Quotes about author
page 18

“There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.”

Roger Bacon (1220–1292) medieval philosopher and theologian

Cited in: John H. Woodburn, Ellsworth Scott Obourn (1965) Teaching the pursuit of science. p. 70

Wisdom, Truth, Way, Feeling

“Good jobs depend on expanded trade. Selling into new markets creates new jobs, so I ask Congress to finally approve trade promotion authority. On these two key issues, trade and energy, the House of Representatives has acted to create jobs, and I urge the Senate to pass this legislation.”

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

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Housing, Dependency

“Perhaps the author cited is one of those, who, shunning the practice of the world, have taught the world to shun return! whose poetry is too finely spun, whose philosophy is too and mystified for popular demand: perhaps we have experienced feeling which Mr. Wordsworth alludes to, in a poem worthy of simplicity and loneliness of the sentiment—"Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure; Sighed to think I read a book Only read perhaps by me!"”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"Quotations".
Sketches from Life (1846)

Pleasure, Books, World, Feeling

“In early October of 1939, designated by the government as the year of "the duty to be healthy," Hitler authored a secret memo certifying that "Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr Brandt are hereby commissioned to allow certain specified doctors to grant a mercy death [Gnadentod] to patients judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination."”

Robert N. Proctor (1954) American historian

Source: Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, 1988, p. 177

Death, Secret

“The convict era gave Australia a high English and Irish population and a predominance of men, a tendency to disdain authority and resent policemen, and probably a love of leisure and an indifference to religion. The convict era imposed on governments from the outset a high and detailed role in economic and social life. Some of these convict influences were fragile and were quickly erased or reversed by the waves of free immigration; some were reinforced by later events, so that they persist to this day.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

A Land Half Won (1980)

Love, Life, Men, Religion

“I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Variant translation: I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left... Whosoever would undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished, should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths

Imagination, Past, Future

“Foreign relations. At no period in the past 12 years have our foreign relations been in such a satisfactory condition as they are at the present time. Our actions in the recent months have greatly strengthened the American policy of permanent peace with independence. The attitude which our Government took and maintained toward an adjustment of European reparations, by pointing out that it wits not a political but a business problem, has demonstrated its wisdom by its actual results. We desire to see Europe restored that it may resume its productivity in the increase of industry and its support in the advance of civilization. We look with great gratification at the hopeful prospect of recuperation in Europe through the Dawes plan. Such assistance as can be given through the action of the public authorities and of our private citizens, through friendly counsel and cooperation, and through economic and financial support, not for any warlike effort but for reproductive enterprise, not to provide means for unsound government financing but to establish sound business administration ' should be unhesitatingly provided.”

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

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

Wisdom, Peace, Hope, Business

“But if I have erred in anything, I gladly come before the teaching authority of Peter.”

Peter Damian (1007–1072) reformist monk

Letter 65:26. To Hildebrand, "archdeacon and immobile pillar of the Apostolic See," Dec. 1059. Op. Cit., p. 39. http://books.google.com/books?id=9smLdu9BvK0C&pg=PA39&dq=%22if+I+have+erred+in+anything,+I+gladly+come+before+the+teaching+authority%22&hl=en&ei=soXDTKrlNoGB8gbTqujZBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22if%20I%20have%20erred%20in%20anything%2C%20I%20gladly%20come%20before%20the%20teaching%20authority%22&f=false

“In analyzing organization work, a single chart can frequently express more than any amount of detailed written explanation. First of all, clearly define author- ities within your establishment; then chart those authorities simply and graphically, so that every workman knows to whom he is responsible, and every executive knows who is responsible to him. Place this chart conspicuously in every department where each employee can see it. In case of disputed authority, final proof is immediately at hand. There is then no loop-hole through which a neglectful workman, foreman or executive can crawl no longer does he have the excuse that he thought somebody else was going to do it. In clean-cut form, his duties and relations to other men of the organization are laid down once and for all, and responsibility rests on the right man. Failure so to specify responsibilities inevitably means confusion all down the line.”

Clinton Edgar Woods (1863) American engineer

Source: Industrial organization (1914), p. 24-25

Men, Failure

“The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority… it is the one guarantee of human freedom to the American people.”

Frank I. Cobb (1869–1923) American newspaper editor

LaFollette's Magazine (January 1920).

People, Freedom

“[C]opyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. […] This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.”

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).

