Quotes about thinking
page 97

“The last decade has seen a steady increase in the application of concepts from the theory of games to the study of evolution. Fields as diverse as sex ratio theory, animal distribution, contest behaviour and reciprocal altruism have contributed to what is now emerging as a universal way of thinking about phenotypic evolution.”

John Maynard Smith book Evolution and the Theory of Games

Source: Evolution and the Theory of Games (1973), p. vii.

Sex, Way, Game, Study

“I think [Britney Spears] is a perfect example of an artificial construct -- someone with a decent voice and a very marketable image, that producers and business people turned into a pop star. Unfortunately, I think it took a toll on her, mentally, and I feel bad for the trouble that success has brought onto her. However, her music is pretty disposable, and she doesn't have the intelligence and cultural impact of someone like, say, Madonna.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

People, Music, Feeling, Star

“I want you to stay strong just like I know you, do whatever you always should do. Chin up, but with a goal, never be without goal, always have a goal before you and always think: 'What for, why.' Always remember who you are and what you are. Chin up, the winners never have their chin down!”

Ziad Jarrah (1975–2001) September 11th hijacker

Letter to Aysel Şengün (2001)

Strong

“I was shy as a child. Now I'm not really shy any more, unless I'm with shy people. I find it contagious and I don't know what to say. But I don't think shyness is something one should feel apologetic about.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

A woman of extremes (2001)

People, Feeling

“Most theories of learning have been based on ideas of "reinforcement" of success. But all these theories postulate a single, centralized reward mechanism. I doubt this could suffice for human learning because the recognition of which events should be considered memorable cannot be a single, uniform process. It requires too much "intelligence." Instead I think such recognitions must be made, for each division of the mind, by some other agency that has engaged the present one for a purpose.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)

Intelligence, Idea, Learning, Success

“I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

track 11, "Three Easy Payments"
Mitch All Together (2003)

Night

“Interviewer: Are there any groups you won’t go after?
Penn: We haven’t tackled Scientology [in Penn & Teller: Bullshit! ] because Showtime doesn’t want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I’m not sure. And we haven’t tackled Islam because we have families.
Interviewer: Meaning, you won’t attack Islam because you’re afraid it’ll attack back …
Penn: Right, and I think the worst thing you can say about a group in a free society is that you’re afraid to talk about it—I can’t think of anything more horrific.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

Interview in Las Vegas Weekly (24 June 2010) https://lasvegasweekly.com/ae/2010/jun/24/celebrity-issue/. 2010s

Family

“You can say with safety that nowadays women have finally acknowledged their position of not liking men. We could say now that women don't like men. They can acknowledge that they prefer the company of their own kind. I think we can also say generally that most men do not like other men. Most men prefer to like women. So women are the most liked by the most people. Men love women, women love children, and children love hamsters. A one-way slide. There is little going back the other way. Can hamsters love children? I leave you to deduce the rest.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Palmira
8 1/2 Women

Love, Women, Men, Children

“Being a sex symbol has to do with an attitude, not looks. Most men think it's looks, most women know otherwise.”

Kathleen Turner (1954) American actress

As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 241
Also quoted in The Observer London UK newspaper (28 December 1986)

Women, Men, Sex

“Looking back now toward the start
You said you thought I'd lost my path
And I asked if you still considered love an art
And you said " No, I think it's more a craft"
And I just turned and laughed
I just had to turn and laugh.”

Dan Fogelberg (1951–2007) singer-songwriter, musician

Hearts and Crafts.
Song lyrics, Portrait - The Music of Dan Fogelberg (1997)

Love, Art, Quotes

“"It's hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant," I say. "You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint." I gesture to the simple house. "But you're not more civilized," I say. You're just more disciplined."
"Isn't that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulses for stability?"”

Pierce Brown book Morning Star

Source: Morning Star (2016), Ch. 41: The Moon Lord

Animals, Housing

“Given a choice between being trapped on a desert island with a group of writers or a family of howler monkeys, I think I'd pick the monkeys. At least I could eat them.”

Anthony Bourdain book The Nasty Bits

The Nasty Bits (2006)

Family

“I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Problem, Country

“I think my business is about people making you feel self-conscious. All eyeballs are on you when you're a model, when you're on the runway or in front of the camera, you're always looked up and down and back up, so that comes with the territory. But at the end of the day I feel like my parents gave me a good solid foundation. I know who I am and there are things I wouldn't do. I wouldn't starve myself, I also never wanted to chop my hair off when people said I should do this and I should do that. And I always knew who I was and said they're going to book me like this or not book me. I don't want to be a role model because I'm just a person too, so I can have mistakes and some people don't like what I do. People always push this role model thing on you. I just want to be a good role model for my children.”

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

Interview with Huffington Post, 19 March 2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/heidi-klum-talks-marital_n_506662.html

Children, People, Books, Feeling

“One of the things that I learned in the war is that we're not the top species on the planet because we're nice. We are a very aggressive species; it is in us. People talk a lot about how well the military turns kids into killing machines, and I'll always argue that it's just finishing school. What we do with civilization is that we learn to inhibit and rope in these aggressive tendencies, and we have to recognize them. I worry about a whole country that doesn't recognize them, because think of how many times we get ourselves into scrapes as a nation because we're always the 'good guys.”

Karl Marlantes (1944) Businessman, novelist

Sometimes, I think if we thought we weren't always the good guys, we might actually get into less wars.
The Vietnam War (2017), episode 5, documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

War, People, School, Guy

“Calvin, what kind of trouble are you planning to make?”
“No trouble at all,” said Calvin, annoyed. “Why do you think I want to cause trouble?”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

“Because you are awake.”
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 4.

