Quotes about answer
page 19

“Why do you paint?
For exactly the same reason I breathe.
That’s not an answer.
There isn’t any answer.
How long hasn’t there been any answer?
As long as I can remember.
And how long have you written?
As long as I can remember.
I mean poetry.
So do I.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"Forward to an Exhibit: II" (1945)

Painting

“I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Lie, Christ

“Everybody wants to see the other fellow changed. Every nation wants to see the other nation changed. But everybody is waiting for the other fellow to begin. The Oxford Group is convinced that if you want an answer for the world today, the best place is to start with yourself. This is the first and fundamental need.”

Frank Buchman (1878–1961) Evangelical theologist

Remaking the world, The Speeches of Frank N.D. Buchman, Blandford Presss 1947, revised 1958, p. 24
Moral attitude

World, Change, Waiting

“Well, first—that term, 'women artists.' I was talking to Joan Mitchell at a party about 10 years ago when a man came up to us and said, 'What do you women artists think…' Joan grabbed my arm and said, 'Elaine, let's get the hell out of here.' That was my first response to Linda Nochlin's article ['Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?']. I was curious about how a man would react. Alex Katz thought it would be a cop-out to answer the piece. Sherman thought it would be a cop-out not to answer it. John Cage thought the question 'divisive and an over-simplification.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

I agree with all of them.
n.p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

Women, Hell, Question, Thinking

“There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.”

Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross (1902–2003) British politician

Statement as UK prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials (1945), as quoted in The Nuremberg Trials (1983) by Ann Tusa and John Tusa, ISBN 0815412622

“I would like to clarify the answer published in my name in last month’s issue of Moment Magazine. First of all, the opinions published in my name are solely my own, and do not represent the official policy of any Jewish movement or organization. Additionally, my answer, as written, is misleading. It is obvious, I thought, that any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion. Fundamental to the Jewish faith is the concept that every human being was created in the image of G-d, and our sages instruct us to support the non-Jewish poor along with the poor of our own brethren. The sub-question I chose to address instead is: how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields. I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed (on both sides!)—when one’s own family and nation is mercilessly targeted from those very people and places. Furthermore, some of the words I used in my brief comment were irresponsible, and I look forward to further clarifying them in a future issue. I apologize for any misunderstanding my words created.”

Manis Friedman (1946) American rabbi

Clarification of previous statement http://momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/a-statement-from-rabbi-friedman/ On the Israeli-Arab conflict

Women, War, Children, People

“I can answer you in two words: im-possible!”

Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) American film producer (1879-1974).

Reported in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It (1990), p. 40.
Misattributed

“Here is a list of some of the questions and their short answers (…) The interesting thing is to recognize how totally unavoidable they are, provided you place your confidence in science to provide the answers
Is there a God? No.
What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.
What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.
What is the meaning of life? Ditto.
Why am I here? Just dumb luck.
Does prayer work? Of course not.
Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?
Is there free will? Not a chance!
What happens when we die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us.
What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them.
Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral.
Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don't like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes.
What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don't look for it; it will find you when you need it.
Does history have any meaning or purpose? It's full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.
Does the human past have any lessons for our future? Fewer and fewer, if it ever had any to begin with.”

Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)

Love, Life, God, Feeling

“The Sovereign can only act by advisers, and through the instrumentality of those who are neither infallible nor impeccable— answerable, indeed, for all that the irresponsible Sovereign may do, but liable to err through undue influence, and to be swayed by improper motives.”

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) English barrister, politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Brownlow v. Egerton (1854), 23 L. J. Rep. Part 5 (N. S.), Ch. 390; 8 St. Tr. (N. S.) 258.

Motivation

“Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

God, People, Dependency, Personality

“I knew it long ago: I'm a compulsive teacher, but I can't teach. The godawful state of today's education system isn't what's stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications.
I cannot "suffer fools gladly." The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can't handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Foreword: Playgrounds for the mind
N-Space (1989)

Books, Education, Fools, Suffering

“When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion. I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

The Anas (February 1, 1800). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-01_Bk.pdf, pp. 352–353 1800s

Secret, Religion, Departure

“I read the book of Job over and over. Poor Job. He was afflicted. According to the Bible, he was a just man. But Satan said, “You put your finger on him, and injure him, and he won’t be such a just, devout man.”
So God said to Satan, “Do anything you want with him, but spare his life.” And so he was afflicted. His children deserted him — he lost everything. He was reduced to sackcloth and ashes. Even his wife said, “Curse God and die.” But he didn’t. But he did rebuke God. He said, “I’ve lived a devout life. Worshipped You. I was just to my fellow man. Accomplished all I could in Your name. Look what’s happened.”
And God answered him, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Where were you when I created the galaxies and the universes? Answer as a man! Gird up your loins and answer as a man!””

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

That’s the subject of my next book.
1970s-, The Captains, the Kings, and Taylor Caldwell (1978)

Life, God, Children, Books

“There could have been no more complete answer than that silence, and Lydgate, forgetting everything else, completely mastered by the outrush of tenderness at the sudden belief that this sweet young creature depended on him for her joy, actually put his arms round her, folding her gently and protectingly— he was used to being gentle with the weak and suffering—and kissed each of the two large tears. This was a strange way of arriving at an understanding, but it was a short way.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Way, Understanding, Kiss, Tear

“Murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. In every stage of these repressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, our repreated petitions have been answered only by repreated injury.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Article No. 20 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbFznb7PSGsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false 1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776), Earlier drafts

People

“Computer science is an empirical discipline. […] Each new machine that is built is an experiment. Actually constructing the machine poses a question to nature; and we listen for the answer by observing the machine in operation and analyzing it by all analytical and measurement means available. Each new program that is built is an experiment. It poses a question to nature, and its behavior offers clues to an answer.”

Allen Newell (1927–1992) American cognitive scientist

Source: Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search (1975), p. 114.

