Music, Way, Soul

“The Book of Isaiah begins with a description of the disasters which had overtaken the nation and then in impassioned words the prophet spurns the means taken to appease Jehovah's anger. "…Cease to do evil! Learn to do right! Seek justice! Relieve the oppressed! Secure justice for the orphaned and plead for the widow."”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Isaiah I. 10-17.
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 5

Books, Justice, Evil, Anger

“And I've been to darker places
That I never thought I'd go
And I've learned lots of lessons
I can say I'm finally home.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Dark White Girl
Resurrection (2014)

Home

“We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.”

Ed Colligan (1961) Former president and CEO of Palm, Inc

Palm's Ed Colligan laughs off iPhone http://engadget.com/2006/11/21/palms-ed-colligan-laughs-off-iphone in Engadget (21 November 2006).

Guy

“It's definitely a different world. Smoking is bad for your voice, for sure, but you learn to function in that world of bad. Now I'm in better shape, and I'm much more physical onstage, but I have to watch getting winded. Once I'm winded, I don't sing right. I would have smoked three cigarettes already during this interview”

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

laughs Responding to whether quitting smoking has helped his voice.** Rolling Stone - Q&A: Chris Cornell, 2005-14-07, 2006-07-03 http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/audioslave/articles/story/7482813/qa_chris_cornell, Audioslave Era

World, Singing