“Sometimes I don’t know if my life is complicated, or if it’s that I just think too much about things.”

John Scalzi book Zoe's Tale

Source: Zoe's Tale (2008), Chapter 7 (p. 76)

Life

“The very first thing the President did was to show me the new Presidential Seal, which he had just redesigned. He explained, 'The seal has to go everywhere the President goes. It must be displayed upon the lectern when he speaks. The eagle used to face the arrows but I have re-designed it so that it now faces the olive branches … what do you think?' I said, 'Mr. President, with the greatest respect, I would prefer the American eagle's neck to be on a swivel so that it could face the olive branches or the arrows, as the occasion might demand.”

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

An exchange (March 4, 1946) with Harry S. Truman aboard the Presidential train in Washington, D.C.'s Union Station before journeying to Fulton, Missouri; as quoted in "The Genius and Wit of Winston Churchill" http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=825 by Robin Lawson. Post-war years (1945–1955)

“Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" Education by Poetry http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/edbypo.html", speech delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly (February 1931) 1930s

People, Way

“I'm not pining for nostalgia back in the '50s and '60s, that isn't it. But that sensibility about how we were grounded here is so important. For instance, another American that was born in Waterloo was John Wayne. We were a very patriotic "yay rah rah America" city and nation and I think that's what America's looking for again.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

NBC News interview, quoted in * Wrong John Wayne: Mix-up is opening day headache for Bachmann
2011-06-27
First Read
NBC News
Carrie
Dann
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/27/6958622-wrong-john-wayne-mix-up-is-opening-day-headache-for-bachmann-
2011-06-27
Mixing up actor John Wayne with serial killer John Wayne Gacy
2010s, 2012 Presidential campaign

Nostalgia

“The subject of a science is never well circumscribed and there is little use sharpening its definition. However, nobody will deny that physics deals with nature and sociology with human society in some of their aspects. With logic, it is another matter. Logic is usually understood nowadays as a study of certain formal systems, though in former times there were philosophers who held that the subject matter of logic was the formal rules of human thought. In the latter sense it would be an empirical rather than a formal science, though its empirical subject matter would still be fundamentally different from that of psychology of thinking. One interpretation of logic does not exclude the other. Formal approaches are often easier than empirical ones, and for this reason one can understand why logic as a study of formal systems has till now made more progress than logic as a study of the formal rules of thought, even if restricted to scientific thought.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Source: Realistic models in probability (1968), p. 1

Understanding, Nature, Sense, Study

“Take a look at the simplest of objects. Let's take, for example, an old chair. It seems like nothing. But think of the universe comprised within it: the sweaty hands cutting the wood that used to be a robust tree, full of energy, in the middle of a luxuriant forest by some high mountains. The loving work that built it, the joyful anticipation of the one who bought it, the tired bodies it has helped, the pains and the joys it must have endured, whether in fancy halls or in a humble dining room in your neighbourhood. Everything, everything shares life and has its importance! Even the most worn down of chair carries inside the initial force of the sap climbing from the earth, out there in the forest, and will still be useful the day when, broken into kindling, it burns in some fireplace.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

describing a children's game in his essay, Tàpies suggests looking at a chair
1945 - 1970
Source: 'El joc de saber mirar' ('The Game of Knowing How to Look'), Antoni Tàpies, Cavall Fort, núm 82, Barcelona, gener de 1967 - translated from Catalan; as quoted in: 'Tàpies: From Within', June ─ November, 2013 - Presse Release, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC )p. 16, note 9

Love, Life, Pain, Mountain

“In June of 1964 the research group and academic program moved to Penn bringing with it most of the faculty, students, and research projects. Our activities flourished in the very supportive environment that Penn and Wharton provided. The wide variety of faculty members that we were able to involve in our activities significantly enhanced our capabilities. By the mid-1960s I had become uncomfortable with the direction, or rather, the lack of direction, of professional Operations Research. I had four major complaints.
First, it had become addicted to its mathematical tools and had lost sight of the problems of management. As a result it was looking for problems to which to apply its tools rather than looking for tools that were suitable for solving the changing problems of management. Second, it failed to take into account the fact that problems are abstractions extracted from reality by analysis. Reality consists of systems of problems, problems that are strongly interactive, messes. I believed that we had to develop ways of dealing with these systems of problems as wholes. Third, Operations Research had become a discipline and had lost its commitment to interdisciplinarity. Most of it was being carried out by professionals who had been trained in the subject, its mathematical techniques. There was little interaction with the other sciences professions and humanities. Finally, Operations Research was ignoring the developments in systems thinking — the methodology, concepts, and theories being developed by systems thinkers.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Preface, cited in Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture http://booksite.elsevier.com/samplechapters/9780123859150/Front_Matter.pdf. Elsevier, 2011. p. xiii Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985

Way, Mathematics, Support, Problem

“You don't observe the past directly, even when you think about the creation account. We can't observe God creating, we can't observe Adam and Eve: we admit that. We're willing to admit our beliefs about the past. But see, what you observe in the present is very different. Even some public school textbooks sort of acknowledge the difference between historical and observational science.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham" (February 4, 2014)

