Quotes about activation
page 6

“Nor are the general laws of economics "institutional." They work in an institutional setting, and upon institutional material; institutions supply much of their content and furnish the machinery by which they work themselves out, more or less quickly and completely, in different actual situations. Institutions may determine the alternatives of choice and fix the limits of freedom of choice, but the general laws of choice among competing motives or goods are not institutional unless rational thinking and an objective world are institutions, an interpretation which would make the term meaningless. Economic activity consists in the use of certain resources by certain processes, to produce "wealth." The content of the concept wealth is largely institutional, and the resources available and processes known and used at any place and time for producing wealth are in a sense historical products; but there are general laws of production and consumption which hold good whatever specific things are thought of as wealth and whatever productive factors and processes in use.”

Frank Knight (1885–1972) American economist

Source: "The limitations of scientific method in economics", 1924, p. 129 (2009 edition)

World, Law, Motivation, Thinking

“This naive manner of conceptualizing capitalism by reference to a “pursuit of gain” must be relegated to the kindergarten of cultural history methodology and abandoned once and for all. A fully unconstrained compulsion to acquire goods cannot be understood as synonymous with capitalism, and even less as its “spirit.” On the contrary, capitalism can be identical with the taming of this irrational motivation, or at least with its rational tempering. Nonetheless, capitalism is distinguished by the striving for profit, indeed, profit is pursued in a rational, continuous manner in companies and firms, and then pursued again and again, as is profitability. There are no choices. If the entire economy is organized according to the rules of the open market, any company that fails to orient its activities toward the chance of attaining profit is condemned to bankruptcy.
Let us begin by defining terms in a manner more precise than often occurs. For us, a "capitalist" economic act involves first of all an expectation of profit based on the utilization of opportunities for exchange; that is of (formally) peaceful opportunities for acquisition. Formal and actual acquisition through violence follows its own special laws and hence should best be placed, as much as one may recommend doing so, in a different category. Wherever capitalist acquisition is rationally pursued, action is oriented to calculation in terms of capital. What does this mean?”

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

Prefatory Remarks to Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion (1920)

Peace, Law, History, Motivation

“The visionary is a mystic when his vision mediates to him an actuality beyond the reach of the senses. The philosopher is a mystic when he passes beyond thought to the pure apprehension of truth. The active man is a mystic when he knows his actions to be part of a greater activity.”

Evelyn Underhill book Practical Mysticism

Source: Practical Mysticism (1914), Chapter I, What Is Mysticism?, p. 28

Truth, Sense, Parting

“Logic is not concerned with human behavior in the same sense that physiology, psychology, and social sciences are concerned with it. These sciences formulate laws or universal statements which have as their subject matter human activities as processes in time. Logic, on the contrary, is concerned with relations between factual sentences (or thoughts). If logic ever discusses the truth of factual sentences it does so only conditionally, somewhat as follows: if such-and-such a sentence is true, then such-and-such another sentence is true. Logic itself does not decide whether the first sentence is true, but surrenders that question to one or the other of the empirical sciences.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Rudolf Carnap (1937) cited in: Irving J. Lee (1967) The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics. International Society for General Semantics, p. 44

Truth, Law, Behavior, Question

“About the twelfth century the possibility of sharing contemplation by means of preaching and other forms of apostolic activity began to be considered. This point of view was exemplified in the mixed life (contemplative and active) of the mendicant orders and was expressed in the formula: contemplata aliis tradere”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

"to transmit to others the fruits of contemplation"
Source: A Theology of Liberation (1971), p. 7

Life

“I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity.”

Honoré de Balzac book Louis Lambert

Je préfère la pensée à l'action, une idée à une affaire, la contemplation au mouvement.
Louis Lambert (1832), as translated by Clara Bell

Idea

“At the present stage, the historic function of the Soviet Armed Forces is not restricted merely to their function in defending our motherland and the other socialist countries. In its foreign policy activity the Soviet state actively and purposefully opposes the export of counter-revolution and the policy of oppression, supports the national liberation struggle, and resolutely resists imperialist aggression in whatever distant region of our planet it may appear. The party and Soviet Government rely on the country's economic and defense might in fulfilling these tasks…The development of the external functions of the socialist armies is a natural process. It will continue.”

Andrei Grechko (1903–1976) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "National Security Affairs: Theoretical Perspectives and Contemporary Issues" - Page 111 - by B. Thomas Trout, James E. Harf - Political Science - 1982

Support, Nature, Distant, Appearance

“(Art worlds) consist of all the people whose activities are necessary to the production of the characteristic works which that world, and perhaps others as well, define as art.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Source: Art Worlds (1982), p. 34.

People, World, Art

“The information about an Azeri military airplane entering the territory of the Armenian air border does not correspond with reality. The Armenian anti air defense system would not allow any country to enter the border line of the RA without permission. Armenia has one of the most modern technologies when it comes to the air military aspect in the region, and Azeri airplanes became more active in recent days due to general military exercises carried out by the Azeri side. They do not violate our border but are conducting maneuvers. Azerbaijan is aware that Armenia possesses the best anti-aircraft system in the region. No one can violate our border. Our military will perfectly perform the task they are charged with.”

Mikael Harutyunyan (1946) Armenian general

Quoted in article "Azeri jet didn’t violate Armenian border." panarmenian.net [February 15, 2008]

Exercises, Reality, Country

“It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless inspired by its ultimate ideal. Revolutionary methods must be in tune with revolutionary aims. The means used to further the revolution must harmonize with its purposes. In short, the ethical values which the revolution is to establish in the new society must be initiated with the revolutionary activities of the so-called transitional period. The latter can serve as a real and dependable bridge to the better life only if built of the same material as the life to be achieved.”

