Quotes about attraction
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Warren Farrell photo
Paul Krugman photo
David Gross photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“Every court must have its fool, every great ideal must attract some who are motivated only by self-interest.”

Book 1, Chapter 7 “A Well-Known Traveler” (p. 413)
The Runestaff (1969)

Washington Gladden photo
L. David Mech photo

“In the recent past, wolves were labeled a flagship species or an umbrella, indicator, or keystone species, depending on what conservation market one was trying to penetrate… A flagship species is an attraction to nearly all society's strata, but wolves are not welcomed by all factions of society. With a few rare exceptions, the rural world opposes wolves, so the animal's flagship role is restricted primarily to urbanites or to local areas. Wolves are certainly a powerful flagship species for the conservation movement, particularly that of affluent societies with strong lobbies in large cities, but a true flagship species should be able to move an entire society toward a goal.
Neither are wolves a good umbrella species (i. e., a species, usually high in the ecological pyramid, whose conservation necessarily fosters that of the rest of the chain) in that they can live well on a variety of food resources and in areas with an impoverished prey base. Wolves are not a keystone species either, in that they are not essential for the presence of many other species (e. g., herbivores flourish in areas devoid of wolves). And wolves are not necessarily indicators of good habitat quality or integrity because they are too generalist to be good indicators of the presence of a pristine trophic chain.
The above labels have been very useful in many circumstance and have contributed significantly to wolf recovery. They may still be useful in the future, but we should be aware that they are shortcuts to "sell a product" rather than good scientific grounds on which to build conservation.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation (2003)

Matt Ridley photo
Neal Stephenson photo

“There was a common saying in the biz/tech world that “A's hire A's, and B's hire C's,” the point being that as long as you continued to recruit only the very best people, they would attract others, but as soon as you let your standards slip, the second-raters would begin to sign up third-raters to act as their minions and advance their agendas.”

Day 18 (This saying was popularized by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his "Rumsfeld's Rules" document, dating back to his tenure on the Ford Administration transition team.)
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

Daniel Dennett photo

“[W]hat good to us is the gods' knowledge if we can't get it from them? How could one communicate with the gods? Our ancestors (while they were alive!) stumbled on an extremely ingenious solution: divination.

We all know how hard it is to make the major decisions of life: should I hang tough or admit my transgression, should I move or stay in my present position, should I go to war or not, should I follow my heart or my head? We still haven't figured out any satisfactory systematic way of deciding these things. Anything that can relieve the burden of figuring out how to make these hard calls is bound to be an attractive idea.

Consider flipping a coin, for instance. Why do we do it? To take away the burden of having to find a reason for choosing A over B. We like to have reasons for what we do, but sometimes nothing sufficiently persuasive comes to mind, and we recognize that we have to decide soon, so we concoct a little gadget, an external thing that will make the decision for us. But if the decision is about something momentous, like whether to go to war, or marry, or confess, anything like flipping a coin would be just too, well, flippant.

In such a case, choosing for no good reason would be too obviously a sign of incompetence, and, besides, if the decision is really that important, once the coin has landed you'll have to confront the further choice: should you honor your just-avowed commitment to be bound by the flip of the coin, or should you reconsider? Faced with such quandaries, we recognize the need for some treatment stronger than a coin flip. Something more ceremonial, more impressive, like divination, which not only tells you what to do, but gives you a reason (if you squint just right and use your imagination).

Scholars have uncovered a comically variegated profusion of ancient ways of delegating important decisions to uncontrollable externalities. Instead of flipping a coin, you can flip arrows (belomancy) or rods (rhabdomancy) or bones or cards (sortilege), and instead of looking at tea leaves (tasseography), you can examine the livers of sacrificed animals (hepatoscopy) or other entrails (haruspicy) or melted wax poured into water (ceroscopy). Then there is moleosophy (divination by blemishes), myomancy (divination by rodent behavior), nephomancy (divination by clouds), and of course the old favorites, numerology and astrology, among dozens of others.”

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Oliver Sacks photo
Peter D. Schiff photo

“One of the biggest attractions of the euro is that it is seen as the most likely candidate to replace the dollar as the reserve currency.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

Subhash Kak photo

“The dance of the peacock attracts not only the peahen but also the human.”