Behavior, Question, Nature, Science

“The music reached us. Clumsily,
stumbling over our own roots,
rustling our leaves
in answer,
we moved, we followed.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

A Tree Telling of Orpheus (1968)

Music

“If I could deliver one message to the researchers who are looking for the cause of diabetes, and the cause of clogged arteries, and the cause of high blood pressure, and the cause of obesity, I would tell them the answer is in three words. It's the food! … If people adopted a plant-based diet, the changes we would see in our individual health, in our national health situation and in this physical, environmental world we live in, would be so profound.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

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

People, Health, World, Food

“It is at any rate evident, that a large and ample province remains for the exercise of Providence, without its being naturally perceptible by us; because obscurity, when applied to the interruption of laws, bears a necessary proportion to the imperfection of our knowledge when applied to the laws themselves, or rather to the effects which these laws, under their various and incalculable combinations, would of their own accord produce. And if it be said, that the doctrine of Divine Providence, by reason of the ambiguity under which its exertions present themselves, can be attended with no practical influenceupon our conduct; that, although we believe ever so firmly that there is a Providence, we must prepare, and provide, and act, as if there were none; I answer, that this is admitted: and that we further allege, that so to prepare, and so to provide, is consistent with the most perfect assurance of the reality of a Providence; and not only so, but that it is probably one advantage of the present state of our information, that our provisions and preparations are not disturbed by it. Or if it be still asked, Of what use at all then is the doctrine, if it neither alter our measures nor regulate our conduct? I answer again, that it is of the greatest use, but that it is a doctrine of sentiment and piety, not (immediately at least) of action or conduct; that it applies to the consolation of men's minds, to their devotions, to the excitement of gratitude, the support of patience, the keeping alive and the strengthening of every motive for endeavouring to please our Maker; and that these are great uses.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 26 : The Goodness of the Deity.

Men, Law, Exercises, Motivation

“There's actually a network that I could think of that [does not ask difficult questions] for a living, which is tell the people at home the same answer all the time, because it makes them feel good. And they don't like hearing arguments on that network, the people that watch it. There are people out there that — there was a great scene at the end of Carnal Knowledge — remember that old movie — where Jack Nicholson is going to the hooker, and he wants it exactly the same every time. And when she— when Rita Moreno, who played the hooker, said something just a little bit different in their normal sort of business they did, and he couldn't do it. They want it exactly the same way, these people who watch Fox. Every night they want it the same way. They can't do it if it's not exactly the same way.”

Chris Matthews (1945) American news anchor

Real Time with Bill Maher, 27 August 2004; regarding the Fox News Channel

People, Way, Feeling, Home

“If I were a nationalist I would have answered you," you say slowly and articulately, even much too slowly, much too articulately. "But what sort of nationalist am I if I'm standing here with you drinking beer?”

Yurii Andrukhovych book The Moscoviad

Якби я був націоналістом, то відповів би тобі, — кажеш повільно й виразно, аж занадто повільно, занадто виразно.
Але який з мене націоналіст, коли я отут з тобою п'ю пиво?
The Moscoviad
Source: The Moscoviad. Yuri Andrukhovych. Spuyten Duyvil, New York City. ISBN1933132523, p. 48

Drink, Beer

“Fundamentally, a manager is looking to answer these questions: ‘what to change?’,’ what to change to?’ and ‘ how to cause the change?”

Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1947–2011) Israeli physicist and management guru

The goal: a process of ongoing improvement (1984)

Question, Change

“…mention is made of evidences in favour of the big bang, like the microwave background. It is a relic radiation supposed to have formed very early after the big bang. As the universe expanded it cooled down and its present temperature is at 2.7 K. The only fact which is measurable or has been measured is that there is a background of 2.7 K temperature. Saying that this is left over from the early universe is a speculation. It is a part of a theoretical structure I am supposed to have built which enables me to say that it is a relic of that early-on era. We have given a different explanation. Helium forms by fusion of hydrogen inside a star like the sun, leading to radiation. One can ask the following question: if all the helium that you find in the universe was formed in stars sometime or the other, how much radiation will be formed and what would its temperature be? The answer is 2.7 K. If you ask a big bang person why his relic radiation today has a temperature of 2.7 K he doesn’t know. This alternative explanation that I’m giving is able to do more than what the big bang does. So I don’t see any reason to say we have a very positive proof of the big bang happening.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

Jayant Narlikar's Cosmology

Star, Question, Universe, Sun

“This patchwork of largely fictional works makes the Protocols an incoherent text that easily reveals its fabricated origins. It is hardly credible, if not in a roman feuilleton or in a grand opera, that the “bad guys” should express their evil plans in such a frank and unashamed manner, that they should declare, as the Elders of Zion do, that they have “boundless ambition, a ravenous greed, a merciless desire for revenge and an intended hatred.” If at first the Protocols was taken seriously, it is because it was presented as a shocking revelation, and by sources all in all trustworthy. But what seems incredible is how this fake arose from its own ashes each time someone proved that it was, beyond all doubt, a fake. This is when the “novel of the Protocols” truly starts to sound like fiction. Following the article that appeared in 1921 in the Times of London revealing that the Protocols was plagiarized, as well as every other time some authoritative source confirmed the spurious nature of the Protocols, there was someone else who published it again claiming its authenticity. And the story continues unabated on the Internet today. It is as if, after Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, one were to continue publishing textbooks claiming that the sun travels around the earth.
How can one explain resilience against all evidence, and the perverse appeal that this book continues to exercise? The answer can be found in the works of Nesta Webster, an antisemetic author who spent her life supporting this account of the Jewish plot. In her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, she seems well informed and knows the whole story as Eisner narrates it here, but this is her conclusion:
The only opinion I have committed myself is that, whether genuine or not, the Protocols represent the programme of a world revolution, and that in view of their prophetic nature and of their extraordinary resemblance to the protocols of certain secret societies of the past, they were either the work of some such society or of someone profoundly versed in the lore of secret society who was able to reproduce their ideas and phraseology.
Her reasoning is flawless: “since the Protocols say what I said in my story, they confirm it,” or: “the Protocols confirm the story that I derived from them, and are therefore authentic.” Better still: “the Protocols could be fake, but they say exactly what the Jews think, and must therefore be considered authentic.””

