Quotes about amount
page 9

“When a man is actually with God, and then sees what he has tried to do and in our terms done so marvellously. it amounts to something which is utterly inadequate. That's what I'm saying: that the steeple reaching up so far, far away, that Salisbury Cathedral has a beautiful steeple, but what is it compared with the sky into which it is reaching? It is in this comparison that one is aware of on the one hand the absurdity of our efforts, and on the other the inadequacy of them”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Interview with Bill Buckley

God, Beauty, Effort

“The test of the worth of a school is not the amount of knowledge it imparts, but the self-activity it calls forth.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 227

School, Knowledge

“Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell don’t understand everything.”

Greg Bear book Eon

Source: Eon (1985), p. 73

Feeling, Hell, Understanding

“(In writing Quiet) I was fueled by the same mix of passion and indignation that I imagine inspired Betty Friedan to publish The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Introverts are to extroverts what women were to men at that time--second-class citizens with gigantic amounts of untapped talent. Our schools, workplaces, and religious institutions are designed for extroverts, and many introverts believe that there is something wrong with them and that they should try to "pass" as extroverts. The bias against introversion leads to a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Glor, Jeff (interviewer), "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking," by Susan Cain," CBS News, January 26, 2012.

Women, Men, Happiness, School

“It could be all unwittingly that I wrote in Darkness Visible what amounted to a Rosetta stone for my other work.”

William Styron (1925–2006) American novelist and essayist

"A Conversation with William Styron", Humanities (May/June 1997)

“The Aswan Dam, built at enormous expense to improve the lot of the Egyptian peasant, has caused the Nile to deposit its fertilizing sediment in Lake Nasser, where it is unavailable. Egyptian fields must now be artificially fertilized. Gigantic fertilizer plants have been built to meet the new need. The plants require enormous amounts of electricity. The dam must operate at capacity merely to supply the increased need for electricity which was created by the building of the dam”

John Gall (1925–2014) American physician

Source: General systemantics, an essay on how systems work, and especially how they fail..., 1975, p. 18. Cited in: Harvey J. Bertcher (1988) Staff development in human service organizations. p. 45

“The realistic way to reduce the amount of money in politics is to reduce the amount of politics in money -- the importance of government in allocating wealth and opportunity.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Column, April 12, 2001, "PACs and McCain-Feingold" http://townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/2001/04/12/pacs_and_mccain-feingold at townhall.com. 2000s

Money, Way, Wealth

“Not all monotheisms are exactly the same, at the moment. They're all based on the same illusion, they're all plagiarisms of each other, but there is one in particular that at the moment is proposing a serious menace not just to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but to quite a lot of other freedoms too. And this is the religion that exhibits the horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness and self-pity. I am talking about militant Islam. Globally it's a gigantic power. It controls an enormous amount of oil wealth, several large countries and states, with an enormous fortune it's pumping the ideologies of wahhabism and salafism around the world, poisoning societies where it goes, ruining the minds of children, stultifying the young in its madrassas, training people in violence, making a cult of death and suicide and murder. That's what it does globally, it's quite strong. In our societies it poses as a cringing minority, whose faith you might offend, who deserves all the protection that a small and vulnerable group might need. Now, it makes quite large claims for itself, doesn't it? It says it's the Final Revelation. It says that God spoke to one illiterate businessman – in the Arabian Peninsula – three times through an archangel, and that the resulted material, which as you can see as you read it is largely plagiarized ineptly from the Old…and The New Testament, is to be accepted as the Final Revelation and as the final and unalterable one, and that those who do not accept this revelation are fit to be treated as cattle infidels, potential chattel, slaves and victims. Well I tell you what, I don't think Muhammad ever heard those voices. I don't believe it. And the likelihood that I am right – as opposed to the likelihood that a businessman who couldn't read, had bits of the Old and The New Testament re-dictated to him by an archangel, I think puts me much more near the position of being objectively correct. But who is the one under threat? The person who promulgates this and says I'd better listen because if I don't I'm in danger, or me who says "no, I think this is so silly you can even publish a cartoon about it"? And up go the placards and the yells and the howls and the screams – this is in London, this is in Toronto, this is in New York, it's right in our midst now – "Behead those who cartoon Islam". Do they get arrested for hate speech? No. Might I get in trouble for saying what I just said about the prophet Muhammad? Yes, I might. Where are your priorities ladies and gentlemen? You're giving away what is most precious in your own society, and you're giving it away without a fight, and you're even praising the people who want to deny you the right to resist it. Shame on you why you do this. Make the best use of the time you've got left. This is really serious. … Look anywhere you like for the warrant for slavery, for the subjection of women as chattel, for the burning and flogging of homosexuals, for ethnic cleansing, for antisemitism, for all of this, you look no further than a famous book that's on every pulpit in this city, and in every synagogue and in every mosque. And then just see whether you can square the fact that the force that is the main source of hatred, is also the main caller for censorship.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoOfRog1EM&feature=youtu.be&t=16m36s
"Be It Resolved: Freedom of Speech Includes the Freedom to Hate", 15/11/2006.
2000s, 2006

Death, Women, God, Hate

“I am here to speak on freedom of speech. It is a great topic, and I am going to make my speech as free as possible. But you know that this cannot be done, for when anyone announces that he is going to speak his mind freely, everyone is frightened. This shows that there is no such thing as true freedom of speech. No one can afford to let his neighbors know what he is thinking about them. Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

" Of Freedom of Speech http://books.google.com/books?id=OM4eT2epYzwC&q=&quot;Society+can+exist+only+on+the+basis+that+there+is+some+amount+of+polished+lying+and+that+no+one+says+exactly+what+he+thinks&quot;&pg=PA95#v=onepage", lecture given in China (4 March 1933)

Lying, Thinking, Freedom

“A nation fights well in proportion to the amount of men and materials it has. And the other equation is that the individual soldier in that army is a more effective soldier the poorer his standard of living has been in the past.”

Norman Mailer book The Naked and the Dead

Gen. Edward Cummings, in Pt. 1, Ch. 6
The Naked and the Dead (1948)

Men, Past, Fight

“No amount of force will break an egg-shell if exerted on one side alone. So capital could not squeeze labor as long as labor was free to natural opportunities, and in a world where these natural materials and opportunities were as free to all as is the air to us, there could be no difficulty in finding employment, no willing hands conjoined with hungry stomachs, no tendency of wages toward the minimum on which the worker could barely live. In such a world we would no more think of thanking anybody for furnishing us employment than we here think of thanking anybody for furnishing us with appetites.
That the Creator might have put us in the kind of world I have sought to imagine, as readily as in this kind of a world, I have no doubt. Why he has not done so may, however, I think, be seen. That kind of a world would be best for fools. This is the best for men who will use the intelligence with which they have been gifted. Of this, however, I shall speak hereafter. What I am now trying to do by asking my readers to endeavor to imagine a world in which natural opportunities were "as free as air," is to show that the barrier which prevents labor from freely using land is the nether millstone against which labor is ground, the true cause of the difficulties which are apparent through the whole industrial organization.”

