Quotes about answer (3274 quotes, page 22)

“Is there intellectual life in America? At present, the answer is no.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), p. 97

Life

“They have learned to uncover truths in many forms, and that an answer need not be final.”

Roger Smith (executive) (1925–2007) CEO

Truth , Learning

“Baby, baby let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I'll give you my answer in the morning…”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

Bat out of Hell (1977), Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Sleep , Baby

“John F. Kennedy's death was as personal a body blow to most of the nation's young people. Why? It seems to me that the answer is simple: He was the symbol of the new generation grasping the tiller of the ship of state for the first time, and finding it exhilarating, exciting, challenging. He knew that there is an element of danger in accepting a challenge — in taking a risk that is beyond what is expected of you, beyond what you may expect of yourself.”

Leo Ryan book Understanding California Government and Politics

Understanding California Government and Politics (1966), Preface, p. v.

Death , People , Time , Personality

“A gentleman reading a poem that began withWhere is that man that never yet did hear
Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen?[Jonson] calling his cook, asked if he had ever heard of her, who answering "No," demonstrate to him Lo, there the man that never yet did hear
Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden (1711)

Reading , Cooking

“Although the '60s counterculture has been much maligned and discredited, it attempted to provide what we still desperately need: a spirited culture of refusal, a counter-life to the reigning corporate culture of death. We don't need to return to that counterculture, but we do need to take up its challenge again. If the work we do produces mostly bad, ugly, and destructive things, those things in turn will tend to re-create us in their image. We need to turn to good, useful, and beautiful work. We need to ask, as Thoreau and Ruskin did, What are the life-giving things? Such important questions are answered for us in the present by the corporate state, while we are left with the most trivial decisions: what programs to watch on TV and what model car to buy.”

Curtis White (1951) American academic

"The spirit of disobedience: an invitation to resistance"

Life , Death , Beauty , Cars

“It is not without fear and trembling that a historian of religion approaches the problem of myth. This is not only because of that preliminary embarrassing question: what is intended by myth? It is also because the answers given depend for the most part on the documents selected.”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (1969), p. 72.

Fear , Religion , Question , Problem

“For me sculpture is divinity. This is the only answer that I could find for myself. Art is man's distinctly human way of fighting death. Through art, man achieves immortality and in this immortality we find God.”

Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973) American and French sculptor

Source: Jacques Lipchitz: The Artist at Work, 1966, p. 189

Death , God , Art , Way

“Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

"Nonmoral Nature", pp. 42–43
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983)

People , World , Failure , Nature

“There are two levels of knowing a subject. There is the student who knows what the definition of a noun or a gene or a molecule is; then there is the student… who also knows how the definition was arrived at. There is the student who can answer a question; then there is the student who also knows what are the biases of the question. There is the student who can give you the facts; then there is the student who also knows what is meant by a fact. I am maintaining that, in all cases, it is the latter who has a "basic" education; the former, a frivolous one.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)

Education , Question

“But Zarathustra made it clear in which direction the answer lay; it is towards the artist-psychologist, the intuitional thinker. There are very few such men in the world's literature; the great artists are not thinkers, the great thinkers are seldom artists.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), p. 158

Men , World , Literature

“I have even seen the writings suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and am making religious experiments at India's expense. I can only answer that Satyagraha is made of sterner stuff. There is nothing reserved and nothing secret in it.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

"A Word of Explanation" in Young India (January 1921)
1920s

Secret , Game

“As soon as the funeral of Augustus was over, a temple and divine worship were forthwith decreed him. The Senate then turned their instant supplications to Tiberius, to fill his vacant place; but received an abstruse answer, touching the greatness of the Empire and his own distrust of himself; he said that "nothing but the divine genius of Augustus was equal to the mighty task: that for himself, who had been called by him into a participation of his cares, he had learnt by feeling them, what a daring, what a difficult toil was that of government, and how perpetually subject to the caprices of fortune: that in a State supported by so many illustrious patriots they ought not to cast the whole administration upon one; and more easy to be administered were the several offices of the Government by the united pains and sufficiency of many."”

Tiberius (-42–37 BC) 2nd Emperor of Ancient Rome, member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty

The Annals of Tacitus - Book 1

Pain , Feeling , Support

““Any chance you own a hijab?”
The answer was no, but Malika could borrow one. Come to that, she could steal one freshly washed off the wall behind her house and claim a sudden, God-inspired attack of modesty if she got caught. The old crows were quite stupid enough to believe that.”

Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer

Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 53 (p. 323)

God , Stupidity , Chance , Housing

“If we pose the question in a soviet, communist fashion, then no republic will be offended. If we pose the question egotistically, it is necessary to answer directly- Azerbaijan will be hurt, Georgia to a lesser degree, and Armenia not at all… Who among you would get up and say that anything we get from the exchange of Baku oil should be refused to our Armenian comrades?”

Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze (1886–1937) Soviet politician

Quoted in "The Azerbaijani Turks: power and identity under Russian rule" - Page 115 - by Audrey L. Altstadt - History – 1992

Fashion , Question , Hurt

“I know the progressives are using progressive tactics. They're not using Nazi tactics. They're— they're— they're— The real answer is the Nazis were using early American progressive tactics. And that's not my opinion, that's historic fact.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2011-01-20
Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
24-Hour Nazi Party People
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Comedy Central
Television
2011-01-24
05:10
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-24-2011/24-hour-nazi-party-people
2010s, 2011

“Extending the reach of political freedom is essential to prevailing in the great struggle of our time, but it is not enough. Many in this chamber have answered the call to help their brothers and sisters in need by working to alleviate hopelessness. These efforts to improve the human condition honor the highest ideals of this institution. They also advance our security interests. The extremists find their most fertile recruiting grounds in societies trapped in chaos and despair, places where people see no prospect of a better life. In the shadows of hopelessness, radicalism thrives. And eventually, that radicalism can boil over into violence and cross borders and take innocent lives across the world.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

Life , People , World , Sister

“In spite of the many valuable books available today, the state of Prokofiev scholarship cannot be considered adequate: suffice it to say that the detailed catalogue of his works has not been updated since it was published in 1961. At present, there is no edition of the Prokofiev sonatas free of errors. I have tried to do my best in pointing out some obvious mistakes, as well as certain doubtful readings. Many questions cannot be answered with certainty, as the manuscripts for some of the sonatas have been lost; those that have survived are not easily available for inspection. To get to some of them, I was fortunate to have the help of Russian colleagues in overcoming the restrictions of the current gatekeepers in Russia.”