God, School, Science, Past

“Punk: Wow, everybody, it's John Cena. He comes out here every Monday night, he's excitable, he throws his hat at somebody, everybody loves it. I am so impressed at how you do that. You get all these people to believe you're that friendly, smiling, everyday man, when I know the truth. And the truth, John Cena, is you're thoughtless, you're heartless, and above all else, you are dishonest. I'm sure there's millions of people worldwide, including yourself, that would love to believe this is over a spilled diet soda, but John, this goes way beyond my spilled diet soda. Yeah. John, you were fired from the WWE. You were gone. You gave a very tear-inducing speech in the middle of the ring about how you finally get to see your mom and hang out with your little brother, and you said you were gonna go away. You were gonna be a man of your way, but what happened? You came back later that night, and then you came back the next week, and then you came back the next week, showing all of these people who aren't intelligent to see through your facade what I have known all along—that your word is absolutely worthless. And then there's TLC, you have the man beaten. Wade Barrett, a very tough individual, and you have him beat in a chairs match, but that's not good enough for you. You don't take the high ground, you can't walk off into the sunset with your victory; you drag the man off to the side of the stage and you drop fifteen steel chairs on him, and I wanna know exactly why you think that's acceptable behavior. I wanna know why you think it's okay to show up the next night on Raw and humiliate the poor guy…
Cena: That is balderdash! Fifteen steel chairs? That's insane. It was 23 steel chairs. And in case you forgot, Wade Barrett and the Nexus gave me about five thousand beat-downs, made me their personal slave, and ended my career.
Punk: You wanna talk about ended careers, you hypocrite? This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ended the career of my good friend Dave Batista. John! John, look at me when I'm talking to you. This is a reoccurring pattern with you. Once again, you have the man beaten—last man standing, he verbally submits, how humiliating, the match is won. But, no, you AA him off a car through the very steel ramp that I'm sitting on, which facilitated the end of his career. Now we'll talk about Vickie Guerrero. I'm surprised the lovely Vickie Guerrero doesn't up and quit based on all the abuse you heap on her. It's not just the physical things to the Wade Barretts and the Dave Batistas, but it's the name-calling, it's the mental abuse to somebody as gorgeous and beautiful as Vickie Guerrero.
Cena: "It's the this… it's the that." Okay, CM Punk is gonna play Mr. Fingerpointer. Well…1.—Dave Batista broke my neck; 2.—He showed up on Raw the next night and quit on his own terms. And C—I didn't just single out Vickie Guerrero. In case you haven't been watching for the past… eight years, I talk about everybody. Uh… Michael Cole. Michael Cole has an anonymous fetish with Justin Bieber and has the word "The Miz" man-scaped right below his belly button. Me! Look at me. I look like the crazy sex child of the Incredible Hulk and Grimace. And then there's you.
Punk: Yeah, and then there's me, who happens to not be laughing. I don't know if you noticed that. You're not funny.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

December 27, 2010
WWE Raw

Love, People, Truth, Smile

“The five attitudes are: Upper, Middle, Lower, Right Side, and Left Side. These are the five. Although attitude has these five dimensions, the one purpose of all of them is to cut the enemy. There are none but these five attitudes.
Whatever attitude you are in, do not be conscious of making the attitude; think only of cutting.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book

“I think seeds for doubt can be sown when a Christian is taught a narrow perspective in certain areas, and later, when that teaching is challenged by alternatives, the person panics. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

Personality

“I used to sit, think, think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash–house copper with the lid on.”

Charles Dickens book Sketches by Boz

Our Parish, Ch. 5 : The Broker’s Man
Sketches by Boz (1836-1837)

Housing

“To all the unheard wisdom in the school yard: you think you're the right ones; you swear you're the charmed ones I'm sure. But how can you go on with such conviction? Who do you think you are when you question me?”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Can't Not
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998)

Wisdom, School, Question

“There's a cat in the window, of the house of my lover.
Well she sleeps there alone now, or perhaps with another.
Oh I try no to think about that, I try not to think at all!”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Insound Tour Support No.12 (2000)

Cats, Lovers, Sleep, Housing

“There's the Mike Wallace approach, or you can call it the Michael Moore approach, which is the adversarial approach. In the end, that is not in the service of finding out anything. It's in service of dramatizing a received view: Namely, "This guy is an asshole, and now I will illustrate how this guy is an asshole by showing his inability to answer the questions I put to him." It's not what I'm about. It's not that one approach is good and the other is bad. They just have different valences. I like confrontation as much as the next guy. I'll give you the best example I can think of for why I like my method. [During] my interview with Emily Miller, one of the wacko eyewitnesses in The Thin Blue Line, she volunteered that she had failed to pick out Randall Adams in a police lineup. It wasn't me saying to her, "Emily Miller, how come you failed to pick out Randall Adams in a police lineup?" Why? Because I didn't know she failed to do it, because part of the trial record said she had successfully picked him out. When I heard this, not in response to some adversarial question, just her telling me her story, I asked her, "How did you know you failed to pick out Randall Adams?"”

Errol Morris (1948) American filmmaker and writer

She said, "I know because the policeman sitting next to me told me I had picked out the wrong person and pointed out the right person so I wouldn't make that mistake again." Source: Pitch Weekly http://www.tipjar.com/dan/errolmorris.html

Guy, Question, Parting, Personality

“I think uh…we lost everyday Vietnamese life in fighting the Communists, you know, and and no progress, we have to do something else, you can, we cannot have a more of the same, you know, every, every day, so we, we must change, yes.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

Ngo Dinh Diem versus the drive to reform
1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

Life, Change, Fight

“Whenever I get married, I start buying Gourmet magazine. I think of it as my own personal bride's disease.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Crazy Salad Plus Nine (1984)

Disease, Personality

“Funny the way it is, if you think about it.
Somebody's going hungry, someone else is eating out.
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong.
Somebody's heart is broken, it becomes your favorite song.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Funny the Way It Is
Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King (2009)

Way, Heart

“And so it has come to this: I, uh… am one of the lucky people in the world; I found something I always wanted to do, and I have enjoyed every single minute of it. I want to thank the gentlemen who've shared this stage with me for thirty years, Mr. Ed McMahon… Mr. Doc Severinsen… and… you people watching, I can only tell you that it has been an honor and a privilege to come into your homes all these years and entertain you—and I hope when I find something that I want to do, and I think you would like, and come back, that you'll be as gracious in inviting me into your home as you have been. I bid you a very heartfelt good night.”