Henry George (1839–1897) American economist

Source: Social Problems (1883), Ch. 13 : Unemployed Labor

Men, World, Fools, Imagination

“there is no cultural identity in a population without a stable ethnic composition. The alteration of a country’s ethnic makeup amounts to an alteration of its cultural identity.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Country

“I'm of course opposed to terror, any rational person is, but I think that if we're serious about the question of terror and serious about the question of violence we have to recognize that it is a tactical and hence moral matter. Incidentally, tactical issues are basically moral issues. They have to do with human consequences. And if we're interested in, let's say, diminishing the amount of violence in the world, it's at least arguable and sometimes true that a terroristic act does diminish the amount of violence in the world. Hence a person who is opposed to violence will not be opposed to that terroristic act.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Noam Chomsky interviewed by William F. Buckley in the TV talk show Firing Line, April 3, 1969. Quoted in: Does anyone know the context of the following Noam Chomsky quote about violence? http://www.eduqna.com/Quotations/495-quotations-5.html at eduqna.com, 2006-12. Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1960s

World, Question, Thinking, Personality

“Beauty means perfect to me, but it also has an additional meaning having to do with being pleasurable, rather than painful. Beauty is hard to make. The making is painful, and involves a certain amount of craft, and a relaxation of the part of the brain that says, "Don't write that. X wrote those four notes in 1542 or 1979 or 1825 or whatever period you are worried about being influenced by."”

Beth Anderson (1950) American neo-romantic composer

Beauty is Revolution (1980)

Pain, Pleasure, Beauty, Parting

“I would say just be diligent and don’t take no for an answer. It’s not easy, and it took me a significant amount of time to get people to take me seriously or even consider me. I kept turning up and I just had a thick skin and didn’t let it get to me when people rejected me. As long as you keep going and keep a positive attitude, it’ll happen. It sounds generic, but I really believe in that.”

Claire Holt (1988) Australian actress and model

Exclusive: The Australian Actress Hollywood Can't Get Enough Of (June 10, 2016)

People, Time

“Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do not take the exact amount. The exact amount is no use to me.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

De lo que tomo, tomo de más o de menos, no tomo lo justo. Lo justo no me sirve.
Voces (1943)

“The Pre-Lutheran German Bible. The precise origin of the mediaeval German Bible is still unknown. Dr. Ludwig Keller of Münster first suggested in his Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 257-260, the hypothesis that it was made by Waldenses (who had also a Romanic version); and he tried to prove it in his Die Waldenser und die deutschen Bibelübersetzungen, Leipzig, 1886 (189 pages). Dr. Hermann Haupt, of Würzburg, took the same ground in his Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung der mittelalterlichen Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis und der ersten gedruckten Bibel nachgewiesen, Würzburg, 1885 (64 pages); and again, in self-defense against Jostes, in Der waldensische Ursprung des Codex Teplensis und der vor-lutherischen deutschen Bibeldrucke, Würzburg, 1886. On the other hand, Dr. Franz Jostes, a Roman Catholic scholar, denied the Waldensian and defended the Catholic origin of that translation, in two pamphlets: Die Waldenser und die vorlutherische Bibelübersetzung, Münster, 1885 (44 pages), and Die Tepler Bibelübersetzung. Eine zweite Kritik, Münster, 1886 (43 pages). The same author promises a complete history of German Catholic Bible versions.
The hostility of several Popes and Councils to the circulation of vernacular translations of the Bible implies the existence of such translations, and could not prevent their publication, as the numerous German editions prove. Dutch, French, and Italian versions also appeared among the earliest prints. See Stevens, Nos. 687 and 688 (p. 59 sq.). The Italian edition exhibited in 1877 at London is entitled: La Biblia en lingua Volgare (per Nicolo di Mallermi). Venetia: per Joan. Rosso Vercellese, 1487, fol. A Spanish Bible by Bonif. Ferrer was printed at Valencia, 1478 (see Reuss, Gesch. der heil. Schr. N. T., II. 207, 5th Ed.).
The Bible is the common property and most sacred treasure of all Christian churches. The art of printing was invented in Catholic times, and its history goes hand in hand with the history of the Bible. Henry Stevens says (The Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, p. 25): ""The secular history of the Holy Scriptures is the sacred history of Printing. The Bible was the first book printed, and the Bible is the last book printed. Between 1450 and 1877, an interval of four centuries and a quarter, the Bible shows the progress and comparative development of the art of printing in a manner that no other single book can; and Biblical bibliography proves that during the first forty years, at least, the Bible exceeded in amount of printing all other books put together; nor were its quality, style, and variety a whit behind its quantity.""”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Roman Catholic rival German versions of the Bible

Hostility, Books, Art, History

“What has taken place is a shift of business from one manufacturer to another, and the announcements in the press as well as the general publicity of those manufacturers who have succeeded in increasing their business give, I think, the impression that this is true of the whole industry. If we could assume, for the sake of argument, that we will reach the point at which twenty-five million cars and trucks will be registered in the United States an assumption that from what we have accomplished so far is certainly perfectly reasonable then I think we could safely say that the replacement demand, plus the export demand which will increase for many years yet, plus the normal growth, would amount to something like four to four and one half million vehicles a year and would require the manufacture of a number of cars equal to or greater than has yet been produced in any year in the history of the industry…
I am sure that I do not need to elaborate what the automotive industry consists of, its influence on the prosperity of the United States, the influence that it has had in many other industries which contribute to its production necessities. General Motors is an important part of this great industry of ours and as my contribution to your visit with us I would like to tell you in a brief way something about General Motors; how we are thinking, what we are doing, and our ambitions for the future.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: Alfred P. Sloan in The Turning Wheel, 1934, p. 332-3: Speech by President Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., 1927 (II)

Cars, Way, History, Business

“I admit, of course, that the artist does not see nature as the vulgar do. His emotion reveals to him the inner truths that underlie appearance. But the only principle In art is to copy what one sees. Every other method is ruinous. No one can embellish Nature. It is simply and solely a question of seeing. Doubtless a mediocre man, when he copies will never produce a work of art. He looks without seeing. No matter how minutely he observes, the result will be flat and without character. But the artist's trade is not for mediocre men, and no amount of training can supply them with talent. The artist sees - he sees with his heart. He sees deep into the heart of Nature. To the artist everything in Nature is beautiful.
The vulgarian imagines that what looks to him ugly In Nature is not material for the artist. He would forbid us to represent what displeases and offends him. He makes a grave mistake. What is commonly called ugliness in Nature may become a great beauty in art.
In the realm of realities, people regard as ugly everything that is deformed and diseased and that suggests sickness, weakness and suffering. They regard as ugly everything that defies regularity, which is to them the symbol and condition of health and strength. A hump is ugly, bow-legs are ugly, misery in rags is ugly. Ugly, again, are the soul and conduct of the immoral, the vicious, the criminal man, the abnormal man who is an enemy of society; ugly is the soul of the parricide, the traitor, the unscrupulous slave of ambition. And it is right that the lives and the of which we can expect only evil should be given an odious epithet.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Rodin on realism, 1910

Men, People, Health, Truth

“Various sociopolitical movements are oriented to the nostrums of ‘social justice,’ favoring entitlements for all those with economic disparity. They struggle for what is scientifically impossible: equality of outcome. They want everyone to end up with the same amount of wealth—billions of people all possessing the same numerical affluence.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 72

People, Justice, Wealth

“Life… becomes an anomalous puzzle that cannot be "explained" until scientists in laboratories find a way to animate the dead matter that is the normal condition of things. This amounts to saying that life has no "place" in the world until men—the gender that originally dominated the world and still does—can create it… in a laboratory and express it in a formula. Only then will we "understand" what life is.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.7 The Rape of Nature

Life, Men, World, Way

“In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, act V, scene 1, we find this exchange between the two young lovers: JESSICA: I am never merry when I hear sweet music
LORENZO: The reason is, your spirits are attentiveThe opening of the finale of Beethoven' s 'Emperor' Concerto provides a splendid example of the kind of theme that is the inspiration for this book. A completely unified theme that hangs together beautifully, it nevertheless portrays vividly a series of contrasting sentiments in a succession that amounts to a small narrative …”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Prologue
Music and Sentiment (2010)

Books, Music, Lovers, Success

“We do not aim at « mathematical rigour » of exposition, which in theoretical physics often amounts to self-deception.”

