Quotes about parting (8008 quotes, page 7)

“Part of the Act of Faith is to affirm: There's no better way to bring a better Being into Being than to speak the Truth.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Truth , Faith , Way

“Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'tis time to part.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

Nature , Time

“The FBI is still gathering the facts about what happened in San Bernardino, but here is what we know. The victims were brutally murdered and injured by one of their coworkers and his wife. So far, we have no evidence that the killers were directed by a terrorist organization overseas, or that they were part of a broader conspiracy here at home. But it is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West. They had stockpiled assault weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs. So this was an act of terrorism, designed to kill innocent people.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Address to the Nation by the President on San Bernardino (December 2015)

War , People , Home

“p>To the new International that is now in the irreversible process of preparation we can contribute the ideas of worldwide organization and the world state; the English can suggest the idea of worldwide exploitation and trusts; the French can offer nothing….
Thus we find two great economic principles opposed to each other in the modern world. The Viking has become a free-tradesman; the Teutonic knight is now an administrative official. There can be no reconciliation. Each of these principles is proclaimed by a German people, Faustian men par excellence. Neither can accept a restriction of its will, and neither can be satisfied until the whole world has succumbed to its particular idea. This being the case, war will be waged until one side gains final victory. Is world economy to be worldwide exploitation, or worldwide organization? Are the Caesars of the coming empire to be billionaires or universal administrators? Shall the population of the earth, so long as this empire of Faustian civilization holds together, be subjected to cartels and trusts, or to men such as those envisioned in the closing pages of Goethe’s Faust, Part II? Truly, the destiny of the world is at stake….
This brings us to the political aspects of the English-Prussian antithesis. Politics is the highest and most powerful dimension of all historical existence. World history is the history of states; the history of states is the history of wars. Ideas, when they press for decisions, assume the form of political units: countries, peoples, or parties. They must be fought over not with words but with weapons. Economic warfare becomes military warfare between countries or within countries. Religious associations such as Jewry and Islam, Huguenots and Mormons, constitute themselves as countries when it becomes a matter of their continued existence or their success. Everything that proceeds from the innermost soul to become flesh or fleshly creation demands a sacrifice of flesh in return. Ideas that have become blood demand blood. War is the eternal pattern of higher human existence, and countries exist for war’s sake; they are signs of readiness for war. And even if a tired and blood-drained humanity desired to do away with war, like the citizens of the Classical world during its final centuries, like the Indians and Chinese of today, it would merely exchange its role of war-wager for that of the object about and with which others would wage war. Even if a Faustian universal harmony could be attained, masterful types on the order of late Roman, late Chinese, or late Egyptian Caesars would battle each other for this Empire—for the possession of it, if its final form were capitalistic; or for the highest rank in it, if it should become socialistic.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

Men , War , People , World

“Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.”

José Saramago book The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Source: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1993), p. 47

“How grievously I was disappointed! …I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind and any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person that began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when endeavored to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones he would say, are hard and have ligaments which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which also have a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I an sitting here in a curved posture… and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia… if they had been guided only by their idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler part… to undergo any punishment that the State inflicts.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Disappointment , Idea , Thinking , Water

“Let there be no fainting of heart and no depression, and also let there be no unforeseeing fury, no blindly-striking madness. We are at the beginning of a time of terrible trial. The passage is not to be easy, the crown is not to be cheaply earned. India is going down into the valley of the shadow of death, into a great horror of darkness and suffering. Let us realise that what we are now suffering, is a small part of what we shall have to suffer, and work in that knowledge, with resolution, without hysteria…. The first need at the present moment is courage, a courage which knows not how to flinch or shrink.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Bande Mataram, 1907
India's Rebirth

Death , Courage , Knowledge , Suffering

“No species remains constant: that great renovator of matter
Nature, endlessly fashions new forms from old: there’s nothing
in the whole universe that perishes, believe me; rather
it renews and varies its substance. What we describe as birth
is no more than incipient change from a prior state, while dying
is merely to quit it. Though the parts may be transported
hither and thither, the sum of all matter is constant.”
Nec species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras: nec perit in toto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo, sed variat faciemque novat, nascique vocatur incipere esse aliud, quam quod fuit ante, morique desinere illud idem. cum sint huc forsitan illa, haec translata illuc, summa tamen omnia constant.

Ovid Metamorphoses

Nec species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix
ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras:
nec perit in toto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo,
sed variat faciemque novat, nascique vocatur
incipere esse aliud, quam quod fuit ante, morique
desinere illud idem. cum sint huc forsitan illa,
haec translata illuc, summa tamen omnia constant.
Book XV, 252–258 (as translated by Peter Green)
Metamorphoses (Transformations)

Fashion , Birth , Nature , Universe

“Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy. Celebrity doesn’t have anything to do with art or craft. It’s about being rich and thinking that you’re better than everybody else.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1981) American actor, director, producer, and writer

The New York Times, March 25, 2007.

Art , Thinking

“What, then, was that policy? It was a policy of conditional neutrality. Under the circumstances of the case we did not believe that it was for the honour or interest of England or Turkey that we should take any part in the impending contest; but while we enforced the neutrality which we prepared to observe, we declared at the same time that that neutrality must cease if British interests were assailed or menaced. Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own, have denounced this policy as a selfish policy. My Lord Mayor, it is as selfish as patriotism.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech at the Guildhall, London (9 November 1877), quoted in 'Lord Mayor's Day.', The Times (10 November 1877), p. 10.

Men , Time , Selfishness , Country

“The trouble is, Roosevelt hasn't taken all of my ideas; just part of them. I'm about one hundred yards ahead of him. We're on the same road, but I'm here and he's there.”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Huey Long (Williams p. 637)

Idea

“If you wish to thoroughly accustom yourself to correct and good positions for your fingers, fasten a frame or a loom divided into squares by threads between your eye and the nude figure which you are representing, and then make the same squares upon the paper where you wish to draw the said nude but very faintly. You should then put a pellet of wax on a part of the network to serve as a mark which as you look at your model should always cover the pit of the throat, or if he should have turned his back make it cover one of the vertebrae of the neck. …The squares you draw may be as much smaller than those of the network in proportion as you wish your figure to be less than life size…”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Life , Drawing

“Obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues, and Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Interview with CNN, in response to a question on Jerusalem (5 June 2008) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0901/02/cnr.06.html
2008

“.. sculpture as a process of recognition.... in the great quiet of stopped machines -- the awe, the pull... Part is personal heritage... Since I've had identity, the desire to create excels over the desire to visit”

David Smith (1906–1965) American visual artist (1906-1965)

the ancient sites and museums in Italy
from his notes 'Report on Voltri', shortly after 1962, about making his huge sculptures in Voltri, 1962
1960s, The Fields of David Smith,' (1999)