Boris Berman (1948) Russian/American musician

Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Preface

Books , Error , Question , Reading

“In Theories of Everything… John Barrow argued that Gödel's incompleteness theorem undermines the very notion of a complete theory of nature. Gödel established that any moderately complex system of axioms inevitably raises questions that cannot be answered about the axioms. The implication is that any theory will always have loose ends. Barrow also pointed out that a unified theory of particle physics would not really be a theory of everything, but only a theory of all particles and forces. The theory would have little or nothing to say about phenomena that make our lives meaningful, such as love or beauty.”

John Horgan (journalist) (1953) American science journalist

Source: The End of Science (1996), p. 66

Love , Beauty , Question , Nature

“The question was put to him, what hope is; and his answer was, "The dream of a waking man."”

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

Dreams , Hope , Question

“Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

Love

“If we were to ask which country is the most corrupt in the world, the first answer to come to mind would be dictated by the perceived level of corruption. Perhaps one might think of Mexico, of South American countries, of African countries, of the Middle East or Italy. But the most corrupt is the UK. It’s not a type of a corruption that concerns civil servants, policemen or mayors; it’s a type of a corruption that is consubstantial to economic system. The British economic system feeds itself on corruption. And in the midst of this, the British government and its citizens have not woken up to the plight that their country is going through. A plight greater than earthquakes, greater than terror attacks.”

Roberto Saviano (1979) Italian journalist, writer and essayist

Dirty Money in London event (2016)

World , Thinking , Country

“As Oliver Cromwell said to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken." Life and the affairs of the living are so tangled, the world not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine, that all questions are conundrums, no answers "correct." Is it certain that parallel lines never meet? No. Does water freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit? Only probably. Shall I marry? Who can say? And yet the world's work must be done. One Oblomov is enough. Thus we learn a conventional certitude, acting as though all were light by blinking the shadow. A simple proof demonstrates that parallel lines do meet, but, on the assumption that they do not, the architect builds the skyscraper. Despite his knowledge of statistical mechanics, the engineer designs the refrigerator to maintain a constant temperature of 31 degrees. Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas [the heart has its reasons that reason does not know], and families are raised.”

Irving Younger (1932–1988) American lawyer

Some of My Life

Life , World , Family , Imagination

“I have no doubt that if an actual ticking bomb situation were to arise, our law enforcement authorities would torture. The real debate is whether such torture should take place outside of our legal system or within it. The answer to this seems clear: If we are to have torture, it should be authorized by the law.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

"Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?", The Los Angles Times, 2001-11-08

Law

“I once asked Aragon, the historian, how history was written. He said, 'You have to invent it.' When I wish as now to tell of critical incidents, persons, and events that have influenced my life and work, the true answer is all of the incidents were critical, all of the people influenced me, everything that happened and that is still happening influences me.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote of John Cage: the first lines of his 'Autobiographical Statement', April, 1990 http://www.johncage.org/autobiographical_statement.html
1990s

Life , People , History , Personality

“I am calling on my citizens, my brothers and sisters in Europe. Don’t have just three children; have five. The place in which you are living and working is now your homeland and new motherland. Stake a claim in it. Open more businesses, enroll your children in better schools, have your families live in better neighborhoods, drive the best cars, live in the most beautiful houses. That's because you are the future of Europe. It will be the best answer to the vulgarism, antagonism and injustices made against you.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in " Erdoğan to Turks in EU: Have 5 children, you are the future of Europe https://www.turkishminute.com/2017/03/17/erdogan-turks-eu-5-children-future-europe/", TurkishMinute (March 17 2017)

Children , School , Family , Beauty

“Had the God of the Quran been the Lord of all creatures, and been Merciful and kind to all, he would never have commanded the Mohammedans to slaughter men of other faiths, and animals, etc. If he is Merciful, will he show mercy even to the sinners? If the answer be given in the affirmative, it cannot be true, because further on it is said in the Quran "Put infidels to sword," in other words, he that does not believe in the Quran and the Prophet Mohammad is an infidel (he should, therefore, be put to death). (Since the Quran sanctions such cruelty to non-Mohammedans and innocent creatures such as cows) it can never be the Word of God.”

Dayanand Saraswati (1824–1883) founder of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement

"Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Volume 19, Issue 1", p. 73

Death , Men , God , Faith

“I was a Great Society liberal on domestic issues. People ask me, 'How do you go from Walter Mondale to Fox News?' The answer is, 'I was young once.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

End of answer.
From a NewsBusters interview https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nb-staff/2012/09/18/charles-krauthammer-tells-nb-obama-administration-live-such-bubble-they 18 September 2012
2010s, 2012

People

“Frequently I am asked if I will take my life when I have a terminal illness. My answer is: "I'll wait and see." If my dying is bearable, the pain well managed, and my self-control and dignity are not damaged, then I shall hang on and die naturally. But if I am one of the unlucky few who suffer abysmally, then I shall make a quick exit. This book is intended for readers who think much the same as me.”