Subhash Kak (1947) Indian computer scientist

The Loom of Time (2016)

Dylan Moran photo
Preity Zinta photo

“Things she find most attractive in a man:”

Preity Zinta (1975) film actress

A couple of things-intelligence, self-esteem; I like men who are sure of themselves and not just weathercocks and most importantly, integrity. Common sense and humour also help.
Personal Quotes

Alex Salmond photo
George Holmes Howison photo
Samuel Butler photo

“A man’s style in any art should be like his dress — it should attract as little attention as possible.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

A Man's Style
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

Ilham Aliyev photo
John Hicks photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“But we National Socialists wish precisely to attract all socialists, even the Communists; we wish to win them over from their international camp to the national one.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: Disputed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (1978), p. 26

Neal Stephenson photo
Paul R. Halmos photo
Simon Blackburn photo
Isaiah Berlin photo

“The notion that one can discover large patterns or regularities in the procession of historical events is naturally attractive to those who are impressed by the success of the natural sciences in classifying, correlating, and above all predicting.”

Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas

Five Essays on Liberty (2002), Historical Inevitability (1954)

Nicole Lapin photo

“Intelligence is attractive, but so is life experience. You can’t amass it just by reading a ton of books. But you can live a lot of life in a short time. Travel. Talk to everyone. Collect adventures, and use them to understand the world. That’s how you learn to treat people well. And that’s sexy.”

Nicole Lapin (1984) American journalist

Interview with Men's Health Magazine. http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=style&category=style.files&conitem=2cfa694820a64110VgnVCM20000012281eac____ (September 2007)

Herman Kahn photo
Bernard Lewis photo
Dorothy Day photo

“The attraction is strong, because both men literally laid down their lives for their brothers. "Greater love hath no man than this." "Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." Che Guevara wrote this,”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

"On Pilgrimage — Our Spring Appeal," Catholic Worker (May 1970)
Context: "What do you mean by anarchist-pacifist?" First, I would say that the two words should go together, especially … when more and more people, even priests, are turning to violence, and are finding their heroes in Camillo Torres among the priests, and Che Guevara among laymen. The attraction is strong, because both men literally laid down their lives for their brothers. "Greater love hath no man than this." "Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." Che Guevara wrote this, and he is quoted by Chicano youth in El Grito Del Norte.

James Anthony Froude photo

“Minds vary in sensitiveness and in self-power, as bodies do in susceptibility of attraction and repulsion.”

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: Minds vary in sensitiveness and in self-power, as bodies do in susceptibility of attraction and repulsion. When, when shall we learn that they are governed by laws as inexorable as physical laws, and that a man can as easily refuse to obey what has power over him as a steel atom can resist the magnet?

Eric Hoffer photo

“A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.”

Section 7
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements
Context: There is a fundamental difference between the appeal of a mass movement and the appeal of a practical organization. The practical organization offers opportunities for self-advancement, and its appeal is mainly to self-interest. On the other hand, a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

Iamblichus photo

“After his father's death, though he was still but a youth, his aspect was so venerable, and his habits so temperate that he was honored and even reverenced by elderly men, attracting the attention of all who saw and heard him speak, creating the most profound impression.”

Iamblichus (240–320) Syrian philosopher

Source: Life of Pythagoras, Ch. 2 : Youth, Education, Travels
Context: After his father's death, though he was still but a youth, his aspect was so venerable, and his habits so temperate that he was honored and even reverenced by elderly men, attracting the attention of all who saw and heard him speak, creating the most profound impression. That is the reason that many plausibly asserted that he was a child of the divinity. Enjoying the privilege of such a renown, of an education so thorough from infancy, and of so impressive a natural appearance he showed that he deserved all these advantages by deserving them, by the adornment of piety and discipline, by exquisite habits, by firmness of soul, and by a body duly subjected to the mandates of reason. An inimitable quiet and serenity marked all his words and actions, soaring above all laughter, emulation, contention, or any other irregularity or eccentricity; his influence at Samos was that of some beneficent divinity. His great renown, while yet a youth, reached not only men as illustrious for their wisdom as Thales at Miletus, and Bias at Prione, but also extended to the neighboring cities. He was celebrated everywhere as the "long-haired Samian," and by the multitude was given credit for being under divine inspiration.

Eric Hoffer photo

“People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.”

Section 93
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.