Evgeny Lifshitz (1915–1985) Soviet physicist

"Quantum Mechanics: Non-relativistic Theory", together with L. D. Landau, translated by John Menzies (third edition 1991), p. xi

Mathematics

“There’s a serious danger that the college education bubble may burst. As more and more people get college degrees, which inevitably have to become easier to get in order to increase the amount of graduates beyond its realistic levels, the market will eventually figure out that the degree doesn’t mean what it used to. It will become less useful as a heuristic for intelligence and achievement. And college graduates will find themselves with an asset—a degree—whose value is dropping while their debt remains high.”

John Carney

" What Obama Should Have Told The Kids Today http://www.businessinsider.com/john-carney-what-obama-should-have-told-the-kids-today-2009-9," The Business Insider magazine, 8 September 2009.

People, Education, Intelligence

“It's absurdly foolish to hail me as a method actor, no one can be anymore mistaken. Method is a technique practicable only by the initiated few across the world. However, some amount of method is certainly inherent in every actor who applies it in their performances to some extent, myself included, so at the other end of the spectrum, I wouldn't believe an actor who says he doesn't follow any method either just as I wouldn't any other actor loosely claiming to be a method actor.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

World

“I have a good life but I must write because if I do not write a certain amount I do not enjoy the rest of my life.”

Ernest Hemingway book Green Hills of Africa

Part I, Ch. 1
Green Hills of Africa (1935)

Life

“Men often become nonviolent in societies that (1) have adequate amounts of food, (2) have adequate amounts of water, and (3) perceive themselves as isolated from attack. For example, the Tahitian men, the Minoan men on Crete, and the Central Malaysian Semai were nonviolent during the period in their history when all three of these conditions prevailed.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 77.

Men, Food, History, Water

“When Mr. John P. Gavit, managing editor of the New York Evening Post, wrote to Mr. Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, that I had a reputation "as an insatiable hunter of personal publicity," what Mr. Gavit meant was that I was accustomed to demand and obtain more space in newspapers than the amount of my worldly possessions entitled me to.”

Upton Sinclair book The Brass Check

The Brass Check (1919)

Personality

“When we permit any object to transmit a small amount of data and to receive input from its neighborhood, we change an inert object into an animated node.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Change, Animals

“I am not one to advocate the reducing of our navy in any degree below that proportion to the French navy which the exigencies of our service require; and, mind what I say, here is just what the French Government would admit as freely as you would. England has four times, at least, the amount of mercantile tonnage to protect at sea that France has, and that surely gives us a legitimate pretension to have a larger navy than France. Besides, this country is an island; we cannot communicate with any part of the world except by sea. France, on the other hand, has a frontier upon land, by which she can communicate with the whole world. We have, I think, unfortunately for ourselves, about a hundred times the amount of territory beyond the seas to protect, as colonies and dependencies, that France has. France has also twice or three times as large an army as England had. All these things give us a right to have a navy somewhat in the proportion to the French navy which we find to have existed if we look back over the past century. Nobody has disputed it. I would be the last person who would ever advocate any undue change in this proportion. On the contrary—I have said it in the House of Commons, and I repeat it to you—if the French Government showed a sinister design to increase their navy to an equality with ours; then, after every explanation to prevent such an absurd waste, I should vote 100 millions sterling rather than allow that navy to be increased to a level with ours—because I should say that any attempt of that sort without any legitimate grounds, would argue some sinister design upon this country.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Rochdale (26 June 1861), quoted in John Bright and J. E. Thorold Rogers (eds.), Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P. Volume II (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908), pp. 433-4.
1860s

World, Communication, Thinking, Change

“Honestly, ever since I found this way of eating I have endless amounts of energy. I can go all day, and after it all I never find myself getting tired. No matter what kind of shows I have done, or workouts I do on top of it, I still have to force myself to sleep at night. … Right from the first time that I started to really eat vegan I could feel how much it was affecting me. John Salley … always told me how the players who ate that way outperformed the others. I started to see that results for myself as well.”

Travis Barker (1975) American drummer and music producer

"Blink 182's Travis Barker: Why I'm Vegan" https://web.archive.org/web/20170321220957/https://www.mensjournal.com/entertainment/articles/blink-182s-travis-barker-why-im-vegan-w473107, interview with Men's Journal (March 2017).

Way, Feeling, Sleep, Time

“Men who marry for gratification, propagation or the matter of buttons or socks, must expect to cope with and deal in a certain amount of quibble, subterfuge, concealments, and double, deep-dyed prevarication.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 159.

Men

“The debt was the most sacred obligation incurred during the war. It was by no means the largest in amount. We do not haggle with those who lent us money. We should not with those who gave health and blood and life. If doors are opened to fraud, contrive to close them. But don’t deny the obligation, or scold at its performance.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

About the Arrears of Pensions Act (1879) for disabled Union veterans, which Hayes cheerfully signed, which was roundly criticized as too expensive and too open to fraud by unscrupulous veterans fabricating service-related injuries.
Letter to William Henry Smith (19 December 1881)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Life, Money, War, Health

“Unfortunately, many programs are so big that there is no one individual who really knows all the pieces, and so the amount of code sharing you get isn't as great. Also, the opportunity to go back and really rewrite something isn't quite as great, because there's always a new set of features that you're adding on to the same program.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Source: Interview from Programmers at Work (1986)

“At different stages in the educational process different changes are required. In schools the chief need is for a general change in the attitude towards science, which should be from the beginning an integral part and not a mere addition, often an optional addition, to the curriculum. Science should be taught not merely as a subject but should come into all subjects. Its importance in history and in modern life should be pointed out and illustrated. The old contrast, often amounting to hostility, between scientific and humane subjects need to be broken down and replaced by a scientific humanism. At the same time, the teaching of science proper requires to be humanized. The dry and factual presentation requires to be transformed, not by any appeal to mystical theory, but by emphasizing the living and dramatic character of scientific advance itself. Here the teaching of the history of science, not isolated as at present, but in close relation to general history teaching, would serve to correct the existing atmosphere of scientific dogmatism. It would show at the same time how secure are the conquests of science in the control they give over natural processes and how insecure and provisional, however necessary, are the rational interpretations, the theories and hypotheses put forward at each stage. Past history by itself is not enough, the latest developments of science should not be excluded because they have not yet passed the test of time. It is absolutely necessary to emphasize the fact that science not only has changed but is continually changing, that it is an activity and not merely a body of facts. Throughout, the social implications of science, the powers that it puts into men's hands, the uses they could make of them and those which they in fact do, should be brought out and made real by a reference to immediate experience of ordinary life.”

John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) British scientist

Source: The Social Function of Science (1939), p. 246 : How such a method of teaching could become an integral part of general education is sketched by H. G. Wells' British Association address, "The Informative Content of Education," reprinted in World Brain (Mathuen, 1938).