Emma Goldman book My Disillusionment in Russia

My Disillusionment in Russia (1923)

Life, Dependency

“Because suffering is the exhibition of the presence in our existence of that which is not under our control, or of the intrusion into our self-legislating existence of an activity operating under another law than ours, it cannot be brought adequately within the spheres of teleological and deontological ethics, the ethics of man-the-maker, or man-the-citizen.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy (1963), p. 61

Law, Suffering

“If someone is frequently under attack by negative entities, it is because of a polluted consciousness that needs to be upgraded. A negative entity dislikes visiting a clean mind as much as a rat dislikes going to a clean place. […] Putting up spiritual paraphernalia around the home and not allowing any negative activity to go on in the environment can help you greatly. This may mean asking friends and loved ones to refrain from drinking, smoking, taking drugs, gossiping, or doing any activity that does not encourage spiritual thought and action.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 22

Love, Home, Drink, Help

“[Footnote:] The female of any species is generally regarded as a relatively anabolic organism, more passive than the male, who is relatively katabolic and active. The fact remains that one frequently runs across a rather katabolic female.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Viviparous Blenny
How to Become Extinct (1941)

“Of course, I painted before Cobra, as afterwards. Each one of us [CoBrA-artists] had his own personality. Cobra is only a very short period of my life. It was like a crossroads. We crossed paths and each continued on his way.... We [artists] are not born to form groups. A group that lasted for too long would destroy the creative activity of its members.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Quote of Appel in an interview with fr:Michel Ragon, 1963; as quoted in; Karel Appel, a gesture of colour, Jean-François Lyotard, (original French text of 1992 based upon intensive correspondence with Karel Appel), Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Herman Parret; University Press, Leuven, Belgium, 2009, p. 105
fr:Michel Ragon asked Appel: 'Without Cobra, would you have been what you are today?'

Life, Way, Painting, Personality

“There is also a considerable tendency to define the subject as a kind of meeting place of science and art. This is exemplified by Eckert. He pleads for artistic imagination and intuition in cartographic portrayal and claims that the inter-action of such talents with scientific geography produces the aesthetic map. There is no question about the importance of imagination and new ideas, but it is equally important that significant processes be objectively investigated, whether it be the visual consumption of a graphic technique or a process in geomorphology. It can perhaps best be approached by a comparison of the aims, techniques involved, and the results accomplished by each activity”

Arthur H. Robinson (1915–2004) American geographer

Source: The Look of Maps (1952), p. 17; as cited in: Kirk Patrick Goldsberry (2007) Real-time Traffic Maps. p. 23-24

Art, Imagination, Idea, Question

“A further justification for the study of philosophy is that for many people it can be a very pleasurable activity. There is something to be said for this defence of philosophy. Its danger is that it could be taken to be reducing philosophical activity to the equivalent of solving crossword puzzles.”

Nigel Warburton (1962) British author and lecturer

Philosophy : the basics (Fifth Edition, 2013), Introduction

People, Pleasure, Study

“Our religion teaches us that every human being is unique and must play his part in working out his own salvation. So whereas socialists begin with society, and how people can be fitted in, we start with Man, whose social and economic relationship are just part of his wider existence. Because we see man as a spiritual being, we utterly reject the Marxist view, which gives pride of place to economics…The religious tradition values economic activity, how we earn our living, create wealth, but warns against obsession with it, warns against putting it above all else. Money is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Greater London Young Conservatives (Iain Macleod Memorial Lecture - "Dimensions of Conservatism") (4 July 1977) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103411 Leader of the Opposition

Money, People, Religion, Parting

“Over time, it’s clear that this culture of enforcement actions being disconnected from the public safety needs of the community – and often to the detriment of community residents – has given rise to a disturbing and unconstitutional pattern or practice. Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them. According to the Police Department’s own records, its officers frequently infringe on residents’ First Amendment rights. They interfere with the right to record police activities. And they make enforcement decisions based on the way individuals express themselves.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

People, Way, Communication, Decision

“If we're going to consider failure to comply with UN directives a good reason for wrecking a country with cruise missiles, hey, I can think of a country in the Middle East which is in violation of a lot more UN directives than Iraq is. Israel has consistently thumbed its nose at UN directives, and no one in Washington has ever told Israel, "Comply or get hit." Let's understand one fundamental fact. This crusade against Iraq isn't about the United Nations or international security or stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It's about making the Middle East safe for Israel to continue bullying its neighbors and stealing from them. Every other explanation is lies and hypocrisy. And we really can expect a bigger dose of lies and hypocrisy than usual as the warmongers work to get this war against Iraq started. The media bosses will trot more generals and politicians in front of the TV cameras and have them bluster patriotically about how we're not going to let Saddam Hussein get away with it any longer, by god, and they'll show groups of military personnel cheering when they're told that they're being shipped out to the Persian Gulf to kick Saddam Hussein's behind and keep him from getting away with whatever it is he's getting away with, which mainly seems to be running his country the way he wants to instead of the way the United Nations tells him. They will work overtime at convincing the couch potatoes and the mindless yahoos who like to wave flags and shout patriotic slogans that destroying Iraq really is an act of American patriotism. And as long as the number of Americans killed in a Jewish war against Iraq remains small, the flag-waving yahoos and the bought politicians ought to be able to drown out any dissent from Americans like me who believe that we don't have any reasonable justification for waging such a war. And keeping casualties small ought to be easy, so long as it remains strictly a high-tech war, with us launching missiles against defenseless targets from many miles away. Of course, sometimes wars get out of hand, and unexpected things happen. If the Jews manage to get Iran involved in the war also -- and that's what they really want to do, what they really need to do -- then I think we stand a pretty good chance of seeing some major terrorist activity in the United States. I know that if I were Osama bin Laden, I'd have been spending my time getting ready for just such a development ever since Bill Clinton blew up that pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. I'd be putting my teams into place in the United States, assembling materials, choosing targets, and waiting for the Jews to provide justification for me to begin killing Americans on a significant scale. Of course, whether Osama bin Laden is as resourceful and as capable as he's said to be remains to be seen. Personally, I have very little faith in the ability of these flea-bitten Muslims to get things done. But we'll see.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Why War? (November 21, 1998) http://web.archive.org/web/20070324011124/http://www.natvan.com/pub/1998/112198.txt, American Dissident Voices Broadcast of November 21, 1998 http://archive.org/details/DrWilliamPierceAudioArchive308RadioBroadcasts. 1990s, 1990

God, War, Faith, Way

“Prestige rests upon interpersonal recognition, always involving at least one individual who claims deference and another who honours the claim… Status groups treat of each other as social equals, encouraging intermarriage of their children, joining the same clubs and associations, and participating together in such informal activities as visiting, dances, dinners and receptions.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Class and society (1959), p. 46 as cited in: Harold Entwistle (2012) Class, Culture and Education.

