Quotes about personality (10000 quotes, page 56)

“It's the job of the manager not to light the fire of motivation, but to create an environment to let each person's personal spark of motivation blaze.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Frederick Herzberg, quoted in: Marci Segal (2003), Quick Guide to the Four Temperaments and Creativity. p. 12

Motivation , Light

“The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments could mean only one thing — one person, one vote.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Writing for the court, Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 381 (1963)
Judicial opinions

“The listener with no preconceptions hears massive waves of sound breaking over him and forms from them the image of a passionate soul seeking and finding the path to faith and peace in God through a life of struggle and a vigorous pursuit of ideals. It is impossible not to hear the confessional tone of this musical language; Liszt’s sonata becomes - perhaps involuntarily on the part of the composer - an autobiographical document and one which reveals an artist in the Faustian mold in the person of its author. As in the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, the underlying religious concept which dominates and permeates the whole work demands a special kind of approach. Whereas representations of human passions and conflicts force themselves on our understanding with their powerfully suggestive coloring, this concept only becomes manifest to those souls who are prepared to soar to the same heights. The equilibrium of the sonata’s hymnic chordal motif, the transformation of its defiant battle motif (first theme) into a triumphant fanfare, and its appearance in bright, high notes on the harp, together with the devotional atmosphere of the Andante, represent a particular challenge to the listener; he is, after all, also expected to grasp the wide-spanned arcs of sound which, from the first hesitant descending octaves to the radiant final chords, build up a graphic panorama of the various stages of progress of a human spirit filled with faith and hope. As the reflection of a remarkable artistic personality worthy of deep admiration and, by extension, of the whole Romantic period, Liszt’s B minor Sonata deserves lasting recognition.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

About the Liszt Sonata in B minor

Life , God , Peace , Faith

“People is the name of the body, State of the spirit, of that ruling person that has hitherto suppressed me.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Dover 2005, p. 242
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

People

“If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Love , Life , People , Courage

“Today's novelist is not only limited by the thin subject matter of personal experience, but by the pinched clinical conventions of the Health generation. Faced with Othello, say, he would have to divide the man into departments, like a liberal arts course. Race relations — that's still a subject, although of course whites can't write about blacks and vice versa; sexual politics (somehow); Othello's ultimate therapy and decision to endure. Since jealousy is now curable, like TB, we can't have people dying of it anymore. A few rap sessions, some fearless touching, and a new sense of self-worth would have Othello and Iago and Hamlet and Juliet back on their feet in no time; and Fiction struggling.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"A Moral Problem" (1974), p. 88
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

People , Health , Jealousy , Art

“Search for contentment in each person you meet.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 80

Search

“Knowledge can in part be set aside, and one can then go further in order to collect new; the natural scientist can set aside insects and flowers and then go further, but if the existing person sets aside the decision in existence, it is eo ipso lost, and he is changed.”

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

Papers VI B 66, 1845
1840s

Flowers , Nature , Knowledge , Decision

“We believe in the right of every country to be free from interference in its own internal affairs by another country. And we believe that world peace can come — which we both devoutly hope to see — through mutual respect, even among those who have some differences between us.
Our goals are also the same, to have a just system of economics and politics, to let the people of the world share in growth, in peace, in personal freedom, and in the benefits to be derived from the proper utilization of natural resources. We believe in enhancing human rights. We believe that we should enhance, as independent nations, the freedom of our own people.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Welcoming ceremony for Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania (12 April 1978), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1978 Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978, p. 735
Presidency (1977–1981), 1978

People , World , Peace , Hope

“Much of the present unpopularity of the theory of Americanization is due to confusion in men's minds. It has grown with such rapidity that this has been inevitable. One thinks it is summed up in learning the English language; another thinks it is achieved by becoming an American citizen; a third, that it is adopting American clothes and manners and associating with native Americans; and a fourth, that it means that everybody should be able to sing "The Star Spangled Banner". The means of Americanization are still confused with its essence. While the necessary things were being done each day to help win the war, people were asking : Can we work intelligently and effectively together in a national effort, without agreement as to the definition, the substance, and the form of Americanization? What are the probabilities of success if these matters are left to the individual determination of the thousands of persons and of agencies now at work Americanizing the 2400 or more communities having foreign-born residents? They are beginning to ask what will be the final indestructible definitions and principles of Americanization and what are to be its finally approved methods. So early in the experiment the answers can only be postulated.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men , War , People , Star

“A member of the Bar is not entitled to refuse his services to anyone who seeks to employ him. He has been said to be like a cabman on the rank: it is his duty to place himself at the disposal of the first person who hails him and he has no right to exercise any discrimination… This principle also has its origin in the conception of the special position of the advocate in the public administration of justice. It is essential that no citizen should be unable to procure the adequate presentation of his case in Court, however unpopular or even unworthy he may be.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 132

Justice , Exercises

“According to a variety of very authoritative sources, Henry A. Kissinger is not a Jew, but a faggot. I will not tolerate any denial of civil rights to a person who happens to be homosexual. Ordinarily, a homosexual is like an ordinary person suffering the affliction of nasty boils; one recognizes the distinction between the person and the affliction.… Henry A. Kissinger is no ordinary, common, garden-variety of homosexual. His heathen sexual inclinations are merely an integral part of a larger evil.… Think of Nero, and then of Kissinger, and then of Nero, and then of Roy M. Cohn. That is the kind of faggot Henry Kissinger is.”

