Quotes about problems
page 51

“My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Albert Einstein, Princeton, 26 April 1947
A - F

Beauty, Understanding, Knowledge

“A crisis is taking place in the contemporary world in a variety of forms, cutting across the realms of culture, ethics, politics, and so forth. At the ground of these problems is the fact that the essence of being human has turned into a question mark for humanity itself.”

Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher

Source: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990), p. 188

World, Question

“On the one hand, nihilism is a problem that transcends time and space and is rooted in the essence of human being, an existential problem in which the being of the self is revealed to the self itself as something groundless. On the other hand, it is a historical and social phenomenon, an object of the study of history. The phenomenon of nihilism shows that our historical life has lost its ground as objective spirit, that the value system which supports this life has broken down, and that the entirety of social and historical life has loosened itself from its foundations. Nihilism is a sign of the collapse of the social order externally and of spiritual decay internally - and as such signifies a time of great upheaval. Viewed in this way, one might say that it is a general phenomenon that occurs from time to time in the course of history.”

Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher

Source: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990), p. 3

Life, Way, History, Support

“Despite countless hours of practice, dozens of auditions, many artistic disputes, seven demo CDs, and two radical changes in hairstyle, Arrival never arrived. It wasn’t that they were bad; it was just that, as they reluctantly came to understand, they really weren’t anything special. They were competent. The problem was, there were competent bands everywhere. Competence wasn’t the key to stardom; you needed something else. Whatever it was, Arrival didn’t have it.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Source: Novels, Tricky Business (2002), Chapter 3

Bad luck, Understanding, Change

“And then India; let me tell you my relationship with India. Because of cricket, which is followed with great passion in the subcontinent, I have great friends in India. I’ve always loved going to India. So my first move was to reach out to Modi and I said let’s work our differences, leave our past behind and our main priority should be our people as we have similar problems; poverty and climate change. Highest number of people reside in subcontinent. On zero response from India; we thought we should wait till the Indian elections since BJP is a nationalist party. Meanwhile, a Kashmiri boy radicalized by Indian forces blew himself up on an Indian convoy. Immediately India blamed Pakistan. I told India to give us any proof and we’d act. We had actual proofs of Indian intervention in some terrorist attacks in our Balochistan province. We even caught their spy Kulbhushan Yadav who admitted to crimes. Instead of sharing proofs of any Pakistani’s alleged involvement in Pulwama attack, they tried to bomb us. We retaliated. We captured their pilot; but returned him the next day because we did not want the situation to escalate.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Speech at the United Nations General Assembly, 2019

Love, People, Making love, Boy

“I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as females with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things in life but sentimental love feelings. After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet understand how to be free. The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, militants and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love? We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force. But over and over again things turned out differently, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again alone, unhappy, lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal …work. Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Love, Life, Women, Men

“Proposition XLIV. Problem XII.”

Proclus (412–485) Greek philosopher

The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid's Elements Vol. 2 (1789)

“We have a bow and arrow and if we aim well, we can hit the target. The problem is that Bayern has a bazooka.”

Jürgen Klopp (1967) German association football player and manager

Klopp comparing the financial capabilities of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
About Bayern Munich

“The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. …The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience.”

David Chalmers (1966) Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist

When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. ...When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought.
"Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness," 1995

Science

“When somebody fucks with you, don’t mourn your sorrow, cower in a corner and contemplate suicide. Talk about it, reveal your experience and your problems, and if you have the chance(which seeing the abundance of social networking sites available, you probably will), find various ways to publicly humiliate him, so he can never dare to fuck with you again, and you can encourage other people to do the same.”

Amos Yee (1998) blogger

Tumblr postings

People, Way, Suicide, Chance

“He was the first to introduce simple props such as ropes, belts, wooden blocks and bolsters to enable the elderly and less fit to maintain classical postures correctly and safely. The Iyengar form of yoga is now often employed by physiotherapists treating people with spinal injuries and back problems to recover full movement.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

BKS Iyengar – obituary

People

“Having been distressed by the performance of the hung Lok Sabhas and the instability caused by the coalition governments during his tenure, when three Prime Ministers changed their hands, he took an unprecedented stand by calling the conference of Governors as also leaders of some political parties to discuss this serious problem facing the nation which had weakened the democratic structure of the country. This action earned him a lot of controversy from different quarters. It was even doubted that he was doing so to earn a second term as President of India.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.257.

Change, Country

“He wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister urging her to convene a second Constituent Assembly to have a fresh look at the constitution in view of the changed situation and also suggested her the formation of a national government under her leadership to overcome the immediate problems.”