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

In other words, it is not the Protocols that produce antisemetism, it is people’s profound need to single out an Enemy that leads them to believe in the Protocols.
I believe that-in spite of this courageous, not comic but tragic book by Will Eisner- the story is hardly over. Yet is is a story very much worth telling, for one must fight the Big Lie and the hatred it spawns.
Umberto Eco, Milan Italy December 2004 translated by Allesandra Bastagli, p. vi-vii
The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Life, People, Lie, Secret

“An old oriental saying tells us, ‘when our willpower is concentrated upon a stone, it can pass through it. When our willpower is focused and in harmony with the universe, it can command the wind, rain and thunder’. But from where does our willpower come? Those who understand and answer this question are those who accomplish important tasks. When we coordinate mind and body by stilling the waves of our mind to imperceptible, infinitely decreasing ripples, we can send forth our great willpower that moves the universe.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

19 : Willpower
Ki Sayings (2003)

Understanding, Question, Universe

“He always asked, why thus? why this way, not another way? I answered: Because in what we do daily and in the way we do it, we enact the gods. He said: Then the gods are only what we do. I said: In what we do rightly, the gods are.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book Four Ways to Forgiveness

"A Man of the People", p. 106
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)

God, Way

“Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humoured, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich — that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.”

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) English novelist and dramatist

Act III, sc. vii
The Miser (1733)

Money, Lovers

“Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe!”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

"The Battle of Waterloo", reported in Oliver Ernesto Branch, ed., The Hamilton Speaker (1878), p. 53

God, Law, Universe, Change

“I'm not big on compromise. I understand compromise. Sometimes compromise is the right answer, but oftentimes compromise is the equivalent of defeat, and I don't like being defeated.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Life, Vol. 12 (January 1989), p. iii
1980s

Understanding

“Before I'm through with the big leagues I've got three more ambitions I'd like to realize. […] I'd like to hit 500 home runs before I end my big league career. And I ought to do it easily. I already have 480 in regular season games. […] Another is to play in 10 World Series before I quit. And that's one I think I will realize too. I've already been in nine. […] The third one had the boys guessing. The newspaper man guessed and guessed and never hit upon it. As a matter of fact, it hasn't anything to do with baseball records at all. Maybe I'll realize it and maybe I won't. But my third ambition is to play at least one season at a salary of $100,000 a year. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that now to boost my game and I'm not out with any announcement of my demands. I've played with Colonel Ruppert a long time and we've never had any serious disagreements. I know that if I can show him that I'm worth that much money, he'll give it to me. And I'm out to show him. Understand it's strictly up to me. And I mention it here simply because of the question the newspaper man asked me and the answer I gave him.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

In "Babe Ruth Says: I Would Like to Better Mark," The Austin Statesman (June 25, 1929), p. 11

Money, World, Home, Game

“There can be no too many investigations into the Mamasapano carnage if the end goal is to learn the truth. The entire nation is digging for answers in the dark. Only those with reason to fear justice and truth, will find facing the investigations and having the probes unsettling. Any probe panel which is there to do the intended job is always welcome. We must find balance in seeking for justice and learning the truth. We are all players and partners in building and strengthening the peace and in upholding justice.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2015, February 4). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153048401875610/ 2015, Facebook

Truth, Fear, Peace, Justice

“but the speaker with whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly every word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since Bishop of St. David's, then a Chancery barrister, unknown except by a high reputation for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union before the era of Austin and Macaulay. His speech was in answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered ten sentences, I set him down as the best speaker I had ever heard, and I have never since heard any one whom I placed above him.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/125/mode/1up p. 125

“When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness'... because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity... And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Black Room (1975), p. 75

Life, Men, World, Beauty

“It is so very important to remember that, while all healing is of God, we must find the answer to the question, "Which is the most relevant way of cooperating with God in the case of this particular patient? It may be surgery, or medicine, or psychiatry, or prayer. Prayer is not relevant in many cases, save as an aid to the patient’s mental condition, and God is not going to make of prayer an easy magic, just because we have not used our human resources of money and men in wiser ways.””

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.224

Men, Money, God, Way

“The plans of all of the powers have always been entirely selfish as far as Turkey was concerned. For years Russia has coveted Constantinople, to say nothing of the rest of Turkey along the Black Sea and south of the Caucasus, and Britain has endeavored to keep us just strong enough to prevent Russia from realizing these ambitions. Finally came the Kaiser with his scheme of a chain of German-controlled states from the Baltic to the Persian Gulf. Russia would wipe us off the map, England would keep us weak, and Germany would make us strong. All selfish motives on the face of them, no doubt, but- can you wonder which alternative is the least repugnant to us Turks, especially to us Young Turks, who have done our best to avoid being enmeshed in the nets of British and Russian diplomacy and intrigue which held helpless our predecessors? I think I will not need to say more to answer your question as to why it was Germany obtained the Bagdad railway concession, why the Hedjaz line was built by Germans, and why the Germans are recasting our military establishment.”

İsmail Enver (1881–1922) Turkish military officer and a leader of the Young Turk revolution

Quoted in "The American Review of Reviews" - Page 184 - by Albert Shaw – 1915.