George Henry Lewes photo

“It is only because men have been attracted by the differences that they have overlooked the not less important affinities.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
Context: In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect — its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions — its purpose being pleasure. A work of Art must of course indirectly appeal to the Intellect, and a work of Science will also indirectly appeal to the Feelings; nevertheless a poem on the stars and a treatise on astronomy have distinct aims and distinct methods. But having recognised the broadly-marked differences, we are called upon to ascertain the underlying resemblances. Logic and Imagination belong equally to both. It is only because men have been attracted by the differences that they have overlooked the not less important affinities.

Jean Piaget photo

“In real life the child is in the presence, not of isolated acts, but of personalities that attract or repel him as a global whole.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism, § 1 : The Method <!-- p. 116 -->
Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism p. 132 -->
Context: In real life the child is in the presence, not of isolated acts, but of personalities that attract or repel him as a global whole. He grasps people's intentions by direct intuition and cannot therefore abstract from them. He allows, more or less justly, for aggravating and attenuating circumstances. This is why the stories told by the children themselves often give rise to different evaluations from those suggested by the experimenter's stories.

“Of course everything in computerology is new; that is at once its attraction, and its weakness.”

James H. Wilkinson (1919–1986) English mathematician

Some Comments from a Numerical Analyst (1971)
Context: Of course everything in computerology is new; that is at once its attraction, and its weakness. Only recently I learned that computers are revolutionizing astrology. Horoscopes by computer!

James Anthony Froude photo

“Others of stronger temper gravitate more slowly, but combine more firmly, and only disunite again when the idea or soul of the body into which they form dies out, or they fall under the influence of some very attractive force indeed. It may be doubted, indeed, whether a body which is really organised by a living idea can lose a healthy member except by violence.”

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: Belief is the result of the proportion, whatever it he, in which the many elements which go to make the human being are combined. In some the grosser nature preponderates; they believe largely in their stomachs, in the comforts and conveniences of life, and being of such kind, so long as these are not threatened, they gravitate steadily towards the earth. Numerically this is the largest class of believers, with very various denominations indeed; bearing the names of every faith beneath the sky, and composing the conservative elements in them, and therefore commonly persons of much weight in established systems. But they are what I have called them: their hearts are where I said they were, and as such interests are commonly selfish, and self separates instead of unites, they are not generally powerful against any heavy trial. Others of keener susceptibility are yet volatile, with slight power of continuance, and fly from attraction to attraction in the current of novelty. Others of stronger temper gravitate more slowly, but combine more firmly, and only disunite again when the idea or soul of the body into which they form dies out, or they fall under the influence of some very attractive force indeed. It may be doubted, indeed, whether a body which is really organised by a living idea can lose a healthy member except by violence.

Epictetus photo
Jennifer Shahade photo

“My first goal is to create an attractive, interactive website that forms a community of chess lovers. I want to keep it light and keep people coming back ⎯ heavy on photos, humor, and simple chess tactics and strategies.”

Jennifer Shahade (1980) chess player

Gothamist interview (2006)
Context: My first goal is to create an attractive, interactive website that forms a community of chess lovers. I want to keep it light and keep people coming back ⎯ heavy on photos, humor, and simple chess tactics and strategies. I want to promote our top players to increase their visibility and their chances to make a living at chess.

Daniel Levitin photo

“Creative brains became more attractive during centuries of sexual selection because they could solve a wider range of unanticipatable problems.”

The World in Six Songs (2008)
Context: Creative brains became more attractive during centuries of sexual selection because they could solve a wider range of unanticipatable problems.... Humans who just happened to find creativity attractive may have hitched their reproductive wagons to musicians and artists, and... conferred a survival advantage on their offspring.

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum.”

Parliament of Whores (1991)
Context: Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadows about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

D.H. Lawrence photo

“Sex is the balance of male and female in the universe, the attraction, the repulsion, the transit of neutrality, the new attraction, the new repulsion, always different, always new.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1929)
Context: Sex is the balance of male and female in the universe, the attraction, the repulsion, the transit of neutrality, the new attraction, the new repulsion, always different, always new. The long neuter spell of Lent, when the blood is low, and the delight of the Easter kiss, the sexual revel of spring, the passion of midsummer, the slow recoil, revolt, and grief of autumn, greyness again, then the sharp stimulus of winter of the long nights. Sex goes through the rhythm of the year, in man and woman, ceaselessly changing: the rhythm of the sun in his relation to the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox! This is what is the matter with us. We are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars, and love is a grinning mockery, because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the tree of Life, and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilised vase on the table.