Life, Men, Hostility, Education

“SWA Magazine: Talking about spacecraft, what do you think about the shuttle program?
Asimov: Well, I hope it does get off the ground. And I hope they expand it, because the shuttle program is the gateway to everything else. By means of the shuttle, we will be able to build space stations and power stations, laboratory facilities and habitations, and everything else in space.
SWA Magazine: How about orbital space colonies? Do you see these facilities being built or is the government going to cut back on projects like this?
Asimov: Well, now you've put your finger right on it. In order to have all of these wonderful things in space, we don't have to wait for technology - we've got the technology, and we don't have to wait for the know-how - we've got that too. All we need is the political go-ahead and the economic willingness to spend the money that is necessary. It is a little frustrating to think that if people concentrate on how much it is going to cost they will realize the great amount of profit they will get for their investment. Although they are reluctant to spend a few billions of dollars to get back an infinite quantity of money, the world doesn't mind spending $400 billion every years on arms and armaments, never getting anything back from it except a chance to commit suicide.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

An Interview with Isaac Asimov (1979)

Money, People, World, Hope

“If my theoretical studies have contained any subjective value judgment, then this has amounted at most to a preference for freedom and progress rather than state control of the economy and distribution of such scanty prosperity as may be available for distribution at a given moment. I have wanted to make it clear that this preference is a great common interest of all parties, both in the management of the world economy and in every individual nation. Such a position may be attacked, but it cannot be denominated as party-politics in the ordinary sense.”

Gustav Cassel (1866–1945) Swedish economist

Cassel (1941, 440); as cited in: Carlson, Benny, and Lars Jonung. "Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal on the role of the economist in public debate." Econ Journal Watch 3.3 (2006): 524-5.

World, Sense, Study, Freedom

“Anybody can reduce taxes, but it is not so easy to stand in the gap and resist the passage of increasing appropriation bills which would make tax reduction impossible. It will be very easy to measure the strength of the attachment to reduced taxation by the power with which increased appropriations are resisted. If at the close of the present session the Congress has kept within the budget which I propose to present, it will then be possible to have a moderate amount of tax reduction and all the tax reform that the Congress may wish for during the next fiscal year. The country is now feeling the direct stimulus which came from the passage of the last revenue bill, and under the assurance of a reasonable system of taxation there is every prospect of an era of prosperity of unprecedented proportions. But it would be idle to expect any such results unless business can continue free from excess profits taxation and be accorded a system of surtaxes at rates which have for their object not the punishment of success or the discouragement of business, but the production of the greatest amount of revenue from large incomes. I am convinced that the larger incomes of the country would actually yield more revenue to the Government if the basis of taxation were scientifically revised downward. Moreover the effect of the present method of this taxation is to increase the cost of interest. on productive enterprise and to increase the burden of rent. It is altogether likely that such reduction would so encourage and stimulate investment that it would firmly establish our country in the economic leadership of the world.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

World, Feeling, Business, Success

“The brain is a complex system, but that doesn’t mean it’s incomprehensible. Our neural circuits were carved by natural selection to solve problems that our ancestors faced during our species’ evolutionary history. Your brain has been molded by evolutionary pressures just as your spleen and eyes have been. And so has your consciousness. Consciousness developed because it was advantageous, but advantageous only in limited amounts.”

David Eagleman (1971) neuroscientist and author

Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain

History, Nature, Problem

“So, human beings complain that the world is ill-made, do they? But ill-made for whom? For Man, who, in the immense design of the Universe is no more than an unimportant mould! The probability is that everything in this world which we think is botched or erroneous has its reasons at a totally different level of existence. The mould endures, no doubt, a small amount of suffering, but somewhere there are giants who, huge in stature as in mind, live in a state of semi-divinity. This is Voltaire's answer to the problem of evil. It is not very satisfactory because the mould need never have been created, and, in the eyes of God, it may well be that mere size is of no importance.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

The Art of Writing

God, World, Problem, Thinking

“As mathematical and absolute certainty is seldom to be attained in human affairs, reason and public utility require that judges and all mankind in forming their opinions of the truth of facts should be regulated by the superior number of the probabilities on the one side or the other whether the amount of these probabilities be expressed in words and arguments or by figures and numbers.”

William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705–1793) British judge

Reported in Andrew Stuart, Letters to the Right Honorable Lord Mansfield (1773), p. 29.

Truth, Mathematics

“Mere chance … alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter IV: "Natural Selection", page 111 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=126&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

Chance

“The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

As quoted in Meditations for Parents Who Do Too Much (1993) by Jonathon Lazear and Wendy Lazear, p. 5.

Way

“I believe that the fight against substance addictions is very important and is a duty of the state and society, but this fight must be carried out in a deliberate way not to produce large amounts of splinters hurting a lot of people around while only chopping small trees.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulai, Jerzy (20 February 2009): Wódka groźniejsza niż egzotyczne ziółka http://www.monar.net.pl/Article8247.html. Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish).

People, Way, Tree, Fight

“Women's Studies can amount simply to compensatory history; too often they fail to challenge the intellectual and political structures that must be challenged if women as a group are ever to come into collective, nonexclusionary freedom.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Blood, Bread and Poetry (1986), ch. 1

Women, History, Study, Freedom

“There are huge differences in the way male and female actors are perceived. Women have to be a certain size, in order to get good roles. The only successful, larger-than-average female actor I can think of is Kathy Bates. And once women reach a certain age, they can only expect one or two good roles per year, whereas male actors can continue working regularly well into their forties. Then there are the types of roles available to women. We're constantly depicted as sidekicks, ingenues, and hangers-on, rarely as independent and capable individuals. And the enormous, huge discrepancies in pay…. the amounts that some male actors make are astronomically obscene. Women in Hollywood are constantly shown that there's a difference between them and men, and that that's okay. But it's not okay.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

On inequality in Hollywood — reported in Lynne Melcombe, BC Woman "Supernatural SuXXess" http://www.gilliananderson.ws/transcripts/94_95/95bcwoman.shtml (October, 1995) 1990s

Women, Men, Age, Way

“Science is a search for truth –whatever the truth may turn out to be, even if it’s evidently not what we wanted to believe it was. In science, it doesn’t matter what you believe; all that matters is why you believe it. This is why real science disallows faith, promising instead to remain objective, to follow wherever the evidence leads, and either correct or reject any and all errors along the way even if it challenges whatever we think we know now. But creationist organizations post written declarations of their unwavering obligation to uphold and defend their preconceived notions, declaring in advance their refusal to ever to let their minds be changed by any amount of evidence that is ever revealed. Anti-science evangelists display their statement of faith proudly on their own forums, as if admitting to a closed and dishonest mind wasn’t something to ashamed of or beg forgiveness for. They don’t want to do science. They want to un-do science! They try to segregate experimental science from historical science, ignoring the fact that both are based on empirical observations and both can be checked with testable hypotheses. Worse, they want to redefine science in general so that astrology, subjective convictions of faith, and excuses of magic can supplant the scientific method whenever necessary in defense of their beliefs. They’re only open to critical inquiry so long as that is not permitted to challenge the sacred scriptures nor vindicate any of the fields of study to which they’re already opposed. In short, everything science stands for, -or hopes to achieve- is threatened by the political agenda of these superstitious subversives.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Truth, Faith, Hope, Way

“It was all a matter of hard work and luck, and Ryan didn't mind either of those. No, the stuff that wore you down was the parts where no amount or work seemed to make the difference, where luck simply wasn't there and wasn't coming and you couldn't seem to explain that to someone who had their heart set on the world being the way it was supposed to be, instead of the way it was.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 4