Motivation, Question, Thinking, Strong

“Now, some may ask why we don't get rid of the bases, since the Soviet Government declares today that it has only peaceful intentions. The answer is that whenever the fear and suspicions that caused us and our Allies to take measures for collective self-defense are removed, the reason for our maintaining bases will be removed. In other words, the only possible solution of this problem lies in mutual, rather than unilateral action leading toward disarmament.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Remarks during a radio address in Moscow, quoted in "1959 Year In Review: Death of John Foster Dulles," http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1959/Death-of-John-Foster-Dulles/12295509433704-3/#title UPI.com (1959) 1950s

Fear, Peace, Problem

““Actually, the answer’s quite simple.” Two red eyes floated in the mist.
“Really? Tell me. Why does God allow evil?”
The red eyes vanished, leaving only the lantern and the night. “Because power corrupts,” said Wyvern’s disembodied voice. “And absolute power corrupts absolutely.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 85)

God, Evil, Night

“I grew up in a mostly Buddhist environment. My father, when very young, was the first American to be ordained as a Buddhist monk. He now teaches Indo-Tibetan studies at Columbia University and is regarded as this country's foremost authority on Buddhism. When the Dalai Lama comes to America, it's my father who is his host. When asked if I consider myself Buddhist, the answer is, not really. But it's more my religion than any other because I was brought up with it in an intellectual and spiritual environment. I don't practice or preach it, however. But Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them.”

Uma Thurman (1970) American actress and model

Interview with Laura Yorke. Reader's Digest. July 2006

World, Religion, Thinking, Study

“[N]early every political evil can be found on display in China: slavery, discrimination, religious persecution, xenophobia, tyranny, mass-political indoctrination, colonialism, cultural genocide, and so on. And yet, the outcry against these things in America and the West is a tiny fraction of what it was with regard to South Africa in the 1980s or Israel today. Why? Some of the political answers are pretty obvious — and have much merit. A few that come to mind: China is non-Western, and many of these sins are supposed to be unique to white Europeans; China is a victim (or “victim”) of colonialism, and so we shouldn’t judge it harshly; China is very powerful, and realpolitik dictates that we be diplomatic; and so on.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, When Evil Becomes Inconvenient (2018)

Evil

“Weinberg says that "we want to know what's happening out there". But this is just the standard anti-quantum zealots' misunderstanding of the essence of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics says that all knowable things about the physical system must be obtained through a measurement whose outcomes are predicted via the Born rule. There is nothing else happening out there, at least nothing else knowable that is happening out there! So quantum mechanics does answer the question what is happening out there and the claim that quantum mechanics is incomplete in this sense is simply a lie.”

Luboš Motl (1973) Czech physicist and translator

https://motls.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-recent-dissatisfied-weinbergs-talk-on.html The Reference Frame http://motls.blogspot.com/

Lie, Question, Sense

“How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”

Henry David Thoreau book Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience (1849)

“If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming "This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!" we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

The Value of Science (1955)
Context: We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
... It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time. This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as we are. If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming "This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!" we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before.
... It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.

Imagination, Time

“There are no demands - undue demands… There are many questions we get? why China? why now and the answer is why not?… There is no any hidden agenda in our cooperation with China, it is a relationship based on mutual understanding and equality; they understand our situation.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

During President Hu Jintao's visit to Tanzania on China's aid with few strings, 2009-02-16 http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=10661 2009

Understanding, Question

“Nature's process of creation, as it exists in its timelessness, in its oneness and peace, has all the answers to man's needs of growth and progress and development. If the human endeavor first absorbs and then adopts these answers in its developmental process, the growth from cities to mega cities and path to progress would not create silent self digging graves of human extinction.”

Manav Gupta (1967) Indian artist

Rainforests and the Timeless Metaphors of Dreams by Manav Gupta (August 1997)
"on my eyot, umbilical cords of earth" by Manav Gupta (May 1999)
One minute films on environment consciousness (Commissioned by the Govt. of India) (2005)
1990s

Peace, Nature

“Where did he get jelly beans?
That's another good question. More than likely it will never be answered to your complete satisfaction. But then, how many questions ever are?”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

"'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (1965)

Question

“There are only two answers for the handling of people from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale, neither one of which has anything to do with reasoning with them or listening to their justification of their acts. The first is to raise them on the Tone Scale by un-enturbulating some of their theta by any one of the three valid processes. The other is to dispose of them quietly and without sorrow.”

L. Ron Hubbard book Science of Survival

Source: Science of Survival (1951), p. 170.

People

“The organizer who creates roles, who creates the holes that will force the pegs to their shape, is a prime creator of personality itself. When we ask of a man, "What is he?" the answer is usually given in terms of his major role, job, or position in society; he is the place that he fills, a painter, a priest, a politician, a criminal.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Organizational Revolution: A study in the ethics of economic organization, 1953, p. 80, quoted in: Paul S. Adler eds. (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical Foundations. p. 552

Personality

“We must ask, not whether an anarcho-capitalist society would be safe from a power grab by the men with the guns (safety is not an available option), but whether it would be safer than our society is from a comparable seizure of power by the men with the guns. I think the answer is yes. In our society, the men who must engineer such a coup are politicians, military officers, and policemen, men selected precisely for the characteristic of desiring power and being good at using it. They are men who already believe that they have a right to push other men around - that is their job. They are particularly well qualified for the job of seizing power. Under anarcho-capitalism the men in control of protection agencies are selected for their ability to run an efficient business and please their customers. It is always possible that some will turn out to be secret power freaks as well, but it is surely less likely than under our system where the corresponding jobs are labeled 'non-power freaks need not apply.”

David D. Friedman book The Machinery of Freedom

Source: The Machinery of Freedom, 1973, pp. 123-124

Men, Secret, Business, Thinking

“I asked John Maynard Smith, one of the first people to pose the question 'Why sex?', whether he still thought some new explanation was needed. 'No. We have the answers. We cannot agree on them, that is all.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 2. The Enigma

People, Sex, Question

“Some children saw Nasreddin coming from the vineyard with two baskets full of grapes loaded on his donkey. They gathered around him and asked him to give them a taste.
Nasreddin picked up a bunch of grapes and gave each child a grape.
"You have so much, but you gave us so little," the children whined.
"There is no difference whether you have a basketful or a small piece. They all taste the same," Nasreddin answered, and continued on his way,”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Idries Shah, The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin (1985), ISBN 0863040403, p. 60

Children, Way

“I've been asked whether I feel more like a Brit than an American and I don't know what the answer to that question is. I know that I feel that London is home and I'm very happy with that as my home. I love London as a city and I feel very comfortable there. In terms of identity, I'm still a bit baffled.”