Art, Idea, Science

“As a mathematical object, the constitution is maximally simple, consistent, necessarily incomplete, and interpretable as a model of natural law. Political authority is allocated solely to serve the constitution. There are no authorities which are not overseen, within nonlinear structures. Constitutional language is formally constructed to eliminate all ambiguity and to be processed algorithmically. Democratic elements, along with official discretion, and legal judgment, is incorporated reluctantly, minimized in principle, and gradually eliminated through incremental formal improvement. Argument defers to mathematical expertise. Politics is a disease that the constitution is designed to cure.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"A Republic, If You Can Keep It" https://web.archive.org/web/20140327090001/http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/articles/12321 (2013) (original emphasis)

Disease, Law, Mathematics, Nature

“[on zapatistas] The goal has never been to defeat the state and claim sovereign authority but rather to change the world without taking power.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

85
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

World, Change

“By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book One, Chapter XIII.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book One

Books, Art, Democracy, Imagination

“In the year AH 817 (AD 1414), Mullik Tohfa, one of the Officers of the King’s government was ennobled by the title of Taj-ool-Moolk, and received a special commission to destroy all idolatrous temples, and establish the Mahomedan authority throughout Guzerat; a duty which he executed with such diligence, that the names of Mawass and Girass were hereafter unheard of in the whole kingdom.”

Ahmad Shah I (1389–1442) Indian king who founded Ahmedabad city

General order. Tãrîkh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol I, p.10

“The conflict between liberty under divine authority and the absolutism of human authorities ended disastrously. …In the very year 586 [BCE], in which the flood of Asiatic despotism closed over the city which had been, and was destined again to be, the sanctuary of freedom in the East, a new home was prepared for it in the West, where, guarded by the sea and the mountains, and by valiant hearts, that stately plant was reared under whose shade we dwell, and which is extending its invincible arms so slowly and yet so surely over the civilised world.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

World, Home, Mountain, Freedom

“Traditional leadership is based on ascription. In former times, there was some degree of flexibility which enabled change. This was based on prowess in war and statecraft. The British fossilised the system and traditional leaders became government functionaries. Their authority was strengthened by the colonial administration.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Address to the Pacific Regional Workshop on Leadership Development, Lami, Fiji, 9 July 2005.

War, Change, Time

“What the divine author of the Mahabharata said of his great creation is equally true of Hinduism. Whatever of substance is contained in any other religion is always to be found in Hinduism, and what is not contained in it is insubstantial or unnecessary.”

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

Young India (27 September 1925)
1920s

Religion

“This is not about the security of the United States. This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

Truth Out, 24 July 2002
2000

War

“The liberty of every American citizen freely to come and to go must frequently, in the face of sudden danger, be temporarily limited or suspended. The civil authorities must often resort to the expedient of excluding citizens temporarily from a locality.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Writing for the court, Korematsu v. United States, 33 U.S. 124 (1944).

“Rowling got millions of young people reading, who grew up to be consumers who branched out into other authors and genres. You shouldn’t yell at her. You should thank her.”

Larry Correia (1977) American fantasy writer

"How Authors Get Paid, part 2", Monster Hunter Nation http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/06/25/how-authors-get-paid-part-2/, 2015-06-15

People, Reading

“The right's approach is to release the dogs of the market, throwing all traditional verities into disarray; and then, in this tumult of insecurity, offer themselves up as the last bastion of order and hierarchy, the stalwart defenders of the authority of churches and fathers against the barbarians they have themselves unleashed.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Army of Altruists (2007)

Dogs

“If you say you believe in God, but you don’t really believe in God, then how you could you possibly be trying to fool God? Wouldn’t you have to believe there is a god if you’re going to try and deceive him? And what is the deception? Are you trying to trick God into thinking you believe in him? If you don’t believe in God then that’s not even possible. So already the Qur’an reveals sufficient absurdity to prove that it cannot have been authored by any god. Seriously, could this be any less ridiculous if it were written in Arabic?”

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

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

God, Fools, Thinking

“It is not reasonable they should be solely employed in the study of the Greek and Latin authors, and having no curiosity to become acquainted with the writers of their own nation, remain always strangers in their own country.”

Charles Rollin (1661–1741) French historian

The Method of Teaching and Studying the Belles Lettres, Vol. I, The Third Edition (1742), Book II, Ch. 2, Article 3: 'Of the different sorts of poems', p. 278

Study, Country

“It's utterly incomprehensible to me how someone could say we don’t need a teaching authority of the Church. If we have five Bible scriptures and 18 opinions regarding them, who is to determine? Either it's the fact that My intellect is better than yours; I've studied more than you; I can persuade better than you can; I'm more passionate than you that makes my opinion win over yours. Or we have a teaching authority that says, The rule book says this is how you settle this issue.”