Children, Dance

“Nile Kinnck was born in 1902. Kinnick played basketball and football it high school. He moved on to play for the iowa hawkeyes and is still the only one from Iowa to win the Heisman. While playing for Iowa he broke many records he also dropped kicked for the team. It is my belief that the essential thing to be gained from a college education is to learn to think, to think for yourself; to develop an active, alert, inquiring mind…In reality you have to educate yourself. College only presents the opportunity.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his parents (January 16, 1939)

Education, School, Thinking, Reality

“I managed to become a member of a government cabinet, of the first Bolshevik cabinet in the years 1917/18. I am also the first woman ever to have been appointed ambassadress, a post which I occupied for three years and from which I resigned of my own free will. This may serve to prove that woman certainly can stand above the conventional conditions of the age. The World War, the stormy, revolutionary spirit now prevalent in the world in all areas has greatly contributed to blunting the edge of the unhealthy, overheated double standard of morality. We are already accustomed not to make overly taxing demands, for example, on actresses and women belonging to the free professions in matters relating to their married life. Diplomacy, however, is a caste which more than any other maintains its old customs, usages, traditions, and, above all, its strict ceremonial. The fact that a woman, a "free," a single woman was recognized in this position without opposition shows that the time has come when all human beings will be equally appraised according to their activity and their general human dignity.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Life, Women, War, Age

“During my imprisonment in the Soviet Union, I often heard of an imprisoned Swedish diplomat who had been active in Budapest. The Russian authorities were said to have accused him of espionage for the Germans.”

Wilhelm Mohnke (1911–2001) German general

Quoted in "Raoul Wallenberg: The Mystery Lives on" - Page 198 - by Harvey Rosenfeld - 2005.

“The classical view of dinosaurs presents a perplexing problem. The group of vertebrates which dominated the land before the rise of the dinosaurs were the synapsids, the mammal-like reptiles… Most paleontologists have believed that the locomotion and physiology of these mammal-like synapsids were more similar to those of active, warm-blooded mammals than to sluggish modern lizards or alligators. Surprisingly, though, when the first dinosaurs and their near relatives appeared in the Triassic period, the synapsids began to decline and soon became extinct. The dinosaurs then ruled the land unchallenged for over 100 million years while the early mammals, the surviving descendants of the synapsids, remained very small in size and number. Only after the dinosaurs suddenly disappeared about 70 million years ago did the mammals develop into the great variety of dominant land vertebrates we have today. The problem is this: if the later synapsids were such splendidly advanced animals with the improved physiology of mammals, and if dinosaurs were slow and sluggish, why were the mammal-like synapsids exterminated in competition with the first dinosaurs? And why didn't the mammals achieve a more significant diversification during the dinosaurs' reign?”

Robert T. Bakker (1945) American paleontologist

"The Superiority of Dinosaurs", Discovery 3(2),(1968) 11–22
The Superiority of Dinosaurs (1968)

Problem, Appearance, Animals

“[W]e prefer not to countenance the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so good at one particular thing.... We prefer not to consider the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews, or to imagine what impoverishments in one's mental life would allow people actually to think in the simplistic way great athletes seem to think. Note the way "up-close and personal profiles" of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of rounded human life—outside interests and activities, charities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what's obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It's farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one pursuit. An almost ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to their one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to life in a world that, like a child's world, is very serious and very small.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
Essays

Life, People, World, Way

“The concept of management as a specific body of knowledge and practice forming the basis of a specialised profession … Wherever human activities are carried out in an organised and co-operative form, there management must be found.”

Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983) British management consultant

Vol II, p. 216.
1940s, The Making Of Scientific Management, 1945

Knowledge

“Among the many symbols used to frighten and manipulate the populace of the democratic states, few have been more important than “terror” and “terrorism.” These terms have generally been confined to the use of violence by individuals and marginal groups. Official violence, which is far more extensive both in scale and destructiveness, is placed in a different category altogether. The usage has nothing to do with justice, causal sequence, or numbers abused. Whatever the actual sequence of cause and effect, official violence is described as responsive or provoked (“retaliation,” “protective reaction,” etc.), not the active and initiating source of abuse. Similarly, the massive long-term violence inherent in the oppressive social structures that U. S. power has supported is typically disregarded. The numbers tormented and killed by official violence – wholesale as opposed to retail terror – during recent decades have exceeded those of unofficial terrorists by a factor running into the thousands. But this is not “terror,” although one terminological exception may be noted: while Argentinian “security forces” only retaliate and engage in “police action,” violence carried out by unfriendly states (Cuba, Cambodia) may be designated “terroristic.””

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

The status of proper usage is settled not merely by the official or unofficial status of the perpetrators but also by their political affiliations.
Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, p. 6.

Justice, Support

“This is the establishment, chiefly upon Kant's foundations, of a new idealistic philosophy, in extension and fulfilment of Kant's own, though also taking impulse from the views of Aristotle and of Leibnitz. This new idealism seeks to rehabilitate the moral individual in his proper autonomy by seating him in the eternal world; that is, in the self-active, and therefore absolutely real, or noumenal, order of being. It thus stands opposed (1) to the current Monism, whether of Naturalism (Spencer, Haeckel, etc.) or of Absolute Idealism (Hegel and the Neo-Hegelians), and (2) to the older Monotheism, with its dualism (the eternal Creator, the temporal creation) of literal production out of nothing, by miracle”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix A: The Essays in their Systematic Connexion, p.383

World, Nature

“More than 30 years ago, … I wrote, and Foreign Affairs published, an article now being circulated in the blogosphere as evidence of an alleged anti-Israel point of view. Some commentators reach farther, suggesting that since I have been an active supporter of Barack Obama's presidential bid he, too, is anti-Israel. Both these assertions fall flat after any objective reading of the historical record.”