Lyndon LaRouche (1922–2019) American political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement

"Kissinger, the Politics of Faggotry" (3 August 1982)

Thinking , Affliction , Suffering , Evil

“The condition of the low castes—it is painful to call them low castes—is not only unsatisfactory as this resolution says—it is so deeply deplorable that it constitutes a grave blot on our social arrangements… I think all fair-minded persons will have to admit that it is absolutely monstrous that a class of human beings, with bodies similar to our own, with brains that can think and with hearts that can feel, should be perpetually condemned to a low life of utter wretchedness, servitude, and mental and moral degradation, and that permanent barriers should be placed in their way so that it should be impossible for them ever to overcome them and improve their lot. This is deeply revolting to our sense of justice… How can we possibly realize our national aspirations, how can our country ever hope to take her place among the nations of the world, if we allow large numbers of our countrymen to remain sunk in ignorance, barbarism, and degradation?”

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) social and political leader during the Indian Independence Movement

Gopal Krishna Gokhale on Caste, 3 December 2013, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs: George Ton University http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/quotes/gopal-krishna-gokhale-on-caste,
On caste system

Life , Pain , World , Justice

“It would be folly to deny that we still have problems of interstate relations to handle. We boast that this is a land of equal opportunity for all. We insist that there is one law for all the people. But that equality suffers often because of the divergencies between the laws of different States. So long as some can go to a distant State for divorces which others are denied at home, there is not equality in this regard. When some States grant valuable exemptions from taxation which other States impose, one person may enjoy while another is denied these benefits.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

People , Law , Home , Problem

“We have a two-tier class system when it comes to personality style. To devalue introversion is a waste of talent, energy and happiness.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Bielski, Zosia (interviewer), "Giving introverts permission to be themselves," The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2012.

Happiness

“We have above all to learn what is to bear and forbear-to bear ridicule, insults, even personal injuries at times, and forebear from returning abuse for abuse. In the words of the Prophet of Nazareth, we have to take up the cross, not because it is pleasant to be persecuted, but because the pain and injury are as nothing by the side of the principle for which they are endured.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

In one of his lectures delivered at Ferguson College in a social conference of the Congress as a counter to the one held by the extremist Tilak group. Quoted in pages= 113

Pain , Learning , Time

“When in the summer of 1941 he (Hitler) gave me the order to prepare installations at Auschwitz where mass exterminations could take place, and personally to carry out these exterminations, I did not have the slightest idea of their scale or consequences. It was certainly an extraordinary and monstrous order. Nevertheless the reasons behind the extermination programme seemed to me right. I did not reflect on it at the time: I had been given an order, and I had to carry it out. Whether this mass extermination of the Jews was necessary or not was something on which I could not allow myself to form an opinion, for I lacked the necessary breadth of view.”

Rudolf Höss (1901–1947) German war criminal, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp

Quoted in "Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess" - Page 144 - by Rudolf Hoess, Constantine Fitzgibbon, Primo Levi, Joachim Neugroschel - History - 2000

Idea , Time , Summer

“Most Nobel Laureates have carried out our work in safety, but there are others who have acted with great personal courage. None has provided more vivid reminders of the dangers of peacemaking than two of my friends, Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, who gave their lives for the cause of peace in the Middle East.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Post-Presidency, Nobel lecture (2002)

Peace , Courage

“For the heart to truly share another's being, it must be an embodied heart, prepared to encounter directly the embodied heart of another. I have met the “other” in this way, not once or a few times, but over and over during years spent in the company of “persons” like you and me, who happen to be nonhuman.”

Barbara Smuts (1950) American anthropologist

Source: Reflections (1999), p. 108

Way , Time , Heart

“It excites world wonder in the Parliamentary countries that we should build a Chamber, starting afresh, which can only seat two-thirds of its Members. It is difficult to explain this to those who do not know our ways. They cannot easily be made to understand why we consider that the intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of our Debates constitute the personality of the House of Commons and endow it at once with its focus and its strength.”

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

Speech in the House of Commons, October 24, 1950 "Motion for Address in Reply" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1950/oct/24/motion-for-address-in-reply#column_2707.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

World , Way , Understanding , Passion

“As the saints and prophets were often forced to practise long vigils and fastings and prayers before their ecstasies would fall upon them and their visions would appear, so Virtue in its purest and most exalted form can only be acquired by means of severe and long continued culture of the mind. Persons with feeble and untrained intellects may live according to their conscience; but the conscience itself will be defective. … To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted and that it should be subservient to faith, will inevitably fall.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect", p. 540.

Men , Truth , Faith , Religion

“Ultimate audacity: to want to love a person—to say nothing of one's neighbor!—as God loves him.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 15

Love , God

“So this is what famine does to a person,’ I thought as I walked back home. ‘It does not bring one to his knees only; it eats one alive. It is hungrier than a hungry man.”

Neamat Imam book The Black Coat

The Black Coat (2013)

Home

“For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself.”

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician

Lecture at the University of Maryland (March 2005)

Life

“People say to me all the time, "You have no fear." I tell them, "No, that's not true. I'm scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I'm a courageous person because I'm a scared person."”