Buckminster Fuller photo

“If we have two spherical bodies of equal mass at a given distance from each other and insert a third spherical body of the same mass half way between the two we do not double the mass attraction between any two of the three. We increase the attraction by 2 to the second power which is 4.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

Source: 1960s, Presentation to U.S. Congressional Sub-Committee on World Game (1969), p. 14
Context: I will give you one very simple example of synergy. All our metallic alloys are synergetic. We will examine chrome-nickel steel. The outstanding characteristic of metallic strength is its ability to cohere in one piece. We test the metals tensile strength per square inch of cross section of the tested sample. The very high number of pounds-per-square-inch tensile strength of chrome-nickel steel has changed our whole economy because it retained its structural integrity at so high a temperature as to make possible the jet engine which has halved the time it takes to fly around the world. The prime constituents are chromium, nickel, and iron. We will take the highest ultimate tensile strength of those three. The iron’s ultimate tensile strength is about 60,000 pounds per square inch. Nickel’s ultimate is about 80,000 p. s. i. Chromium is about 70,000 p. s. i. Ultimate tensile strengths of the other minor constituents: carbon, manganese, et cetera, added together total about 40,000 psi. If we use the same tensile logic as that applied to a chain and say that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, then we would assume that chrome-nickel steel would part at between 40,000 and 60,000 p. s. i. But we find experimentally that is not the case. We find by test that chrome-nickel steel is 350,000 pounds a square inch which is 50 percent stronger than the sum of the strength of all its alloys. To prove so we add 60,000, 70,000 and 80,000 which comes to 210,000. To this we add the 40,000 of minor alloying constituents which brings the sum of the strengths of all its alloying to only 250,000 pounds a square inch. The explanation for this is Newton’s gravitational law which noted the experimentally proven fact that the relative mass attraction of one body for another is proportioned to the second power of the relative proximity of the two bodies as expressed in the relative diameters of the two bodies. If we have two spherical bodies of equal mass at a given distance from each other and insert a third spherical body of the same mass half way between the two we do not double the mass attraction between any two of the three. We increase the attraction by 2 to the second power which is 4. Halving the distance fourfolds the inter-mass attraction. When we bring a galaxy of iron atoms together with the chromium atoms and a galaxy of nickel atoms they all fit neatly between one another and bring about the multifolding of their intercoherency. But there is nothing in one body by itself that says that it will have mass attraction. This can only be discovered by experimenting with two and more bodies. And even then there is no explanation of why there must be mass attraction and why it should increase as the second power of the relative increase of proximity. That is synergy.

Carl Sagan photo

“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 2 : Science and Hope
Context: I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us-then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.

Johannes Tauler photo

“He draws them so mysteriously unto Himself and His own blessedness;
their spirits are so lovingly attracted, while they are at the same time so filled and transfused with the Godhead,
that they lose all their diversity in the Unity of the Godhead.
These are they to whom God makes their work here on earth a delight;
so that they have a real foretaste of that which they will enjoy forever.”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

Sermons
Context: When the spirit looks within, to the Spirit of God, from the ground of the heart,
where man, empty and bare of all works, seeks God only,
far above all thoughts, works and reason,
it is truly a thorough conversion, which will ever be met with a corresponding reward,
and God will be with him.
Another conversion may take place in an ordinary external way, whenever man turns to God,
thinking wholly and entirely of Him,
and of nothing else but of God for Himself and in Himself.
But the first turning is in an inner, undefined, unknown presence,
in an immaterial entrance of the created spirit into the uncreated Spirit of God.
If a man could only once in his life thus turn to God, it would be well for him.
Those [[File:Antennae galaxies xl. jpg|154px|thumb|He draws them so mysteriously unto Himself and His own blessedness;
their spirits are so lovingly attracted, while they are at the same time so filled and transfused with the Godhead,
that they lose all their diversity in the Unity of the Godhead]] men whose God is so powerful, and Who has been so faithful to them in all their distress,
will be answered by God with Himself.
He draws them so mysteriously unto Himself and His own blessedness;
their spirits are so lovingly attracted, while they are at the same time so filled and transfused with the Godhead,
that they lose all their diversity in the Unity of the Godhead.
These are they to whom God makes their work here on earth a delight;
so that they have a real foretaste of that which they will enjoy forever.
These are they on whom the Holy Christian Church rests;
and, if they did not form part of Christianity, Christianity could no longer exist;
for their mere existence, what they are, is infinitely worthier and more useful than all the doings of the world.
These are they of whom our Lord has said:
“He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of Mine eye.”
Therefore, take heed that ye do them no wrong. May God help us.