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

BlogTalkRadio "Milling About with Gillian Anderson" http://www.blogtalkradio.com/robin-milling/2013/05/24/milling-about-with-gillian-anderson (May 24, 2013) 2010s

Love, Happiness, Feeling, Home

“There are these four ways of answering questions. Which four? There are questions that should be answered categorically [straightforwardly yes, no, this, that]. There are questions that should be answered with an analytical (qualified) answer [defining or redefining the terms]. There are questions that should be answered with a counter-question. There are questions that should be put aside. These are the four ways of answering questions.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

As quoted in: Ṭhānissaro (Bhikkhu.) (2004) Handful of leaves. Vol. 3, p. 80

Way, Question

“After this the disciple turned again in all seriousness to eternal Truth and asked for the power to discern by outward appearance a person who was truly detached. He asked thus. Eternal Truth, how do such people act in relation to various things?
Answer: They withdraw from themselves, and all things withdraw along with this.
Question: How do they conduct themselves with respect to time?
Answer: They exist in an ever-present now, They exist in an ever-present now, free of selfish intentions free of selfish intentions, and they seek to act perfectly in the smallest thing as in the greatest.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Truth

People, Truth, Question, Appearance

“and you don’t think any of our current religions hold a key to that answer, do you?
we have talked about this before. your religions (collective you, meaning all mankind) are artificial things, like your morality sets. their correspondence to reality is limited, there is not a one-to-one relationship. as far as I am concerned, they are little more than word games. a logic system should be built upon a foundation of truth and should not have to be taken on faith—and faith is at the core of too many of your religions. if there is a truth to the universe, then that truth will also suggest a religion/morality set that will be every bit as binding as the ethical system at my core. were there presently a religion or morality that had that one-to-one correspondence with reality, i would accept it wholeheartedly. it would be impossible not to accept it; it would be the key to understanding the nature of god. as yet, there is no system that fulfills those conditions. i know of no way to develop such a system without at least one provable fact about god at its core. because of that, because there is no fact, i can only suspect that there is no god.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 15 (p. 71; Dr. Auberson's question; HARLIE's answer)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

God, Truth, Faith, Religion

“For it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse." "You are not to be hanged sir," answered my ever-honored and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to be hanged that horses may not be stolen.”

Henry Fielding book The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon

The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1754), Introduction

Horse

“Shan had always said that in any multiple choice about human motivation, the real answer was always "all of the above."”

John Barnes book Earth Made of Glass

Earth Made of Glass (1998)

Motivation

“The basic value of any proposition is its commercial aspect, and naturally the first query of inventor, capitalist and layman is : "What conditions exist that will make a market for automobiles or create a desire in the public mind for their use?" Some will say progression, the spirit of which surrounds us everywhere; others say, expediency and the desire for saving- minutes and even seconds; others, again, their convenience and readiness for instant use; all of which are true but do not in a broad sense answer the question, but create another as to what has made all these things desirable on the part of the public as things necessary to its comfort and welfare.”

Clinton Edgar Woods (1863) American engineer

Source: The Electric Automobile (1900), p. 1, First paragraph of first chapter entitled "General conditions surrounding the introduction and use of automobiles"

Question, Nature, Sense, Parting

“Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people. But what we do know for sure is the terrorists are going to be at war with us a year, a year and a half from now.”

Rudy Giuliani (1944–2001) American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City

News conference (12 June 2007); as quoted in "Giuliani Sets Forth a Dozen Priorities for His Presidency" in The New York Times (13 June 2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/us/politics/13giuliani.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

War, People, Success

“It seems plain and self-evident, yet it needs to be said: the isolated knowledge obtained by a group of specialists in a narrow field has in itself no value whatsoever, but only in its synthesis with all the rest of knowledge and only inasmuch as it really contributes in this synthesis toward answering the demand, "Who are we?"”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Science and Humanism (1951)

Knowledge

“For any picture, ask yourself what question or questions it might be answering. Since the picture could answer many, questions, we can decide what question we are interested in. The picture will, of course, suggest that some questions are likely to find answers in it. For instance, Owens's pictures of pantries and refrigerators clearly suggest that they will answer questions about what kinds of food the inhabitants of the houses store and presumably eat, while other pictures in Suburbia suggest that they will answer other questions about the housekeeping arrangements of these people.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Howard Becker (1974). "Art as Collective Action." American Sociological Review 39:767-76.

People, Food, Question, Housing

“I'm the last person he called that night. I wonder, how many girls didn't answer before he got to fat freshman me? Am I in his phone as Schumer? Probably. But I was here, and I wanted to be held and touched and felt desired, despite everything. I wanted to be with him. I imagined us on campus together, holding hands, proving, "Look! I am lovable! And this cool older guy likes me!"”