World, Way, Heart, Parting

“One should view the present situation – the status quo – as being maintained by certain conditions or forces. A culture – for instance, the food habits of a certain group at a given time – is not a static affair but a live process like a river which moves but still keeps to a recognizable form…Food habits do not occur in empty space. They are part and parcel of the daily rhythm of being awake and asleep; of being alone and in a group; of earning a living and playing; of being a member of a town, a family, a social class, a religious group... in a district with good groceries and restaurants or in an area of poor and irregular food supply. Somehow all these factors affect food habits at any given time. They determine the food habits of a group every day anew just as the amount of water supply and the nature of the river bed determine the ﬂow of the river, its constancy or change.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Kurt Lewin (1943) "Psychological ecology". In: D. Cartwright (Ed.) Field Theory in Social Science. London: Social Science Paperbacks. As cited in: Bernard Burnes (2004) " Kurt Lewin and the Planned Approach to Change: A Re-appraisal https://blackboard.le.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/institution/College%20of%20Social%20Science/School%20of%20Management/DL%20Materials/MBA/2.%20Organizational%20Behaviour/Section%208/Burnes.pdf" in: Journal of Management Studies. Vol 41. Nr 6. p. 977-1002. 1940s

Family, Food, Nature, Water

“Behind all the Great-Society-style and standardized testing, wars on poverty or drugs, self-esteem seminars. A good portion of the African-American population was simply institutionalized or interned, in public housing complexes, in urban schools, and in one of the biggest prison systems the world has ever known. It all amounts to a sprawling race gulag in which people are both dependent and hedged about with restrictions.”

Crispin Sartwell (1958) American philosopher

White Liberals: We’re Not Racist (August 29, 2016)

War, People, World, School

“Wealth, or large amounts of possessions seemed to him limiting. They brought their own prison with them. He preferred, since he had once known a kind of prison, to travel free.”

Tanith Lee (1947–2015) British writer

Source: Short fiction, Companions on the Road (1975), Chapter 2, “The Chalice” (p. 16)

Travel, Wealth

“The amount of our danger, therefore, it would be impolitic to conceal from the people. It was the first duty of ministers to make it known, and after doing so, it should have been their study to provide against it, and to point out the means to the country by which it might be averted.”

William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) British politician

"The War Speeches of William Pitt", Oxford University Press, 1915, p. 314
Speech in the House of Commons, 18 July 1803, opposing a vote of censure on his successor Henry Addington.

People, Study, Country

“That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future, which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

The Pearl of Orr's Island : A Story of the Coast of Maine (1862).

Life, Confidence, Future

“This is, in fact, the philosophical defence of progressive socialism, that human progress requires that one after another the lower material animal functions shall be reduced to routine, in order that a larger amount of individual effort may be devoted to the exercise of higher functions and the cultivation by strife of higher qualities.”

J.A. Hobson (1858–1940) English economist, social scientist and critic of imperialism

section 11, p. 421
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906), Ch. XVII Civilisation and Industrial Development

Exercises, Effort, Animals

“Dialogue in Hell:
probable resources. How are loans made? By the issue of bonds containing an obligation on the part of the government to pay a yearly interest proportionate to the capital which has been depleted. If the loan is at 5 percent, for instance, the state, at the end of twenty years, has paid a sum equal to the capital borrowed; at the end of forty years, a double amount; at the end of sixty years, a triple amount, and yet it always remains debtor for the total of the same capital. The modern states wished to put a necessary”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Hell, Parting

“• Special Provisions on unfilled positions, which provide that the unexpended amount for unfilled positions will revert to the unappropriated surplus for those agencies with fiscal autonomy, were deleted.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

“They were the misfits of the world, the outcasts, for they deviated from the norm of humanity as established through all of history. Yet it was this very deviation which made them the hope of all mankind. Ordinary human beings—the kind of human beings who had brought the race this far—were not enough today. The ordinary humans had pushed the culture forward as far as they could push it. It had served its purpose; it had brought the ordinary human as far as he could go. Now the race evolved. Now new abilities had awoke and grown—exactly as the creatures of the Earth had evolved and specialized and then evolved again from that first moment when the first feeble spark of life had come into being in the seething chemical bath of a new and madcap planet.
Twisted brains, the normal people called them; magic people, dwellers of the darkness—and could anyone say no to this? For each people set its standards for each generation and these standards and these norms were not set by any universal rule, by no all-encompassing yardstick, but by what amounted to majority agreement, with the choice arrived at through all the prejudice and bias, all the faulty thinking and the unstable logic to which all intelligence is prone.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time is the Simplest Thing

Source: Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Chapter 31 (pp. 233-234)

Life, People, World, Hope

“Susan [Silver] gives me a huge amount of room to be that recluse, and also the incentive to not be. It’s worth a lot to see her be excited about being around someone who’s not afraid of his shadow. It’s good for her. She digs it. But we’re becoming more alike. When she comes home to me from a day at the office, where she’s talking to people from all over the world about all sorts of important things… well, I probably haven’t answered the phone in seventy-two hours. She knows that when she comes home she’s going to get privacy, because I’m not like ‘These are my South American friends and… honey, have you ever really listened to that first Van Halen album?’ She’s the best roommate I’ve ever had. People are sort of perplexed, as to how this could possibly work in this grunge-music, super-druggy era where everybody is so emotionally screwed up. Not only is Soundgarden not OD’ing on heroin, but the singer’s wife manages the band, there’s no weird Yoko Ono trip, and she’s not trying to make us dress up like lions and unicorns.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

When asked if intimacy is an issue in his marriage to Soundgarden's manager Susan Silver ** Interview with Details Magazine, December 1996 https://pitchfork.com/features/article/10081-chris-cornell-searching-for-solitude/, Soundgarden Era

People, World, Music, Home

“Reagan finally won the nomination by promoting "Reaganomics", an economic program based on the theory that the government could lower taxes while increasing spending and at the same time actually reduce the federal budget by sacrificing a live chicken by the light of a full moon. Bush charged that this amounted to "voo-doo economics," which got him into hot water until he explained that what he meant to say was "doo-doo economics." Satisfied, Reagan made Bush his vice-presidential nominee. The turning point in the election campaign came during the October 8 debate between Reagan and Carter, when Reagan's handlers came up with a shrewd strategy: No matter what Carter said, Reagan would respond by shaking his head in a sorrowful manner and saying: "There you go again." This was brilliant, because (a) it required the candidate to remember only four words, and (b) he delivered them so believably that everything Carter said seemed like a lie. If Carter had stated that the Earth was round, Reagan would have shaken his head, saying, "There you go again," and millions of voters would have said: "Yeah! What does Carter think we are? Stupid?”

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

Dave Barry, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), p. 167

Lie, Stupidity, Thinking, Light

“In the "Alexandrian" explanation described above, the multiple from which evolution emerges is both secondary and sinful from its origin: it represents in fact (an idea that smacks of Manicheanism and the Hindu metaphysical systems) broken and pulverized unity. Starting from a very much more modern and completely different point of view, let us assert, as our original postulate, that, the multiple (that is, non-being, if taken in the pure state) being the only rational form of a creatable (creabile) nothingness, the creative act is comprehensible only as a gradual process of arrangement and unification, which amounts to accepting that to create is to unite. And, indeed, there is nothing to prevent our holding that union creates. To the objection that union presupposes already existing elements, I shall answer that physics has just shown us (in the case of mass) that experientially (and for all the protests of "common sense") the moving object exists only as the product of its motion.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

pp. 193–195 https://archive.org/stream/ChristianityAndEvolution/Christianity_and_Evolution#page/n191/mode/2up Christianity and Evolution (1969)

Idea, Sense

“If the organization is faced with greater uncertainty due to technological change, higher performance standards due to increased competition, or diversifies its product line to reduce dependence, the amount of information processing is increased. The organization must adopt at least one of the four strategies when faced with greater uncertainty.”