Ronda Rousey (1987) American judoka, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and actress

"Ronda Rousey: What I've Learned", in Esquire.com (26 December 2012) http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a17607/ronda-rousey-mma-quotes-0113/

People , Fear , Courage , Time

“What we call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good.”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

Phantastes (1858)

Evil , Time

“So all they see of me is a façade. There are times when I am forced to sit with them and on such occasions I simply ignore their petty criticisms, not because I am particularly shy but because I consider it pointless. As a result, they now look upon me as a dullard.
"Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful; but when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!"
How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as such a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am. Her Majesty has also remarked more than once that she had thought I was not the kind of person with whom she could ever relax, but that I have now become closer to her than any of the others. I am so perverse and standoffish. If only I can avoid putting off those for whom I have a genuine regard.”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Diary of Lady Murasaki

trans. Richard Bowring
The Diary of Lady Murasaki

Time

“Present at the lunch with Hitler were Hannekan, Best, Pancke, Jodl, Kaltenbrunner, Keitel, and Himmler. Ribbentrop was ill at the time. The lunch took three hours and not because it was an elaborate meal. Hitler explained his plans for Denmark and said it could only be made peaceful through intensive countersabotage. In other words, murder and explosion. It shouldn't be kept at all secret. If a Dane who worked for the Nazis was murdered or a Danish factory working for Germany damaged, on the very same day a Danish factory or prominent person should be murdered, and the papers should carry the story prominently the next day. A prominent Danish scientist was murdered by unknown men, or a factory blown up, the papers should read, with satire and irony. In other words, it was not to be made secret anymore. The Danes were to know.”

Rudolf Mildner (1902) Chief of the Gestapo at Katowice

To Leon Goldensohn (12 February 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Men , Secret , Peace , Time

“Life without Liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit … Life, liberty, and thought — three persons in one substance, eternal, never-ending, and unceasing.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

The Vision
The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (1994)

Life

“Our so-called Society people, instead of going in for sport, persist in holding conversations in their drawing rooms, generally in a foreign tongue. They engage nurse maids, personal maids and governesses of all nationalities except Italian. They play poker and bridge with the accompanying drinks, certainly not Italian brands!”

Achille Starace (1889–1945) Italian Fascist general

About disloyal people in Italian society. Quoted in "Activist on Society" - Time Magazine - August 5, 1935.

People , Drink , Sport , Drawing

“Feudalism, whatever may be said of it otherwise, was at least based on an personal relationship: capitalism, on the other hand, is a relationship of things. The difference in the two is vast; and the difference in the outlook engendered in the community is also vast.”

William Earsman (1884–1965) Australian left-wing activist

The Proletariat and Education: The Necessity for Labor Colleges

Communication

“Meat-eating is undesirable if the person is interested in physical and mental well-being, in securing tranquility for the body and mind. … The greatest religious teachers have always recommended a vegetarian diet because it is a diet that stills the mind as well as strengthening the body. They are unanimous in saying that a peaceful mind, a serene mind, is necessary to recognize the God within you. "Blessed are the pure in hearth; they shall see God," the Bible says. And yoga strives to calm and pacify the mind so that the person can recognize the God within.”

Satchidananda Saraswati (1914–2002) Yogiraj

Interview in The Vegetarians by Rynn Berry (Brookline, MA: Autumn Press, 1979), pp. 166-167.

God , Peace , Teachers

“And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. …. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up.”

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

Powers
Ryan
Beck: Stem-cell research will lead directly to the search for a new ‘master race.’
2009-03-09
ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/09/beck-eugenics/
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-03-09
on President Obama overturning the ban on federally funded stem cell research
2000s, 2009

Hope , Perfection

“[T]he intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and … most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood.”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

Color , Intelligence

“I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering.”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

The Mikado (1885)

Family , Understanding , Help

“Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot commit… When the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not dealing with persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God, for he does not admit the existence of any such being… We attack not a person but a belief, not a being but an idea, not a fact but a fancy.”

George William Foote (1850–1915) British secularist and journal editor

"Who Are The Blasphemers?" http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/flowers/112blasphemers.htm (June, 1882), p. 112
Flowers of Freethought (1893)

God , Idea

“No person's gain in wisdom is diminished by anyone else's gain.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XII : The Greening Of America, p. 383 ( See also: Vilfredo Pareto)

Wisdom

“Going vegan was one of the best things I’ve done, both for my rugby game and on a personal level. I’m strong and fit, my reflexes are sharp, my mind is awake, and my conscience is clear – I encourage everyone to give meat, eggs, and dairy foods the red card and see the difference for themselves!”

Mirco Bergamasco (1983) Italian rugby union player

"Italian Rugby Legend Credits Vegan Fuel With Giving Him a Powerful Physique" https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/italian-rugby-legend-credits-vegan-fuel-giving-powerful-physique/, interview with PETA (19 July 2017).

Food , Game , Strong

“A size zero? I've never heard of that. That didn't exist when I was growing up. When did that start? What does it mean? It means a person is not there, no? It makes no sense.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Discussing vanity sizing and the size 0 debate. Quoted by Asian News International, 20 March 2009.