Personality

“The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Art , Dependency

“It has become obvious to the new architect that by virtue of his work he is taking an active part in the building of a new world. For us the work of an artist has no value 'as such'; it does not represent an end in itself; it has no intrinsic beauty. The value of a work of art is determined by its relationship to the community... The artist, or the creative worker, invents nothing; there is no such thing as divine inspiration. Thus we understand by the term 'reconstruction' the conquest of the unresolved, of the 'mysterious,' and the chaotic. In our [Russian] architecture, as in our entire life, we are striving to create a social order, i. e., to raise the instinctive to a conscious level.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

Quote from: 'Ideological Superstructure'
1926 - 1941, Rußland: Die Rekonstruktion der Architektur in der Sowjetunion' (1929)

Life , World , Beauty , Art

“If the Lord — who is the light of all things — vouchsafe to enlighten me, I will treat of Light; wherefore I will divide the present work into 3 Parts… Linear Perspective, The Perspective of Colour, The Perspective of Disappearance.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Light

“I've had groups of twentysomethings saying they still talk to each other in SpongeBob memes. It's really touching, you know? You get people who have had very difficult lives, and they say that SpongeBob got them through things, which is very touching. Someone told us that they were considering suicide, and SpongeBob made them laugh, and they cycled through that phase of their life. You get everything from that, to I had a great happy childhood and SpongeBob was part of it. You get all colours of the spectrum in terms of people coming up. Not just with SpongeBob either. It may be some cartoon that was a failure, or a videogame that took an hour to record in 1996. But they say it was the biggest thing in their life at one point. It's mind-blowing. You don't realise the footprint of what you're doing is leaving behind.”

Tom Kenny (1962) American actor

Tom Kenny Interview: The Voice of SpongeBob SquarePants http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/spongebob-squarepants/248119/tom-kenny-interview-the-voice-of-spongebob-squarepants (August 3, 2015)

Life , People , Failure , Suicide

“All the blessed teaching of our Lord was shewed by three parts: that is to say, by bodily sight, and by word formed in mine understanding, and by spiritual sight. For the bodily sight, I have said as I saw, as truly as I can; and for the words, I have said them right as our Lord shewed them to me; and for the spiritual sight, I have told some deal, but I may never fully tell it: and therefore of this sight I am stirred to say more, as God will give me grace.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 73

God , Understanding

“Educators ought to know better than their pupils what an education is. If the educators do not, they have wasted their lives. The art of teaching consists in large part of interesting people in things that ought to interest them, but do not. The task of educators is to discover what an education is and then to invent the methods of interesting their students in it.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

People , Education , Art

“In mainstream economic theory, the firm and the market are, for the most part, assumed to exist and are not themselves the subject of investigation. One result has been that the crucial role of the law in determining the activities carried out by the firm and in the market has been largely ignored.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

1960s-1980s, "The Firm, the Market, and the Law" (1988)

Law

“Because if we had gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. It would have been a U. S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world. And if you take down the central government in Iraq, you could easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have, the west. Part of eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim. Fought over for eight years. In the north, you've got the Kurds. And if the Kurds spin loose and join with Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. The other thing is casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact that we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had, but for the 146 Americans killed in action and for the families it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein was, how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many, and I think we got it right.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Cheney, on not pushing on to Baghdad during the first Gulf War; C-SPAN 4-15-94 Interview on CNN http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/13/sitroom.03.html
1990s

War , World , Family , Question

“As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a "criminal" so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.
On the other hand, there were certain crimes where requests for leniency merely made me angry. Such crimes were, for instance, rape, or the circulation of indecent literature, or anything connected with what would now be called the "white slave" traffic, or wife murder, or gross cruelty to women or children, or seduction and abandonment, or the action of some man in getting a girl whom he seduced to commit abortion. In an astonishing number of these cases men of high standing signed petitions or wrote letters asking me to show leniency to the criminal. In two or three of the cases — one where some young roughs had committed rape on a helpless immigrant girl, and another in which a physician of wealth and high standing had seduced a girl and then induced her to commit abortion — I rather lost my temper, and wrote to the individuals who had asked for the pardon, saying that I extremely regretted that it was not in my power to increase the sentence. I then let the facts be made public, for I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure. Whether they received this public censure or not I did not know, but that my action made them very angry I do know, and their anger gave me real satisfaction.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VIII : The New York Governorship

Death , Women , Men , Fate

“It is an ominous sign of the time that Indian history is being viewed in official circles in the perspective of recent politics. The official history of the freedom movement starts with the premises that India lost indendence only in the eighteenth century and had thus an experience of subjection to a foreign power for only two centuries. Real history, on the other hand, teaches us that the major part of India lost independence about five centuries before, and merely changed masters in the eighteenth century.”

R. C. Majumdar (1888–1980) Indian historian

History Of The Freedom Movement In India Vol. 1 https://archive.org/stream/history1_201708/History+of+the+Freedom+Movement+in+India+Vol+1+-+RC+Majumdar_djvu.txt quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 310-311

History , Freedom , Change , Time

“Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.”

David Hilbert (1862–1943) German prominent mathematician

"Axiomatic Thought" (1918), printed in From Kant to Hilbert, Vol. 2 by William Bragg Ewald

Mathematics , Science

“As for the general idea of what one would do if certain of death in an hour—I fancy most persons in normal health tend to sentimentalise and romanticise a bit about it. For my part—as a realist beyond the age of theatricalism and naive beliefs—I feel quite certain that my own known last hour would be spent quite prosaically in writing instructions for the disposition of certain books, manuscripts, heirlooms, and other possessions. Such a task would—in view of the mental stress—take at least an hour—and it would be the most useful thing I could do before dropping off into oblivion. If I did finish ahead of time, I'd probably spend the residual minutes getting a last look at something closely associated with my earliest memories—a picture, a library table, an 1895 Farmer's Almanack, a small music-box I used to play with at 2 ½, or some kindred symbol—completing a psychological circle in a spirit half of humour and half of whimsical sentimentality. Then—nothingness, as before Aug. 20, 1890.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to a round-robin letter-writing group called "the Coryciani" (14 July 1936), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S.T. Joshi, p. 339
Non-Fiction, Letters

Death , Health , Books , Age

“Civil society organisations make a major contribution to human development, particularly when democracies are failing, or have failed; for it is then that the institutions of civil society can, and often do, carry an added burden to help sustain improvements in quality of life. I believe strongly that a critical part of any development strategy should include support for civil society. I know that Norway supports this approach and works actively with its own civil society organizations to build capacity in the developing world.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