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

Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 26

Change, Dependency

“In the city of Agra there was a large temple, in which there were numerous idols, adorned and embellished with precious jewels and valuable pearls. It was the custom of the infidels to resort to this temple from far and near several times in each year to worship the idols, and a certain fee to the Government was fixed upon each man, for which he obtained admittance. As there was a large congress of pilgrims, a very considerable amount was realized from them, and paid into the royal treasury. This practice had been observed to the end of the reign of the Emperor Shah Jahan, and in the commencement of Aurangzeb's government; but when the latter was informed of it, he was exceedingly angry and abolished the custom. The greatest nobles of his court represented to him that a large sum was realized and paid into the public treasury, and that if it was abolished, a great reduction in the income of the state would take place. The Emperor observed, 'What you say is right, but I have considered well on the subject, and have reflected on it deeply; but if you wish to augment the revenue, there is a better plan for attaining the object by exacting the jizya. By this means idolatry will be suppressed, the Muhammadan religion and the true faith will be honoured, our proper duty will be performed, the finances of the state will be increased, and the infidels will be disgraced.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

'This was highly approved by all the nobles; and the Emperor ordered all the gold en and silver idols to be broken, and the temple destroyed.
Kanzul-Mahfuz (Kanzu-l Mahfuz), in: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. VIII, pp. 38 -39.
Quotes from late medieval histories

Faith, Religion, Time

“As you can experience days or hours within its framework in the dream state and not age for the comparable amount of physical time, so as you develop, you will be able to rest and be refreshed within psychological time even when you are awake. This will aid your mental and physical state to an amazing degree. You will discover and added vitality and a decreased need to sleep. Within any given five minutes of clock time, for example you may find an hour of resting which is independent of clock time.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 152

Age, Dreams, Sleep, Time

“!-- I think everything depends on money. How much money does the administration want to put forth to do this kind of exploration. And I think the amount we're getting now is about what we're going to get in the future. I don't see that changing very much and so I think we'll take that money and use it to build a space station. Then we'll use it to make it a little better and then when money frees up of that amount, then we'll try to decide what we can do with that money then.
I don't think we're going to see a sudden jump in the budget other than inflation. It will keep going with inflation. So I don't see anything for a while. It's going to be an orderly movement and that's okay. That's the way history is. --> History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.”

Alan Bean (1932–2018) American astronaut and painter

An Interview with Alan Bean (1992)

Money, Way, History, Thinking

“Torture is not tolerated by this country on the battlefield or off. Anyone who tortures or abuses a detainee tarnishes the service of every honorable student and soldier in this room today. The President has said this, and I will say it again: those who commit torture in the name of the United States government will be prosecuted. In any discussion of Guantanamo, detainees and military commissions, I think that one final fact helps put things in perspective — and that is the fact that members of al Qaeda are not merely common criminals. Some critics around the world have argued that they are “just” criminals, that their crimes somehow do not amount to war crimes. But here are the facts: al Qaeda seeks to employ weapons of mass slaughter as a means of achieving political goals against both the civilian and military capacity of the United States, Europe, and our allies throughout the world. Its members continue to fight our Armed Forces on battlefields around the world, and they will continue to do so until we stop them. Al Qaeda has committed acts on a scale that transcends mere crime, as recognized by NATO immediately after the attacks of September 11th. Their crimes are therefore nothing less than war crimes. Given the magnitude of the atrocities al Qaeda has committed, there can be no comparison between the crimes of its members and that of common civilian criminals.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech regarding Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism (November 20, 2006)

War, World, Thinking, Help

“More important than his record as a debater is Mr. Bush's record as a president. And therein lies the true opportunity for John Kerry — notwithstanding the president's political skills, his performance in office amounts to a catastrophic failure.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

"How to Debate George Bush" in The New York Times (29 September 2004) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/opinion/29gore.html?ex=1254196800&en=b0a4fff00be52eb0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland.

Failure

“There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay book Critical and Historical Essays

"Essay on Ludwig von Ranke's 'History of the Popes', in "Critical and Historical Essays", iii, (London; Longman, 7th Edn. 1952), 100-1.
Attributed

Life, Hostility, Children, Lie

“There is an unlimited amount of power to be found in simplicity. Keep your intent and action simple and the doors of success, happiness, and abundance will fly open for you.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 98

Happiness, Success, Flying

“We have no architecture to work from at all; indeed, we have not even settled the point de depart… our art… is domestic, and… the best way of advancing its progress is to do our best in our own houses… if we once manage to obtain a large amount of art and colour in our sitting-rooms… the improvement may gradually extend to our costume, and perhaps eventually to the architecture of our houses.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

Source: Art applied to industry: a series of lectures, 1865, p. 91-92; Cited in: "William Burges 1827-1881 London Architect" in: In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement http://books.google.com/books?id=56F8Qv96FzwC&pg=PA406. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1 jan. 1986. p. 405

Art, Way, Housing

“Abiogenesis has a decent amount of evidence behind it, but nowhere near as much as evolution does. So far we still don’t know which (if any) of the explanations posed for the origin of life is the most accurate one. But if there’s one thing the wisdom of the ages has taught us, it is that simply not yet knowing the real explanation is no reason to go and blame anything on magic. Besides, even if a god did appear and summon the first life into being billions of years ago, there is no question but that life has certainly evolved since then, and is still evolving now.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"6th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3k0dDFxkhM, Youtube (February 2, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Life, Wisdom, God, Age

“[Sultan Firoz Tughlaq] convened a meeting of the learned Ulama and renowned Mashaikh and suggested to them that an error had been committed: the Jiziyah had never been levied from Brahmans: they had been held excused, in former reigns. The Brahmans were the very keys of the chamber of idolatry, and the infidels were dependent on them (kalid-i-hujra-i-kufr und va kafiran bar ishan muataqid und). They ought therefore to be taxed first. The learned lawyers gave it as their opinion that the Brahmans ought to be taxed. The Brahmans then assembled and went to the Sultan and represented that they had never before been called upon to pay the Jiziyah, and they wanted to know why they were now subjected to the indignity of having to pay it. They were determined to collect wood and to burn themselves under the walls of the palace rather than pay the tax. When these pleasant words (kalimat-i-pur naghmat) were reported to the Sultan, he replied that they might burn and destroy themselves at once for they would not escape from the payment. The Brahmans remained fasting for several days at the palace until they were on the point of death. The Hindus of the city then assembled and told the Brahmans that it was not right to kill themselves on account of the Jiziyah, and that they would undertake to pay it for them. In Delhi, the Jiziyah was of three kinds: Ist class, forty tankahs; 2nd class, twenty tankahs; 3rd class, ten tankahs. When the Brahmans found their case was hopeless, they went to the Sultan and begged him in his mercy to reduce the amount they would have to pay, and he accordingly assessed it at ten tankahs and fifty jitals for each individual.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Shams Siraj Afif, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924073036737#page/n381/mode/2up

Death, Error, Learning, Dependency

“I was writing for businesses. I think my mother was a little skeptical in the beginning, but fortunately, as a free-lance writer I was successful almost immediately. And so she was very proud, because she measured success in terms of money, which is what I started to do as well. My goal then, became to increase the amount of money that I made each month. Not simply each year, but each month — I mean, talk about pressure — to have more billable hours each month. So that by the end of my third year of being a free-lance writer, I was billing 90 hours a week. I had no time to sleep. I had no life. People said I was crazy, that I was a workaholic. And I couldn't understand how it was that I had these wonderful clients, and I was making all this money, and I wasn't happy and I didn't feel successful. That's when I started to write fiction.”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

American Acheivement interview (1996)

Life, Money, Happiness, People

“The President’s proposed budget for FY 2015 under the N. E. P. or the National Expenditure Program amounts to P2.606 trillion, reflecting an increase of P341.372 billion or 15.07% higher than the Fiscal Year 2014 budget. It is anchored on a real GDP projection of 7-8%, an inflation rate of 2-4%, 364-day T-Bill rate of 2-4%, and a foreign exchange rate of P42-45 to the dollar.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

“That country will have the greatest security whose informational and scientific situation is adequate to meet the demands that may be put on it—the country in which it is fully realized that information is important as a stage in the continuous process by which we observe the outer world, and act effectively upon it. In other words, no amount of scientific research, carefully recorded in books and papers, and then put into our libraries with labels of secrecy, will be adequate to protect us for any length of time in a world where the effective level of information is perpetually advancing.”