Harry Houdini photo

“I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death.”

Harry Houdini (1874–1926) Austro-Hungarian born American magician, escapologist, and stunt performer

As quoted in The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini‎ (1993) by Ruth Brandon, p. 153
Context: I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That's what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the 'human fly' who scales the walls of the same building.

John D. Barrow photo
Epictetus photo

“Who is there whom bright and agreeable children do not attract to play and creep and prattle with them?”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Concerning a Person whom he treated with Disregard, Chap. xxiv.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Ebenezer Howard photo

“Whatever may have been the causes which have operated in the past, and are operating now, to draw the people into the cities, those causes may all be summed up as "attractions "”

Ebenezer Howard (1850–1928) British writer, founder of the garden city movement

Introduction.
Garden Cities of To-morrow (1898)
Context: Whatever may have been the causes which have operated in the past, and are operating now, to draw the people into the cities, those causes may all be summed up as "attractions "; and it is obvious, therefore, that no remedy can possibly be effective which will not present to the people, or at least to considerable portions of them, greater "attractions " than our cities now possess, so that the force of the old "attractions" shall be overcome by the force of new "attractions" which are to be created. Each city may be regarded as a magnet, each person as a needle; and, so viewed, it is at once seen that nothing short of the discovery of a method for constructing magnets of yet greater power than our cities possess can be effective for redistributing the population in a spontaneous and healthy manner.

Charles Lyell photo

“The anonymous author of 'The Vestiges of Creation' published in 1844 a treatise, written in a clear and attractive style, which made the English public familiar with the leading views of Lamarck on transmutation and progression but brought no new facts or original line of argument to support those views, or to combat the principal objections which the scientific world entertained against them. No decided step in this direction was made until the publication in 1858 of two papers, one by Mr. Darwin and another by Mr. Wallace”

Charles Lyell (1797–1875) British lawyer and geologist

Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.21, p. 407-409
Context: The anonymous author of 'The Vestiges of Creation' published in 1844 a treatise, written in a clear and attractive style, which made the English public familiar with the leading views of Lamarck on transmutation and progression but brought no new facts or original line of argument to support those views, or to combat the principal objections which the scientific world entertained against them. No decided step in this direction was made until the publication in 1858 of two papers, one by Mr. Darwin and another by Mr. Wallace, followed in 1859 by Mr Darwin's celebrated work on 'The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.'... both writers begin by applying to the animal and vegetable worlds the Malthusian doctrine of population, or its tendency to increase in a geometrical ratio, while food can only be made to augment even locally in an arithmetical one. There being, therefore, no room or means of subsistence for a large proportion of the plants and animals which are born into the world, a great number must annually perish.

Honoré de Balzac photo

“A grocer is drawn to his business by an attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives artists away from it.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Source: A Bachelor's Establishment (1842), Ch. I.
Context: A grocer is drawn to his business by an attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives artists away from it. We do not sufficiently study the social potentialities which make up the various vocations of life. It would be interesting to know what determines one man to be a stationer rather than a baker; since, in our day, sons are not compelled to follow the calling of their fathers, as they were among the Egyptians.

Edward Witten photo

“String theory is extremely attractive because gravity is forced upon us.”

Edward Witten (1951) American theoretical physicist

as quoted by Michio Kaku, Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension (1995)
Context: String theory is extremely attractive because gravity is forced upon us. All known consistent string theories include gravity, so while gravity is impossible in quantum field theory as we have known it, it is obligatory in string theory.