Merrill McPeak (1936) United States Air Force general

How to Secure Israel: Demilitarized land for peace is the key to a settlement (April 2008)

Support, Reading

“Without doubt the most dangerous devices for active defense among the Dinosauria emerged in Triceratops. The scene has been portrayed in paintings, drawings, and illustrations hundreds of times, but it remains thrilling. Tyrannosaurus, the greatest dinosaur toreador, confronts Triceratops, the greatest set of dinosaur horns. No matchup between predator and prey has ever been more dramatic. It's somehow fitting that those two massive antagonists lived out their co-evolutionary belligerence through the very last days of the very last epoch in the Age of Dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus stood over twenty feet tall when fully erect, and a large adult was as heavy as a small elephant - five tons. No predatory dinosaur, no predatory land animal of any sort, had more powerful jaws. Withstanding a Tyrannosauruss attack required either tanklike armor – the approach taken by Ankylosaurus”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

or most powerful defensive weapons - the approach taken by Triceratops.
The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 240-241
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Age, Time, Animals, Drawing

“The next witness is a constituent of mine, Rabbi Maurice Davis. He comes from White Plains, a Rabbi of the Jewish Community Center. He is a faculty member at Manhattan College. He has been actively involved with working with young people to deprogram them from cults for over five years. He is responsible for separating some 128 young people from these organizations. I would just like to take the opportunity to welcome a very distinguished constituent.”

Maurice Davis (1921–1993) American rabbi

Introduction of Rabbi Maurice Davis to Congressional Hearings, by Congressman Richard Ottinger., INFORMATION MEETING ON THE CULT PHENOMENON IN THE UNITED STATES http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Cult_Phenomenon_in_the_United_States_%281979%29/Davis, February 5, 1979, 318 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. P.74-80. of Transcript of Proceedings. About

People, Communication

“Certain ways of life, especially leisureliness and contemplation, are said to be marked by “self-sufficiency” (Aristotle). Here there is a double connotation of not needing much from others to carry on such a life, and of the life itself having the character of finality. Both connotations suggest forms of independence. Not needing much from others means being independent of them. And “finality” implies that the activity of thinking, or, more generally, of being leisurely has intrinsic worth. Thus the leisurely person is independent in the sense that the value of his leisure does not depend on any consequence it may have, for example, the consequence that it restores his energy for the next day’s work.”

Lawrence Haworth (1926) American-Canadian philosopher

Lawrence Haworth, Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics (Yale University Press: 1986), pp. 12-13.

Life, Way, Thinking, Sense

“There is no place for concern that it would change the structure and operation of the EU in a radical way. 90% of the constitution agreement is already in the current agreements. The innovations in the draft will clarify the structure of the EU and make its activity more efficient, as well as strengthen citizens’ rights.”

Egils Levits (1955) Latvian judge, jurist and politician

Egils Levits (Latvian ECJ Judge), Quoted in “Latvijas avize”, 21 June 2004

Way, Change

“International trade in goods and services has expanded steadily over the past six decades thanks to declines in shipping and communication costs, globally negotiated reductions in government trade barriers, the widespread outsourcing of production activities, and a greater awareness of foreign cultures and products. New and better communications technologies, notably the Internet, have revolutionized the way people in all countries obtain and exchange information.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Paul R. Krugman, Maurice Obstfeld, and Marc J. Melitz, International Economics: Theory & Policy, 9th edition (2012)

People, Way, Communication, Past

“By the time I was 16, the everlasting copying of stuffed birds and withered flowers at the Strasbourg School of Applied Art not only poisoned drawing for me but destroyed my taste for all artistic activity. I took refuge in poetry.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Looking, Arp, Jean; as quoted by Soby, James Thrall. Arp: The Museum of Modern Art. Doubleday, New York, 1958, Print. p. 12
1960s

School, Art, Flowers, Bird

“The Basic Argument In its simplest form, the argument goes like this: when the tasks people perform are well understood, predictable, routine, and repetitive, a bureaucratic structure is the most efficient. Things can be "programmed," to use March and Simon's term. Where tasks are not well understood, generally because the 'raw material' that each person works on is poorly understood and possibly reactive, recalcitrant or self activating. the tasks are non-routine. Such units or organizations are difficult to bureaucratize.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Complex organizations, 1972, p. 166

People, Personality

“Another difficult thing that I experience is when after such a year of activity I have to empty my studio – completely. And I have found that this part only gets harder. You might think it gets easier, but I really just find it gets harder.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

2001 - 2010, Out to Lunch with Isa Genzken' (2009)

Thinking, Parting

“Whatever his merits as an economist, Hume's place as one of the foremost exponents of capitalism is clearly established. His views on the landed interest and his recognition of self-interest and his desire for accumulation as the driving forces of economic activity in his time helped to consolidate the forces that were struggling to add political power to the economic supremacy which they had already achieved.”

Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005) British economist

Source: A History of Economic Thought (1939), Chapter III, The Founders Of Political Economy, p. 123

Time, Help

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician

Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? (1961).