Ulf Ekman (1950) Swedish chaplain

Ulf Ekman Says Prophetic Word Confirmed His Catholic Conversion http://www.charismanews.com/world/43126-ulf-ekman-says-prophetic-word-confirmed-his-catholic-conversion Charisma News by Likas Berggren, 3/14/2014

Books, Study, Passion

“But the tyranny of custom, like all other tyrannies, when grown quite unbearable—for it is wonderful what people will endure-; had already sown the seeds of its own dissolution. Out of the hardship had grown the repining, and to repine at the exercise of an alleged right is soon to question its authority, and the first question asked shakes the whole ancient and time-honoured fabric of privilege.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Other Gift Books

People, Exercises, Question, Time

“The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.

And even the books that do not last long, penetrate their own times at least, sailing farther than Ulysses even dreamed of, like ships on the seas. It is the author’s part to call into being their cargoes and passengers,—living thoughts and rich bales of study and jeweled ideas. And as for the publishers, it is they who build the fleet, plan the voyage, and sail on, facing wreck, till they find every possible harbor that will value their burden.”

Clarence Day (1874–1935) American writer

The Story of the Yale University Press Told by a Friend (1920), pp. 7–8.

Men, Books, World, Dreams

“There mere idea that the planning authority could ever possess a complete inventory of the amounts and qualities of all the different materials and instruments of production of which the manager of a particular plant will know or be able to find out makes the whole proposal a somewhat comic fiction. Once this is recognised it becomes obvious that what prices ought to be can never be determined without relying on competitive markets.”

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

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

Idea

“But we have an opportunity before us to reassert our desire and to lend the force of our example for the peaceful adjudication of differences between nations. Such action would be in entire harmony with the policy which we have long advocated. I do not look upon it as a certain guaranty against war, but it would be a method of disposing of troublesome questions, an accumulation of which leads to irritating conditions and results in mutually hostile sentiments. More than a year ago President Harding proposed that the Senate should authorize our adherence to the protocol of the Permanent Court of International Justice, with certain conditions. His suggestion has already had my approval. On that I stand. I should not oppose other reservations, but any material changes which would not probably receive the consent of the many other nations would be impracticable. We can not take a step in advance of this kind without assuming certain obligations. Here again if we receive anything we must surrender something. We may as well face the question candidly, and if we are willing to assume these new duties in exchange for the benefits which would accrue to us, let us say so. If we are not willing, let us say that. We can accomplish nothing by taking a doubtful or ambiguous position. We are not going to be able to avoid meeting the world and bearing our part of the burdens of the world. We must meet those burdens and overcome them or they will meet us and overcome us. For my part I desire my country to meet them without evasion and without fear in an upright, downright, square, American way.”

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

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)

Hostility, War, World, Fear

“The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2 : Writing for the Stage

Way, Light

“If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.”

John Dickinson (1732–1808) American politician

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (6 July 1775)

Wisdom, Men, Exercises, Sense

“Now in addition to being applauded as a five-time Grammy-Award-winning artist, Gloria now has the distinction of being titled a two-time New York Times best-selling author!”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment by Frank Amadeo, president of EEI, after Estefan's second children's book, "Noelle's Treasure Tale," debuted in third position on The New York Times children's picture book best seller list for the week of October 29, 2006
2007, 2008

Time

“By Jesus’s time the Law of Moses, originally established for the government of a semi-barbarous nation of herdsmen and hill-farmers, resembled a petulant great-grandfather who tries to govern a family business from his sick-bed in the chimney-corner, unaware of the changes that have taken place in the world since he was able to get about: his authority must not be questioned, yet his orders, since no longer relevant, must be reinterpreted in another sense, if the business is not to go bankrupt. When the old man says, for instance: “It is time for the women to grind their lapfuls of millet in the querns,” this is taken to mean: “It is time to send the sacks of wheat to the water-mill.””

Robert Graves book King Jesus

Source: King Jesus (1946), Ch. 21.

Women, World, Family, Law

“The meaning of the First Amendment has been, and will be, shaped by each American generation: by judges, political leaders, citizens. There will always be authorities who try to make their own lives more comfortable by suppressing critical comment.… But I am convinced that the fundamental American commitment to free speech, disturbing speech, is no longer in doubt.”