Derek Humphry book Final Exit

"Introduction", p. XX
Final Exit

Life , Pain , Books , Nature

“I very well recollect the reformation which took place in the country among the various denominations of Christians-the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others-when Joseph was a boy. Joseph's mother, one of his brothers, and one, if not two, of his sisters were members of the Presbyterian Church, and on this account the Presbyterians hung to the family with great tenacity. And in the midst of these revivals among the religious bodies, the invitation, "Come and join our church," was often extended to Joseph, but more particularly from the Presbyterians. Joseph was naturally inclined to be religious, and being young, and surrounded with this excitement, no wonder that he became seriously impressed with the necessity of serving the Lord. But as the cry on every hand was, "Lo, here is Christ," and "Lo, there!" Said he, "Lord, teach me, that I may know for myself, who among these are right." And what was the answer? "They are all out of the way; they have gone astray, and there is none that doeth good, no not one. When he found out that none were right, he began to inquire of the Lord what was right, and he learned for himself. Was he aware of what was going to be done? By no means. He did not know what the Lord was going to do with him, although He had informed him that the Christian churches were all wrong, because they had not the Holy Priesthood, and had strayed from the holy commandments of the Lord, precisely as the children of Israel did.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 12:67 (June 23, 1867)
Young’s recollection of religious excitement and events leading up to Joseph Smith, Jr.’s first vision.
1860s

Children , Family , Way , Boy

“Calumnies are answered best with silence.”

Ben Jonson Volpone

Volpone (1606), Act II, scene ii

Silence

“The landscape painter, perhaps, goes even further. It is not only in living beings that he sees the reflection of the universal soul; it is in the trees, the bushes, the valleys, the hills. What to other men is only wood and earth appears to the great landscapist like the face of a great being. Corot saw kindness abroad in the trunks of the trees, in the grass of the fields, in the mirroring water of the lakes. But there Millet read suffering and resignation.
Everywhere the great artist hears spirit answer to his spirit. Where, then, can you find a more religious man?
Does not the sculptor perform his act of adoration when he perceives the majestic character of the forms that he studies? — when, from the midst of fleeting lines, he knows how to extricate the eternal type of each being? — when he seems to discern in the very breast of the divinity the immutable models on which all living creatures are moulded? Study, for example, the masterpieces of the Egyptian sculptors, either human or animal figures, and tell me if the accentuation of the essential lines does not produce the effect of a sacred hymn. Every artist who has the gift of generalizing forms, that is to say, of accenting their logic without depriving them of their living reality, provokes the same religious emotion; for he communicates to us the thrill he himself felt before the immortal verities.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Art, 1912, Ch. Mystery in Art

Men , Soul , Communication , Reality

“Find a fraction which, multiplied by itself, shall give 6, or… find the square root of 6. This can be shown to be an impossible problem; for it can be shown that no fraction whatsoever multiplied by itself, can give a whole number, unless it be itself a whole number disguised in a fractional form, such as 4⁄2 or 21⁄3. To this problem, then, there is but one answer, that it is self-contradictory. But if we propose the following problem,—to find a fraction which, multiplied by itself, shall give a product lying between 6 and 6 + a; we find that this problem admits of solution in every case. It therefore admits of solution however small a may be… as small as you please.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

...there is such a thing as the square root of 6, and it is denoted by √<span style="text-decoration: overline">6</span>. But we do not say we actually find this, but that we approximate to it.
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

Lying , Problem

“Inside each of us dwells a more-perfect self waiting to unfold. It cries loudly for release, yet it is sometimes ignored. To answer its call, you must take time to listen.”

DeBarra Mayo (1953) American martial artist

Runner's World Yoga Book II, Anderson World Books, Inc., 1983 ISBN 0-89037-274-8

Time , Waiting , Perfection

“Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

No. 29.
Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723)

God , Hope

““Hi, Sven.”
“Hi, yourself. The answer’s no.””

Robert Lynn Asprin (1946–2008) American science fiction and fantasy author

Source: Time Scout (1995), Chapter 7 (p. 111)

“Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—
And what should they know of England who only England know?”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

The English Flag, Stanza 1 (1891).
Other works

World

“I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment. It's not because I enjoy being in that position. It's because the law is that way. I actually think the law should be that way. We can't talk about information not contained in the four corners of the indictment.”

Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer

Fitzgerald News Conference from nytimes.com (October 28, 2005) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/politics/28text-fitz.html?pagewanted=all

Law , Way , Thinking

“Heaven, they say, protects children, sailors, and drunken men; and whatever answers to Heaven in the academical system protects freshmen.”

Thomas Hughes book Tom Brown at Oxford

Source: Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), Ch. 12

Men , Children

“I was shamed into it by my son, Bill, who came to me in 1960 -- he was 14 then -- and said: "Mother, you've been professing that you're an atheist for a long time now. Well, I don't believe in God either, but every day in school I'm forced to say prayers, and I feel like a hypocrite. Why should I be compelled to betray my beliefs?" I couldn't answer him. He quoted the old parable to me: "It is not by their words, but by their deeds that ye shall know them" -- pointing out that if I was a true atheist, I would not permit the public schools of America to force him to read the Bible and say prayers against his will. He was right. Words divorced from action supporting them are meaningless and hypocritical. So we began the suit. And finally we won it. I knew it wasn't going to make me the most popular woman in Baltimore, but I sure as hell didn't anticipate the tidal wave of virulent, vindictive, murderous hatred that thundered down on top of me and my family in its wake.”

Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1919–1995) Atheist activist

"Playboy Interview: Madalyn Murray", Playboy (October 1965), on why she pursued Murray v. Curlett

God , School , Family , Feeling

“Yahtzee was born in Warwickshire, England, on the day of the great storm of 1983. Twenty years later, when England had become too small to accommodate the five hundred kilometre-wide tumour growing out of the back of his neck, he moved to Brisbane, Australia, where a chance encounter with an enraged surfer caused the tumour to become detached. It has now gone on to star in a number of Japanese fetish videos, while Yahtzee occupies a treehouse on the edge of the city, struggling to learn how to live with corks around his hat. The enraged surfer tries to keep in touch, but Yahtzee never answers his phone.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

About page http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/about.htm
Fully Ramblomatic

Star , Learning , Chance

“Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

This is from the poem "Answers" by Elizabeth Jennings, which has wrongly been attributed to Sitwell at a few sites on the internet.
Misattributed

Love , Life , Star

“Thou art—what? Let the still small voice of God help you to fill it in. Must the answer be, thou art—impure, intemperate, dishonest, untruthful, irreverent, blasphemous, selfish, covetous, careless, unkind, lukewarm, lazy, ungrateful, unforgiving, filled with hypocrisy, defeated, a slave? Thou art—. Be honest. Fill it in.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 38

God , Art , Help , Selfishness

“… dinosaur bones that are supposedly millions of years old have been found to show evidence of arthritis, abscesses, and osteoarthritis. Evidence of cancer and other diseases have also been found in fossil bones. So, if a Christian believes the fossil record was laid down millions of years before the first two people, then they've accepted that there were all sorts of horrible diseases in this world before sin. How could God have described such a world as VERY GOOD?… No - our answers in Genesis make it clear that there were NO diseases before sin. This is another reason why Christians cannot believe in millions of years to form the fossil record.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

God , People , World , Disease

“Suppose we a certain Number of things exposed, different each from other, as a, b, c, d, e, &c.; The question is, how many ways the order of these may be varied? as, for instance, how many changes may be Rung upon a certain Number of Bells; or, how many ways (by way of Anagram) a certain Number of (different) Letters may be differently ordered?
Alt.1,21) If the thing exposed be but One, as a, it is certain, that the order can be but one. That is 1.
2) If Two be exposed, as a, b, it is also manifest, that they may be taken in a double order, as ab, ba, and no more. That is 1 x 2 = 2. Alt.3
3) If Three be exposed; as a, b, c: Then, beginning with a, the other two b, c, may (by art. 2,) be disposed according to Two different orders, as bc, cb; whence arise Two Changes (or varieties of order) beginning with a as abc, acb: And, in like manner it may be shewed, that there be as many beginning with b; because the other two, a, c, may be so varied, as bac, bca. And again as many beginning with c as cab, cba. And therefore, in all, Three times Two. That is 1 x 2, x 3 = 6.
Alt.34) If Four be exposed as a, b, c, d; Then, beginning with a, the other Three may (by art. preceeding) be disposed six several ways. And (by the same reason) as many beginning with b, and as many beginning with c, and as many beginning with d. And therefore, in all, Four times six, or 24. That is, the Number answering to the case next foregoing, so many times taken as is the Number of things here exposed. That is 1 x 2 x 3, x 4 = 6 x 4 = 24.
5) And in like manner it may be shewed, that this Number 24 Multiplied by 5, that is 120 = 24 x 5 = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5, is the number of alternations (or changes of order) of Five things exposed. (Or, the Number of Changes on Five Bells.) For each of these five being put in the first place, the other four will (by art. preceeding) admit of 24 varieties, that is, in all, five times 24. And in like manner, this Number 120 Multiplied by 6, shews the Number of Alternations of 6 things exposed; and so onward, by continual Multiplication by the conse quent Numbers 7, 8, 9, &c.;
6) That is, how many so ever of Numbers, in their natural Consecution, beginning from 1, being continually Multiplied, give us the Number of Alternations (or Change of order) of which so many things are capable as is the last of the Numbers so Multiplied. As for instance, the Number of Changes in Ringing Five Bells, is 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 = 120. In Six Bells, 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 = 120 x 6 = 720. In Seven Bells, 720 x 7 = 5040. In Eight Bells, 5040 x 8 = 40320, And so onward, as far as we please.”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

Source: A Discourse of Combinations, Alterations, and Aliquot Parts (1685), Ch.II Of Alternations, or the different Change of Order, in any Number of Things proposed.

Art , Way , Question , Nature

“To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child of his own. He teases it. He punishes it. He sends it up like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a sleeping monkey's tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna's smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory.
He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.
The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument. From the age of three he has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of story-telling. He has magic in him, this man within the painted mark and swirling skirts.
But these days he has become unviable. Unfeasible. Condemned goods. His children deride him. They long to be everything that he is not. He has watched them grow up to become clerks and bus conductors. Class IV non-gazetted officers. With unions of their own.
But he himself, left dangling somewhere between heaven and earth, cannot do what they do. He cannot slide down the aisles of buses, counting change and selling tickets. He cannot answer bells that summon him. He cannot stoop behind trays of tea and Marie biscuits.
In despair he turns to tourism. He enters the market. He hawks the only thing he owns. The stories that his body can tell.
He becomes a Regional Flavour.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

page 230-231.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love , Men , God , War

“We must be very careful when we speak of exercising "leadership" in Asia. We are deceiving ourselves and others when we pretend to have answers to the problems, which agitate many of these Asiatic peoples. Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction…
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to 'be liked' or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague — and for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

VII. Far East
Memo PPS23 (1948)

People , World , Exercises , Problem

“Politics have always covered two distinct kinds of problems: problems of administrative routine, and those that may be called 'questions of the moment.'… A question of the moment is, indeed, a substitute for some notion, such as the idea of God, or hereditary monarchy, or national glory, that has hitherto acted as a symbol of human co-ordination. It provides no new positive certainty to replace the discredited certainty, but is what the name implies: the raising of a question which the old certainty no longer answers.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

Laura Riding and Robert Graves from "Poetry and Politics", reprinted in The Common Asphodel (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1949)

God , Idea , Question , Problem

“There was a treasure in the earth which the Lord loved. I marvelled and thought what it might be, and I was answered in mine understanding: It is a food which is delectable and pleasant to the Lord.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 51

Love , Food , Understanding

“One said of suicide, “As long as one has brains one should not blow them out.” And another answered, “But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.””