Bill Bailey photo

“Even if you’re not particularly religious, then you have to admit that religion surrounds us even in the most mundane aspects of our lives. I was trying to rent a car, and the bloke said to me: "You’re not covered for acts of God."
I said: "What do you mean by that?", he said: [waving arms] "Woooooh!"
I said, "Can you be a bit more specific?", and he went, [vaguely gesticulating] "Eh… ooooh… uh?"
I said, "I’m intrigued because you said 'acts of God', and not gods, or spirits, or jinn, or nymphs, but 'God', a capital God, a monotheistic religion, maybe a Judeo-Christian religion, which would imply a belief system, which would perhaps lead to free-will and determinism, so logically anything that man does directly or indirectly is in fact an act of God, so I’m not covered for anything!"
He said, "I’ll get the manager."
Then I said, "What do you mean by an act of God? What do you mean by that?"
He said, "I dunno, a plague of locusts or something."
"'A plague of locusts'? They swarm round the vehicle, rip the wing mirrors off, and I’m liable for a fifty pound excess?”
And he said, "No, like, rain or something."
I said, "Yeah, but how much rain? It’s drizzling a bit now, is that an act of God? At what point does the rain reach a certain level beyond which it takes on the more apocalyptic mantle of the water-based punishment of the Lord!?"
And he said, [despairing] "I just work Saturdays."
I said "You can’t answer me, can you? Your policy is riddled with theological inconsistency. You disgust me. You twist and turn. You remind me of the Siberian hunting spider, which adopts a highly-convincing limp in three of its eight legs in order to attract its main prey, the so-called Samaritan squirrel, which takes pity on the spider, and then the spider jumps on it and injects the paralysing venom, and the squirrel remains bafflingly philosophical about the whole thing. Not to be confused with the Ukrainian hunting spider, which actually has got a limp and is, as such, completely harmless, and a little bit bitter about the whole thing: [imitating spider] 'Siberian spider have good leg, have nice day, can catch fly, can make web, can catch fly for family, I can do nothing, my leg, it drags behind! It drags! [audience laughs] And you laugh! You make fun! Oh, ha, big joke! I am failure! I am freak! [singing] But in my dreams I can fly, I'm the greatest spider in town. But I wake and it's cold, and I feel so old, and my legs are dragging me down.'"
And then the manager came out, and he said: “Stop all that spider singing."”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Pointed to a sign on the wall: a spider with a line through it. "Oh, fair enough."
He said "I can offer you an upgrade, fifty quid, and we can include in it policies set in place by the Marquis de Laplace, the French scientist who declared that all things in the universe are predetermined, so you would be covered even if time-travel was invented during the period of rental.”
I said, "Nah, probably leave it."
Part Troll (2004)

“My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

I Remember Creatore (1948).
Context: My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do; and to me the hermaphrodite and the living skeleton were interesting for the same reason as was Creatore, or the resplendent Guardsmen of the bands — because such people did not often come my way, and I hoped that they might impart some great revelation to me, some insight which would help me to a clearer understanding of the world about me.

“The same trend can be seen in personal relationships, in the way people are expected to package themselves, their emotions and sexuality in attractive and instantly appealing forms.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

Notes to The Atrocity Exhibition (1970; written 1967 - 1969, annotated 1990)
Context: All over the world major museums have bowed to the influence of Disney and become theme parks in their own right. The past, whether Renaissance Italy or ancient Egypt, is reassimilated and homogenized into its most digestible form. Desperate for the new, but disappointed with anything but the familiar, we recolonise past and future. The same trend can be seen in personal relationships, in the way people are expected to package themselves, their emotions and sexuality in attractive and instantly appealing forms.

Max Müller photo

“Still the child betrays the passions of the man, and there are hymns, though few in number, in the Veda, so full of thought and speculation that at this early period no poet in any other nation could have conceived them. I give but one specimen, the 129th hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-veda. It is a hymn which long ago attracted the attention of that eminent scholar H. T. Colebrooke, and of which, by the kind assistance of a friend, I am enabled to offer a metrical translation. In judging it we should hear in mind that it was not written by a gnostic or by a pantheistic philosopher, but by a poet who felt all these doubts and problems as his own, without any wish to convince or to startle, only uttering what had been weighing on his mind, just as later poets would sing the doubts and sorrows of their heart.
:Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above.
What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was it the water's fathomles abyss?
There was not death — yet was there naught immortal,
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other than It there nothing since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound — an ocean without light —
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came love upon it, the new spring
Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering, this bond between created things
And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose —
Nature below, and power and will above —
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here,
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being —
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this great creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it — or perchance even He knows not.
:* "The Vedas"”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Chips from a German Workshop (1866)

Richard Wright photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo

“Unquestionably socialism and anarchism attract distinctly different types”

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

Source: Violence and the Labor Movement (1914), p. 92
Context: Unquestionably socialism and anarchism attract distinctly different types, who are in many ways alien to each other. Their mental processes differ.