Anthony Lewis book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

[xv, Anthony, Lewis, w:Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate; A Biography of the First Amendment, Basic Books, 2007, 0465039170]

“What the planning authority would have to know would not be the mere totals but the distinct, peculiar conditions prevailing in each enterprise which affect the information about values transmitted through market prices but would be completely lost in any statistical information about quantities that might reach the authority from time to time.”

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

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

Time

“And you, my fine poet, who thought that the earth
To another such minstrel could never give birth,
Already your works are all thrown on the shelf,
And their author condemn'd as an ignorant elf.—
Yes; look thro' the world, and this truth you will find
That, once out of sight, you are soon out of mind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Fable (Imitated from the French of La Motte.)
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

Truth, World, Birth

“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

“God tells us', wrote Equiano, 'that the oppressor and the oppressed are both in his hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the bruised which our Savior speaks of, who are they?' Down through the years, African-Americans have upheld the ideals of America by exposing laws and habits contradicting those ideals. The rights of African-Americans were not the gift of those in authority. Those rights were granted by the author of life and regained by the persistence and courage of African-Americans themselves. Among those Americans was Phillis Wheatley, who was dragged from her home here in West Africa in 1761 at the age of 7. In my country she became a poet and the first noted black author in our nation's history. Phillis Wheatley said, 'In every human breast God has implanted a principle which we call love of freedom. It is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance'. That deliverance was demanded by escaped slaves named Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, educators named Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DeBois and ministers of the Gospel named Leon Sullivan and Martin Luther King Jr.”

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

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

Love, Life, God, Truth

“It seemed even the smallest exercise of arbitrary authority could go to one’s head like wine. I told myself to remember this when I was older.”

John C. Wright book Orphans of Chaos

Source: Orphans of Chaos (2005), Chapter 4, “Headmaster Boggin” Section 1 (p. 64)

Exercises, Wine

“… acting on Hacker's wishes, the editor of his collected works excluded the author's polemical Christian writings from the compilation…. Many such polemical writings also appeared in fringe religious pamphlets and propaganda literature which are unknown to most scholars…. Hacker's suppression of this material compromised his integrity as an objective scholar, as it misled readers into thinking his writings on Hinduism were objective evaluations when in fact they were, in Andrew Nicholson's words, the work of a 'Christian polemicist'. In his posthumously published wrigings, Hacker is as explicit in his support for Christianity as he is in his attack on contemporary Hinduism.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Indra's Net

Indra's Net (2014)

Literature, Support, Thinking, Appearance

“A master who had been cruel to his slaves might become a slave in his turn, and undergo the torments he had inflicted on others. He who has wielded authority may, in a new existence, be obliged to obey those who formerly bent to his will. Such an existence may be imposed upon him as an expiation if he have abused his power. But a good spirit may also choose an influential existence among the people of some lower race, in order to hasten their advancement; in that case, such a reincarnation is a mission.”

Allan Kardec (1804–1869) systematizer of Spiritism

Source: The Spirits' Book, p. 170.

People

“The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Of John Campbell, as quoted by Joseph Wharton; reported in "John Campbell", Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)

Literature

“In France, and that, too, during the most serious epoch of modern history, no woman, unless it be Brunehaut or Fredegonde, has suffered from popular error so much as Catherine de' Medici; whereas Marie de' Medici, all of whose actions were prejudicial to France, has escaped the shame which ought to cover her name… Catherine de' Medici, on the contrary, saved the crown of France; she maintained the royal authority in the midst of circumstances under which more than one great prince would have succumbed. Having to make head against factions and ambitions like those of the Guises and the house of Bourbon, against men such as the two Cardinals of Lorraine, the two Balafrés, and the two Condés, against the queen Jeanne d'Albret, Henri IV., the Connetable de Montmorency, Calvin, the three Colignys, Theodore de Beze, she needed to possess and to display the rare qualities and precious gifts of a statesman under the mocking fire of the Calvinist press.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

En France, et dans la partie la plus grave de l'histoire moderne, aucune femme, si ce n'est Brunehault ou Frédégonde, n'a plus souffert des erreurs populaires que Catherine de Médicis; tandis que Marie de Médicis, dont toutes les actions on été préjudiciables à la France, échappe à la honte qui devrait couvrir son nom... Catherine de Médicis, au contraire, a sauvé la couronne de France; elle a maintenu l'authorité royale dans des des circonstances au milieur desquelles plus d'un grand prince aurait succombé.Ayant en tête des factieux et des ambitions comme celles des Guise et de la maison de Bourbon, des hommes commes les deux cardinaux de Lorraine et comme les deux Balafrés, les deux princes de Condé, la reine Jeanne d'Albret, Henri IV, le connétable de Montmorency, Calvin, les Coligny, Théodore de Bèze, il lui a fallu déployer les plus rares qualités, les plus précieux dons de l'homme d'État, sous le feu des railleries de la presse calviniste.
About Catherine de' Medici (1842), Introduction