Water

“There was one form of concerted action that Tolstoy believed advisable and he asked the workers to refrain religiously, firstly, from working for capitalists, if they could possibly get on without it; secondly, from offering their work at a lower rate than that current; thirdly, from improving their position by passing over to the side of the capitalists and serving their interests; and fourthly and chiefly, from participating in governmental coercion, be it police, customhouse, or military service. Only by such "a religious attitude toward the form of their activity" can the workmen liberate themselves from oppression. …a bloodless revolution that would be carried into effect through passive resistance. The workers are simply to refrain from doing anything that will add to the wealth or power of those who now dominate their lives. …All the people cannot be shot down or imprisoned and if all the people were willing to do as Thoreau did—go to jail rather than pay taxes, government itself would disappear.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 72-73

People, Wealth

“The terrorists are the van-guard of Mohammedanism. They set out to cow the non-Mohammedan population, so that the ‘moderate Muslims’ can get on establishing Sharia courts, forcing halal food in school and works canteens, and making the authorities look the other way regarding criminal activities for fear of being called racist and Islamophobic. A phobia is an irrational fear. A normal non Mohammedan should have a perfectly rational fear of ‘Islam’. The question is: what is our Government going to do about it? Or will they take the Mayor of London’s view that terrorist attacks are just ‘part and parcel of living in a major city’.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

Yesterday’s attack has everything to do with Islam or rather ‘Mohammedanism' http://gerardbattenmep.co.uk/2017/03/23/yesterdays-attack-has-everything-to-do-with-islam-or-rather-mohammedanism/ (March 23, 2017) 2017

Fear, School, Food, Way

“The mind's ability to attend to its own representing activity is a distinct ability, logically presupposed as a condition of experience. (We couldn't be representing objects unless, in all cases of such representing, we could also become conscious of our representing.) … All consciousness … is a species of self-consciousness, representing objects is at the same time attending to the mind's activities.”

Robert B. Pippin (1948) American philosopher

Source: Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (1989), p. 20

Time

“There are two prime requisites in efficient staff service, coordination and infiltration. The tertn "co-ordination" describes the necessary method of sound staff procedure, but "infiltration of knowledge" is the ultimate purpose of all staff activities. Staff service is not alone for the top leader. It comes to him first, for he needs it in the making of his initial decisions, but the subordinates in the scalar chain, down to the very rank and file, likewise need it in the intelligent execution of all plans.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 73

Intelligence, Knowledge, Decision

“I would like to stress that any terrorist activity, no matter who does it and for what purpose, is the greatest blow to peace, democracy, humanity, and all religious values. For this reason, no one—and certainly no Muslims – can approve of any terrorist activity.”

Fethullah Gülen (1941) Turkish preacher, former imam, writer, and political figure

"Gülen’s Condemnation Message of Terrorism", 2001

Peace, Democracy

“The US quota system meant stagnation for our sugar production […] the preferential treatment given to Cuban sugar by the quota also meant that no other export crops could compete with it on an economic basis. Consequently, the only two activities of our agriculture were cultivation of sugar cane and the breeding of low-quality cattle on pastures which at the same time served as reserve areas for the sugar plantation owners.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

The Cuban Economy (1964)

Time

“The actual manufacture of material into a specific product is a sort of digestive process which must have a functioning organization purposed to meet the required ends, just as the human body has, and it is governed by similar conditions. It must also be directed by a specific intelligence and must have internal and external avenues of correspondence to keep it alive; and, like a living organism, must adhere to the eternal economy of things and show a profit by its activities or it cannot progress.
To exemplify this in a simple way, the writer has laid out Figure I, showing the prime elements composing the anatomy of an industrial body. One does not have to draw on the imagination very far to make a comparison of this anatomy with that of man. It has its mind, will power, and brain to direct it, as indicated by the stockholders, directors and executive officers, a heart which keeps in flow the circulating medium internally; and avenues of correspondence with the outside world which furnish to it the very elements of existence.
This chart shows first, that the stockholders are simply elements belonging to the general public who have made an investment for some specific purpose; second, that immediately after this, the election of directors sets into action the first internal factor in the body, which is then divided into different functioning powers by the election of executive officers.”

Clinton Edgar Woods (1863) American engineer

Source: Organizing a factory (1905), p. 24

World, Way, Imagination, Intelligence

“The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 3, on dialogue.

Education, Reality

“The basic proposition is that the greater the uncertainty of the task, the greater the amount of information that has to be processed between decision-makers during the execution of the task. If the task is well understood prior to performing it much of the activity can be preplanned. If it is n~t understood, then during the actual task execution more knowledge is acquired which leads to changes in resource allocations, schedules, and priorities.”

Jay R. Galbraith (1939–2014) American business theorist

Source: Organization design: An information processing view, 1977, p. 21

Knowledge, Decision, Change

“If you use any external activity to create an inner situation, you naturally get enslaved to that external activity, and that becomes the condition for your joy. That's the basis of your slavery and bondage; unless you change that, you will never know joy as a way of being.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Joy 24x7

Way, Nature, Change, Joy

“Gradually but steadily, great segments of economic activity have been shifted from the market place to administration.”

Gardiner C. Means (1896–1988) American economist

Source: "The Distribution of Control and Responsibility in a Modern Economy", 1935, p. 67; as cited in: Dimock (1937; 29)

“Specialization, as has been noted, is the confining of human activity to a limited field. In industrial work this means the limitation of an enterprise to a portion of the field and to the production of a limited line of products. But even when the line of products is limited, there are usually many types that are possible in that line and an infinite number of sizes of any one type. Thus suppose a manufacturer specializes in the manufacture of men's shoes. Here there is no limit to the types that may be produced and no limit to the number of sizes of any type since no two feet are exactly alike. Again a manufacturer may specialize on the production of motors between the sizes, say, of one-half horse-power and twenty horse-power. Here again many types are possible and an infinite number of sizes for each type. But it has been shown that one of the essentials of cheap production is quantity, and for a given total output the greatest number of each element entering into the product is secured when the numbers of types and sizes are a minimum.”

Dexter S. Kimball (1865–1952) American engineer

Source: Principles of industrial organization, 1913, p. 41-42

Men, Shoe, Horse

“Because of the "all-or-none" character of nervous activity, events and the relations among them can be treated by means of propositional logic. It is found that the behaviour of every net can be described in these terms, with the addition of more complicated logical means for nets containing cycles; and that for any logical expression satisfying certain conditions, one can find in net behaving ever fashion it describes.”