Sense

“Much of the time, the question goes unasked in prosperous liberal democracies like Britain or the United States, because most of us see political equality as exhausted by “one person, one vote” and dig no deeper; we know that one person, one vote coexists with the better-off and better-organized buying influence through lobbying, campaign contributions, and use of the mass media, but we find ourselves puzzled to balance a belief that everyone has the right to use his or her resources to influence government—which is certainly one form of political equality—with our sense that excessive inequality of political resources undermines democracy.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Introduction: Thinking about Politics.
On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012)

Democracy , Question , Sense , Time

“Now, this free Government of America… imposed a duty of fifty per cent on foreign wool; and not a word of complaint was heard from any party against that protecting duty. Why, therefore, was all this outcry about the duties which were enforced in this country for the protection of the land, and which, after all, was no protection at all?… the landlord and farmer had nothing whatever to do with the increase in the price of bread. If the petitioners were rational persons, they would not have asked for cheap bread; they would have asked for a reduction of those taxes that caused the bread to be so high… He did not know but he ought to vote for the repeal of the Corn-laws, upon account of their foolishness, their utter absurdity, and inefficiency. He explained all these things to his constituents, who were just as fond of a cheap loaf as the people of Liverpool, or any other place. He said to them, "Don't go to the landlords to ask for cheap bread, because they cannot give it you. Go to the Government, and tell them to take off the taxes, that the baker may be enabled to give you cheap bread." This was the language he addressed to his constituents. He recollected perfectly well when this Corn Bill was first brought forward he gave it his most strenuous opposition, not because he objected to the principle of the Bill, but solely because he conceived it would be wholly inoperative”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1834/mar/21/free-trade-liverpool-petition-adjourned in the House of Commons on a petition in favour of free trade (21 March 1834).

People , Law , Country

“I am a very simple person. In spite of all that has happened to me, I have tried to remain the simple person I started out.”

Luciano Pavarotti (1935–2007) Italian operatic tenor

Pavarotti : My World (1995)

“In this fact we have reached the essential form of every spirit or person — the organic union of the particular with the universal, of its private self-activity in the recognition of itself with its public activity in the recognition of all others. That is, self-consciousness is in the last resort a conscience, or the union of each spirit's self-recognition with recognition of all. Its self-definition is therefore definite, in both senses of the word: it is at once integral in its thorough and inconfusible difference from every other, and yet it is integral in terms of the entire whole that includes it with all the rest. Thus in both of its aspects — and both are essential to it — in a commanding sense it excludes alternative, and there is universal determinism, that is, universal and stable definiteness, just because there is universal self-determination, or genuine freedom. But this universal self-defining implies and proclaims the universal reality, the living presence in all, of one unchangeable type of being — the self-conscious intelligence; and this, presented in all really possible forms, or instances, of its one abiding nature.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.353-4

Intelligence , Nature , Reality , Sense

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period -- both in person and around the globe.”

Sean Spicer (1971) American political strategist and former White House Press Secretary and Communications Director for President…

Transcript of press secretary Sean Spicer http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/transcript-press-secretary-sean-spicer-media-233979 (January 21, 2017)

“I was in my forties and teaching magazine writing for the Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico. I was hired on a fluke. The professor who was scheduled to teach the course became ill, so the chair of the department, my personal friend Tony Hillerman, asked me to fill in for a semester. Tony knew I’d never been to college and didn’t care; he just knew I’d written successfully for magazines for years. The original professor never returned, and someone else replaced Tony as Chair and automatically kept me on. I discovered I loved teaching writing and started to get worried that my deep dark secret, (no college!) might be discovered, so I began taking courses under my married name, Lois Arquette, hoping I could get a degree before someone “outed” me. In the course of that endeavor, I took a juvenile literature class where they were studying “Lois Duncan books.””

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

My fellow students were excitedly writing A-plus papers about how many of my books were based on Greek myths. I had never even read those myths!
On teaching and attending college, interview https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111119202009/https://abbottgran.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/the-deep-bottom-drawer-an-interview-with-lois-duncan/ with Megan Abbott (2011)
2003–2016

Love , Secret , Books , Hope

“I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It's the only book I didn't finish. I couldn't get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance.”

Maeve Binchy (1940–2012) Irish novelist

shelf-life.ew.com http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/07/31/circle-of-friends-author-maeve-binchy-dies/

Books , Revenge

“I think about the personal accomplishment, but there's more of a sense of the grand achievement by all the people who could put this man on the moon.”

Alan Shepard (1923–1998) American astronaut

The Denver Post staff (September 29, 1992) "Shepard still shoots for moon", The Denver Post, p. 1D.

People , Thinking , Sense

“The art is French, but the ideas may have come from anywhere, like the game of chess which the pilgrims or crusaders brought home from Syria. In the oriental game, the King was followed step by step by a Minister whose functions were personal. The crusaders freed the piece from control; gave it liberty to move up or down or diagonally, forwards and backwards; made it the most arbitrary and formidable champion on the board, while the King and the Knight were the most restricted in movement; and this piece they named Queen and called the Virgin.”

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

An early French name for the chesspiece known as the Queen was Fierge or Vierge, meaning "Virgin".
Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Art , Home , Game , Idea

“I'll tell you something. When you see you become part of the cycle of generations, you lose your ego in the process, because you ain't nothin' special. You're just another cipher in the generations. When you devote all your interest into another person, you lose your self-obsession, and that's when you understand what it is. You don't know (anything) without that moment. You don't want anything to harm this helpless being. That's a fantastic change. And that's when you understand what's happening. I never understood anything until my first baby looked at me. I didn't understand (anything). Now I understand.”