Johnny Carson (1925–2005) American talk show host and magician

Closing words on his final Tonight Show appearance (22 May 1992).

People, World, Hope, Home

“I don't think so. … Well, let's put it this way. This month, I don't think so. It's been a long couple of months.”

Frank Miller (1957) American writer, artist, film director

Response to the question "Is There A God?" by Stephen Thompson AVClub (9 October 2002) http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24569

Way

“The Greeks used to put a lot of bodily functions in their plays, and a lot of graphic sexual material, because they believed, that in performing that way it released the demons of shame from the audience, which is what I believe. Cuz I think we’re all pretty much the same, and we all have grown up with that shame-based thing that America deals with, right? And to sit there and hear someone talk about their love of having sex, whatever, makes you feel like you’re not alone, with what you think maybe are dark, twisted thoughts, cuz they’re not. We all share these thoughts. So that’s why I talk like I do, or did, before I retired tonight.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

Love, Sex, Way, Feeling

“The woman raised her languid head,
And said, "My child was weak
He knew no one amid the dead
His daily food to seek!
My husband was a hunter good
As ever arrows bore :
I know my child will now have food,
Therefore I weep no more.
I sit and think upon the past,
And sing my mournful strain :
I know that we shall meet at last,
And never part again."”

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

The London Literary Gazette (24th January 1835) Versions from the German (Fourth Series.) 'The Huron's Child'— Herder.
Translations, From the German

Food, Singing, Past, Parting

“In 1982, when he was 45 and Philadelphia 76er owner Harold Katz was hot after him, the Houston Chronicle's George White asked Elvin Hayes if Chamberlain could still play. "Some things about Wilt, you never forgot," Hayes said. "He was such an awesome physical specimen. To go up under Wilt Chamberlain, to be down there and look up at him when he's towering up over you waiting to dunk, was a terrifying picture. To see him poised up there, knowing he was about to sweep down with that big jam... that must be the most frightening sight in sports. The ball goes shooting through the net and you better have your body covered up because he could really hurt someone. I was scared. Everyone was scared when he got that look in his eye, that don't-try-to-stop-this look that he got when he really wanted it.... "I think Russell realized there was no way he could have stopped Wilt if he had been fully intent on making it a two-man game. No one who ever put on a uniform could have done it. When I played him, I kept this foremost in my mind: Above all, don't make him mad. Don't embarrass him. You wanted to keep him quiet as long as possible."”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

[Heisler, Mark, Larger Than Life, The Los Angeles Times, 1999-10-13]
Post-NBA life

Way, Game, Sport, Waiting

“Some people might think I could play Russian Roulette safely with a blank bullet. Our armourer took us outside to demonstrate the damage a blank causes at close range. (The demonstration showed the significant damage caused by firing a blank at a plastic bottle)”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Derren Brown Plays Russian Roulette Live (2003)

People

“To understand at all what life means, one must begin with Christian belief. And I think knowledge may be sorrow with a man unless he loves.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 364.

Love, Life, Understanding, Knowledge

“There is no. man, there is no people, without a God. That God may be a visible idol, carved of wood or stone, to which sacrifice is offered in the forest, in the temple, or in the market-place; or it may be an invisible idol, fashioned in a man's own image and worshipped ardently at his own personal shrine. Somewhere in the universe there is that in which each individual has firm faith, and on which he places steady reliance. The fool who says in his heart "There is no God" really means there is no God but himself. His supreme egotism, his colossal vanity, have placed him at the center of the universe which is thereafter to be measured and dealt with in terms of his personal satisfactions. So it has come to pass that after nearly two thousand years much of the world resembles the Athens of St. Paul's time, in that it is wholly given to idolatry; but in the modern case there are as many idols as idol worshippers, and every such idol worshipper finds his idol in the looking-glass. The time has come once again to repeat and to expound in thunderous tones the noble sermon of St. Paul on Mars Hill, and to declare to these modern idolaters "Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you."
There can be no cure for the world's ills and no abatement of the world's discontents until faith and the rule of everlasting principle are again restored and made supreme in the life of men and of nations. These millions of man-made gods, these myriads of personal idols, must be broken up and destroyed, and the heart and mind of man brought back to a comprehension of the real meaning of faith and its place in life. This cannot be done by exhortation or by preaching alone. It must be done also by teaching; careful, systematic, rational teaching, that will show in a simple language which the uninstructed can understand what are the essentials of a permanent and lofty morality, of a stable and just social order, and of a secure and sublime religious faith.
Here we come upon the whole great problem of national education, its successes and its disappointments, its achievements and its problems yet unsolved. Education is not merely instruction far from it. It is the leading of the youth out into a comprehension of his environment, that, comprehending, he may so act and so conduct himself as to leave the world better and happier for his having lived in it. This environment is not by any means a material thing alone. It is material of course, but, in addition, it is intellectual, it is spiritual. The youth who is led to an understanding of nature and of economics and left blind and deaf to the appeals of literature, of art, of morals and of religion, has been shown but a part of that great environment which is his inheritance as a human being. The school and the college do much, but the school and the college cannot do all. Since Protestantism broke up the solidarity of the ecclesiastical organization in the western world, and since democracy made intermingling of state and church impossible, it has been necessary, if religion is to be saved for men, that the family and the church do their vital cooperative part in a national organization of educational effort. The school, the family and the church are three cooperating educational agencies, each of which has its weight of responsibility to bear. If the family be weakened in respect of its moral and spiritual basis, or if the church be neglectful of its obligation to offer systematic, continuous and convincing religious instruction to the young who are within its sphere of influence, there can be no hope for a Christian education or for the powerful perpetuation of the Christian faith in the minds and lives of the next generation and those immediately to follow. We are trustees of a great inheritance. If we abuse or neglect that trust we are responsible before Almighty God for the infinite damage that will be done in the life of individuals and of nations…. Clear thinking will distinguish between men's different associations, and it will be able to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to render unto God the things which are God's.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Making liberal men and women : public criticism of present-day education, the new paganism, the university, politics and religion https://archive.org/stream/makingliberalmen00butluoft/makingliberalmen00butluoft_djvu.txt (1921)