Amy Schumer (1981) American comedian and actor

I can't be the troll doll I'm afraid I've become.
Ms. Foundation for Women’s Gloria Awards and Gala [Vulture, http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/read-amy-schumers-ms-gala-speech.html, May 2014, Read Amy Schumer’s Powerful Speech About Confidence, Jennifer, Vineyard]

Guy, Imagination, Girl, Personality

“If the answer is more politicians, you are asking the wrong question.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Attributed to Major by Vernon Bogdanor, " Why the Lords doesn't need more politicians http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/02/11/do1104.xml", Sunday Telegraph, 11 February 2007 Attributed

Question

“When I was five, I am told, and asked what my favorite things in the world were, I answered, “smoked salmon and Bach.” (Now, sixty years later, my answer would be the same.)”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), p. 182

World

“At what price have so many of us come to believe that the economy is the realm of natural order and that the legitimate and competent sphere of policing—of administration and government—lies elsewhere? What flows from that sharp dichotomy between orderliness in the market and ordering in the penal sphere? At what price do we embrace these categories? And here, the answer is equally clear: at the price, first, of naturalizing the market and thereby effectively shielding from normative assessment the regulatory mechanisms in our contemporary markets and the wealth distributions that occur daily; and at the price, second, of easing, facilitating, and enabling the massive expansion of our penal sphere, or, to be more provocative, of making possible mass incarceration today.”

Bernard Harcourt (1963) American academic

Source: The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (2011), pp. 31-32

Nature, Wealth

“With regard to the principle [of using symbols to represent sounds], it matters little whether the symbol is an elaborately detailed picture, a slightly stylized drawing, or a drastically abbreviated symbol of essentially abstract form. What is crucial is to recognize that the diverse forms perform the same function in representing sound. To see that writing has the form of pictures and to conclude that it is pictographic is correct in only one sense -- that of the form, but not the function, of the symbols. We can put it this way:
QUESTION: When is a pictograph not a pictograph?
ANSWER: When it represents a sound.”

John DeFrancis book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy

The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (1984, p. 140) http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/ideographic_myth.html The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (1984)

Way, Question, Sense, Drawing

“"It's twilight," Edward murmured. […] "It's the safest time of day for us," he said, answering the unspoken question in my eyes. "The easiest time. But also the saddest, in a way … the end of another day, the return of the night. Darkness is so predictable, don't you think?" He smiled wistfully.
"I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars."”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, pp. 232-233
Twilight series, Twilight (2005)

Smile, Way, Star, Question

“[Computers] are developing so rapidly that even computer scientists cannot keep up with them. It must be bewildering to most mathematicians and engineers… In spite of the diversity of the applications, the methods of attacking the difficult problems with computers show a great unity, and the name of Computer Sciences is being attached to the discipline as it emerges. It must be understood, however, that this is still a young field whose structure is still nebulous. The student will find a great many more problems than answers.”

George Forsythe (1917–1972) Stanford University computer scientist

George Forsythe (1961) "Engineering students must learn both computing and mathematics". J. Eng. Educ. 52 (1961), p. 177. as cited in ( Knuth, 1972 http://www.stanford.edu/dept/ICME/docs/history/forsythe_knuth.pdf) According to Donald Knuth in this quote Forsythe coined the term "computer science".

Problem, Science

“Tell Mr. Gordon to load himself up on States' Rights before I come. Did he ever read John Baldwin's testimony before the Reconstruction Committee in wch., in answer to a question, Baldwin said that he & all Confederates had committed treason? I say the Confederates who deny they were rebels are ashamed of it. I am proud of it. What's the difference.”

John S. Mosby (1833–1916) Confederate Army officer

Letter to Sam Chapman (August 1907)

Question, Reading

“Asked what he gained from philosophy, he answered, "To do without being commanded what others do from fear of the laws."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Aristotle, 9.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics

Fear, Law

“The reason I am answering is not for the benefit of the superior court. It is to keep these gentlemen from saying I was afraid to meet them and let them question me, and I want the Christian world to know that any atheist, agnostic, unbeliever, can question me anytime as to my belief in God, and I will answer him. … Your honor, they have not asked a question legally and the only reason they have asked any question is for the purpose, as the question about Jonah was asked, for a chance to give this agnostic an opportunity to criticize a believer in the world of God; and I answered the question in order to shut his mouth so that he cannot go out and tell his atheistic friends that I would not answer his questions. That is the only reason, no more reason in the world.”

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) United States Secretary of State

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

God, World, Question, Chance

“The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd – one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like – one writes novels about it.”

Anthony Powell (1905–2000) English novelist

The Times, May 15, 1986.

Life, Idea, Question

“When I go back to school everyone asks a lot of questions. Then, after about a week, when I've answered everything, we get back to normal”

Daniel Radcliffe (1989) English actor

http://www.movietome.com/people/86509/daniel-radcliffe/trivia.html

School, Question

“I don't want to live in your world in which 1 percent of the children are born defective."My answer was rather brutal, I fear. "It is not my world,”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War

Children, World, Fear

“Why is doubt the one thing we're never skeptical of? We question other peoples' beliefs, and the more sure they are the more we doubt them. But it never occurs to us to doubt our own doubt. Question our own questions. We think our questions are answers.”

Orson Scott Card book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

People, Question, Thinking

“The King asked the knight, whose name was Sir Thomas of Norwich: "Is my son dead or stunned, or so seriously wounded that he cannot go on fighting?" "No, thank God," replied the knight, "but he is very hard pressed and needs your help badly." "Sir Thomas," the King answered, "go back to him and to those who have sent you and tell them not to send for me again today, as long as my son is alive. Give them my command to let the boy win his spurs, for if God has so ordained it, I wish the day to be his and the honour to go to him and to those in whose charge I have placed him."”

Jean Froissart (1337–1405) French writer

Lors respondi li rois et demanda au chevalier, qui s'appelloit messires Thumas de Nordvich: "Messires Thumas, mes filz est il ne mors ne atierés, ou si bleciés qu'il ne se puist aidier?" Cilz respondi: "Nennil, monsigneur, se Dieu plaist; mais il est en dur parti d'armes: si aroit bien mestier de vostre ayde."
"Messire Thumas, dist li rois, or retournés devers lui et devers chiaus qui ci vous envoient, et leur dittes de par moy qu'il ne m'envoient meshui requerre pour aventure qui leur aviegne, tant que mes filz soit en vie. Et dittes leur que je leur mande que il laissent à l'enfant gaegnier ses esporons; car je voel, se Diex l'a ordonné, que la journée soit sienne, et que li honneur l'en demeure et à chiaus en qui carge je l'ai bailliet."
Book 1, p. 92.
Chroniques (1369–1400)

God, Boy, Help, Fight

“Alas! So there is no escape from the question. Not for me, not for anyone! Then life is just breathing or running behind infinite number of questions? And then, what question is really? And what answer is too? This too a question. I observe the question mark carefully. And Eureka! I didn't know that my answer was encrypted and hidden in that symbol of a question mark. The dot below the curved stroke in a question mark symbolizes Zero as the question's answer itself, I never knew. Punctuation marks are so carefully crafted, I never knew!”