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

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

Understanding , Change , Parting , Baby

“The thing about most of the media is that they want to reduce everybody to the lowest common denominator. They don't want people to have any heroes. I've got nothing against criticism of political figures, but that's different from a personal attack. It's easier to do sensationalism and character assassination than focus on the real issues. And they're obsessed, it seems, with portraying the ugliest side of humanity—the dishonesty, hypocrisy, ego battles, and fights.
How dare Fox, CNN, and MSNBC call themselves news stations? They're entertainment stations.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 3 (p. 51)

People , Fight

“[W]hat Husbands and Wives argues is that many "rational" relationships are actually not as durable as they seem, because somewhere inside every person is a child crying me! me! me! We say we want the other person to be happy. What we mean is, we want them to be happy with us, just as we are, on our terms… Beneath the urgency of all the older characters - both men, both women, and even the older dating partners they experiment with - is the realization that life is short, that time is running out, that life sells you a romantic illusion and neglects to tell you that you can't have it, because when you take any illusion and make it flesh, its hair begins to fall out, and it has B. O., and it asks you what your sign is. True love involves loving another's imperfections, which are the parts that tend to endure.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/husbands-and-wives-1992 of Husbands and Wives (18 September 1992)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Love , Life , Women , Men

“Actually I despise royalty. I always have done. It's fairy story nonsense. The very idea of their existence in these days when people are dying daily because they don't have enough money to operate one's radiator in the house, to me is immoral. As far as I can see, money spent on royalty is money burnt. I've never met anyone who supports royalty, and believe me I've searched. Okay, so there's some deaf and elderly pensioner in Hartlepool who has pictures of Prince Edward pinned on the toilet seat, but I know streams of people who can't wait to get rid of them. It's a false devotion anyway. I think it's fascist and very, very cruel. To me there's something dramatically ugly about a person who can wear a dress for £6,000 when at the same time there are people who can't afford to eat. When she puts on that dress for £6,000 the statement she is making to the nation is: "I am the fantastically gifted royalty, and you are the snivelling peasants."”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

The very idea that people would be interested in the facts about this dress is massively insulting to the human race.
from "This Charming Man", interview by Simon Garfield, Timeout March 1985
In interviews etc., About politics and society

Money , People , Search , Idea

“There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed. … I'm saying we don't do a new version to fix bugs. We don't. Not enough people would buy it. You can take a hundred people using Microsoft Word. Call them up and say "Would you buy a new version because of bugs?" You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version because of bugs. We'd never be able to sell a release on that basis.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Focus Magazine No. 43 (23 October 1995) http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html 
1990s

People

“My personal happiness is much more important than my career, my primary aim is to have a happy home life. Those great ladies the silver screen have wanted what I've been able to get, but they've not been able to give up enough to get it.”

Marie Windsor (1919–2000) American actress

Marie Windsor: Her Face Is Familiar https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5496065/lubbock_avalanchejournal/ (April 11, 1973)

Life , Home , Happiness

“I assure you, that this inestimable memento of his Excellency will be retained in my possession while I live — an object of sacred interest — a token not merely of the kind consideration in which I have reason to know that the President was pleased to hold me personally, but as an indication of his humane interest in the welfare of my whole race.”

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

Letter to Mary Todd Lincoln (17 August 1865).
1860s

“Many lamented but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been religious men, or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night, many wishing that that day had been seven year before; and some fearing lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be merry. Others who knew nothing but truth by him both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true that of certain of the clergy he was detestably hated, & specially of such as had borne swynge, and by his means was put from it; for in dead he was a man that in all his doings seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snoffyng pride of some prelates, which undoubtedly, whatsoever else was the cause of his death, did shorten his life and procured the end that he was brought unto.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Edward Hall on Cromwell's downfall. (Sir Henry Ellis (ed.), Hall's Chronicle (London, 1809), p. 838.)
About

Life , Death , Men , Hate

“I would like people to recognize in looking at my story that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you. It's not the environment, it's not the other people who were there trying to help you or trying to stop you. It's what you decide to do and how much effort you put behind it.”

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

"Interview: Dr. Benjamin Carson Talks Race, Politics and Life After Medicine" http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-dr-benjamin-carson-talks-race-politics-and-life-after-medicine-91474/, The Christian Post (March 8, 2013)

People , Effort , Help

“I am not at all the sort of person you and I took me for.”

Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801–1866) Scottish writer

Letter to Thomas Carlyle http://books.google.com/books?id=Fj10a_dl7IwC&q=%22I+am+not+at+all+the+sort+of+person+you+and+I+took+me+for%22&pg=PA32#v=onepage (7 May 1822).

“It does not say much for a person's morality if he is prepared to sacrifice what he believes in for a job.”

David Norris (1944) Irish scholar, independent Senator, and gay and civil rights activist

28 May 2013 http://www.kildarestreet.com/sendebates/?id=2013-05-28a.7&s=speaker%3A210#g126

“Personality maintains its discreetness by an act of will. Otherwise one person will flow helplessly into another.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 293

“It is so amusing the way that mortals misunderstand the shape, or shapes, of time. … In the realms of the ultimate, each person must figure out things for themselves. … Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Jitterbug Perfume (1984)

Way , Teachers , Time

“I had sworn to administer justice "faithfully and impartially." To do otherwise would be to violate my oath. That meant I had no business of imposing my personal views on the country. Nor did I have the slightest intention of doing so.”