In a speech on Democratic Development, Pluralism and Civil Society delivered at the Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway (7 April 2005). http://www.akdn.org/speech/nobel-institute-oslo

Life , World , Democracy , Support

“Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

People , Faith , Effort , Freedom

“I suspect that many of the world's financial lords are somewhat embarrassed to tell Japan repeatedly at G-7 meetings and elsewhere to adopt a Keynesian solution. Within Europe, central banks and governments think Keynesian theories and policies are absolutely wrong. Despite the remarkable success of pragmatic policies in the United States, true believers in the Invisible Hand reject Keynesian diagnoses and prescriptions. Many observers of Japan have found it intellectually comforting to blame the slump on the plight of the banks, flooded with bad loans dated from the land and equity bubbles and their collapse. They hope that a governmentmanaged and -subsidized rectification of bank balance sheets will trigger overall economic recovery. I think this is a false hope. The bank problem is only a small part of the macroeconomic disaster. It has to be resolved, of course, but resolution that is no substitute for the needed fiscal and monetary stimuli.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Reflections on Japanese Political Economy" (1999)

World , Hope , Problem , Thinking

“Overt anxiety… that part of anxiety of which the individual is aware and ready to speak.”

Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) British-American psychologist

Source: The Scientific Analysis of Personality, 1965, p. 372

“I tell the story of these philosophers in simplified form: I merely wish to bring out in each system that point which represents a piece of the personality, and which history must preserve as a part of what is irrefutable and indisputable.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks

Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous)

History , Personality

“Out of the unconscious you get ritual, dreams, drama, story, art, music, and that sort of buffers us. We have our little domain of competence, and we're buffered by the domain of fantasy and culture. That's really what you learn about when you come to university if you're lucky and the professors are smart enough to actually teach you something about culture instead of constantly telling you that it's completely reprehensible and that it should be destroyed. Why you would prefer chaos to order is beyond me. The only possible reason is that you haven't read enough history to understand exactly what chaos means. And believe me, if you knew what chaos means, you'd be pretty goddamn careful about tearing down the temple that you live in, unless you want to be a denizen of chaos. And some people do. That's when the impulses you harbor can really come out and shine. And so a little gratitude is in order, and that makes you appreciative of the wise king while being smart enough to know that he's also an evil tyrant. That's a total conception of the world. It's balanced. Yah, we should preserve nature, but it IS trying to kill us. YES our culture is tyrannical and oppresses people, but it IS protecting us from dying. And YES we're reasonably good people, but don't take that theory too far until you've tested yourself. That's wisdom, at least in part, and that's what these stories try to teach you.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Wisdom , People , World , Dreams

“The soul seems to reside in the judgment, and the judgment would seem to be seated in that part where all the senses meet; and this is called the Common Sense and is not all-pervading throughout the body, as many have thought. Rather is it entirely in one part. Because, if it were all-pervading and the same in every part, there would have been no need to make the instruments of the senses meet in one centre and in one single spot; on the contrary it would have sufficed that the eye should fulfil the function of its sensation on its surface only, and not transmit the image of the things seen, to the sense, by means of the optic nerves, so that the soul — for the reason given above — may perceive it in the surface of the eye.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology

Soul , Sense

“Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away — you may put money in the pockets of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way. Every vote given for Protection is a vote to give Governments the right of robbing Peter to pay Paul and charging the public a handsome commission on the job.”

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

“Why I am a Free Trader,” Chapter I in T.W. Stead’s journal Coming Men on Coming Questions (April 13, 1905), bottom p. 9.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Money , Way

“The whole is simpler than its parts.”

Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) physicist

Quoted by Irving Fisher in "The Applications of Mathematics to the Social Sciences," Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 36, 225-243 (1930). Full article http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183493954
Attributed

“Everything I loved had been dead for two centuries—or, as in the case of Graeco-Roman classicism, for two milenniums. I am never a part of anything around me—in everything I am an outsider. Should I find it possible to crawl backward through the Halls of Time to that age which is nearest my own fancy, I should doubtless be bawled out of the coffee-houses for heresy in religion, or else lampooned by John Dennis till I found refuge in the deep, silent Thames, that covers many another unfortunate. Yes, I seem to be a decided pessimist!—But pray do not think, gentlemen, that I am utterly forlorn and misanthropick creature. … Despite my solitary life, I have found infinite joy in books and writing, and am by far too much interested in the affairs of the world to quit the scene before Nature shall claim me. Though not a participant in the Business of life; I am, like the character of Addison and Steele, an impartial (or more or less impartial) Spectator, who finds not a little recreation in watching the antics of those strange and puny puppets called men. A sense of humour has helped me to endure existence; in fact, when all else fails, I never fail to extract a sarcastic smile from the contemplation of my own empty and egotistical career!”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to "The Keicomolo"—Kleiner, Cole, and Moe (October 1916), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 27
Non-Fiction, Letters

Love , Life , Men , Books

“e achievement and maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible without a party which is strong by reason of its solidarity and iron discipline. But iron discipline in the Party is inconceivable without unity of will, without complete and absolute unity of action on the part of all members of the Party. This does not mean, of course, that the possibility of conflicts of opinion within the Party is thereby precluded. On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes criticism and conflict of opinion within the Party. Least of all does it mean that discipline must be "blind." On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes conscious and voluntary submission, for only conscious discipline can be truly iron discipline. But after a conflict of opinion has been closed, after criticism has been exhausted and a decision has been arrived at, unity of will and unity of action of all Party members are the necessary conditions without which neither Party unity nor iron discipline in the Party is conceivable.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Source: The Foundations of Leninism, Ch.8

Decision , Strong

“Experimental science is a craft and an art, and part of the art is knowing when to end a fruitless experiment. There is a danger of becoming obsessed with a fruitless experiment even if it goes nowhere.”

Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) American scientist

Nobel prize lecture

Art , Science

“I am a loner, a daydreamer who has been content to remain in his part of the world and look at the sky. The future will treat me as it does all of us. I am very much afraid it may be oblivion.”

Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) French painter

Quote of Boudin, as cited by Dalya Alberge, in 'Life's a beach: Boudin...' in 'Independent online' http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/lifes-a-beach-boudin-was-well-a-bit-on-the-dull-side-but-his-paintings-were-wild-and-beautiful-dalya-1471851.html, 9 February 1993
undated quotes

World , Future

“Skepticism is part of reflection… In religion and ethics, in politics, you have to be skeptical of claims that people make. It applies to all parts of life. Your own beliefs and the beliefs of others, and your willingness to examine these, to see if they hold up under scrutiny.”

Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) American professor of philosophy

9:40–10:10
Exuberant Skepticism (2012)

Life , People , Religion

“If conquest constitutes a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Letter to Robert Applegarth (3 December 1869)
Source: The Abolition of Landed Property http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/12/03.htm (3 December 1869)

Nature

“I think very much of the people, as an old friend said he thought of woman. He said when he lost his first wife, who had been a great help to him in his business, he thought he was ruined — that he could never find another to fill her place. At length, however, he married another, who he found did quite as well as the first, and that his opinion now was that any woman would do well who was well done by. So I think of the whole people of this nation — they will ever do well if well done by. We will try to do well by them in all parts of the country, North and South, with entire confidence that all will be well with all of us.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Remarks at Bloomington, Illinois (21 November 1860); published in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953) by Roy P. Basler, vol. 4, p. 143
1860s

People , Confidence , Business , Thinking

“Women believed in death. Without exception. It was part of their makeup. Whereas men refused to face up to it. Not only death, in fact, but life, too: a man, learning that his wife or girlfriend is pregnant, reacts like some beast of the field - "I can't believe it's true!" - while women look at the same situation as either happy news or a momentary inconvenience.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

Life , Death , Women , Men

“Modern racism (of which antisemitism is part) although caused by specific social conditions, becomes, when it gains strength, a force that in my opinion can only be described as demonic.”

Israel Shahak (1933–2001) Israeli academic

Jewish History, Jewish Religion (1994)

“Mort isn't fashionable UK movie material -- there're no parts in it for Hugh or Emma, it's not set in Sheffield, and no one shoves drugs up their bum…”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Usenet

Fashion

“Even if you try not to do your duty you will be perforce obliged to do it. Let the body complete the task for which it came into being. Sri Krishna also says in the Gita, whether Arjuna liked it or not he would be forced to fight. When there is work to be done by you, you cannot keep away; nor can you continue to do a thing when you are not required to do it, that is to say, when the work allotted to you has been done. In short, the work will go on and you must take your share in it -- the share which is allotted to you. [Question: How can it be done? Reply:] Like an actor playing his part in a drama: free from duality.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

Question , Fight

“You will soon find that it is not his clothes but his political sense and energy that control. You will find that if you expect to do anything there will be mighty little temptation to try to treat the men with whom you are working on any basis save the fundamental democratic basis of what they amount to, and what you can show you amount to as compared to them. So that if you go into life to do anything, it is perfectly useless for me to tell you to get rid of snobbery, because you will have to. It is just as true in every other field as in politics. Every man who works in philanthropy and he can do nothing in philanthropy unless he combines a very earnest desire to accomplish what is decent with the determination to accomplish it in practical fashion […] if he goes into philanthropy and tries to do something in a college settlement, tries to do his part in working to disentangle the tangled knot of our social and civic life, he will find just as soon as he gets interested in his work he wont care and won't know who the people are who are with him except as he judges them by their fruits. The interest that you take in him is, can a given man accomplish something? If he can not, then let him give place to the man who can.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)

Life , Men , People , Fashion

“Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Vol de Nuit (1931) (translated into English as Night Flight)

“So, I come home, I was so tired, and I look at my phone to check my messages, and I had a voicemail message from a guy by the name of Channing Tatum. [Female audience members cheer and woop] Now, for those of you not "woo"-ing, let me explain who that is. Channing Tatum is the new Hollywood hot guy, he's doing all these movies, coming out really good-looking, ripped, you know. He's making a lot of films, and there's a voicemail on there from him. "Gabriel Iglesias, this is Channing Tatum, call me at your earliest convenience…" blah-blah-blah. So, I was like, "Well, okay." So, I call him. [Mimics dialing on phone and ringing] "Hello?" "Hi, this is Gabriel Iglesias calling for Mr. Channing Tatum?" He yells, "FLUFFY!" [Mimes pulling his phone away in surprise] "…Hello?" "Oh, dude, man, I'm a huge fan. Hey, listen, real quick, I only have, like, a minute. Look, bro, I'm doing a new movie, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in reading and auditioning for one of the parts." I said, "Sure, bro, I'd be happy to audition for…for your movie. What's it called?" He goes, "The movie's called Magic Mike." [Female audience members woop loudly] I was like, "Oh, cool, Magic Mike. So, you need a magician, you need an assistant, you gonna saw me in half, what's gonna happen?" "Actually, bro. The movie has nothing to do with magic. It's actually a movie about male strippers." I said, "Male strippers?" He goes, "Yeah, male strippers."”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I said, "You do know that this is Gabriel Iglesias, right?"
Aloha, Fluffy (2013)

Guy , Home , Reading , Happiness

“International specialization and division of labor requires institutions and organizations to safeguard property rights across international boundaries so that capital markets as well as other kinds of exchange can take place with credible commitment on the part of the players.”

Douglass C. North (1920–2015) American Economist

Source: Institutions (1990), p. 121

“So, first of all, you’ve got to try to get people involved. And a lot of people are busy in their own lives or they don’t think it’s going to make a difference or they’re scared if they’re speaking out against authority. And many of the problems that we’re facing, like trying to create jobs or better opportunity or dealing with poverty or dealing with the environment, these are problems that have been going on for decades. And so, to think that somehow you’re going to change it in a day or a week, and then if it doesn’t happen you just give up, well, then you definitely won’t succeed. So the most important thing that I learned as a young person trying to bring about change is you have to be persistent, and you have to get more people involved, and you have to form relationships with different groups and different organizations. And you have to listen to people about what they’re feeling and what they’re concerned about, and build trust. And then, you have to try to find a small part of the problem and get success on that first, so that maybe from there you can start something else and make it bigger and make it bigger, until over time you are really making a difference in your community and in that problem. But you can’t be impatient. And the great thing about young people is they’re impatient. The biggest problem with young people is they’re impatient. It’s a strength, because it’s what makes you want to change things. But sometimes, you can be disappointed if change doesn’t happen right away and then you just give up. And you just have to stay with it and learn from your failures, as well as your successes.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

People , Disappointment , Feeling , Communication

“We Protestants ought to humbly confess that the theater and the sports have done more for race amity, for race understanding than, on the whole, the Protestant Church in certain type, in certain parts of the nation.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)

Understanding , Sport

“It would be very unsatisfactory if the new way of looking at the time-concept, which permits a Lorentz transformation, were to be confined to a single part of Physics.”