Men, Error, History, Suffering

“Kuhn's recognition that science might cease—leaving us with what Charles Sanders Peirce had defined as the "truth" about nature—made it even more imperative for Kuhn than for Popper to challenge science's authority, to deny that science can ever arrive at absolute truth. "The one thing I think you shouldn't say is that now we've found out what the world is really like," Kuhn said. "Because that's not what I think the game is about."”

John Horgan (journalist) (1953) American science journalist

Source: The End of Science (1996), Ch. 2 : The End of Philosophy

Truth, World, Game, Nature

“DeMaistre and Bonald … wanted to teach men submission, to give them the religion of established power, to substitute, in Bonald’s phrase, “the evidence of authority for the authority of evidence.””

Alain Finkielkraut (1949) French essayist, born 1949

Source: The Undoing of Thought (1988), p. 22.

Men, Religion

“This Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

"Virginia Resolution of 1798" (December 1798)
1790s

Exercises, Sense, Evil

“It is authority that provokes revolution…. This occurs when a feeling of impunity takes root among the elite: We are allowed anything, we can do anything. This is a delusion, but it rests on a certain rational foundation. For a while it does indeed look as if they can do whatever they want. Scandal after scandal and illegality after illegality go unpunished. The people remain silent…They are afraid and do not yet feel their own strength. At the same time, they keep a detailed account of the wrongs, which at one particular moment are to be added up. The choice of that moment is the greatest riddle of history.”

Ryszard Kapuściński book Shah of Shahs

Shah of Shahs, Vintage International edition, p. 106

People, Feeling, History, Time

“This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.”

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

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

People, Law, Nature, Sense

“Vulgarity is a necessary part of a complete author's equipment; and the clown is sometimes the best part of the circus.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface to London music in 1888-89 as heard by Corno di Bassetto http://books.google.com/books?id=3PBP0ln1gLgC (1937) <br class="br">1940s and later

Parting

“.. the equivalence of sounds, gratings, scratches, explosions, shots, blows, hammering, shouts, resonance, echoes in space; meditation of a cosmic theme, reflection for the contemplation of the earth, of magma, of lava, of ash; battlefield; garden; play-field; destiny of the ephemeral... Far from the cliché people have of artists holding the baggage of necessary originality, personality, style, etc., that calls for an outsider's discussion of the works, for the author there is, foremost, a nucleus of thought that is more anonymous and collective and of which artists are but humble servants. This is surely the zone where wisdom is deposited, the wisdom that one may really find beneath all ideologies and the contingencies of this world. It is the impulse of our life instinct for knowledge, love and freedom that has been kept and fed by the wisdom of all time.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

Love, Life, Wisdom, People

“What I love about fiction is the way this form of expression allows an author to wrestle an idea to the ground, as opposed to the bumper-sticker dialectics that pass for political and philosophical discourse in most sectors of our culture. In the age of mass communication, we need the quiet, contemplative and often ambiguous medium of the novel more than ever.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), P. S. (p. 13)

Love, Age, Way, Communication

“"The sovereignty of the States" is the language of the Confederacy, and not the language of the Constitution. The latter contains the emphatic words — This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

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

Quote, First State of the Union Address (1865)

Law

“The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces.”

Paul R. Halmos (1916–2006) American mathematician

Proposal for a humorous first sentence to a review of a mathematical paper, rejected by editors.
I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985)

“I wish I could finish stories as fast as you can. I am much obliged to you for the sight of Olivia, and think you have done for her very well; but the good-for-nothing father, who was the real author of all her faults and sufferings, should not escape unpunished. I hope he hung himself, or took the surname of Bone or underwent some direful penance or other.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to niece Caroline (1814-12-06) regarding a story Caroline sent her [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Hope, Thinking, Suffering

“This book reports the findings from a study of job motivation based on a fresh approach to this problem. It is an important study, since the analyses and interpretations of the authors suggest that a breakthrough may well have been made to provide new insights into the nature and method of operation of job attitudes.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p.vii: Preface ; lead paragraph

Books, Motivation, Nature, Problem

“While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.”