F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) British philosopher

No. 48.
Aphorisms (1930)

Suicide

“Anno 1670, not far from Cyrencester, was an Apparition: Being demanded, whether a good Spirit, or a bad? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious Perfume and most melodious Twang. Mr. W. Lilly believes it was a Farie.”

John Aubrey book Brief Lives

"Nicholas Towes"
Brief Lives

“If you listen carefully, in what most definitely must be called Gospel you yourself will hear also rigorousness. For example, what Jesus says to the centurion from Capernaum, “If we will apply these words to ourselves, we are obliged to say, “Be it done for you as you believe; if you have faith unto salvation, then you will be saved.” (Matthew 8:13) How lenient, how merciful! But is it also certain, then, that I have faith-I surely cannot summarily transfer to myself the fact that the centurion believed, as if I had faith because the centurion had it. Let us suppose that someone asked Christianity, “Is it also certain, then, that I have faith?” Christianity would answer, “Be it done for you as you believe.””

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Works of Love (1847), p. 378

Faith

“Yours is a minority opinion, Major, as I suppose you know,” Lord Darcy told him. “But it is one which should be heard more often. It is a question that deserves to be debated and discussed, and not simply have the answers assumed by those in authority.”

Michael Kurland book Ten Little Wizards

Source: Ten Little Wizards (1988), Chapter 14 (p. 141)

Question

“The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or thing, having an independent existence of its own; and if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious, too high to be an object of sense. The meaning of all general, and especially of all abstract terms, became in this way enveloped in a mystical base…”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

Note to Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind http://books.google.com/books?id=GxIuAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=james+mill&ei=jsFoR7yAOYfQiwHEzdVv&ie=ISO-8859-1#PPA5,M1 (1829) by James Mill, edited with additional notes by John Stuart Mill (1869)

Men , Way , Imagination , Sense

“The Big Bang theory has been extremely successful in describing the history and evolution of the Universe, and new experiments and observations continue to confirm the basic predictions of this theory. But we do not yet know the answer to the question
What is the Universe made of?
The evidence for dark matter and dark energy has rewritten this question, redirected our efforts to address it — and strengthened the motivation for finding an answer. Dark matter and dark energy cannot be explained by our current model of fundamental physics; deciphering these mysterious substances will require a leap into a new realm of understanding, a theoretical upheaval that will rival the changes brought about by quantum mechanics and general relativity.”

Evalyn Gates (1958)

Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe (2009), Epilogue : Dark Matter and Dark Energy: Keys to the Next Revoution, p. 267

History , Motivation , Understanding , Question

“Akbar was now informed that Haji Khan, a ghulam of Sher Khan Afghan [Sher Shah], a brave and able general, was setting up pretensions to rule in Alwar and that Himu’s father and wife, and all his property and wealth, were in that country. So the Emperor sent Nasiru-l Mulk [Pir Muhammad Sarwani] with a select force to attack him. Haji Khan, in dread of the Imperial army, fled before it arrived. Alwar and all the territory of Mewat thus came into the Imperial power. The fugitives proceeded to Dewati-majari, a strong place, which was Himu’s family home. Much resistance and fighting followed. Himu’s father was taken alive, and brought before Nasiru-l Mulk, who tried to convert him to the faith; but the old man said, ‘For eighty years I have worshipped God in the way of my own religion; how can I now forsake my faith? Shall I, through fear of death, embrace your religion without understanding it?’ Maulana Pir Muhammad treated his question as unheard, but gave him an answer with the tongue of the sword. He then returned with much spoil and fifty elephants to the Emperor.”

Hemu (1501–1556) General and Chief Minister of Adil Shah Suri

Akbar-Nama of Abul Fazl, translated in Elliot and Dowson, Volume VI, p. 21. Quoted in S. R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) ISBN 9788185990583

Death , God , Fear , Family

“The beginning of the sixteenth century, the Cinquecento, is the most famous period of Italian art, one of the greatest periods of all time. This was the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, of Raphael and Titian, of Correggio and Giorgione, of Dürer and Holbein in the north, and of many other famous masters. One may well ask why it was that all these great masters were born in the same period, but such questions are more easily asked than answered. One cannot explain the existence of genius. It is better to enjoy it.”

Ernst Gombrich book The Story of Art

Source: The Story of Art (1978), p. 217-218, as cited in: Molyneux, John. " Michelangelo and human emancipation http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=685&issue=128." Issue: 128, Posted: 14 October 2010.

Art , Question , Time

“We often frame our understanding of what the space telescope will do in terms of what we expect to find, and actually it would be terribly anticlimactic if in fact we find what we expect to find. … The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that we do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet imagined.”

John N. Bahcall (1934–2005) American physicist

John N. Bahcall, quoted in his obituary at CalTech (7 September 2005) http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/features/articles/20050907.shtml; On the Hubble Space Telescope's capabilities for the advancement of science

Imagination , Understanding , Question

“"Institutional economics" alone meets the demand for a generalized description of the economic order. Its claim is to explain the nature and extent of order amid economic phenomena, or those concerned with industry in relation to human well-being. In the words of Edwin Cannan, it attempts to tell "why all of us are as well off as we are" and "why some of us are better off than others." Such an explanation cannot properly be answered in formulas explaining the processes through which prices emerge in a market. Its quest must go beyond sale and purchase to the peculiarities of the economic system which allow these things to take place upon particular terms and not upon others.”

Walton Hale Hamilton (1881–1958) Yale Law Professor

Source: The Institutional Approach to Economic Theory, 1919, p. 311

Nature

“Violence is the only way to answer violence.”

Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) German terrorist

Violence is the Only Way http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/03/books/violence-is-the-only-way.html?pagewanted=1

Way

“Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for — they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"The Modern Gradus ad Parnassum," London Weekly Review (17 May 1828), reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt (1925), edited by P. P. Howe

Truth , Feeling

“Life is too short for me to worry about something I have no control over that I don’t even know will happen. People ask ‘if Earth is going to be swallowed by a black hole or if there is some disturbance in the spacetime continuum should we worry about it?’. My answer is ‘no’ because you won’t know about it until it crosses your… your place in space-time. Your beats come to you when nature decides it’s the right time… be it the speed of sound, the speed of light, the speed of electrical impulses we will forever be victims of the time delay between information around us and our capacity to receive it.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

WNYC Radio Podcast, RadioLab, "Shorts: What a Slinky Knows" (29 August 2012), Minute 11:33 http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/sep/10/what-slinky-knows/
2010s

Life , People , Nature , Light

“If it is necessary we will find a quick answer and it will not be the way the United States expects it. It will be an answer that devalues the 'Star Wars' program.”

Sergei Akhromeyev (1923–1991) Soviet marshal

1986 UPI (Moscow) press release on Soviet reaction to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Quoted in Ellensburg Daily Record, 27 Aug 1986, and elsewhere.

War , Way , Star

“Emily looked at him for a long time. There were so many things she wanted to know—but she wanted not to know them even more. She didn’t want any more answers. He had been the one thing she could trust, the one person she could rely on. She wanted to beg him to be that way again. But it wasn’t him who had changed. It was her. It was her own credulity she really wanted back. And credulity, like virtue, could be lost only once.”

M. K. Hobson book The Native Star

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 17, “The Cockatrice” (p. 237)

Way , Change , Time , Personality

“A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself.”

Arthur W. Radford (1896–1973) United States naval aviator

Quoted in Time Magazine: ARMED FORCES: Man Behind the Power http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936815,00.html, 25 February 1957.

Decision

“Within a year of eating no meat, my health problems all started to go away. Not only did I feel better physically, but I felt better knowing that there was one answer to many of the different ills afflicting both ourselves and our environment. Everything revolved around the fork.”

Howard F. Lyman (1938) American activist

Source: Mad Cowboy (1998), Ch. 4: From the Farm to the Capital, p. 81

Health , Feeling , Problem , Affliction

“To approach Bach, one has to realize that 100 years after Bach’s death, Bach and his music totally had been forgotten. Even while he was still alive, Bach himself believed in the polyphonic power and the resulting symmetric architectures of well-proportioned music. But this had been an artificial truth - even for him. Other composers, including his sons, already composed in another style, where they found other ideals and brought them to new solutions. The spirit of the time already had changed while Bach was still alive. A hundred years later, it was Mendelssohn who about 1850 discovered Bach anew with the performance of the St. Matthew Passion. Now a new renaissance began, and the world learned to know the greatness of Bach. To become acquainted with Bach, many transcriptions were done. But the endeavors in rediscovering Bach had been - stylistically - in a wrong direction. Among these were the orchestral transcriptions of Leopold Stokowski, and the organ interpretations of the multitalented Albert Schweitzer, who, one has to confess, had a decisive effect on the rediscovery of Bach. All performances had gone in the wrong direction: much too romantic, with a false knowledge of historic style, the wrong sound, the wrong rubato, and so on. The necessity of artists like Rosalyn Tureck and Glenn Gould - again 100 years later - has been understandable: The radicalism of Glenn Gould pointed out the real clarity and the internal explosions of the power-filled polyphony in the best way. This extreme style, called by many of his critics refrigerator interpretations, however really had been necessary to demonstrate the right strength to bring out the architecture in the right manner, which had been lost so much before. I’m convinced that the style Glenn Gould played has been the right answer. But there has been another giant: it was no less than Helmut Walcha who, also beginning in the 1950, started his legendary interpretations for the DG-Archive productions of the complete organ-work cycle on historic organs (Silbermann, Arp Schnitger). Also very classical in strength of speed and architectural proportions, he pointed out the polyphonic structures in an enlightened but moreover especially humanistic way, in a much more smooth and elegant way than Glenn Gould on the piano. Some years later it was Virgil Fox who acquainted the U. S. with tours of the complete Bach cycle, which certainly was effective in its own way, but much more modern than Walcha. The ranges of Bach interpretations had become wide, and there were the defenders of the historical style and those of the much more modern romantic style. Also the performances of the orchestral and cantata Bach had become extreme: on one side, for example, Karl Richter, who used a big and rich-toned orchestra; on the other side Helmut Rilling, whose Bach was much more historically oriented.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Death , Truth , World , Music

““Why?” Hamilton lashed out suddenly and loudly. “Why the hell did God answer that prayer? Why not some of the others? Why not Bill Laws’s?”
“God approved of your prayer,” Silky said. “After all, it’s up to Him; He has to decide how He feels about it.”
“That’s terrible.”
Silky shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“How can you live with that? You never know what’s going to happen—there’s no order, no logic.” It infuriated him that she did not object, that it seemed natural to her. “We’re helpless; we have to depend on whim. It keeps us from being people—we’re like animals waiting to be fed. Rewarded or punished.””