Hermann Minkowski The Fundamental Equations for Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies

The Fundamental Equations for Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies (1907)

Way , Time

“A kind of music far superior, in my opinion, to that of operas, and which in all Italy has not its equal, nor perhaps in the whole world, is that of the 'scuole'. The 'scuole' are houses of charity, established for the education of young girls without fortune, to whom the republic afterwards gives a portion either in marriage or for the cloister. Amongst talents cultivated in these young girls, music is in the first rank. Every Sunday at the church of each of the four 'scuole', during vespers, motettos or anthems with full choruses, accompanied by a great orchestra, and composed and directed by the best masters in Italy, are sung in the galleries by girls only; not one of whom is more than twenty years of age. I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music; the richness of the art, the exquisite taste of the vocal part, the excellence of the voices, the justness of the execution, everything in these delightful concerts concurs to produce an impression which certainly is not the mode, but from which I am of opinion no heart is secure. Carrio and I never failed being present at these vespers of the 'Mendicanti', and we were not alone. The church was always full of the lovers of the art, and even the actors of the opera came there to form their tastes after these excellent models. What vexed me was the iron grate, which suffered nothing to escape but sounds, and concealed from me the angels of which they were worthy. I talked of nothing else. One day I spoke of it at Le Blond's; "If you are so desirous," said he, "to see those little girls, it will be an easy matter to satisfy your wishes. I am one of the administrators of the house, I will give you a collation [light meal] with them." I did not let him rest until he had fulfilled his promise. In entering the saloon, which contained these beauties I so much sighed to see, I felt a trembling of love which I had never before experienced. M. le Blond presented to me one after the other, these celebrated female singers, of whom the names and voices were all with which I was acquainted. Come, Sophia, — she was horrid. Come, Cattina, — she had but one eye. Come, Bettina, — the small-pox had entirely disfigured her. Scarcely one of them was without some striking defect.
Le Blond laughed at my surprise; however, two or three of them appeared tolerable; these never sung but in the choruses; I was almost in despair. During the collation we endeavored to excite them, and they soon became enlivened; ugliness does not exclude the graces, and I found they possessed them. I said to myself, they cannot sing in this manner without intelligence and sensibility, they must have both; in fine, my manner of seeing them changed to such a degree that I left the house almost in love with each of these ugly faces. I had scarcely courage enough to return to vespers. But after having seen the girls, the danger was lessened. I still found their singing delightful; and their voices so much embellished their persons that, in spite of my eyes, I obstinately continued to think them beautiful.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)

Love , Marriage , Age , World

“The empire of Saturnus is gone by;
Lord of the secret birth of things is he;
Within the lap of earth, and in the depths
Of the imagination dominates;
And his are all things that eschew the light.
The time is o'er of brooding and contrivance,
For Jupiter, the lustrous, lordeth now,
And the dark work, complete of preparation,
He draws by force into the realm of light.
Now must we hasten on to action, ere
The scheme, and most auspicious positure
Parts o'er my head, and takes once more its flight,
For the heavens journey still, and adjourn not.”

Friedrich Schiller Wallenstein

Act I, sc. i
Wallenstein (1798), Part II - Wallensteins Tod (The Death of Wallenstein)

Secret , Imagination , Birth , Light

“We must understand the politics of our community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature we will always be mislead, lead astray, or deceived or maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn’t have the good of our community at heart.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)

Communication , Understanding , Support , Heart

“It is a woman's outstanding characteristic that she can do anything for the love of a man. But those women who can achieve something important for the love of a thing are most exceptional, because this does not really agree with their nature. Love for a thing is a man's prerogative. But since masculine and feminine elements are united in our human nature, a man can live in the feminine part of himself, I and a woman in her masculine part. None the less the feminine element in man is only something in the background, as is the masculine element in woman. If one lives out the opposite sex in oneself one is living in one's own background, and one's real individuality suffers. A man should live as a man and a woman as a woman.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: "Woman in Europe" (1927), P. 243

Love , Women , Sex , Nature

“What has the future in store for this strange being, born of a breath, of perishable tissue, yet Immortal, with his powers fearful and Divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement?
Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or Creative Force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.
Can man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding? more still cause them to operate simply by the force of his will?
If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural. At his command, with but a slight effort on his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his planning would spring into being. He could fix, solidify and preserve the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of his dreams. He could express all the creations of his mind on any scale, in forms concrete and imperishable. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along any path he might choose through the depths of the Universe. He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

Life , World , Fear , Dreams

“We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)

Women , Men , God , Time

“During my youth I rather leaned toward the prognosis that the Jews of different countries would be assimilated and that the Jewish question would thus disappear, as it were, automatically. The historical development of the last quarter of a century has not confirmed this view. Decaying capitalism has everywhere swung over to an intensified nationalism, one aspect of which is anti-Semitism. The Jewish question has loomed largest in the most highly developed capitalist country of Europe, Germany. […]
The Jews of different countries have created their press and developed the Yiddish language as an instrument adapted to modern culture. One must therefore reckon with the fact that the Jewish nation will maintain itself for an entire epoch to come. […]
We must bear in mind that the Jewish people will exist a long time. The nation cannot normally exist without common territory. Zionism springs from this very idea. But the facts of every passing day demonstrate to us that Zionism is incapable of resolving the Jewish question. The conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine acquires a more and more tragic and more and more menacing character. I do not at all believe that the Jewish question can be resolved within the framework of rotting capitalism and under the control of British imperialism. […]
Socialism will open the possibility of great migrations on the basis of the most developed technique and culture. It goes without saying that what is here involved is not compulsory displacements, that is, the creation of new ghettos for certain nationalities, but displacements freely consented to, or rather demanded, by certain nationalities or parts of nationalities. The dispersed Jews who would want to be reassembled in the same community will find a sufficiently extensive and rich spot under the sun. The same possibility will be opened for the Arabs, as for all other scattered nations. National topography will become a part of the planned economy. This is the great historic perspective as I see it. To work for international Socialism means to work also for the solution of the Jewish question.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Excerpts of Trotsky’s interview with Jewish Telegraphic Agency (18 January 1937); as quoted in Trotsky and the Jews (1972) by Joseph Nedava, p. 204

People , Youth , Spring , Communication

“In accordance with the prarabdha of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom therefore is to stay quiet.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

Wisdom , Effort

“Getting every employee's mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyone's best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There's nothing more important.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 24.