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

Page 238
2000s, (2008)

Justice , Business , Country

“We all concede that 'they' rule 'us'. But here is the secret shame of that amorphous entity that makes us all cower in shame: 'they' are losers. 'They' are failures. 'They' don't realize that life is-almost without exception-an absolute meritocracy, and everyone who succeeds completely deserves it. (The exceptions being Dale Peck, MTV on-air personalities who aren't Kurt Loder, Al Franken, and myself)”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Things That Might Be True

Life , Secret , Failure

“Narcissism is often the driving force behind the desire to obtain a leadership position. Perhaps individuals with strong narcissistic personality features are more willing to undertake the arduous process of attaining a position of power.”

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries (1942) Dutch academic

Manfred Kets de Vries and Danny Miller. "Narcissism and leadership: An object relations perspective." Human Relations 38.6 (1985): 583-601.

Strong

“The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century.”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (2011), Simon & Schuster (U.S.), Ch. 19: "Pixar: Technology Meets Art", ISBN 1-4516-4853-7

Feeling , Strong , Science

“Every libel, which is called famosus libellus, is made either against a private man, or against a public person. If it be against a private man, it deserves a severe punishment.”

Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge

77 Eng. Rep. 250 (1605).

“A person who is never duped cannot be a friend.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“For each individual it is a great advantage to retain the rights over the fruits of his labour even though he must put off the enjoyment of them. His personal wealth is thus increased. For that is what wealth is,—command of the right to postponed consumption.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: How to Pay for the War (1940), Ch. 5 : A Plan for Deferred Pay, Family, Allowances and a Cheap Ration

Wealth

“A social aggregate which has chosen the fatal path of organic evolution must succumb to the same law of organic development to which all organisms are subject, namely greater and greater organization, increase of structure, greater differentiation, decrease of critical, personal, consciousness, loss of individual liberty, increased activity of the subconscious forces, falling into a state of somnambulism which can only be redeemed by revolution or by death.”

Boris Sidis The Source and Aim of Human Progress

The Source and Aim of Human Progress (1919)

Death , Law , Loss

“The central theme of this paper is the character and causes of long-term changes in the personal distribution of income. Does inequality in the distribution of income increase or decrease in the course of a country's economic growth? What factors determine the secular level and trends of income inequalities?”

Simon Kuznets (1901–1985) economist

Source: "Economic growth and income inequality," 1955, p. 1

Change , Country

“I've been blogging — however irregularly — over at Amazon. com for a few years now, but I've always felt that arena was for the "official" JMD. It was as if I was standing in the aisle of a book store, greeting potential readers: sharing my thoughts, certainly — but also trying to get them interested in my wares. I'm hoping that this blog will be more like a living room: a little more casual and personal. A place where I can talk about, well, anything that comes to mind, from the trivial to the profound. And I hope to do it at least once a week.”

J.M. DeMatteis (1953) comics illustrator

I'll wait a moment for the laughter to die down.
"Welcome (A Day Late)" (10 September 2009) http://www.jmdematteis.com/2009_09_01_archive.html.
J.M. DeMatteis's CREATION POINT (2009 – present)

Books , Hope , Laughter , Waiting

“Consideration for other persons or for other living beings is very vital for goodness and want of consideration for other people makes human beings selfish, regardless for other people's good.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967

People , Selfishness

“What a person understands as his or her Purusharthas could very according to his or her background stageand station in life, sex, etc., as well as the nature of the crisis he or she is facing”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

In this, Purushartha means "that which is sought by man; human purpose, aim, or end." Quoted in[Sahu, Nandini title=The Post-colonial Space: Writing the Self and the Nation, http://books.google.com/books?id=xs_tj0tDnnwC&pg=PA59, 2007, Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 978-81-269-0777-9, 59–]

Life , Sex , Understanding , Nature

“No history of the world can be complete which does not mention Mary Helen Keller… whose overcoming of her blindness and deafness were arguably victories more important than those of Alexander the Great, because they have implications still for every living person.”

Theodore Zeldin (1933) English academic

Theodore Zeldin in An Intimate History of Humanity (1994) This quote seems to obviously refer to Helen Adams Keller, but why she is referred to as "Mary Helen Keller" is not clear.
An Intimate History of Humanity (1994)

World , History , Victory

“Innumerate people characteristically have a strong tendency to personalize—to be misled by their own experiences, or by the media’s focus on individuals and drama.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Introduction (p. 6)
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

People , Strong

“Science is like literature, a continuing dialog among diverse and conflicting voices, no one ever wholly right or wholly wrong, but a steady conversation forever provisional and personal and living.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Afterword (p. 498)
Timescape (1980)