Warren S. McCulloch (1898–1969) American neuroscientist

Source: A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity (1943), p. 115

Fashion

“The court has built a great deal of prestige, and I think is generally quite well thought of as a public institution in the country. It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated. In that sense, it poses a danger, but not the same sort of perhaps very active danger that a run-away Congress or runaway executive would.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

Booknotes http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1107 television interview (July 5, 1992)

Law, Way, Thinking, Sense

“The primary challenge of this cosmological transformation of consciousness is the awareness that each being in the universe is an origin of the universe. "The center of the cosmos" refers to that place where the great birth of the universe happened at the beginning of time, but it also refers to the upwelling of the universe as river, as star, as raven, as you, the universe surging into existence anew. The consciousness that learns it is at the origin point of the universe is itself an origin of the universe. The awareness that bubbles up each moment that we identify as ourselves is rooted in the originating activity of the universe. We are all of us arising together at the center of the cosmos.”

Brian Swimme (1950) American cosmologist

The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (1996)

Star, Birth, Learning, Universe

“All the elements of the process of “becoming informed”… are of interest to investigators other than “information scientists”… The totality of activity related to information today is necessarily a multidisciplinary exercise.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Meeting the challenge (2009), p. xxiii; As cited in: Lyn Robinson and David Bawden (2011).

Exercises

“Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans. Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Subsidies Distort the Housing Market, September 10, 2003 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr091003.htm 2000s, 2001-2005

Pain, Loss, Housing

“Politics is the activity by which the framework of human life is sustained; it is not life itself.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

Foreword
Politics: A Very Short Introduction

Life

“In scriptural texts we think important, the point is made over and over again: Your moral activities can affect the rain, the harvest, and the health of everything you love. The link between moral choices and material outcomes is made continually, and it is received and studied toward normative action. The texts suggest the interruption of desire, of consumption, and of acquisition.”

Laurie Zoloth (1950) American ethicist

"Interrupting Your Life: An Ethics for the Coming Storm" (2014)

Love, Health, Thinking, Study

“Under these circumstances, men lose sight of themselves and escape into the security of work or sociability or other forms of what Vidich and Bensman have called the “externalization of the self.” Vidich and Bensman sketch a troubling picture of such men: “What is left of the personality is the dulled, autonomic ritualization of behavior where … no disturbing interferences are allowed to enter into thought. … Personal and social life becomes barren, and the personal mechanics and daily routine of living become the end-all of existence. All types of activity whose operation is based upon an objective, external, automatic rhythm to which an individual can bend himself serve the function of enabling him to lose himself in an objective ceremony.””

Benjamin R. Barber (1939–2017) US political scientist

Source: Forced to be Free (1971), p. 69, quotation is from A. J. Vidich and J. Bensman, Small Town in Mass Society (New York), p. 315

Life, Men, Behavior, Personality

“We can actually change the expression of genes—tumor suppressing genes, tumor activating genes—by what we eat, what we put into our bodies. So, even if you've been dealt a bad genetic deck, you can still reshuffle it with diet. … When you’re treating diseases with drugs, you know there’s one drug you take for cholesterol, a different class of drugs you take for high blood pressure, different class of drugs you take for diabetes, but, with diet, a plant-based diet affects all these diseases. One diet to kinda rule them all.”

Michael Greger (1972) American physician, author, and vegan health activist

Interview in the documentary-film What the Health by Kip Andersen (2017).

Disease, Change

“For the divine Persons embrace mutually in eternal complacency With an infinite and active love in unity. This activity is constantly renewed in the living life of the Trinity. There is continuous new birth-giving in new knowledge, new complacency and new breathing forth of the Spirit in a new embrace with a new torrent of eternal love. All the elect, angels and men from the last to the first are embraced in this complacency. It is in this complacency that heaven and earth are suspended, existence, life activity and maintenance of all creatures.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

Love, Life, Men, Angels

“Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1991 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1991.html Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Money, Behavior

“By speaking of space as an Idea, I intend to imply…that the apprehension of objects as existing in space, and of the relations of position, &c., prevailing among them, is not a consequence of experience, but a result of a peculiar constitution and activity of the mind, which is independent of all experience in its origin, though constantly combined with experience in its exercise.”

William Whewell (1794–1866) English philosopher & historian of science

Part 1, Book 2, ch. 2, art. 1.
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)

Exercises, Idea

“There is nothing that helps the Socialist Party so much as receiving an occasional deathblow. The oftener it is killed the more active, the more energetic, the more powerful it becomes.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

Help

“I have reexamined the contemporary reports and new evidence which has come to light since Maunder's time and conclude that this 70-year period was indeed a time when solar activity all but stopped. This behavior is wholly unlike the modern behavior of the sun which we have come to accept as normal, and the consequences for solar and terrestrial physics seem to me profound.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Behavior, Light, Time, Sun

“Commitment is a state of being in which an individual becomes bound by his actions and through this actions to beliefs that sustain his activities and his own involvement.”

Gerald R. Salancik (1943–1996) American organizational theorist

Gerald R. Salancik (1982), "Attitude-behavior consistencies as social logics." Consistency in social behavior: The Ontario symposium. Vol. 2. 1982. p. 207

“I answer that, It was necessary for woman to be made, as the Scripture says, as a "helper" to man; not, indeed, as a helpmate in other works, as some say, since man can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works; but as a helper in the work of generation. This can be made clear if we observe the mode of generation carried out in various living things. Some living things do not possess in themselves the power of generation, but are generated by some other specific agent, such as some plants and animals by the influence of the heavenly bodies, from some fitting matter and not from seed: others possess the active and passive generative power together; as we see in plants which are generated from seed; for the noblest vital function in plants is generation. Wherefore we observe that in these the active power of generation invariably accompanies the passive power. Among perfect animals the active power of generation belongs to the male sex, and the passive power to the female. And as among animals there is a vital operation nobler than generation, to which their life is principally directed; therefore the male sex is not found in continual union with the female in perfect animals, but only at the time of coition; so that we may consider that by this means the male and female are one, as in plants they are always united; although in some cases one of them preponderates, and in some the other. But man is yet further ordered to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation. Therefore there was greater reason for the distinction of these two forces in man; so that the female should be produced separately from the male; although they are carnally united for generation. Therefore directly after the formation of woman, it was said: "And they shall be two in one flesh"”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

Gn. 2:24
I, q. 92, art. 1 (Whether the Woman should have been made in the first production of things?)
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Life, Sex, Time, Help

“In addition to valuable contributions to journalism, Bradley's reporting also spurred social activism, but also spurred change with his reporting on AIDS in Africa, Death by Denial, which helped influence drug companies into discounting and donating AIDS drugs to Africa.”