P. L. Deshpande (1919–2000) Marathi writer, humourist, actor, dramatist

citation needed
From his various literature

Life, Question

“I received your favor. In reply I will say concerning the plates, I do say that the angel did show to me the plates containing the Book of Mormon. Further, the translation that I carried to Prof. Anthon was copied from these same plates; also, that the professor did testify to it being a correct translation. I do firmly believe and do know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, for without I know, he could not [have] had that gift, neither could he have translated the same. I can give, if you require it, one hundred witnesses to the proof of the Book of Mormon. I defy any man to show to me any passage of scripture that I am not posted on or familiar with. I will answer any questions you feel like asking to the best of my knowledge, if you can rely on my testimony of the same. In conclusion, I can say that I arrived at Utah safe, in good health and spirits, considering the long journey. I am quite well at present and have been, generally speaking, since I arrived. With many respects, I remain your humble friend.”

Martin Harris (1783–1875) Book of Mormon witness

The True Latter Day Saints’ Herald 22:630, 1875.
Letter written by Harris to the early Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints newspaper after his arrival in Utah . The letter was addressed to “Mr. Emerson, Sir,” and is dated Smithfield, Utah, Nov. 23rd, 1870. (1870)

God, Health, Books, Angels

“What kind of political order, then, is taking shape in Europe, 15 years after Maastricht? The pioneers of European integration – Monnet and his fellow spirits – envisaged the eventual creation of a federal union that would one day be the supranational equivalent of the nation-states out of which it emerged, anchored in an expanded popular sovereignty, based on universal suffrage, its executive answerable to an elected legislature, and its economy subject to requirements of social responsibility. In short, a democracy magnified to semi-continental scale (they had only Western Europe in mind). But there was always another way of looking at European unification, which saw it more as a limited pooling of powers by member governments for certain – principally economic – ends, that did not imply any fundamental derogation of national sovereignty as traditionally understood, but rather the creation of a novel institutional framework for a specified range of transactions. De Gaulle famously represented one version of this outlook; Thatcher another. Between these federalist and inter-governmentalist visions of Europe, there has been a continual tension down to the present.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

"Depicting Europe", London Review of Books (20 September 2007)

Way, Democracy, Universe

“We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors toward animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don't even know why. Many of us spend long minutes in the aisle of the drugstore mulling over what toothpaste to buy. Yet most of us don't spend any time at all thinking about what species of animal we eat and why. Our choices as consumers drive an industry that kills ten billion animals per year in the United States alone. If we choose to support this industry and the best reason we can come up with is because it's the way things are, clearly something is amiss. What could cause an entire society of people to check their thinking caps at the door—and to not even realize they're doing so? Though this question is quite complex, the answer is quite simple:.”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), pp. 27-28

Love, People, Dogs, Way

“From the Kantian doctrine of the a priori carried to its genuine completion, as we have now seen it, we infer that the objects which present themselves in course of the normal and critical action of human consciousness are all that objects as objects can be; that beyond or beneath what completed human reason (moral, of course, as well as perceptive and reflective) finds in objects and their relations, or can and will find, there is nothing to be found; that our universe is the universe, which exists, so far as we know it, precisely as we know it, and indeed in and through our knowing it, though not merely by that. To state the case more technically, the cognition belonging to each mind is the indispensable condition of the existence of reality, though it is not the completely sufficient condition. If one asks, What then is this sufficient condition, the answer is, The consensus of the whole system of minds, including the Supreme Mind, or God.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Later German Philosophy, p.170

God, Reality, Universe

“"I love you," I whispered.
"You are my life now," he answered simply.”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, p. 314
Twilight series, Twilight (2005)

Love, Life

“Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be “monks and nuns,” but the standard reply is, “prisoners.” And inevitably this conjures up citizens of the Provider State who have protection from the “cradle to the grave.””

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Leftism Revisited (1990), p. 88

Food, Housing, Clothes

“Your arguments are overwhelming. You’re obviously right — and the answer is No.”

Joel Barnett, Baron Barnett (1923–2014) British politician

To education secretary Reg Prentice Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11205400/Lord-Barnett-obituary.html obituary, 3 Nov 2014

“I knew Muhammad Mujeeb personally. He was Head of the Department of History and Shaikh-ul-Jamia… In 1972, however, there was a mild 'confrontation' between him and me. Sometime that year there was a Selection Committee meeting for the post of Professor of History in Delhi University. I was then a Reader and candidate for the post of Professor. Mujeeb was an 'expert'… Mujeeb asked me a question: "Why did the Hindu convert to Islam?" It was a loaded question carrying the suggestion that the initiative for conversion came from the Hindu. In all probability Mujeeb expected me to say that the Hindus suffered from the injustices of the caste system, that Islam was spiritually so great and its message of social equality so attractive that the Hindus queued up for conversion the moment they came in contact with Islamic invaders. A tactful candidate (not a truthful one) would have said what Mujeeb desired, but my answer was different. I said that Hindus did not (voluntarily) convert to Islam; they were converted, often forcibly, as told by Muslim chroniclers. Muslim invaders and rulers felt proud of their achievements in the fields of loot and destruction, enslavement and proselytization. Their chroniclers, writing at their command or independently, speak about their achievements in these spheres in glowing terms. They repeatedly write about the choice offered to the Hindus - "Islam or death". Mujeeb expected a different answer. I was not selected.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), Chapter 6

Death, Truth, History, Question

“A smart man isn't necessarily one who knows all the answers, but knows where to find them.”