Literature , Science

“It would be tedious to dwell upon every striking mark of national decline: some, however, will press themselves forward to particular notice; and amongst them are: that Italian-like effeminacy, which has, at last, descended to the yeomanry of the country, who are now found turning up their silly eyes in ecstacy at a music-meeting, while they should be cheering the hounds, or measuring their strength at the ring; the discouragement of all the athletic sports and modes of strife amongst the common people, and the consequent and fearful increase of those cuttings and stabbings, those assassin-like ways of taking vengeance, formerly heard of in England only as the vices of the most base and cowardly foreigners, but now become so frequent amongst ourselves as to render necessary a law to punish such practices with death; the prevalence and encouragement of a hypocritical religion, a canting morality, and an affected humanity; the daily increasing poverty of the national church, and the daily increasing disposition still to fleece the more than half-shorne clergy, who are compelled to be, in various ways, the mere dependants of the upstarts of trade; the almost entire extinction of the ancient country gentry, whose estates are swallowed up by loan-jobbers, contractors, and nabobs, who, for the far greater part not Englishmen themselves, exercise in England that sort of insolent sway, which, by the means of taxes raised from English labour, they have been enabled to exercise over the slaves of India or elsewhere; the bestowing of honours upon the mere possessors of wealth, without any regard to birth, character, or talents, or to the manner in which that wealth has been acquired; the familiar intercourse of but too many of the ancient nobility with persons of low birth and servile occupations, with exchange and insurance-brokers, loan and lottery contractors, agents and usurers, in short, with all the Jew-like race of money-changers.”

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

Political Register (27 October 1804).

Death , Money , People , Fear

“There ought to be a million-person march on the Mall… that can be heard in the living quarters of the White House.”

Arlen Specter (1930–2012) American politician; former United States Senator from Pennsylvania

On President Bush's potential veto of a new bill on stem-cell research; reported in Stem cell bill backers hopeful of success http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16545499/", NBC News (January 9, 2007).

Housing

“The Declaration of Independence proclaimed to a world, organized politically and spiritually around the concept of the inequality of man, that the dignity of human personality was inherent in man as a living being. The Emancipation Proclamation was the offspring of the Declaration of Independence. It was a constructive use of the force of law to uproot a social order which sought to separate liberty from a segment of humanity.”

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

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

World , Law

“In western society, there is a problem similar to India that the income of a research scientist is less than that of a management person. But perhaps the facilities and the infrastructure being much advanced in the western universities, they are able to attract and retain the people. In our case this can happen but not to the extent we would like. A corrective measure to some extent has been taken by the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs). They are doing for pure sciences what IIT’s do for applied sciences. Since they are attracting good talent it may happen that you will have more input in research in the next ten years.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

On the decline of interest in science education among students
An Exclusive Interview with Prof. Jayant Vishnu Narlikar

People , Education , Problem , Universe

“An analysis of social relations in 2 parts: the properties of 2-person relations, and an extension of the chief concepts to the complex relations of larger groups. Beginning with the assumption that most social interactions must be reinforced to be repeated, the authors analyze 2-person matrices designed to express all the possible interactions and their outcomes in terms of rewards and costs to the participants. Also investigated are: the exogenous and endogenous determinants of rewards and costs, interactive interference and facilitation, formation and evaluation of the 2-person relation, power and dependence, norms and roles, tasks, and nonvoluntary relations. The chapters on larger groups take up interdependence, status, conformity, and group goals. 300-item bibliog”

John Thibaut (1917–1986) American social psychologist

Abstract
The social psychology of groups. 1959

Parting , Dependency

“I will outline some of the specific goals that I have set and describe some of the means we are employing to achieve them, but firstly let me make a couple of things abundantly clear. I am not doing this to win plaudits or to satisfy a personal magnanimous desire. I am doing this out of love for the Australian Army and for the men and women who serve in its ranks. As the Chief of the Army I ultimately set the tone for the organisation and exemplify its values. Those values – Courage, Initiative and Teamwork, allied with respect for our institution and each other are noble when they are lived as intended.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Love , Women , Men , Courage

“Loving does not necessarily mean liking. But it still is loving, yes — totally, completely, utterly. Take the key of wisdom and unlock your own heart. Then let people in one by one. Listen to them, with full attention, with all your mind, heart, body and soul, unto exhaustion. And look! — the exhaustion will be lifted, and you will be able to listen still more. Yes, love must be communicated person to person; otherwise it will not be effective.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Molchanie (1982)

Love , Wisdom , People , Soul

“Arabic writing at the beginning of Islam was, therefore, not of the best quality nor of the greatest accuracy and excellence. It was not (even) of medium quality, because the Arabs possessed the savage desert attitude and were not familiar with crafts. One may compare what happened to the orthography of the Qur’an on account of this situation. The men around Muhammad wrote the Qur’an in their own script which, was not of a firmly established, good quality. Most of the letters were in contradiction to the orthography required by persons versed in the craft of writing…. Consequently, (the Qur’anic orthography of the men around Muhammad was followed and became established, and the scholars acquainted with it have called attention to passages where (this is noticeable). No attention should be paid in this connection with those incompetent (scholars) that (the men around Muhammad) knew well the art of writing and that the alleged discrepancies between their writing and the principles of orthography are not discrepancies, as has been alleged, but have a reason. For instance, they explain the addition of the alif in la ‘adhbahannahU "I shall indeed slaughter him" as indication that the slaughtering did not take place ( lA ‘adhbahannahU ). The addition of the ya in bi-ayydin "with hands (power)," they explain as an indication that the divine power is perfect. There are similar things based on nothing but purely arbitrary assumptions. The only reason that caused them to (assume such things) is their belief that (their explanations) would free the men around Muhammad from the suspicion of deficiency, in the sense that they were not able to write well. They think that good writing is perfection. Thus, they do not admit the fact that the men around Muhammad were deficient in writing.”