Secret , Game , Idea

“We cannot suppose that an individual’s thinking survives bodily death, since that destroys the organization of the brain and dissipates the energy which utilized the brain tracks. God and immortality, the central dogma of the Christian religion, find no support in science. But we in the West have come to think of them as the irreducible minimum of theology. No doubt people will continue to entertain these beliefs, because they are pleasant, just as it is pleasant to think ourselves virtuous and our enemies wicked. But for my part I cannot see any grounds for either. I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove Satan is a fiction. The Christian God may exist, so might the Gods of Olympus, Ancient Egypt or Babylon; but no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other. They lie outside the region of provable knowledge and there is no reason to consider any of them.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, What I Believe (1925)

Death , God , People , Lie

“One of the main reasons for my interest early on in the art and technology relationship was that during my studies of movement and light in art I was struck by the technical components in this art. Contrary to most, if not all, specialists in the field who put the stress on purely plastic issues and in the first place on the constructivist tradition, I was convinced that the technical and technological elements played a decisive part in this art. One almost paradoxical experience was my encounter with the kinetic artist and author of the book Constructivism, George Rickey, and my discovery of the most subtle technical movements in his mobile sculptures. But what seemed to me still more decisive for my option towards the art and technology problematic was the encounter in the early 1950s with artists like Nicholas Schöffer and Frank Malina whose works were based on some first hand or second hand scientific knowledge and who effectively or symbolically employed contemporary technological elements that gave their works a prospective cultural meaning. The same sentiment prevailed in me when I encountered similar artistic endeavors from the 1950s onwards in the works of Piotr Kowalski, Roy Ascott and many others which confirmed me in the aesthetic option I had taken, particularly when I discovered that this option was not antinomic (contradictory) to another aspect of the creative works of the time, i. e. spectator participation.”

Frank Popper (1918) French art historian

Source: Joseph Nechvatal. in: " Origins of Virtualism: An Interview with Frank Popper http://www.mediaarthistory.org/refresh/Programmatic%20key%20texts/pdfs/Popper.pdf," in: Media Art History, 2004.

Books , Art , Knowledge , Decision

“We cannot always judge man for only one part of his attitude. If we did so, we would be like the Pharisees in whose eyes Jesus was seen as bad, because He did not respect their rules about the Sabbath. They closed their eyes entirely to what would have lovable in Jesus, even in their sight.”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 82.

“The next man in this history of evolution is a man by the name of Augustine. He was born approximately 353 A. D. and died about 430 A. D. He is called St. Augustine by the Catholic church. Augustine still plays a vital part in the Catholic church doctrine. He would be the equivalent of a theistic evolutionist today”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

History

“The love of power is a part of human nature, but power-philosophies are, in a certain precise sense, insane. The existence of the external world, both that of matter and of other human beings, is a datum, which may be humiliating to a certain kind of pride, but can only be denied by a madman. Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships in philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships. Certified lunatics are shut up because of the proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 16: Power philosophies

Love , Death , Men , God

“The distribution of tasks among the various employees follows a simple rule, which is that the duty of the members of each category is to do as much work as they possibly can, so that only a small part of that work need be passed to the category above. This means that the clerks are obliged to work without cease from morning to night, whereas the senior clerks do so only now and then, the deputies very rarely, and the Registrar almost never.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 2

Night

“The human race is trying to work out: 'well, what's the ultimate sacrifice?' It's something like that. The ultimate sacrifice of value. Well, the Passion story - and I told you was foreshadowing - is that there is a supreme sacrifice demanded on the part of the Mother, and there's a supreme sacrifice demanded on the part of the Father, all at the same time. That makes the supreme sacrifice possible. And hypothetically, that's the one that renews. That's the sacrifice that renews and redeems. It's a hell of an idea, man. And the things about it is: I don't know if it's true. But I know that its opposite is false. And generally the opposite of something that's false is true. If the mother doesn't make the sacrifice, then you get the horrible Oedipal situation in the household, which is its own catastrophic hell. If the maternal sacrifice isn't there, then that doesn't work. If the paternal sacrifice isn't there - if the father isn't willing to put his son out into the world, then that's a non-starter because the kid doesn't grow up. And if the son isn't willing to do that, then who the hell is going to shoulder the responsibility. So if those three things don't happen, it's chaos, it's cataclysmic, it's hell. If they do happen, is it the opposite of that? Well, maybe you could say it depends on the degree to which they happen. And it's a continuum. How thoroughly can they happen? Well, we don't know, because you might say, 'How good of a job do you do of encouraging your children to live in truth?”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Well, that's part of the answer to this question. And the answer likely is: well, you don't do as good a job of it as you could. So it works out quite well, but you don't know how well it could work if you did it really well, or spectacularly well, or ultimately well or something like that. You don't know."
Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts

Children , Truth , World , Idea

“[I've changed a bit here - see youtube video "Jordan Peterson - Are YOU Antisocial?!"] We have these shared frames of reference, like when we're playing monopoly. Children at three learn to play games, which means that they learn to organize their own internal motivational states into a hierarchy that includes the emotional states of other people. And that means they can play. And that's what everyone does when they're out in the world. That's why we can go about our daily business - we all know the rules. That's why we can sit in the same room without fighting each other. Because you're smart and socially conscious, you can walk into a room full of people and know what to do. If you're civilized and social you can just do it, and you can predict what all the other primates are up to, and they won't kill you. That's what it means to be part of the same tribe. People are very peculiar creatures and God only knows what they're up to. As long as they're playing the same game that you are, you don't have to know what they're up to, and you can predict what they're going to do because you understand their motivational states. And so, part of the building and constructing of higher order moral goals is the establishment of joint frames of reference that allow multiple people to pursue the goals that they're interested in simultaneously. Not all shared frames of reference can manage that. There's a small subset of them that are optimized so that not only can multiple people play them, but multiple people can play them, AND enjoy them, AND do it repeatedly across a long period of time. So it's iterability that partly defines the utility of a higher order moral structure, and that is not arbitrary. It's an emergent property of biological interactions. It's not arbitrary at all, because a lot of what's constraining your games is your motivational substructure and those ancient circuits that are status oriented, which operate within virtually every animal. Virtually every animal has a status counter. Creatures organize themselves into dominance hierarchies. The reason they do that is because that works. It's a solution to the Darwinian problem of existence. It's not just an epiphenomena. It's the real thing. So your environment is fundamentally dominance hierarchy, plus God only knows where you are. And that's order and chaos. And part of the reason people fight to preserve their dominance hierarchies is because it's better to be a slave who knows what the hell is going on than someone who is thrown screaming and naked into the jungle at night. And that's the difference between order and chaos. And we like order better than chaos and it's no wonder. And invite a little chaos in for entertainment now and then, but it has to be done voluntarily, and generally you don't want the kind of chaos that upsets your entire conceptual structure. You're willing to fool around on the fringes a little bit, but you know, when the going gets serious you're pretty much likely to bail out.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

God , Children , People , World

“I think I got disappointed over the years about New York, about the States. You know, sometimes you go and visit Europe and see good old socialism in its good part! You see public concern about art, and young people's participation and young faces in the audience. Then you arrive in the States and it is $150 to go to an opera. Ridiculous. We have so much young talent on the streets, but because everything is commercial they finally drift away from their dream of their life.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948) Soviet-American dancer, choreographer, and actor born in Letonia, Soviet Union

The Daily Telegraph, 09/02/2004.