Life, Men, God, People

“Central to the Smithian approach is our willingness to see critically what we observe around us. The sense of comfort that is often associated with being content with the world as it is can seriously hamper the pursuit of justice. This understanding goes strongly against a line of thought that was powerfully presented by Friedrich Nietzshe. ‘The Christian resolve to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad’, said Nietzshe. I think I can, with some effort, understand what Nietzsche meant, but it is hard for me, even with a lot of effort, to see that Nietzshe’s hypothesis helps us to understand the causation or resilience of the nastiness of the world in which we live. Nor, I must insist (this I do as a thoroughly unreligious person), does it offer any obvious insight into the lives and achievements of Martin Luther King, or Mother Theresa, or Desmond Tutu, who have tried to reduce injustice in the world and have done so with non-negligible success.”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

“Values and justice”, Journal of Economic Methodology, Vol. 19, No. 2, June 2012, 101–108
2010s, “Values and Justice”, 2012

World, Justice, Understanding, Sense

“I do not disbelieve that in some mysterious transcendental sense, as involved in the system of the entire universe, with so vast an arc that no faculty of man can apprehend its curve, that in some such sense the Catholic doctrine of the atonement may be true. But a doctrine out of which, with our reason, our feeling, our logic, I at least can gather any practical instruction for mankind — any deeper appreciation of the attributes of God, any deeper love for Him, any stimulant towards our own obedience — such a doctrine I cannot find it. I bury what I am to think of it in the deepest corner of my own heart, where myself I fear to look.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter X
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Love, God, Fear, Feeling

“Congress imposed a warrant requirement in 1978 which JFK didn’t use when he went after the Klan. He put the Klan out of business, but he didn’t do it with -- by going through the courts. He did it by burglarizing Klan offices. I think we need to use hardcore tactics against a hardcore threat.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Interview with Mark Riebling (2002)

Business

“I must say I don't object to its being called McNamara's War. I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.”

Robert S. McNamara (1916–2009) American businessman and Secretary of Defense

Source: United States. Congress. Senate (1964) Hearings, Vol. 4, p. 177: Of the Vietnam War

War

“There are many who are hypocrites although they think they are not, and there are many who are afraid of being hypocrites although they certainly are not. Which is the one and which is the other God knows, and none but He.”

Walter Hilton (1340–1396) English Augustinian mystic.

Book I, ch. 59 (p. 72)
The Ladder of Perfection (1494)

God

“To be international, you have to first be local. … When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.”

Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016) Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer

http://nofilmschool.com/2016/07/abbas-kiarostami-death-cinema-lessons

Nature, Tree, Country

“If in your own experience you haven't yet learned the truth of the deception of feelings, then you just have to go on believing and thinking, having faith in the past and hope in the future, being happy today and unhappy tomorrow, but never being in command of your own life for long.”

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

Love is not a feeling ~ The Article (1995)

Life, Happiness, Truth, Faith

“If you give a man a hammer, he thinks he can solve all problems by pounding. Well, God gave men penises….”

Jacob M. Appel Arborophilia

Arborophilia (2005)

Men, God, Problem

“When my mother left us, he [Stalin] was left completely alone. And I think what came next, in the late 30s and after the war in the 40s - I think that was a result of his complete loneliness on top of the world. Nobody would argue with him anymore.”

Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926–2011) daughter of Joseph Stalin

Stalin's daughter Lana Peters dies in US of cancer http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15931683, BBC News, (29 November, 2011).

War, World, Loneliness

“Herman Cain: My reaction is, that is very insensitive. There are some words that do not basically inspire the kind of negativity like that particular word. And I know that you've refrained from saying that word, so I'm going to say what the word was on the rock. The name of the place was called "Niggerhead". That is very insensitive. And since Governor Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think that shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place. It's just a basic case of insensitivity.
Christiane Amanpour: It was painted over.
Herman Cain: Yes, it was painted over. But how long ago was it painted over? So I'm still saying that it is a sign of insensitivity.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Time, Painting

“I think politics in general are just like a popularity contest but McCain is just… old.”