Ed Bradley (1941–2006) News correspondent

[Congressman Bob Brady, Congressional Record, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2006-12-06/html/CREC-2006-12-06-pt2-PgH8798-3.htm, Honoring the Contributions and Life of Edward R. Bradley, H8798-H8800; Volume 152, Number 133, December 6, 2006, United States House of Representatives , printed by the United States Government Printing Office]
About

Death, Change, Help

“The impact of space activities is nothing less than the galvanizing of hope and imagination for human life continuum into a future of infinite possibility.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

The Impact of Space Activities Upon Society (ESA Br) European Space Agency (2005)

Life, Hope, Imagination, Future

“As a 15 year jurist, I like to think I speak with clarity. So let me try again. When a United States Senator commits a non criminal act of indiscretion; and when it is brought to his attention he immediately has the integrity to apologize; and the apology is accepted by the victim: IT IS WRONG for the dogs of war to leap onto his back and demand his resignation from the United States Senate. It is morally wrong.
And as an aside for all you sanctimonious judges who are demanding my resignation, hear this. I was a civil right lawyer actively prosecuting sexual harassment cases on behalf of the Attorney General's Office before Anita Hill and before you were born.
Lighten up folks. This is how Democrats remain in the minority.”

Bill O'Neill (1947) Ohio judge

Facebook post, 11-17-2017 PM

War, Dogs, Thinking

“Experience shows that this transference very soon becomes the source of resistance. Love is only a seeking for love in return, Do, ut des [I give, that thou shalt give]. If the patient notices that love is not given in return or that it has not reached that degree which he expected, defiance enters in place of the love, which in turn manifests itself as active resistance.”

Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940) Austrian physician and psychologist

On situations of transference in doctor-patient relations, in Sadism and Masochism : The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty, Vol. 1 (1939), p. 46

Love

“The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in seven words: Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.”

John Holt (1923–1985) educator

Growing Without Schooling magazine, no. 40 (1984).

Education, School, Learning, Teachers

“Since 2003, we are fully dependent on oil. Agriculture, industry, manufacturing have all regressed, accounting for not more than 1.25 percent of GDP. Our strategy is to reactivate agriculture, manufacturing and other productive activity, and at the same time provide protection to the people. In terms of social advancement, we want to strengthen labour laws and fiscal policies. Iraq should not be a consumer-only market for the production activities of neighbouring countries.”

Raid Jahid Fahmi (1950) Iraqi politician

Interview with Al Jazeera (25 May 2018)

People, Time, Dependency, Country

“The operations of the human mind are also controlled by words of power, formulas that become a focus of mental activity.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Chapter One, p. 7

“Then (in 1981) we did a book by Geoffrey Rips called "Unamerican Activities," which was a documentation of the subversion of the underground press. That was when the Freedom of Information Act made those files available. We were shocked, we couldn't believe that our government had been bombing people, infiltrating their organizations. In fact, I think one of the files listed Lawrence as a "beatnik rabble-rouser."”

Nancy Peters (1936) American writer and publisher

"And the beat goes on", http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/09/DD158147.DTL San Francisco Chronicle, 2003-06-09. 2000s

People, Books, Thinking, Freedom

“He did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an activity unknown to him, which was his life.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

About Platon Karataev in Bk. XII, ch. 13
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Life, Understanding

“Any kind of creative activity is likely to be stressful. The more anxiety, the more you feel that you are headed in the right direction. Easiness, relaxation, comfort — these are not conditions that usually accompany serious work.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Joyce Carol Oates interviews herself (2013)

Feeling

“The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.”

Nikolai Gogol book The Government Inspector

Act I, sc. i
The Inspector General (1836)

“A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection — unless you lie — in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

Life, Lie

“Money inspires activity, not honesty.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

Money

“[This] is or should be our main scientific activity — studying the structure of information and the structure of problem solving processes independently of applications and independently of its realization in animals or humans.”

John McCarthy (1927–2011) American computer scientist and cognitive scientist

John McCarthy (1974), quoted in: Joscha Bach (2009) Principles of Synthetic Intelligence PSI, p. 233
1970s

Problem, Study, Animals

“On the campus of Outlaw College, professors of essential insanities would characterize the conflicting attitudes of Nina Jablonski and Leigh-Cheri as indicative of a general conflict between social idealism and romanticism. As any of the learned professors would explain, plied with sufficient tequila, no matter how fervently a romantic might support a movement, he or she eventually must withdraw from active participation in that movement because the group ethic — the supremacy of the organization over the individual — is an affront to intimacy. Intimacy is the principal source of the sugars with which this life is sweetened. It is absolutely vital to the essential insanities.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

Life, Support, Learning

“Social differentiation is a universal characteristic of human societies. Early human societies survived and became dominant among animal species because of their superior social organization — that is, their more elaborate division of labor and consequent close coordination of activities.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Class and society (1959), p. 4.

Universe, Animals

“The party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth… Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good… This is Socialism- not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape. Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over all, regardless of whether they are owners or workers… Our Socialism goes far deeper.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: The Voice of Destruction (1940), p. 191

Men, Decision

“Well, the clandestine aspect is that, clearly, the ability to influence the Congress--that's a clandestine activity, a covert activity. You know to some extent, the idea that the Holocaust Museum here in our country is another great ability to somehow make people feel guilty about being the people who did the most to try to end the Holocaust. I find--I just find the whole debate in the United States unbearably restricted with the inability to factually discuss what goes on between our two countries.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

On Israel's alleged "clandestine activities". http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/249irrsq.asp 2000s

People, Feeling, Idea, Country

“Global economic competition is a game of unequal players … Consequently, it is only fair that we 'tilt the playing field' in favour of the weaker countries. In practice, this means allowing them to protect and subsidize their producers more vigorously and to put stricter regulations on foreign investment. These countries should also be allowed to protect intellectual property rights less stringently so that they can more actively 'borrow' ideas from more advanced countries.”