Life , People , Dreams , Art

“My dear Hoschedé, I do not know if in Paris it is the same weather as here, it is probable and so you will be able to understand my discouragement. I am heartbroken, and I absolutely must share with you all my disillusionment; for nearly two months, I have given myself a lot of trouble without result. You do not believe it perhaps, but it is so: I have not lost an hour and would have reproached myself to have taken even a day to come see our exhibition, just out of the fear of losing a single good painting session, an hour of sun. I alone can know my anxieties and the trouble that I give myself to finish canvases that don't even satisfy me and please so few people. In a word, I am absolutely discouraged, not seeing, not hoping in any future... I feel all too well the void that is being made around me and the impossibility of facing up to my part of our expenses if we were to continue living together... I see everything in black, in pain... Please believe all the sorrow that I have in causing you trouble.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

In a letter to Ernest Hoschedé, May 15, 1879 (W, letter, 158); as cited in: Mary M. Gedo (2013) Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art. p. 123
1870 - 1890

Pain , People , Fear , Hope

“We must make popular government responsible for the betterment both of the individual and of society at large. Let me repeat once more that, while such responsible governmental action is an absolutely necessary thing to achieve our purpose, yet it will be worse than useless if it is not accompanied by a serious effort on the part of the individuals composing the community thus to achieve each for himself a higher standard of individual betterment, not merely material but spiritual and intellectual. In other words, our democracy depends on individual improvement just as much as upon collective effort to achieve our common social improvement. The most serious troubles of the present day are unquestionably due in large part to lack of efficient govern-mental action, and cannot be remedied without such action; but neither can any remedy permanently avail unless back of it stands a high general character of individual citizenship.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Democracy , Communication , Effort , Dependency

“All component parts of any system of management must be consistent with each of the other parts and reflect the system's basic philosophy.”

Rensis Likert (1903–1981) American statistician

Source: New patterns of management, (1961), p. 222

“The Gujral doctrine is a doctrine of good neighbourliness. In South Asia, India is the largest country and the largest economy. All the countries of the neighbourhood put together cannot match India. Therefore, it is my doctrine, that in the post-Cold War era, all the neighbours must look up to India as a friendly neighbour. For doing so, if concessions have to be given, they should. But these concessions do not include two things: no transfer of sovereignty of any part of India, including Kashmir; and second, we will not compromise on our basic secular, democratic polity. Minus these two factors, we are willing to give concessions as long as it does not hurt our defence.”

I. K. Gujral (1919–2012) Indian politician

The Rediff Interview/I K Gujral

War , Hurt , Country

“Part of the charm of synthetic organic chemistry derives from the vastness of the intellectual landscape along several dimensions. First, there is the almost infinite variety and number of possible target structures that lurk in the darkness waiting to be made. Then, there is the vast body of organic reactions that serve to transform one substance into another, now so large in number as to be beyond credibility to a non-chemist. There is the staggering range of reagents, reaction conditions, catalysts, elements, and techniques that must be mobilized in order to tame these reactions for synthetic purposes. Finally, it seems that new information is being added to that landscape at a rate that exceeds the ability of a normal person to keep up with it. In such a troubled setting any author, or group of authors, must be regarded as heroic if through their efforts, the task of the synthetic chemist is eased.”

Elias James Corey (1928) American chemist

Foreword of Name Reactions in Heterocyclic Chemistry (2004) by Jie Jack Li

Effort , Waiting , Personality

“I hired a good carriage and had myself driven to Menton, a delightful outing of several hours. Menton is wonderful and is in a splendid setting. I walked to Cap Martin, a famous spot between Menton and Monte Carlo. I saw two motifs there that I want to paint because they are so different from things here, where the sea plays no big part in my studies, where the sea plays no big plays no big part in my studies.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter to his second wife Alice Hoschedé, 1884; as cited in: Christoph Heinrich, Monet, (2000), p. 64
1870 - 1890

Study , Painting , Sea

“We ourselves are part of a guild of species that lie within and without our bodies. Aboriginal peoples and the Ayurvedic practitioners of ancient India have names for such guilds, or beings made up (as we are) of two or more species forming one organism. Most of nature is composed of groups of species working interdependently …”

Bill Mollison (1928–2016) Australian permaculturist

Source: Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (1988), chapter 4.8

People , Lie , Nature

“O comfortable allurement, O ravishing persuasion to deal with a science whose subject is so ancient, so pure, so excellent, so surrounding all creatures, so used of the almighty and incomprehensible wisdom of the Creator, in distinct creation of all creatures: in all their distinct parts, properties, natures, and virtues, by order, and most absolute number, brought from nothing to the formality of their being and state.”

John Dee (1527–1608) English mathematican, astrologer and antiquary

The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara (1570)

Wisdom , Nature , Science

“The insight of a man certainly slows down his anger, and it is beauty on his part to pass over transgression.”

Solomon (-990–-931 BC) king of Israel and the son of David

Proverbs 19:11, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

Beauty , Anger

“Being a part of the show, is nothing less than a compliment. This show has taken us all to a new height; we will miss each other a lot and hope to work with each other in the future as well. The show is going off air but something new will definitely come up for our fans.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

Message to fans on the ending of Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/tv-news/pyaar-kii-actors-get-nostalgic-about-the-show/
On her shows

Hope , Future

“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

Truth , World , History , Courage

“And finally, rising inequality and declining mobility are bad for our democracy. Ordinary folks can’t write massive campaign checks or hire high-priced lobbyists and lawyers to secure policies that tilt the playing field in their favor at everyone else’s expense. And so people get the bad taste that the system is rigged, and that increases cynicism and polarization, and it decreases the political participation that is a requisite part of our system of self-government.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)

People , Democracy

“The zero-G part was wonderful and the higher-G part was no problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come!”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

After completing a zero-gravity flight in a specially modified plane, as quoted in "Hawking takes zero-gravity flight" BBC News (27 April 2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6594821.stm

Problem

“That part of the air which is nearest to the wing which presses on it, will have the greatest density.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

“[Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife] is for me a secretly deep history of a generation of middle-class American males, my own, which was taught by parents and athletic coaches and scoutmasters and military chaplains and quack doctors and so on to be deeply ashamed of masturbation and wet dreams.
And the hidden plea in the book is one which first appeared in my eyes when I was fourteen, say, and which has not vanished entirely to this day. It is part of the mystery of me. The plea is addressed by old-fashioned males forever full of jism to any pretty human female, on the street, in a magazine, in a movie — anywhere. The plea is this: "Please, pretty lady, don't make me play with my private parts again."”