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 6 (p. 77)

God , People , Law , Feeling

“The answer is what the answer always is, that we are animals, that at the end we turn on each other, tearing each other apart. To survive. Throw Lubov to the men in the guard shack like a scrap of meat to a pack of wolves… why not, it is for survival. Fight, kill each other, over the warmth of the stove? Of course - it is survival. I refuse to survive. But I will live.”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Anastasia, Act II, Scene 1
A Gulag Mouse (2010)

Men , Tear , Animals , Fight

“We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy called of going to the moon, he didn't say, "It's too far to get there. We shouldn't even try."
Our people answered his call and rose to the challenge, and today an American flag still marks the surface of the moon.”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

DNC Speech (2008)

People

“We know that today in America, too many folks are still stopped on the street because of the color of their skin, or they're made to feel unwelcome because of where they come from, or they're bullied because of who they love. As you go forth, when you encounter folks who still hold the old prejudices because they've only been around folks like themselves, when you meet folks who think they know all the answers because they've never heard any other viewpoints, it's up to you to help them see things differently.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Quoted on Yahoo News!, "First lady tells Kansas students to fight bias" (16 May 2014) http://news.yahoo.com/first-lady-tells-kansas-students-fight-bias-021747701.html
2010s

Love , Color , Feeling , Thinking

“Scientists possess healthy skepticism. They realize that you've got to know the answer before you measure it.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: Mathematicians are useful (1971), p. 1:

“Justification by faith is the answer to that momentous question, " How shall man be just with God?" And the reply is, " Not by works of his own, but by faith in the work of another, that is Christ." He must have a righteousness in which to stand before a righteous and a holy, as well as a merciful God He has no such righteousness of his own. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness unto him.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 362.

God , Faith , Law , Question

“I once asked Bell whether during the years he was studying the quantum theory it ever occurred to him that the theory might simply be wrong. He thought a moment and answered, “I hesitated to think it might be wrong, but I knew that it was rotten.” Bell pronounced the word “rotten” with a good deal of relish and then added, “That is to say, one has to find some decent way of expressing whatever truth there is in it.” The attitude that even if there is not something actually wrong with the theory, there is something deeply unsettling—“rotten”—about it, was common to most of the creators of the quantum theory. Niels Bohr was reported to have remarked, “Well, I think that if a man says it is completely clear to him these days, then he has not really understood the subject.” He later added, “If you do not getschwindlig [dizzy] sometimes when you think about these things then you have not really understood it.” My teacher Philipp Frank used to tell about the time he visited Einstein in Prague in 1911. Einstein had an office at the university that over looked a park. People were milling around in the park, some engaged in vehement gesture-filled discussions. When Professor Frank asked Einstein what was going on, Einstein replied that it was the grounds of a lunatic asylum, adding, “Those are the madmen who do not occupy themselves with the quantum theory.””

Jeremy Bernstein (1929) American physicist

Quantum Profiles (1991), John Stewart Bell: Quantum Engineer

People , Truth , Way , Thinking

“Because Africans and Americans share a belief in the values of liberty and dignity, we must share in the labor of advancing those values. In a time of growing commerce across the globe, we will ensure that the nations of Africa are full partners in the trade and prosperity of the world. Against the waste and violence of civil war, we will stand together for peace. Against the merciless terrorists who threaten every nation, we will wage an unrelenting campaign of justice. Confronted with desperate hunger, we will answer with human compassion and the tools of human technology. In the face of spreading disease, we will join with you in turning the tides against AIDS in Africa.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003)

Hunger , War , World , Disease

“To look at the symbolic dimensions of social action — art, religion, ideology, science, law, morality, common sense — is not to turn away from the existential dilemmas of life for some empyrean realm of de-emotionalized forms; it is to plunge into the midst of them. The essential vocation of interpretive anthropology is not to answer our deepest questions, but to make available to us answers that others, guarding other sheep in other valleys, have given, and thus to include them in the consultable record of what man has said.”

Clifford Geertz book The Interpretation of Cultures

Source: The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), p. 30

Life , Religion , Law , Art

“The rex bite is unique among better known dinosaurs. Instead of inflicting a long, shallow wound, rex jaws would thrust a few crowns deep into bone armor, killing a Triceratops with a single blow. We see close-linked co-evolution here, a terminal Cretaceous arms race. Triceratops is the commonest horned dino of the time, the final dinosaurian Age, the Lancian. T’tops departs from the ceratopsian tradition of frill construction. Torosaurus, very rare during the Lancian Age of the Cretaceous, retains that basic design: the frill is composed of thin bone rods that make a frame, with huge holes in the middle. Triceratops fills in the holes with greatly thickened bone. Why would Triceratops invest in five times as much bone volume in its frill? Well…to me the answer is obvious. Because the commonest predator has evolved great, armor-penetrating teeth. The argument goes in the other direction – T. rex evolved swollen, tall tooth crowns to deal with the unusual protection of the commonest horned herbivore.”

Robert T. Bakker (1945) American paleontologist

As quoted in Paleontological Profiles: Robert Bakker http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2008/04/07/paleontological-profiles-rober/, scienceblogs (April 7, 2008)

Age , Time

“I wrote A Wrinkle in Time when we were living in a small dairy farm village in New England. I had three small children to raise, and life was not easy. We lost four of our closest friends within two years by death — that's a lot of death statistically. And I really wasn't finding the answers to my big questions in the logical places. So, at the time I discovered the world of particle physics. I discovered Einstein and relativity. I read a book of Einstein's, in which he said that anyone who's not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe is as good as a burnt-out candle. And I thought, "Oh, I've found my theologian, what a wonderful thing."”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Penguins and Golden Calves (2003)

Life , Death , Children , Books

“What I had learned about human rights proved to be directly relevant to my thinking about animal rights. Whether any animals have rights depends on the true answer to one question: Are any animals subjects-of-a-life? This is the question that needs to be asked about animals because this is the question we need to ask about us.”