V. V. Giri (1894–1980) Indian politician and 4th president of India

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, P.80

Change

“As Chief Minister, he cracked down heavily on the dacoits, who were terrorizing the south west Uttar Pradesh. He was applauded for his offer of resignation when he failed to subdue the problem.”

V. P. Singh (1931–2008) Indian politician

VP Singh: The Renaissance Man (25 June 1931- 27 Nov 2008)

“I do not expect any problems to arise because we do not expect Mr. Chandra Shekhar to do anything that is inconsistent with Congress ideology and policies.”

Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) Indian politician

Vithal Gadgil in: Sanjoy Hazarika "Rival of Singh Becomes India Premier"

After extending support to Shekahr to form the government.

“We might perhaps be more tolerant of rulers turning preachers if they were moral giants. But what citizen looks at the government today thinking how wise and virtuous it is? Public respect for politicians has long been declining, even as the population at large has been seduced into responding to each new problem by demanding that the government should act. That we should be constantly demanding that an institution we rather despise should solve large problems argues a notable lack of logic in the demos.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

The statesmen of times past have been replaced by a set of barely competent social workers eager to help 'ordinary people' solve daily problems in their lives. This strange aspiration is a very large change in public life. The electorates of earlier times would have responded with derision to politicians seeking power in order to solve our problems. Today, the demos votes for them.
Introduction, p. 3
The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life

Thinking

“To D. V. G., the problem of problems today is confusion and perplexity about one’s duty to self and society.”

D. V. Gundappa (1887–1975) Indian writer

By Prof. G. N. Sarma in "The Gita for Every Man".

Self-confidence

“In spite of strength of my conviction, I have certain great regard for your fine abilities and love for the country and that shall be unabated whether I have the good fortune to secure your cooperation or face your honest opposition…. I see that we hold perhaps diametrically opposite views. My conviction based upon extensive experiences of village life is that in India at any rate for generations to come, we shall not be able to make much use of mechanical power for solving the problem of the ever growing poverty of the masses.”

Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya (1860–1962) Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore

Mahatma Gandhi, while exchanging views on solving countries on problems of poverty sought Vishvesvarya's views quoted in The Most Celebrated Indian Engineer:Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, 22 November 2013, Official web site of Government of India: Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/dream/feb2000/article1.htm,

Love, Life, Making love, Country

“The number one problem in business today is profitability.”

Adrian Slywotzky (1951) American economist

Where will you be allowed to make a profit in your industry? Where is the profit zone today? Where will it be tomorrow?
Source: The Profit Zone (2007), p. 3.

Business

“No mathematical idea has ever been published in the way it was discovered. Techniques have been developed and are used, if a problem has been solved, to turn the solution procedure upside down, or if it is a larger complex of statements and theories, to turn definitions into propositions, and propositions into definitions, the hot invention into icy beauty. This then if it has affected teaching matter, is the didactical inversion, which as it happens may be anti-didactical.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Rather than behaving anti-didactically, one should recognise that the learner is entitled to recapitulate in a fashion of mankind. Not in the trivial matter of an abridged version, but equally we cannot require the new generation to start at the point where their predecessors left off.
Source: The Concept and the Role of the Model in Mathematics and Natural and Social Sciences (1961), p. ix

Beauty, Way, Mathematics, Idea

“A frequent source of misunderstanding has to do with the interpretation of fuzzy logic. The problem is that the term fuzzy logic has two different meanings. More specifically, in a narrow sense, fuzzy logic, FLn, is a logical system which may be viewed as an extension and generalization of classical multivalued logics. But in a wider sense, fuzzy logic, FLw is almost synonymous with the theory of fuzzy sets.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

In this context, what is important to recognize is that: (a) FLw is much broader than FLn and subsumes FLn as one of its branches; (b) the agenda of FLn is very different from the agendas of classical multivalued logics; and (c) at this juncture, the term fuzzy logic is usually used in its wide rather than narrow sense, effectively equating fuzzy logic with FLw
Zadeh (1995) in Foreword of George J. Klir Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic: theory and applications.
1990s

Sense

“In fact, it is only through the New Testament that we can learn just what Christian faith is. … Open your Bible at any page you like, there is nothing about solving religious problems. Bible testifies that God exists and that he revealed himself through Jesus Christ.”