D. L. Hughley (1963) American actor and comedian

Commenting on Republican presidential candidate John McCain, aged 71.
Appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (January 17, 2008)

“Apropos of the "The Lifted Veil," I think it will not be judicious to reprint it at present. I care for the idea which it embodies, and which justifies its painfulness. A motto which I wrote on it yesterday perhaps is a sufficient indication of that idea: —
"Give me no light, great heaven, but such as turns
To energy of human fellowship;
No powers save the growing heritage
That makes complete manhood."
But it will be well to put the story in harness with some other productions of mine, and not send it forth in its dismal loneliness. There are many things in it which I would willingly say over again, and I shall never put them in any other form. But we must wait a little. The question is not in the least one of money, but of care for the best effect of writing, which often depends on circumstances, much as pictures depend on light and juxtaposition.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Comments on The Lifted Veil with a motto for it used in the "Cabinet Edition" of her works (1878), in a letter to John Blackwood (28 February 1873), published in George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals (1885), Vol. 4

Money, Pain, Idea, Question

“…. Humankind, -- that all men anthropological come from the same source, with the same potentials, must have a potential equality in chance and opportunity and that is so right, I think, that posterity will look back upon what we are doing today in our domestic issues here. They will look back upon it, I think, with incredulity and they'll wonder what the issue was all about. I really think so. It's solved in baseball. It'll be solved educationally. It'll be solved everywhere in the course of time.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNEo_mOi29U

Men, Chance, Time

“Well, Mondrian is absolute, and is pure, and those are real aspirations of our [American Abstract Expressionism art]. When I say 'pure', I don't mean 'clean'. I don't think Mondrian himself did; I knew him when he was here [New York] during the war. He went to an exhibition by the Surrealist, Tanguy, and was asked what he thought, and he said he would like Tanguy's pictures better if they were dirtier, that for him they were to clean…. I think he meant that when they were to 'clean', they were essentially lifeless, statuesque, unrevised. As for me, I must say, Mondrian's painting is intensely rhythmic, warm, passionate - restricted as the means ostensibly seem to me.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

first published in 'Metro', 1962; as quoted in Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, p. 81
1960s, Interview with David Sylvester', (1960)

War, Art, Passion, Painting

“Faith is a vice pretending to be a virtue, its lies and errors and frothy nonsense deluding us and distracting us from action. There's no salvation in wishful thinking, only inertia. Faith is the enemy of reason. The one thing every single one of us here must be united in despising is faith. It's the barren refuge of the vacuous, the fearful, the frauds, and the obstacles to accomplishment.”

PZ Myers (1957) American scientist and associate professor of biology

Reason Rally speech, National Mall, Washington, DC,

Fear, Faith, Error, Fraud

“Sometimes I think your life and mine are under the protection of some supreme being or fate, because, after many years of parallel thought, we find ourselves in the positions we now occupy.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower (May 1942), as quoted in Eisenhower : A Soldier's Life (2003) by Carlo D'Este, p. 301

Life, Fate

“With a simple shave of the razor Steve-O easily disguises himself in fooling the whale shark in thinking he's a harmless young boy.”

Chris Pontius (1974) American actor

Jackass: The Movie

Fools, Boy

“I sometimes think that ‘friend’ is just a word I use for all the people I haven't murdered yet.”

Scott Lynch (1978) American writer

Source: Short fiction, A Year and a Day in Old Theradane (2014), p. 258

People

“I think what Kazan is saying is that the Method isn't a thing. It's an action, a process, a skillful or effective way of achieving a specific artistic task. It's not a pair of shoes. It's discovering how to walk. I did an affective memory at the Actors Studio years ago, after which Lee Strasberg said, "Now that's an affective memory. Darling, tell them how you did it." When I explained my process, Strasberg replied, "That's not how you do an affective memory! But that's what the Method is all about. It's a way of work!" You find your own way of carrying out your own and your character's internal truth—within your body, mind, and soul.”

Sandra Seacat (1936) American acting teacher and actress

As quoted in "The Method and the Myth" http://www.backstage.com/advice-for-actors/acting-teachers/the-method-and-the-myth/ by Robert Walden, in Backstage (April 21, 2009)

Truth, Shoe, Way, Soul

“Watching a woman make Russian pancakes, you might think that she was calling on the spirits or extracting from the batter the philosopher’s stone.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Russian Pancakes or Bliny (1886)

“Then think I thus: "Sith such repair,
So long time war of valiant men,
Was all to win a lady fair,
Shall I not learn to suffer then?
And think my life well spent to be,
Serving a worthier wight than she?"”

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) English Earl

"The Lover Comforteth Himself with the Worthiness of his Love", line 19

Life, Men, War, Suffering

“In her head, Elizabeth called what she did ‘The Game.’ The rules were simple: to pretend to be whatever someone else needed until they gave you whatever you needed. After that, there were no rules. The Game was fair, at least to Elizabeth’s way of thinking. Anyone could play it. In fact, she was sure most people were playing it; they just didn’t like to admit it. Sure, there were a few losers and idiots, suckers who, for whatever reason, didn’t mind getting played. And some people were so weak that they played poorly, basically inviting anyone to take advantage of them.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 41

People, Way, Game

“Some things fail and others succeed. Well, then you get quite desperate, and you think: 'I am going to work and work and I'm not going to have any failures.' But then you find out that failures are inevitable; you can't even draw a straight line, you know that.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

as quoted in A House Divided: American Art Since 1955, Anne M. G. Wagner, Univ. of California Press 2012, p. 205 - note 8
1980 - 2000

Failure, Drawing

“She had not won a clean victory. Tinkering with time and history offended her political sensibilities. History was written in the stones. It was not a numinous thing to be tossed sparkling in the air to lie where it fell. She did not like to think of her life and world as a mere mutability of potentials.”

Ian McDonald book Desolation Road

Source: Desolation Road (1988), Chapter 64 (p. 327).

