Ethics (New York:1915), § 14, pp. 38-39
The Principles of Ethics (1897), Part I: The Data of Ethics
Context: People … become so preoccupied with the means by which an end is achieved, as eventually to mistake it for the end. Just as money, which is a means of satisfying wants, comes to be regarded by a miser as the sole thing to be worked for, leaving the wants unsatisfied; so the conduct men have found preferable because most conducive to happiness, has come to be thought of as intrinsically preferable: not only to be made a proximate end (which it should be), but to be made an ultimate end, to the exclusion of the true ultimate end.
“As technical people, we are apt to be preoccupied with scores, not competence…”
Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)
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Neil Postman 106
American writer and academic 1931–2003Related quotes
Teichert, Corina. From Attempts to Crossing Borders (Vom Versuch, Grenzen zu überschreiten) http://www.j-zeit.de/archiv/artikel.1282.html, Jüdische Zeitung, 2008-07-28
“When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.”
“People are too apt to treat God as if he were a minor royalty.”
"The Importance of Humour in Tragedy: Presidential Address Delivered at the Birmingham Midland Institute, 1915", Nothing Matters, and Other Stories (1917) p. 207.
"Would you like to see a little of it?" said the Mock Turtle. (3 April 2010)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010
Context: Could anything be more inimical to art than a fear of emotion, or a fear of "excessive" emotion, or a reluctance to express emotion around others? No, of course not. Art can even best the weights of utter fucking ignorance and totalitarian repression, but it cannot survive emotional constipation.
I want a T-shirt that says, "Art is Emo." We live in an age where people are more apt to believe a thing if they read it on a T-shirt.
“People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.”
Speech to Conservative Rally at Cheltenham (3 July 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104989, regarding the Falkland Islands War.
First term as Prime Minister
Context: When we started out, there were the waverers and the fainthearts. The people who thought that Britain could no longer seize the initiative for herself. The people who thought we could no longer do the great things which we once did. Those who believed that our decline was irreversible—that we could never again be what we were. There were those who would not admit it—even perhaps some here today—people who would have strenuously denied the suggestion but—in their heart of hearts—they too had their secret fears that it was true: that Britain was no longer the nation that had built an Empire and ruled a quarter of the world. Well they were wrong. The lesson of the Falklands is that Britain has not changed and that this nation still has those sterling qualities which shine through our history. This generation can match their fathers and grandfathers in ability, in courage, and in resolution. We have not changed. When the demands of war and the dangers to our own people call us to arms—then we British are as we have always been: competent, courageous and resolute.
With Kansas City
Source: Herm's Game of Chess http://web.archive.org/web/20090112034939/http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2007/09/06/rand_herms_game_of_chess/ www.kcchiefs.com, 6 September 2007
Biden officially running for president, MSNBC.com, January 31, 2007, 2007-02-01 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16901147/,
2000s