Wilhelm Busch (pastor) (1897–1966) German pastor and writer

It shows too that the man who lives without God is not living right.
Is there any certainty in religious matters? 2.The Bible gives us wonderful certainties. p. 166
Jesus Our Destiny

God, Faith, Learning, Christ

“We should be committed to ending this spate of gun violence and criminality. We should stop allowing the progressive, socialist left to manipulate us for the sake of their insidious ideological agenda. The problem is simple — doing that takes courage, and the left tends to define courage with examples such as Bradley Manning or Bowe Bergdahl. Real courage, however, is shown by those who don’t merely follow the trend or status quo, but who stand up for that which is right and truly just — and don’t kneel.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, I'd like to see MORE football player protests — NOT less (27 September 2017)

Courage

“Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

[...]
"It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down."
President Snow and Katniss, p. 21
The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

Time

“The philosophy of science is concerned with how you decide if a scientific finding is correct or true. You have to establish criteria to determine if the finding or theory is valid. Validity is a fundamental problem in the philosophy of science, but the fundamental problem in the philosophy of scientific administration is the question of value.”

Alvin M. Weinberg (1915–2006) American nuclear physicist

Two scientific activities are equally valid if they achieve results that are true. Now, how do you decide which activity is more valuable? The question of value is the basic question that the scientific administrator asks so that decisions can be made about funding priorities. Interview http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28-1/text/wbgbar.htm by Bill Cabage and Carolyn Krause for the ORNL Review (April 1995).

Question, Science

“I think he’s very good and very blessed to be operating behind those five guys. That’s the big problem, having to sort through those five big guys to find where he is. When they all come off at one time they look like a herd of water buffalo stampeding at you and there’s a gazelle somewhere in behind them. He’s also very persistent and you can see how strong he is.”

Javon Ringer (1987) All-American college football player, professional football player, running back

Florida Atlantic head coach Howard Schnellenberger, quoted at Ringer 23.com (undated)

Guy, Thinking, Strong, Water

“The way we work, the way we talk, the way we watch television or walk down the street, even the way we fuck, or maybe that especially—each of those is part of the problem of identity. We can’t do any of those things authentically until we find out who we really are and be that person, inside and out, instead of the person other people want us to be. Usually those other people, if they want us to be something we aren’t, are using us as a laboratory for working out their own identity problems.”

Thomas M. Disch (1940–2008) Novelist, short story writer, poet

Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come (1971)

People, Way, Parting, Personality

“You are generous and your voice is blessed. When I was sick with back problems, you even made a promise to quit smoking if I´d recover. Only a great friend can do this.”

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira (1949) Brazilian singer

Xuxa

“We are going through a crucial historical crisis in which each year poses more acutely the global problem of rationally mastering the new productive forces and creating a new civilization. Yet the international working-class movement, on which depends the prerequisite overthrow of the economic infrastructure of exploitation, has registered only a few partial local successes. Capitalism has invented new forms of struggle (state intervention in the economy, expansion of the consumer sector, fascist governments) while camouflaging class oppositions through various reformist tactics and exploiting the degenerations of working-class leaderships. In this way it has succeeded in maintaining the old social relations in the great majority of the highly industrialized countries, thereby depriving a socialist society of its indispensable material base. In contrast, the underdeveloped or colonized countries, which over the last decade have engaged in the most direct and massive battles against imperialism, have begun to win some very significant victories. These victories are aggravating the contradictions of the capitalist economy and (particularly in the case of the Chinese revolution) could be a contributing factor toward a renewal of the whole revolutionary movement. Such a renewal cannot limit itself to reforms within the capitalist or anticapitalist countries, but must develop conflicts posing the question of power everywhere.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

About the Situationist International movement
Report on the Construction of Situations (1957)

Way, Question, Relation ships, Success

“I think a significant number of people are not happy with the way things are; I’m not, and I’ve done alright out of this system—I’ve got a big house, a nice cat, and when I write books, they’re immediately put on the school curriculum. So this system has not been bad to me. I’ve been given everything that I wanted. The problem is, I didn’t really want it, that desire was put there. Who put it there? And why?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Bad luck, Happiness, People, Books

“Aren’t we all, in one way or another, trying to find a solution to the problem of reality? If I get this job, this girl, this guy, these shoes. If I pass this exam, eat this pizza, drink this booze, go on this holiday. Learn karate, learn yoga. If West Ham stay up, if my dick stays up, if I get more likes on Facebook, more fancy cookbooks, a better kitchen, cure this itchin’, if she stops bitching. Isn’t there always some kind of condition to contentment? Isn’t it always placed in the future, wrapped up in some object, either physical or ideological? I know for me it is, and as an addict that always leads me to excess and then to trouble. Do you feel like that? Are you looking for something? It’s not just me, is it? Do you sometimes feel afraid, self-conscious, lonely, not good enough? I mean, you’re reading this, so you must want to change something. Don’t leave me out on a limb, all vulnerable and exposed. Are you reading this on a yacht, through your Ray-Bans with, I dunno, a pair of glistening Russian sisters and a gob oozing with lobster juice as the sun shines down on you and the sisters smile up at you? And even if you are, especially if you are, is it working, behind the salty tang and priapic pang, is it real, is it real, is it like God is holding your hand?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