“St. Francis is not only the most attractive of all the Christian saints, he is the most attractive of Christians, admired by Buddhists, atheists, completely secular, modern people, Communists, to whom the figure of Christ himself is at best unattractive.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

"Eckhart, Brethren of the Free Spirit" http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/communalism2.htm from Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century (1974), ch. 4
Context: St. Francis is not only the most attractive of all the Christian saints, he is the most attractive of Christians, admired by Buddhists, atheists, completely secular, modern people, Communists, to whom the figure of Christ himself is at best unattractive. Partly this is due to the sentimentalization of the legend of his life and that of his companions in the early days of the order. Many people today who put his statue in their gardens know nothing about him except that he preached a sermon to the birds, wrote a hymn to the sun, and called the donkey his brother. These bits of information are important because they are signs of a revolution of the sensibility — which incidentally was a metaphysical revolution of which certainly St. Francis himself was quite unaware. They stand for a mystical and emotional immediate realization of the unity of being, a notion foreign, in fact antagonistic, to the main Judeo-Christian tradition.
“I am that I am” — the God of Judaism is the only self-sufficient being. All the reality that we can know is contingent, created out of nothing, and hence of an inferior order of reality. Faced with the “utterly other,” the contingent soul can finally only respond with fear and trembling.

Eric Hoffer photo

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 181
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Context: There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.

“Men are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: What is Political Philosophy (1959), p. 40
Context: Men are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm. It is the highest form of the mating of courage and moderation. In spite of its highness or nobility, it could appear as Sisyphean or ugly, when one contrasts its achievement with its goal. Yet it is necessarily accompanied, sustained and elevated by eros. It is graced by nature's grace.

Thomas Carlyle photo
Mohamed ElBaradei photo

“As long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.
I have no doubt that, if we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our security.”

Mohamed ElBaradei (1942) Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Nobel …

Nobel lecture (2005)
Context: As long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.
I have no doubt that, if we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our security.
To that end, we must ensure — absolutely — that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons.
We must see to it that nuclear-weapon states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament.
And we must put in place a security system that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.

John D. Barrow photo
Alicia Witt photo

“I have no respect for people who deliberately try to be weird to attract attention, but if that's who you honestly are, you shouldn't try to "normalize yourself".”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

AOL Live (1996)
Context: I just tend to admire people who go for what they believe in, like David Lynch for example, and just say what goes through their heads, and are not afraid of people not accepting them. I have no respect for people who deliberately try to be weird to attract attention, but if that's who you honestly are, you shouldn't try to "normalize yourself". It's a fine line.

Michelle Pfeiffer photo

“I consider myself an attractive woman, and I can be not-so-great-looking if I don't put effort into how I look.”

Michelle Pfeiffer (1958) American actress

In response to criticism that she was too beautiful to play a lonely waitress in Frankie and Johnny, quoted in Pfeiffer: Beyond the Age of Innocence by Thompson, p. 223
Context: The description of the character is that Frankie is an attractive woman if she'd just put a little effort into how she looks. So that's basically the way I played her. I consider myself an attractive woman, and I can be not-so-great-looking if I don't put effort into how I look. But more importantly, the core of the character was someone who had given up on love, and that could be any age, any size, any form of beauty. That could be anybody.

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood photo

“No doubt there is a good deal that is attractive about the nationalist idea. It has a great history and it has a great deal of appeal to sentiment in itself admirable. But if we examine what it leads to, I do not doubt that we shall all agree that it must be rejected as a guiding principle of the nations of the world. For it necessarily leads to an exaggeration of the authority and dignity of the state to an extent which practically destroys individual action and individual responsibility.”