Kurt Vonnegut book Palm Sunday

"The Sexual Revolution" (ndg)
Palm Sunday (1981)

Books , Dreams , History , Fashion

“The ultimate goal of all visual artistic activity is construction! Architects, painters and sculptors must learn again to know and understand the multi-faceted form of building in its entirety as well as its parts. Only then will they of their own accord fill their works with the architectonic spirit they have lost in the art of the salon. Let us establish a new guild of craftsmen without the presumption of class distinctions building a wall of arrogance between craftsmen and artists. Together let us call for, devise and create the construction of the future, comprising everything in one form: architecture, sculpture and painting.”

Walter Gropius (1883–1969) German architect (1883-1969) and founder of the Bauhaus School

Manifesto (1919)

Art , Understanding , Learning , Future

“The advancement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures, by all proper means, will not, I trust, need recommendation. But I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home; and of facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country by a due attention to the Post Office and Post Roads.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

First Annual Address, to both House of Congress (8 January 1790)
1790s

Home , Distant , Country

“The Author of the piece, is entitled to much credit for the goodness of his Pen: and I could wish he had as much credit for the rectitude of his Heart — for, as Men see thro’ different Optics, and are induced by the reflecting faculties of the Mind, to use different means to attain the same end; the Author of the Address, should have had more charity, than to mark for Suspicion, the Man who should recommend Moderation and longer forbearance — or, in other words, who should not think as he thinks, and act as he advises. But he had another plan in view, in which candor and liberality of Sentiment, regard to justice, and love of Country, have no part; and he was right, to insinuate the darkest suspicion, to effect the blackest designs.
That the Address is drawn with great art, and is designed to answer the most insidious purposes. That it is calculated to impress the Mind, with an idea of premeditated injustice in the Sovereign power of the United States, and rouse all those resentments which must unavoidably flow from such a belief. That the secret Mover of this Scheme (whoever he may be) intended to take advantage of the passions, while they were warmed by the recollection of past distresses, without giving time for cool, deliberative thinking, & that composure of Mind which is so necessary to give dignity & stability to measures, is rendered too obvious, by the mode of conducting the business, to need other proof than a reference to the proceeding.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1780s, The Newburgh Address (1783)

Love , Men , Secret , Justice

“His tired gaze - from passing endless bars -
has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.
To him there seem to be a thousand bars,
and out beyond these bars exists no world. His supple gait, the smoothness of strong strides
that gently turn in ever smaller circles
perform a dance of strength, centered deep within
a will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable. But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,
the pupils of his eyes dilate as images
of past encounters enter while through his limbs
a tension strains in silence
only to cease to be, to die within his heart.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book The Panther

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.<p>Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.<p>Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf—. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille—
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
As translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
Der Panther (The Panther) (1907)

World , Strong , Silence , Past

“Any man who would change the World in a significant way must have showmanship, a genial willingness to shed other people’s blood, and a plausible new religion to introduce during the brief period of repentance and horror that usually follows bloodshed.
“Every failure of Earthling leadership has been traceable to a lack on the part of the leader,” says Rumfoord, “of at least one of these three things.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 7 “Victory” (p. 174)

People , World , Religion , Way

“The truth is, being an American is hard. Being part of a democratic government is hard. Being a citizen is hard. It is a challenge. It’s supposed to be. There’s no respite from our ideals. All of us are called to live up to our expectations for ourselves -- not just when it’s convenient, but when it’s inconvenient. When it’s tough. When we’re afraid. The tension throughout our history between welcoming or rejecting the stranger, it’s about more than just immigration. It’s about the meaning of America, what kind of country do we want to be. It’s about the capacity of each generation to honor the creed as old as our founding: “E Pluribus Unum” -- that out of many, we are one.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Naturalization Ceremony speech (December 2015)

Truth , History , Country

“I wanted to become a part of my defense because I am such a part of it. Obviously I'm going to bear the consequences, so why not bear the responsibilities?”

Ted Bundy (1946–1989) American serial killer

1977 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEWsxCrMM1U in Pitkin County Prison, Colorado

“I never can understand how anyone can not smoke — it deprives a man of the best part of life … with a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him — literally.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 3

Life , Understanding

“This is Nietzsche’s twofold struggle: against those who remove values from criticism, contenting themselves with producing inventories of existing values or with criticizing things in the name of established values (the “philosophical labourers”, Kant and Schopenhauer, BGE 211); but also against those who criticise or respect values by deriving them from simple facts, from so-called “objective facts” (the utilitarians, the “scholars”, BGE Part 6). In both cases philosophy moves in the indifferent element of the valuable in itself or the valuable for all. Nietzsche attacks both the “high” idea of foundation which leaves values indifferent to their origin and the idea of simple causal derivation or smooth beginning which suggests an indifferent origin for values. Nietzsche substitutes the pathos of difference or distance (the differential element) for both the Kantian principle of universality and the principle of resemblance dear to the utilitarians. “It was from the height of this pathos of distance that they first seized the right to create values and to coin names for them; what did utility matter?””

Gilles Deleuze book Nietzsche and Philosophy

GM I 2 p. 26
Source: Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), p. 2

Idea , Universe , Indifference

“And not only does one not seize at once and retain an impression of works that are really great, but even in the content of any such work (as befell me in the case of Vinteuil’s sonata) it is the least valuable parts that one at first perceives… Less disappointing than life is, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Et non seulement on ne retient pas tout de suite les œuvres vraiment rares, mais même au sein de chacune de ces œuvres-là, et cela m'arriva pour la Sonate de Vinteuil, ce sont les parties les moins précieuses qu'on perçoit d'abord... Moins décevants que la vie, ces grands chefs-d'œuvre ne commencent pas par nous donner ce qu'ils ont de meilleur.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: "Madame Swann at Home"

Life , Art , Disappointment

“You don't understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Ты же понимаешь, Джордж, что Украина — это даже не государство! Что такое Украина? Часть ее территорий — это Восточная Европа, а часть, и значительная, подарена нами!
According to the same source, “and then he very transparently hinted that if Ukraine was still admitted to NATO, this state would simply cease to exist, that is, in fact, he threatened that Russia could start the rejection of the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.” (И тут он очень прозрачно намекнул, что если Украину все же примут в НАТО, это государство просто прекратит существование. То есть фактически он пригрозил, что Россия может начать отторжение Крыма и Восточной Украины.)
Speaking to George H. Bush at the NATO Bucharest Summit, April 4, 2008. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900838,00.html Originally reported in Kommersant.ru based on an unidentified source http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/877224.
On Ukraine

Understanding