Norbert Wiener book The Human Use of Human Beings

VII. Communication, Secrecy, and Social Policy. p. 121-122
The Human Use of Human Beings (1950)

Books, World, Time, Country

“Domestication involved the initiation of production, vastly increased divisions of labor, and the completed foundations of social stratification. This amounted to an epochal mutation both in the character of human existence and its development, clouding the latter with ever more violence and work.”

John Zerzan (1943) American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

Elements of Refusal (1988)

“The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens; but it is equally true that a good revenue system is the life of an organized government. I meet you at a time when the nation has voluntarily burdened itself with a debt unprecedented in our annals. Vast as is its amount, it fades away into nothing when compared with the countless blessings that will be conferred upon our country and upon man by the preservation of the nation's life. Now, on the first occasion of the meeting of Congress since the return of peace, it is of the utmost importance to inaugurate a just policy, which shall at once be put in motion, and which shall commend itself to those who come after us for its continuance. We must aim at nothing less than the complete effacement of the financial evils that necessarily followed a state of civil war.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

Quote, First State of the Union Address (1865)

Life, War, Peace, Intelligence

“My whole concept of economics is based on the idea that we have to explain how prices operate as signals, telling people what they ought to do in particular circumstances. The approach to this problem has been blocked by a cost or labor theory of value, which assumes that prices are determined by the technical conditions of production only. The important question is to explain how the interaction of a great number of people, each possessing only limited knowledge, will bring about an order that could only be achieved by deliberate direction taken by somebody who has the combined knowledge of all these individuals. However, central planning cannot take direct account of particular circumstances of time and place. Additionally, every individual has important bits of information which cannot possibly be conveyed to a central authority in statistical form. In a system in which the knowledge of relevant data is dispersed among millions of agents, prices can act to coordinate the separate actions of different individuals.
Given this context, it is intellectually not satisfactory to attempt to establish causal relations between aggregates or averages in the manner in which the discipline of macroeconomics has attempted to do. Individuals do not make decisions on the basis of partial knowledge of magnitudes such as the total amount of production, or the total quantity of money. Aggregative theorizing leads nowhere.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1960s–1970s, A Conversation with Professor Friedrich A. Hayek (1979)

Money, People, Idea, Question

“It is only by intuition that the infinite can be apprehended. But why is this? Why cannot the infinite be apprehended by concepts? To see this we must understand that the word "infinite," in the religious sense, has nothing at all to do with that sense of the word in which it is applied to space, time, and the number series. We may call this latter the mathematical infinite to distinguish it from the religious infinite. And it is the confusion between these two which misled us into the false trail of supposing that the infinity of God's mind refers to the amount of His knowledge and that the finitude of man's mind refers to his ignorance. The religious infinite, or in other words the infinity of God, means that than 'which there is no other. In this sense neither space nor time could be infinite, since space is an "other" to time, and time is an "other" to space.”

Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) British civil servant, educator and philosopher.

p. 46-47.

God, Mathematics, Understanding, Knowledge

“The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are, the better for us and the more the amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Feeling, Passion

“No amount of moral admonishment or "indirect pressure" will guarantee that our demands are met, in the absence of our own organizational presence on the ground. Only by struggling ourselves can we convince our allies of our attachment to the revolution, to the land, and to our national rights. And only by struggling ourselves will we have the chance to impose our demands, in the face of all reactionary opposition."”

Monte Melkonian (1957–1993) National Hero of Armenia

Source: The Right to Struggle (1993), P. 63.

Chance

“It consists in the genius of the nation, which is prone to peace; in that desire to arrange, by friendly negotiation, our disputes with all nations…. But a new state of things has arisen: negotiation has become hopeless. The power with whom it was to be conducted, if not annihilated, is in the situation that precludes it; and the subject-matter of it is in danger of being snatched forever from our power. Longer delay would be construed into a dereliction of our right, and would amount to a treachery to ourselves.”

Henry Clay (1777–1852) American politician from Kentucky

Speech on the Line of the Perdido, Senate (25 December 1810).

Peace

“Following von Neumann and Morgenstern [7, p. 30], we distinguish between games with complete information, to be sometimes briefly called C-games in this paper, and games with incomplete information, to be called I-games. The latter differ from the former in the fact that some or all of the players lack full information about the "rules" of the game, or equivalently about its normal form (or about its extensive form). For example, they may lack full information about other players' or even their own payoff functions, about the physical facilities and strategies available to other players or even to themselves, about the amount of information the other players have about various aspects of the game situation, etc.
In our own view it has been a major analytical deficiency of existing game theory that it has been almost completely restricted to C-games, in spite of the fact that in many real-life economic, political, military, and other social situations the participants often lack full information about some important aspects of the "game" they are playing.”

John Harsanyi (1920–2000) hungarian economist

Source: "Games with Incomplete Information Played by “Bayesian” Players," 1967, p. 163: Lead paragraph's

Life, Game

“We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that the whole society must do for its actual productivity, but only a little of this has translated itself into leisure for workers because much nonproductive activity is required to accompany productive activity. The main causes of this are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against competition. Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the area of software production. We must do this, in order for technical gains in productivity to translate into less work for us.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

“There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized… the U. S. Patent Office handles an endless succession of inventors who still produce perpetual-motion machines that don't work, but no number of idle flywheels will convince these zealots of their folly; dozens of these patent applications flow in every year. In ashrams all over the world, hopping devotees of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will never abandon their goal of blissful levitation of their bodies by mind power, despite bruises and sprains aplenty suffered as they bounce about on gym mats like demented (though smiling) frogs, trying to get airborne. Absolutely nothing will discourage them.”

James Randi (1928) Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic

The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_of_Nostradamus, p. 140–142.

Age, World, Religion, Smile

“The relation of tonic to dominant is the foundation of Western triadic tonality. The attempt of the early nineteenth century to substitute third or mediant relationships for the classical dominant amounted to a frontal attack on the principles of tonality, and it eventually contributed to the ruin of triadic tonality. This ruin was accomplished from within the system, however, as mediant relationships were essential to tonality as conceived in the eighteenth century.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 4 : Formal Interlude

“If the statistics of any of our cities could be taken on this subject you would find that a vast multitude of women not only support themselves, but masculines also. A great legion of men amount to nothing, and a woman by marriage manacled to one of these nonentities needs condolence. A woman standing outside the marriage relation is several hundred thousand times better off than a woman badly married.”

Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832–1902) American Presbyterian preacher, clergyman and reformer during the mid-to late 19th century.

Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832-1902), The Pathway of Life, New York: The Christian Herald, 1894 p 102.
The Pathway of Life, New York: The Christian Herald, 1894

Women, Men, Marriage, Support

“• The use of the Special Vehicle Pollution Control Fund under DOTC-OSEC, particularly the amount of P2.532 billion for air pollution control of LTO as well as the repair, rehabilitation and maintenance of the Metro Rail Transit which is considered as a pollution-free transportation system;”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

“I would suggest that there is a tendency in our society to cloak what amounts to moral or material conflicts behind the mantle of humanitarianism. This is because serious conflicts of interest are inadmissible in a political order which obtains its moral legitimacy by invoking the notion of a widespread consensus of opinion throughout all sections of the population.”

Jock Young (1942–2013) British sociologist and criminologist

“The role of the police as amplifiers of deviancy,” Images of Deviance (1971), p. 31

“Its importance is that if R[egulator] is fixed in its channel capacity, the law places an absolute limit to the amount of regulation (or control) that can be achieved by R, no matter how R is re-arranged internally, or how great the opportunity in T. Thus the ecologist, if his capacity as a channel is unchangeable, may be able at best only to achieve a fraction of what he would like to do. This fraction may be disposed in various ways —he may decide to control outbreaks rather than extensions, or virus infections rather than bacillary — but the quantity of control that he can exert is still bounded. So too the economist may have to decide to what aspect he shall devote his powers, and the psychotherapist may have to decide what symptoms shall be neglected and what controlled.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Source: An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956), Part 3: Regulation and control, p. 245: Regarding the law of requisite variety

Law, Way

“Shah Alam II once remarked: None could dare to see the combat either of the camels or of the elephants among the Hindu chiefs. The sole exception was made in the case of Raja Jai Singh Sawai, who was permitted by Mohammad Shah after taking from huge amount as tribute.”

Shah Alam II (1728–1806) 16th Mughal Emperor

Quote
Source: http://www.google.com.pk/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=shah+alam+ii+remarked#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&tbm=bks&source=hp&q=None+could+dare+to+see+the+combat+either+of+the+camels+or+of+the+elephants+among+the+Hindu+chiefs.+The+sole+exception+was+made+in+the+case+of+Raja+Jai+Singh+Sawai%2C+who+was+permitted+by+Mohammad+Shah+after+taking+from+huge+amount+as&pbx=1&oq=None+could+dare+to+see+the+combat+either+of+the+camels+or+of+the+elephants+among+the+Hindu+chiefs.+The+sole+exception+was+made+in+the+case+of+Raja+Jai+Singh+Sawai%2C+who+was+permitted+by+Mohammad+Shah+after+taking+from+huge+amount+as&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=15522l15522l4l17439l1l0l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=75a3cf92218087f3&biw=1024&bih=677

“How much do you think it costs to go to college? Most people are likely to answer by adding together their expenditures on tuition, room and board, books, and the like, and then deducting any scholarship funds they may receive. Suppose that amount comes to $15,000.
Economists keep score differently. They first want to know how much you would be earning if you were not attending college. Suppose that salary is $20,000 per year. This may seem irrelevant, but because you give up these earnings by attending college, they must be added to your tuition bill. You have that much less income because of your education. On the other side of the ledger, economists would not count all of the university’s bill for room and board as part of the costs of your education. They would want to know how much more it costs you to live at school rather than at home. Economists would count only these extra costs as an educational expense because you would have incurred these costs whether or not you attend college. On balance, college is probably costing you much more than you think. And, as we will see later, taking opportunity cost into account in any personal planning will help you to make more rational decisions.”

Alan Blinder (1945) economist

William Baumol and Alan Blinder, Economics: Principles and Policy (2011), Ch. 1 : What is Economics?

People, Books, Education, School

“Fifth, in what measure this unification acts, seems to be regulated only by special rules; or, at least, we cannot in our present knowledge say how far it goes. But it may be said that, judging by appearances, the amount of arbitrariness in the phenomenon of human minds is neither altogether trifling nor very prominent.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The Law of Mind (1892)

Knowledge, Appearance

“I'd have to think about that a lot more and probably study a little bit more. But the easy first answer is the United States. The idea that you have a nation started with what you could term a fork. So a fork from the United Kingdom in terms of the American revolution, definitely went through some bumpy parts along the way but sort of ended up as one of the freest places in the world. Especially in regards to speech and property ownership rights and the democratic system. It isn't perfect, but is one of the best things out there. One of the things that I love is the equality of opportunity where its a meritocracy. It's not as important who you are, but it's more what you do. You can have a huge amount of opportunity and the ability to succeed regardless of what you've done before or been involved in.”

Matt Mullenweg (1984) American entrepreneur

On Steppin' off the Edge http://steppinofftheedge.com/podcast/philosophy-of-open-source/, Podcast Interview, January 2011 when asked a question, related to Web Services as Government http://ma.tt/2010/06/web-services-as-governments/ article, about what he would define as his nation state / empire from history if he had to pick one for WordPress or Automattic.

Love, World, Way, Idea

“The king, in his zeal to propagate the faith, now marched against the Hindoos of Nagrakote [Nagarkot Kangra], breaking down their idols and razing their temples. The fort, at that time denominated the Fort of Bheem, was closely invested by the Mahomedans, who had first laid waste the country around it with fire and sword.'…'In the year AH 402 (AD 1011), Mahmood resolved on the conquest of Tahnesur [Thanesar (Haryana)], in the kingdom of Hindoostan. It had reached the ears of the king that Tahnesur was held in the same veneration by idolaters, as Mecca by the faithful; that they had there set up a number of idols, the principal of which they called Jugsom, pretending that it had existed ever since the creation. Mahmood having reached Punjab, required, according to the subsisting treaty with Anundpal, that his army should not be molested on its march through his country…'The Raja's brother, with two thousand horse was also sent to meet the army, and to deliver the following message:- "My brother is the subject and tributary of the King, but he begs permission to acquaint his Majesty, that Tahnesur is the principal place of worship of the inhabitants of the country: that if it is required by the religion of Mahmood to subvert the religion of others, he has already acquitted himself of that duty, in the destruction of the temple of Nagrakote. But if he should be pleased to alter his resolution regarding Tahnesur, Anundpal promises that the amount of the revenues of that country shall be annually paid to Mahmood; that a sum shall also be paid to reimburse him for the expense of his expedition, besides which, on his own part he will present him with fifty elephants, and jewels to a considerable amount." Mahmood replied, "The religion of the faithful inculcates the following tenet: That in proportion as the tenets of the prophet are diffused, and his followers exert themselves in the subversion of idolatry, so shall be their reward in heaven; that, therefore, it behoved him, with the assistance of God, to root out the worship of idols from the face of all India. How then should he spare Tahnesur?"… This answer was communicated to the Raja of Dehly, who, resolving to oppose the invaders, sent messengers throughout Hindoostan to acquaint the other rajas that Mahmood, without provocation, was marching with a vast army to destroy Tahnesur, now under his immediate protection. He observed, that if a barrier was not expeditiously raised against this roaring torrent, the country of Hindoostan would be soon overwhelmed, and that it behoved them to unite their forces at Tahnesur, to avert the impending calamity….”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, pp. 27-37.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

God, Faith, Religion, Communication

“Political structures are excessively paternalistic, and to maintain them requires a high level of energy. The massive amounts of energy they consume are unsustainable and invite political meltdowns, bailouts, and fallout. On the other hand, proponents of complexity theory take the paradigm–shattering view that less is more. They understand that, paradoxically enough, the complexity of simplicity is the key to the emergence of systems, repeatable patterns and the social glue that holds community together and creates order. Anyone can make simplicity complicated; it takes a true genius to make the complicated simple.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 90

Communication, Understanding