Ha-Joon Chang book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 9, Tilting the playing field, p. 219

Game, Idea, Country

“The people are beginning to fear that the Irish Government is merely a machinery for their destruction; that, for all the usual functions of Government, this Castle-nuisance is altogether powerless; that it is unable, or unwilling, to take a single step for the prevention of famine, for the encouragement of manufactures, or providing fields of industry, and is only active in promoting, by high premiums and bounties, the horrible manufacture of crimes!”

John Mitchel (1815–1875) Irish politician

Article in The Nation newspaper on 8 November,1845, titled "The Detectives",on the Administration of Government in Ireland

People, Fear

“"Among the types of human activity which have always played a role in history, the soldier is least subject to ressentiment. Nietzsche is right in pointing out that the priest is most exposed to this danger, though the conclusions about religious morality which he draws from this insight are inadmissible. It is true that the very requirements of his profession, quite apart from his individual or national temperament, expose the priest more than any other human type to the creeping poison of ressentiment. In principle he is not supported by secular power; indeed he affirms the fundamental weakness of such power. Yet, as the representative of a concrete institution, he is to be sharply distinguished from the homo religiosus—he is placed in the middle of party struggle. More than any other man, he is condemned to control his emotions (revenge, wrath, hatred) at least outwardly, for he must always represent the image and principle of “peacefulness.” The typical “priestly policy” of gaining victories through suffering rather than combat, or through the counterforces which the sight of the priest's suffering produces in men who believe that he unites them with God, is inspired by ressentiment. There is no trace of ressentiment in genuine martyrdom; only the false martyrdom of priestly policy is guided by it. This danger is completely avoided only when priest and homo religiosus coincide."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Men, God, Peace, History

“Things are never beautiful by themselves but appear so to anyone who projects on to them his superabundance of life. But just as unconscious activity is unaware of itself as such, so man ‘forgets himself’ as the cause of these ‘beauties’ and imagines that the world itself is laden with them.”

Sarah Kofman (1934–1994) philosopher from France

Source: Nietzsche et la métaphore (1972), p. 29

Life, World, Beauty, Imagination

“On the France's Indochina involvement: "They were engaged in the most dangerous of all activities – deceiving themselves…France was engaged in a task beyond her strength, indeed, beyond the strength of any external power unless it was acting in support of the dominant local will and purpose."”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Vietnam

Support

“Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man's nature.”

Robert South (1634–1716) English theologian

Sermon preach at St. Marys, December 10, 1661, in Twelve Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions (1727), Vol. 3, p. 140

Nature, Drawing, Perfection

“Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is … death!
Or the destruction of States, and new life starting again in thousands of centers on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of free agreement.
The choice lies with you!”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

X, Closing lines
The State — Its Historic Role (1897)

Life, Death, War

“The foundational God-experience of Israel was the Exodus – the experience of God in the liberation of slaves. Israel also experienced God as the one who was active on its behalf in the decisive moments of its history. And the early Christians experienced God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who was done to death as a political criminal. For us Christians, the human person is the privileged locus of God-experience – we encounter God first of all in Jesus of Nazareth, and then in every man, woman and child.”

Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) Indian theologian

Kunnumpuram, K. (ed) (2006) Life in Abundance: Indian Christian Reflections on Spirituality. Mumbai: St Pauls
On Spirituality

Life, Death, God, History

“In a free society, the individual has the educational equipment, as well as the economic and political occasion, to cross the frontier between the activities that take the framework for granted and those that bring it into question. He has been educated in a way that enables the mind as imagination to become ascendant over the mind as machine. He has learned to philosophize by acting, in the sense that he recognizes in every project the seed of some great or small reformation.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger The Religion of the Future

Source: The Religion of the Future (2014), p. 295

Education, Way, Imagination, Question

“Knowledge can be considered as a collection of information, or as an activity, or as a potential. If we think of it as a collection of information, then the analogy of a computer's memory is helpful, for we can say that knowledge about something is like the storage of meaningful and true strings of symbols in a computer.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Design of Inquiring Systems (1971), p. 9; cited in Daniel J. Power (2004) Decision Support Systems: Frequently Asked Questions. p. 23

Knowledge, Thinking, Memory, Help

“Organizations are goal-directed, boundary-maintaining, activity systems.”

Howard E. Aldrich (1943) American sociologist

Source: Organizations and Environments, 1979, p. 4

“The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the "religious."”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 47.
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

Life, God, Hope, Christ

“Odd that the brain could function on its own, without acquainting him with its purposes, its reasons. But the brain was an organ, like the spleen, heart, kidneys. And they went about their private activities. So why not the brain?”

Philip K. Dick book The Man Who Japed

The Man Who Japed (1956)

Heart

“Paranoiac-critical activity is an organizing and productive force of objective chance. Paranoiac-critical activity no longer considers surrealist phenomena and images by themselves but, on the contrary, as a coherent whole of systematic and significant relations.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1931 - 1940, My Pictorial Struggle', S. Dali, 1935, Chapter: 'My Pictorial Struggle', p. 16

Chance

“There was no one in the world quite like Plante. I learned more from him in two years with the Leafs than I did in all my other hockey days. He taught me a great deal about playing goal both on the ice and in my head off the ice. He taught me to be aggressive around the goal and take an active part in play instead of waiting for things to happen. He showed me how I kept putting myself off-balance by placing my weight on my left leg instead of on my stick side. He taught me how to steer shots off into the corner instead of letting them rebound in front of me. That old guy made a good goalie out of me.”

Bernie Parent (1945) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Bernie Parent," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198403.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2005-11-07)

World, Guy, Learning, Waiting

Quotes about activation page 6

Quotes about activation
page 6