Ibn Khaldun book Muqaddimah

Muqqadimah, ibn Khaldun, vol. 2, p. 382
Muqaddimah (1377)

Men , Art , Thinking , Sense

“The person who does not know how to put up with others should retire into himself, if indeed he can suffer even himself.”

Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom

El que no se hallare con ánimo de sufrir apele al retiro de sí mismo, si es que aun a sí mismo se ha de poder tolerar.
Maxim 159 (p. 90)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Suffering

“Treating a person as though he were generally rather than specifically deviant produces a self-fulfilling prophecy. It sets in motion several mechanisms which conspire to shape the person in the image people have of him. It the first place, one tends to be cut off, after being identified as deviant, from participation in more conventional groups, even though the specific consequences of the particular deviant activity might never of themselves have caused the isolation had there not also been the public knowledge and reaction to it. For example, being a homosexual may not affect one’s ability to do office work, but to be known as a homosexual in an office may make it impossible to continue working there. Similarly, though the effects of opiate drugs may not impair one’s working ability, to be known as an addict will probably lead to losing one’s job… The homosexual who is deprived of a “respectable” job by the discovery of his deviance may drift into unconventional, marginal occupations where it does not make so much difference. The drug addict finds himself forced into other illegitimate kinds of activity, such as robbery and theft, by the refusal of respectable employers to have him around.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Source: Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963), p. 34.

People , Knowledge

“The entire purpose of a clean and well-ordered life is to liberate man from the thralldom of chaos and the burden of sorrow. (…) What is wrong with a life which is free from problems? Personality is merely a reflection of the real. (…) Once you realize that the person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not reality itself, you cease to fret and worry. You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Clean, well-ordered life
Source: "I am That.' P.33.

Life , Problem , Reality

“The Hitler… as dictator of the Reich… has a new personality. He seems to be a disciple of Nietzsche’s Metaphysical divinity – power and the masses of people are to be used as pawns in the chessboard Power Politics.”

Virgil John Tangborn (1920–1944)

Mein Kampf review by Vigil Tangborn

People

“Kindness and friendliness become aspects of personalized service or of public relations of big firms, rationalized to further the sale of something. With anonymous insincerity, the Successful Person thus makes an instrument of his own appearance and personality.”

C. Wright Mills book White Collar: The American Middle Classes

White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951)

Appearance , Success

“That afternoon I came to understand that one of the deepest purposes of intellectual sophistication is to provide distance between us and our most disturbing personal truths and gnawing fears.”

Richard Russo book Straight Man

Epilogue.
Straight Man (1997)

Truth , Fear , Understanding

“More and more American pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control because of their personal moral objections. Hey, you know what would really teach us a lesson? If you took off your pretend doctor jacket and got another job. … Now, of course, I know the other side is saying, yes, but this is a moral issue. Yeah, but the problem is, not everyone gets their morals from the same book. You go by the book that says slavery is okay but sex is wrong until after marriage, at which point it becomes a blessed sacrament between a husband and the wife who is withholding it.
In conclusion, let me say to all the activist pharmacists out there, the ones who think sex is bad probably because sex with them always is. Fellas, a pharmacist is not a law-giver, not even a doctor. In the medical pecking order, you rank somewhere in between a chiropractor and a tree surgeon.
You don't answer to a law above the laws of men. You work for Sav-On. The doctors are the ones who make medical decisions because they went to medical school, whereas you were transferred from the counter where people drop off film.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

New Rules (2005)

Men , Marriage , People , Books

“It is a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none.
But though this is one difficulty of the subject, it is not the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry for speaking like a fool. The greatest difficulty with most subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to remember this is an apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued in favour of diligence; only there is something to be said against it, and that is what, on the present occasion, I have to say.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

People , Fools , Indifference

“How far our position is a minority one will differ from person to person here. If we are against factory farms, we are morally condemning widespread and perfectly legal practices involving perhaps the majority of the human community. If we are vegetarians, we hold a position which is very much a minority one. If we are pretty radical anti-vivisectionists, we also hold what seems to be a minority position, involving as it does a radical criticism of the law and the establishment of this country.”

Timothy Sprigge (1932–2007) British philosopher

Source: The Animal Welfare Movement and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 87

Law , Communication , Country

“My interest in game-theoretic problems in a narrower sense was first aroused by John Nash's four brilliant papers, published in the period 1950-53, on cooperative and on noncooperative games, on two-person bargaining games and on mutually optimal threat strategies in such games, and on what we now call Nash equilibria.”

John Harsanyi (1920–2000) hungarian economist

"John C. Harsanyi - Biographical," 1994

Game , Optimism , Problem , Sense

“When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 117 (14 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

World , Question , Time

“Only one language comes into question from the start, and that is the physicalist. One can learn the physicalist language from earliest childhood. If someone makes predictions and wants to check them himself, he must count on changes in the system of his senses, he must use clocks and rulers, in short, the person supposedly in isolation already makes use of the ‘intersensual’ and ‘intersubjective’ language. The forecaster of yesterday and the controller of today are, so to speak, two persons.”

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist

Source: 1930s, "Physicalism" (1931), p. 54–55 ; As cited in Jordi Cat, "Otto Neurath", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),

Question , Sense , Learning , Change