Life, Lie, World, History

“My ears may have been playing a trick on me, but I thought I heard the gentleman a moment ago say something quote unquote about homos in the military. Was I right in hearing that expression? Was the gentleman referring to the thousands and thousands of gay people who have put their lives on the line in countless wars defending this country? Was that the groups of people that the gentleman was referring to? You have insulted thousands of men and women who have put their lives on the line. I think they are owed an apology.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Speaking to Representative Duke Cunningham on the floor of the House of Representatives, 11 May 1995, from Watch Bernie Sanders Demolish A Republican Over ‘Homos In The Military’ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-duke-cunningham-homophobia_us_56cb75eee4b041136f17dc9f by Zach Carter, The Huffington Post (22 February 2016) 1990s

Women, Men, War, People

“If the people at the top think that reaching for a gun will solve the problem, why shouldn’t the people at the bottom think the same?”

Michael Moorcock book The Eternal Champion

Introduction (p. viii)
The Eternal Champion (1970)

People, Problem

“I'm running for president because I think that, with a lot of help, I can stem the tide of this slide and restore America’s leadership in the world and change our priorities. I will argue that my experience and my track record — both on the foreign and domestic side — put me in a position to be able to do that.
I would respectfully suggest to you that the Democrats out there understand I am the only person with a plan that can get out of Iraq without our interests in the region not falling apart.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Conference call https://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/01/31/cq_2212.html?pagewanted=all with reporters after announcing candidacy for the 2008 Democratic president nomination (January 30, 2007) 2000s

World, Change, Help

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

Wisdom, People, Books, Age

“I think we need to change that old saying, "I don't need a building to fall on me." Because two did and we still don't get it. I think we all stick our head in the sand as a deep human impulse.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism (2002)

Change

“My friends, does God invite you? If He does, why don't you accept the invitation? If you want to come, just come along, and don't be talking about feeling. Do you think Lazarus had any feeling when Christ called him out of the sepulchre?”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 245.

God, Feeling, Christ

“When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

On the same-sex marriage controversy in the Church of England. "Tony Benn: The glorious revolutionary" http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/3082-tony-benn-the-glorious-revolutionary, The Journal (26 March 2008). 2000s

Love, Men, Hate, World

“The first step towards madness is to think oneself wise.”

Fernando de Rojas La Celestina

Act II.
La Celestina (1499)

Madness

“Make it on your own if you think you can.
If you see somewhere to go, I understand.”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

For Everyman, from For Everyman (1973)

Understanding

“I have always found the religious tolerance of the southerners amazing and disconcerting, though it was really only an ancient habit predicated on the fact that no religious community was strong enough to show the rest the errors in their thinking at swordspoint.”

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 60 (p. 481)

Error, Communication, Strong

“You all know, even better than I do, that children, e. g. from Denmark, can get on their bicycles and cycle off to the Adriatic. No one would ever think of suggesting that they were "teenage spies."”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

But Soviet children are not allowed to do this!
Nobel Peace Prize Speech (1975)

Children

“There are so many elements flying in so many different directions that you really have to go with what feels like instinctively. The nature of the universe is fairly whimsical and nonsensical. In the most somber, beatific peacefulness there's complete chaos and maniacal laughter. I think music that doesn't reflect that is boring.”

Beck (1970) American Musician (b.1970)

Guitar magazine, January 1999

Peace, Music, Feeling, Nature

“Well, before you are always self—you’re always self-centered. Everything is for you. Your self is God. And we make lousy gods. Humans make lousy gods, I think. We need to let God be God and us be what we are. I think that’s what changes: the focus on who you’re serving. You’re not serving you. You’re serving Christ.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

God, Change, Christ

“Painting has a nature which is not entirely translatable into verbal language. I think painting is a language, actually. It's linguistic in a sense, but not in a verbal sense. I think that one wants from painting a sense of life. And I think that is true. One wants to be able to use all of one’s facilities in all aspects of one’s life... You may have to choose how to respond and you may respond in a limited way, but you have been aware that you are alive. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

interview with Johns conducted in 1975 at Johns’ studio by Yoshiaki Tono, as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 89
1970s

Life, Way, Nature, Sense

“It [America] was founded and I hope that it resurges the notion of liberty, the notion of freedom, the notion of a system that treats everyone equally. I think we move further and further away from that not closer and closer and that if we could all focus on that that would be the focus and we could actually accomplish that. And that’s what I talk about all the time. As governor of New Mexico I like to think that on a daily basis it was about a system that was gonna treat everybody equally as opposed to politics which you know is hit and miss and it’s politics it’s who you know as opposed to a system that provides that equality.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
2011

Hope, Freedom, Time

“Greek pederasty honored the erotic magnetism of male adolescence in a way that today brings police to the door. Children are more conscious and perverse than parents like to think.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 115

Children, Way, Parent

“It has been said that to appreciate what virtue and morals mean, men must live virtuous and moral lives. It is equally true, that a knowledge of the objects of science is not to be attained by any scheme of definitions, however carefully contrived. He who would know what geometry is, must venture boldly into its depths and learn to think and feel as a geometer.”

James Joseph Sylvester (1814–1897) English mathematician

J. J. Sylvester. "A Probationary Lecture on Geometry", Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), p. 9 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=miun.aas8085.0002.001;view=1up;seq=25

Men, Feeling, Knowledge, Learning

“In the Book of Hermes, "Pimander," is enunciated in distinct and unequivocal sentences, the whole trinitarian dogma accepted by the Christians. "The light is me," says Pimander, the DIVINE THOUGHT. "I am the nous or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the shadow. I am the germ of thought, the resplendent WORD, the SON of GOD. Think that what thus sees and hears in thee, is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought, which is God the Father… The celestial ocean, the AETHER, which flows from east to west, is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving Principle, the HOLY GHOST!"”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

For they are not at all separated and their union is LIFE.
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter I

Life, God, Books, Intelligence

“I think,
Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
Found for mortals the fear of gods,
Thereby to frighten the wicked should they
Even act or speak or scheme in secret.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Sisyphus, as translated by R. G. Bury, and revised by J. Garrett http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/critias.htm Variant translation: He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.