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom

The Future of Civilization (1938)
Context: No doubt there is a good deal that is attractive about the nationalist idea. It has a great history and it has a great deal of appeal to sentiment in itself admirable. But if we examine what it leads to, I do not doubt that we shall all agree that it must be rejected as a guiding principle of the nations of the world. For it necessarily leads to an exaggeration of the authority and dignity of the state to an extent which practically destroys individual action and individual responsibility. Nationalism leads to totalitarianism, and totalitarianism leads to idolatry. It becomes not a principle of politics but a new religion and, let me add, a false religion. It depends partly on a pseudoscientific doctrine of race which leads inevitably to the antithesis of all that we value in Christian morality.
On the other hand, if we accept the view that all nations are interdependent, as individuals in any society are, we get precisely the opposite result. Such a principle leads to friendliness and good neighbourhood and, indeed, it is not too much to say that it leads to everything that we have hitherto understood as progress and civilization.

Lucretius photo

“Custom renders love attractive; for that which is struck by oft-repeated blows however lightly, yet after long course of time is overpowered and gives way. See you not too that drops of water falling on rocks after long course of time scoop a hole through these rocks?”
Consuetudo concinnat amorem; nam leviter quamvis quod crebro tunditur ictu, vincitur in longo spatio tamen atque labascit. Nonne vides etiam guttas in saxa cadentis umoris longo in spatio pertundere saxa?

Lucretius (-94–-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher

Book IV, lines 1283–1287 (tr. Munro)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)

Ramachandra Guha photo

“Three men did most to make Hinduism a modern faith. Of these the first was not recognized as a Hindu by the Shankaracharyas; the second was not recognized as a Hindu by himself; the third was born a Hindu but made certain he would not die as one. These three great reformers were Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and B. R. Ambedkar. Gandhi and Nehru, working together, helped Hindus make their peace with modern ideas of democracy and secularism. Gandhi and Ambedkar, working by contrasting methods and in opposition to one another, made Hindus recognize the evils and horrors of the system of Untouchability. Nehru and Ambedkar, working sometimes together, sometimes separately, forced Hindus to grant, in law if not always in practice, equal rights to their women. The Gandhi-Nehru relationship has been the subject of countless books down the years. Books on the Congress, which document how these two made the party the principal vehicle of Indian nationalism; books on Gandhi, which have to deal necessarily with the man he chose to succeed him; books on Nehru, which pay proper respect to the man who influenced him more than anyone else. Books too numerous to mention, among which I might be allowed to single out, as being worthy of special mention, Sarvepalli Gopal’s Jawaharlal Nehru, B. R. Nanda’s Mahatma Gandhi, and Rajmohan Gandhi’s The Good Boatman. In recent years, the Gandhi-Ambedkar relationship has also attracted a fair share of attention. Some of this has been polemical and even petty; as in Arun Shourie’s Worshipping False Gods (which is deeply unfair to Ambedkar), and Jabbar Patel’s film Ambedkar (which is inexplicably hostile to Gandhi). But there have also been some sensitive studies of the troubled relationship between the upper caste Hindu who abhorred Untouchability and the greatest of Dalit reformers. These include, on the political side, the essays of Eleanor Zelliott and Denis Dalton; and on the moral and psychological side, D. R. Nagaraj’s brilliant little book The Flaming Feet. By contrast, the Nehru-Ambedkar relationship has been consigned to obscurity. There is no book about it, nor, to my knowledge, even a decent scholarly article. That is a pity, because for several crucial years they worked together in the Government of India, as Prime Minister and Law Minister respectively.”

Ramachandra Guha (1958) historian and writer from India

[Guha, Ramachandra, REFORMING THE HINDUS, http://ramachandraguha.in/archives/reforming-the-hindus.html, The Hindu, July 18th, 2004]
Articles

“Nazi ideology offered redemption from a national ontological crisis, to which it was attracted like a predatory shark to blood.”

Michael Burleigh (1955) American historian and writer

Source: The Third Reich: A New History (2000), p. 12

Joseph Larmor photo
John Bowring photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
Isaac Asimov photo
Ana Castillo photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Robert Sheckley photo
Newton Lee photo
Oswald Spengler photo

“All young sects are at bottom hostile to State and property, class and rank, and are attracted to universal equality.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

The Hour of Decision (1933)

Daniel Abraham photo
Charles Stross photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Freedom, diversity and openness are the main features that make Taipei attractive to visitors.”

Tsai Ping-kun (1959) Taiwanese politician

Tsai Ping-kun (2019) cited in " Six Taipei sightseeing spots receive Muslim certificate http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2019/10/22/2003724410" on Taipei Times, 22 October 2019

Bhagwan Das photo
Enoch Powell photo
Jan Smuts photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Annie Besant photo