Tom Regan book Empty Cages

Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 4

Life , Question , Thinking , Learning

“One might ask why the teachers do not notice the difficulty children have in learning BASIC. The answer is simple: Most teachers do not expect high performance from most students, especially in a domain of work that appears to be as "mathematical" and "formal" as programming. Thus the culture's general perception of mathematics as inaccessible bolsters the maintenance of BASIC, which in turn confirms these perceptions.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 1, Computers and Computer Cultures

Children , Mathematics , Learning , Teachers

“The problem is, after a week of intense googling, we’ve started to burn out on knowing the answer to everything. God must feel that way all the time. I think people in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

JPod (2006)

God , People , Way , Feeling

“Among the many prejudices against vegans is the belief that they are always preaching to others and trying to convert them. I do not think that is true; we are incredibly tolerant. We are always polite when others ask, “Don’t you ever get tempted by a bacon sandwich?”… In fact, most vegans I know are rather coy about explaining why they are vegan, mostly because the question tends to be asked when we are sitting a dinner table full of meat eaters, and it seems rather impolite to answer. However, seeing as we are not at a dinner party now, here is the ethical case… If people are vegetarians for ethical reasons—because they believe that killing and eating animals is wrong—they really ought to be vegan, too. The average human eats more than 11,000 animals in his or her lifetime, but millions of calves and chicks are also killed every year as “waste products” of milk and egg production.”

Kerry McCarthy (1965) British politician

Debate on World Vegan Day http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111101/debtext/111101-0004.htm#1111025000002 (transcript in www.parliament.uk), House of Commons, 1 November 2011

People , Question , Thinking , Animals

“Religion, it stops people from thinking because they think all the answers are in that one book; it impedes progress; it justifies crazy people. Flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

I'm Swiss (2005)

People , Books , Faith , Religion

“If hell has no answer for the questioning dead, it is not because it refuses to answer (for rigorous, alas, in observance, is the imperishable fire), but it is because hell has nothing to say, will say nothing eternally.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

Source: La joie (Joy) 1929, p.42

Hell , Question , Dead

“Gentlemen, when I consider the objections put forward to the grant of self-government I can hardly keep my patience. What is it that they say? They say that we are not educated enough to get self-government. My answer is: whose fault is it? For the last 150 years you have been governing this country and yet you have not succeeded in educating the people of this country to such an extent that they may be fit for governing themselves.”

Chittaranjan Das (1870–1925) Indian politician and leader of the Swaraj Party

Speech delivered on 18th March 1918, at Rammurti’s pavilion at a meeting held to support the deputation to England. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.
1918

People , Education , Patience , Country

“We live in an essential and unresolvable tension between our unity with nature and our dangerous uniqueness. Systems that attempt to place and make sense of us by focusing exclusively either on the uniqueness or the unity are doomed to failure. But we must not stop asking and questing because the answers are complex and ambiguous.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

"Our Natural Place", p. 250
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983)

Failure , Nature , Sense

“If an infant commit an assault, or utter slander, God forbid that he should not be answerable for it in a Court of justice.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Jennings v. Rundall (1799), 8 T.R. 337.

God , Justice

“For centuries men looked for comfort to their deepest anguish, but all answers seemed small before death. Until someone, it’s unknown who, discovered the truth. And since they saw it served all as an answer to the fears of the first man, they defended it with their blood and with the blood of others, first and then with the lie.”

Jorge Majfud (1969) Uruguayan-American writer

La ciudad de la Luna (2009)

Death , Men , Truth , Lie

“KERRY: I have had conversations with leaders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Recently?
KERRY: Yes, recently.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How recent?
KERRY: That‘s not your business. It‘s mine. Are you a Democrat, a Republican? What are you? Are you a registered Republican?
(CROSSTALK)
KERRY: Are you a Republican? You answer the question. Did you vote for George Bush? Did you vote for George Bush?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I voted for George Bush and I…
KERRY: Thank you.
(UNIDENTIFIED MALE sits while booed by crowd)”

John F. Kerry (1943) politician from the United States

March 2004 exchange
Quoted in

Question , Business

“For scholars and laymen alike it is not philosophy but active experience in mathematics itself that can alone answer the question: What is mathematics?”

Richard Courant (1888–1972) German American mathematician (1888-1972)

Richard Courant, What is Mathematics?, (1941) p. xix

Mathematics , Question

“Upon one of his [George Whitefield's] Arrivals from England at Boston, he wrote to me that he should come soon to Philadelphia, but knew not where he could lodge when there …. My Answer was; You know my House, if you can make shift with its scanty Accommodations you will be most heartily welcome. He replied, that if I made that kind of Offer for Christ's sake, I should not miss of a Reward. And I return'd, Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake. One of our common Acquaintance jocosely remark'd, that knowing it to be the Custom of the Saints, when they receiv'd any favor, to shift the Burden of the Obligation from off their own Shoulders, and place it in Heaven, I had contriv'd to fix it on Earth.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Part III, p. 89.
The Autobiography (1818)

Christ , Housing

“The one thing we can say is that if Socrates really expected to get a definitive answer to his question, 'What is justice?' when talking to his friends on their way back to the Piraeus, he has been disappointed. It remains a contentious and disputed subject.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Justice (1993)

Justice , Disappointment , Way , Question

“I rejoiced so greatly when I heard of your answer in the case of some who seemed to be filled with extravagant ambition
for the office of legate, and to hope for it with impudence, even more than I can say. And not only I but all who love your name rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Moreover, when I read your letter written in the cause of the Church of Rodez,
then was my mouth filled with laughter and my tongue with joy. Such things as these are worthy of your Apostleship, they honour the highest See, they are just what is becoming to the Bishop of the world. Whence, also, I bow my knees to the Author of your unique Primacy…
In truth, you have been raised to this chair for the fall and rising again of many.”

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian

Bernard to Pope Eugene III, letter 240:1, A.D. 1146, concerning the election of a certain unworthy bishop at the Church of Rodez (see letter 328). In The Life and works of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, John Mabillon, Samuel J. Eales, Volume 2, p. 705

Love , Truth , World , Hope