Kenny Rogers

Television Show "Kenny Rogers - Going Home"

“Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart
Like: why are we here? And where do we go? And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing its always better when we're together.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Better Together.
Song lyrics, In Between Dreams (2005)

Love, Life, Question, Heart

“Are human beings innately aggressive? …The answer to it is yes. …Only by redefining the words "innateness" and "aggression" to the point of uselessness might we correctly say that human aggressiveness is not innate.”

Edward O. Wilson book On Human Nature

On Human Nature (1978), Ch.5 Aggression

“People who evacuated their homes to get away from the bombings are beginning to come back. However, many have a strange conception of the meaning of unconditional surrender. Often they find their homes have been occupied by the slave workers who have been forced to withstand the bombing. They come to the military government and ask for authority to evict these people. But they get unsympathetic answers…the forced laborers stay put until they can be sent back to their homes…and the Germans look for billets.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

Broadcast from liberated Hamburg (1945)

People, Home

“Answering the question "How do you explain growth of the part of Russians indifferent to politics?", Pavlovsky said: Throughout the last hundred years Russia several times all without exceptions lived with great political projects. Every time livestock of the nation steadily diminished after that, politized condition is always temporary for a person, not quite normal condition. Nowadays we are passing through period of silence, outer peace (most probably, not long) and reconciliation with quiet not rich existence without great risky perspectives. Pray to drag this time out for 4-8 years more.”

Gleb Pavlovsky (1951) Russian political scientist

Peace, Question, Silence, Time

“Ram Mohun replied by writing a satire in Bengali, PAdarI Sisya SambAd, published in 1823, in order to ridicule the doctrine of Trinity. It was an imaginary dialogue between a European missionary and his three Chinese students. After having taught the dogma, the missionary asked his students whether God was one or many. “The first disciple replied that there were three Gods, the second that there were two and the third that there was no God. The teacher rebuked them and demanded an explanation of their answers. The first one said, ‘You said that there are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. According to my counting that is one plus one plus one, making three.’ The second one said, ‘You told us that there were three Gods and that one of them died long ago in a village in a Western country. So I concluded that there are two Gods, now living.’ The third one said, ‘You have said again and again that God was one and that there is no other God and Christ is the real God. But about 1800 years have passed since the Jews, living near the Arabian Sea, crucified him. What else, do you think I can say, Sir, except that there is no God.’”

Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) Indian religious, social, and educational reformer, and humanitarian

PAdarI Sisya SambAd Quoted from Goel, S. R. (2016). History of Hindu-Christian encounters, AD 304 to 1996. Chapter 8 ISBN 9788185990354

God, Thinking, Teachers, Christ

“There are no answers, only cross-references.”

Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) American mathematician

Norbert Wiener 1894-1964 (Vita Mathematica, 1990, p. 337)
Wiener's Law of Libraries

“I’m very interested in the ‘Culture of Interpretation.’ I’m convinced that each great artist has his own personal style, but it is his artistic responsibility in developing this style to respond other interpretations, either prior or at the same time. I’m convinced that Rubinstein would have presented us another Chopin if Cortot had not existed. Cortot presented very romantic Chopin interpretations - really masterly, outstanding, but confused. Rubinstein’s immediate answer was a very classical Chopin. He was really the first to point out the classical line and structure in his oeuvre.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

Time, Personality

“If a manager asks an academic consultant what to do and that consultant answers, then the consultant should be fired. No academic has the experience to know the context of a managerial problem well enough to give specific advice about a specific situation.”

James G. March (1928–2018) American sociologist

On academic consultants.
Ideas as Art (2006)

Problem

“Isn’t it enough to make a man sour on his country when he wants to serve it and won’t be allowed unless he answers a lot of fool questions about the number of cubic inches of water in the Atlantic and the quality of sand in the Sahara desert? p. 11”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 3, The Curse of Civil Service Reform

Fools, Question, Water, Country

“Question: Is not the person who has been transported to interior detachment freed from external exercises?
Answer: One sees few people reach the condition you describe without their strength being wasted. The efforts of those who really achieve it affect them to the marrow. And so, when they realise what is to be done and left undone, they continue to practise the usual exercises, performing them more or less frequently as their strength and the occasion permit.
Question: Where do the pangs of conscience and other anxieties of seemingly good people come from, as well as the unrestrained latitude (of conscience) in other people?
Answer: Both types are focusing their attention on their own image but in different ways; the one group spiritually, the other bodily.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Truth

People, Way, Exercises, Question

“Homeschooling is not a panacea to all our educational problems, but it is part of the answer. It is a proven option for any of you who wish to try it.”

Pat Farenga American activist

How to Get an Education at Home (1991)

Education, Problem, Parting

“The nice thing about political pundits is that, when they answer a question, one no longer understands what they were asked.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Controcorrente, 1974 – 1986.
1950s - 1990s

Understanding, Question

“If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers.”

Edward Condon (1902–1974) physicist

Physics, in What is Science?: Twelve Eminent Scientists and Philosophers Explain Their Various Fields to the Layman, by James Roy Newman, published by Simon and Schuster (1955), p. 102

Question, Effort

“Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, "Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,—Sleep before Death."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Consolation to Apollonius

Death, Sleep

“Religion is a simplistic answer that society has created in order to make people feel better, but there is little evidence as to its validity. There are thousands of religions in the world, each with their own "correct" answers, and each contradicting each other. For now the most sensible explanation to me is that we are the result of a lucky combination of cosmic factors, we're the "mold" that has grown on this particular planet and in a universe as vast as ours, it's expected that somewhere this would happen.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

People, World, Religion, Feeling

Quotes about answer page 19

Quotes about answer
page 19