God, Secret, Fear

“In the restaurant, eyes / above a soup bowl's rim / Is it she? / Changes shape, is and is not. / Now she's spat out a bit of bone, / I don't think it's her, / I'm leaving, I'm done eating. / This is a long and mad journey: / I see her on the faces of others, my own.”

Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) Finnish writer

Change, Madness

“…with the escort of the Military Secretaries, aids-de-camp and the President’s Body Guard, all in their splendid uniforms We made a glittering sight. Even in my best dress I looked drab beside my wife in a simple and well-chosen ensemble. I felt a little pride but was reminded of the entry of Caliph Omar into Damascus. He was offered ths surrender of the city if he came to the city in person. Omar rode his one-eyed camel with a servant on foot, and they traveled equal distance on foot in turn and rode in turn. Near Damascus, Omer was met by his generals Abu Obaida and Khalid bin Walid. Seeing his tattered and travel-worn dress they insisted that he should change into proper clothes and ride a caparisoned charger. Omar gave in and followed their advice. Very soon afterwards he stopped and asked for his former clothes and his camel saying “Pride is entering my soul, and the Prophet said that if a man has pride, the size of a mustard seed, he will not enter Paradise. I felt ashamed of myself and put aside the feeling at once and began thinking of other things.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

On the occasion of 15th August 1969, India’s Independence Day.
Source: Law in the Scientific Era, P.245-46.

Travel, Feeling, Soul, Change

“Perhaps she was not really so perfect, but he had made her so in his mind. People did this; he had seen it. As though the world of humans was created from their desires as much as their perception—an issue the empiricists tried to deal with in their natural philosophy.
Although he realized this was a trivial truth, still, trying to comprehend the reality of a situation was his constant activity. He could not necessarily trust the word of ministers, who all had their own purposes; nor what his mother might think, for her own perception was colored by her desire to see people in certain ways. One did not trust the periodicals, certainly, and pamphleteers were never disinterested. Everyone seemed to see the world and events a little differently, depending on their own personal mixture of desire and pragmatism. In history there were any number of rulers whose perception of events was so far removed from reality that it led to calamity. Prince Wilam did not want to be one of those—at any cost. Even if it meant giving up the world as he desired it to be.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 26 (p. 352)

People, Truth, World, Color

“If in Nietzsche’s thinking the prior tradition of Western thought is gathered and completed in a decisive respect, then the confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Nietzsche (1961), p. 4

Decision

“I used to think that I needed chicken and fish as a source of protein in order to train properly. I subscribed to that theory for a while and then when I finally decided to cut everything out and I was doing it right, it felt really good and I didn’t lose any strength at all–I feel like I recover quicker so it’s been good. … A lot of people try to stay away from carbs and stuff like that, but I eat a lot of brown rice and just good clean complex carbs and it works for me. … In this day and age I don’t see any reason to contributing to a really awful industry [sc. the meat industry] that causes too many problems. It’s horrible what the animals have to go through on a daily basis, it’s just awful–they’re born and raised in really nasty conditions and it’s better not to contribute to that whole thing. … I just don’t see in this day and age a real reason to contribute to that when you can be really healthy and not eat that sort of thing and not cause a lot of suffering.”

Mac Danzig (1980) American martial artist

On his vegan diet, in "Lean, Mean and Green…Vegan Fighter Mac Danzig Packs a Punch", in The MMA Digest.com (7 August 2007) http://www.themmadigest.com/lean-mean-and-green%E2%80%A6vegan-fighter-mac-danzig-packs-a-punch/

People, Age, Feeling, Problem

“Do you think your Mother and I should have liv'd comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married?”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Peachum, Act I, sc. viii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“At present game theory has, in my opinion, two important uses, neither of them related to games nor to conflict directly. First, game theory stimulates us to think about conflict in a novel way. Second, game theory leads to some genuine impasses, that is, to situations where its axiomatic base is shown to be insufficient for dealing even theoretically with certain types of conflict situations… Thus, the impact is made on our thinking process themselves, rather than on the actual content of our knowledge.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Source: 1960s, Fights, games, and debates, (1960), p. 242; As cited in: Han Dorussen. " Min beste fagbok: Anatol Rapoport: Fights, Games, and Debates http://www.sv.ntnu.no/iss/issavisa/98-1/bestebok.htm" at sv.ntnu.no, 1998

Way, Game, Knowledge

“Perhaps this is an obvious point, but the democratic postulate is that the media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived. Leaders of the media claim that their new choices rest on unbiased professional and objective criteria, and they have support for this contention in the intellectual community. If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to “manage” public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992

Truth, World, Communication, Support

“Fool if you think it's over
'Cause you said goodbye
Fool if you think it's over
I'll tell you why
New born eyes always cry with pain
At the first look at the mornin' sun
Fool if you think it's over
It's just begun”

Chris Rea (1951) English singer-songwriter

"Fool (If You Think It's Over)"
Song lyrics, Whatever Happened to Benny Santini? (1978)

Pain, Fools, Sun, Cry

“There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.”

A. J. Muste (1885–1967) Christian pacifist and civil rights activist

"Pacifism and Class War" in The Essays of A. J. Muste (1967) edited by p. 179-85; also quoted in American Power and the New Mandarins (2002) by Noam Chomsky, p. 160.

Life, Peace, Evil