God, Smile, Shoe, Way

“Now he saw the problem with great clarity. If he lived here, life would be pleasant and safe. But it would also be predictable. A child could be born here, grow up here, die here, without ever experiencing the excitement of discovery. Why did Dona question him endlessly about his life in the burrow and his journey to the country of the ants? Because for her, it represented a world that was dangerous and full of fascinating possibilities. For the children of this underground city, life was a matter of repetition, of habit.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

And this, he suddenly realized, was the heart of the problem. Habit. Habit was a stifling, warm blanket that threatened you with suffocation and lulled the mind into a state of perpetual nagging dissatisfaction. Habit meant the inability to escape from yourself, to change and develop . . .

pp. 132-133
Spider World: The Desert (1987)

Life, Children, World, Question

“The problem — the experience of the irrationality of the world — has been the driving force of all religious evolution. The Indian doctrine of karma, Persian dualism, the doctrine of original sin, predestination and the deus absconditus, all these have grown out of this experience. Also the early Christians knew full well the world is governed by demons and that he who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers and for his action it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946), p. 124; Essay "Politics as a vocation"

World, Evil

“The greatness of Turgot now began to appear: while he performed all the duties of the seminary and studied thoroughly what was required, he gave himself to a wide range of other studies, and chiefly in two very different directions—to thought and work upon those problems in religion which transcend all theologies, and upon those problems in politics which are of vast importance in all countries, and which especially needed discussion in his own.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 167

Religion, Study, Appearance, Country

“A fundamental problem in such studies stems from the long tradition that has regarded artistic productions as social facts.”

Norman K. Denzin (1941) American sociologist

By regarding such productions as social facts the analyst is relieved of the burden of demonstrating what meanings these productions have for the artist and his audience. It is too frequently assumed that such meanings can be identified by a capable analyst, independent of the interpretations brought to such works by the artist or his audiences. In my judgement artist productions must be seen as interactional creations; the meanings of which arise out of the interactions directed to them by the artist and his audience.
[The Sociology of Rock, 1978, Frith, Simon (ed.), ISBN 0094602204]

Study

“This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in — a trial and error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

The Value of Science (1955)

Men, People, Age, Error

“Without wasting an instant, must start the hair recovery task. The first operation is reduced to dismantling the siphon from the sink to see if the hair has become hooked in any of the rugosities of the drain. If it is not found, it is necessary to expose the section of pipe that goes from the siphon to the main drainage pipe. It is certain that in this part will appear many hairs and we will have to count on the help of the rest of the family to examine them one by one in search of the knot. If it does not appear, the interesting problem of breaking the pipe down to the ground floor will arise, but this means a greater effort, because for eight or ten years we will have to work in a ministry or trading house to collect enough money to buy the four departments located under the one of my elder cousin, all that with the extraordinary disadvantage of what while working during those eight or ten years, the distressing feeling that the hair is no longer in the pipes anymore can not be avoided and that only by a remote chance remains hooked on some rusty spout of the drain.”

Julio Cortázar book Historias de cronopios y de famas

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money, Family, Feeling, Search

“In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice -- for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy or not -- involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/230/mode/1up pp. 230-233

Love, Life, Men, Education

“The very concept of "deserve" implies that one must first serve, qualify or earn to receive. This is a problem because nothing you could ever do could make you unworthy of what you desire. And what you desire already belongs to you, whether it has manifested yet or not.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Making love

“It might also mean greater business and government support for maternity and paternity leave and day care so that the middle class and the poor can get some of the educational benefits that the early academic intervention of the rich provides their children. Fundamentally, it means rethinking our still-persistent notion that educational problems should be solved by schools alone. The more we do to ensure that all children have similar cognitively stimulating early childhood experiences, the less we will have to worry about failing schools. This in turn will enable us to let our schools focus on teaching the skills — how to solve complex problems, how to think critically and how to collaborate — essential to a growing economy and a lively democracy.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

Children, Education, School, Democracy

“There was nothing like a museum for calming the mind, for putting the problems of everyday life in their true perspective. Here, surrounded by the infinite variety and wonder of Nature, he was reminded of truths he had forgotten. He was only one of a million million creatures that shared this planet Earth. The entire human race, with its hopes and fears, its triumphs and its follies, might be no more than an incident in the history of the world.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Death and the Senator

Death and the Senator, p. 744
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Life, Truth, World, Fear