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

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

“The reference to the source of authority should be definite. Such vague phrases as the following, common though they are, are worthless as proof : —
Statistics gathered with great care show —
It may be said on substantial authority —
Many prominent men agree —
Competent authorities say —
We could give hundreds of cases to show —
Recent writers on this subject declare —
One had better not pretend to prove anything than to seek to cover bare assertions with such flimsy material.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 59; as cited in: Branham (2013, p. 77)

Men

“Through the consolidation of basic production and the institution of a new High Authority, whose decisions will bind France, Germany and the other countries that join, this proposal represents the first concrete step towards a European federation, imperative for the preservation of peace.”

Jean Monnet (1888–1979) French political economist regarded by many as a chief architect of European unity

Speech by Robert Schuman (9 May 1950), written by Monnet
Jean Monnet 1888-1979

Peace, Decision, Country

“For every day that God gives us, we thank the Lord of Hosts and His friend the Prophet, the latter of whom instituted here on earth a life of loveliness without envy or jealousy... We shall not give up this our life of loveliness, as long as we live, however much we are oppressed by the Government and its troops and policemen, its Congress and Senate, orators, newspaper scribes and authors, professors and paltry bishops, and even the antichrist himself, the Pope. No power on earth will succeed in preventing us from accomplishing God's sacred ordinances, as regards polygamy no less than all the other aspects that God has revealed to us. Polygamy as long as we live, say we women of Latter-Day Saints; polygamy or death!”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

the women of Spanish Fork
Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)

Life, Jealousy, God, Envy

“Our national history has presented various phases of this problem. Slavery showed one; the complexities of interstate commerce have kept others constantly in mind. On the day the Constitution was finished, probably more people would have seen seeds of conflict and dangers to the Union in future commercial relations than in slavery. But commerce became a source of strength, while slavery be- came a cause of division. It brought the Union into danger; and in the end was destroyed itself. Where there was sincere acceptance of the dual sovereignty theory, where the States sought to do their full part, and accepted the de- terminations of the National Government as to the rest, the plan worked. Where the States sought more from the Federal authority than it could give, and resisted national demands — then came dissension and, at length, war.”

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

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

War, People, History, Problem

“What are the fundamental motives that explain the present rivalry of armaments in Europe, notably the Anglo-German? Each nation pleads the need for defence; but this implies that someone is likely to attack, and has therefore a presumed interest in so doing. What are the motives which each State thus fears its neighbors may obey?
They are based on the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others…. It is assumed that a nation's relative prosperity is broadly determined by its political power; that nations being competing units, advantage in the last resort goes to the possessor of preponderant military force, the weaker goes to the wall, as in the other forms of the struggle for life.
The author challenges this whole doctrine. He attempts to show that it belongs to a stage of development out of which we have passed that the commerce and industry of a people no longer depend upon the expansion of its political frontiers; that a nation's political and economic frontiers do not now necessarily coincide; that military power is socially and economically futile, and can have no relation to the prosperity of the people exercising it; that it is impossible for one nation to seize by force the wealth or trade of another — to enrich itself by subjugating, or imposing its will by force on another; that in short, war, even when victorious, can no longer achieve those aims for which people strive….”

Norman Angell book The Great Illusion

The Great Illusion (1910)

Life, War, People, Fear

“A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections

Idea, Success

“They insist that an author should write in the strictest, purest and noblest language: in short, they expect the Russian language to drop from the clouds, already refined, and that it should come naturally to the lips, so that all they have to do is to open their mouth and stick out their tongue. It goes without saying, of course, that the feminine half of the human species is very wise; but it must be confessed that our respected readers are even wiser.”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Dead Souls (1842)

Nature

“It is language which speaks in literature, in all its swarming 'polysemic' plurality, not the author himself.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Source: 1980s, Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), Chapter 4, p. 120

Literature

“When I went to Spain, right after the Pulitzer I encountered Spanish journalists who are very different from American journalists. One way is that they are all very political. They want their writers to be very political. The first journalist that I met when I was there asked "Are you going to use your prize for political purposes?" I said, "Good Lord, no, I wouldn’t trade on it—I’m a professional liar. I tell stories. I make things up." They were appalled. They made it very clear to me that that was the wrong answer and that it was further evidence of what was wrong with American authors and Americans, in general, was that we were insular. Which we are. And that we were not bearing our responsibilities in the world. And that fame that is ours has been wasted on people like us because we won’t use it for good purposes. American writers are probably far more insular than we should be, nevertheless I am very much of the other persuasion. That people should not talk about what they don’t know.”

Richard Russo (1949) American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter

People, World, Way

“I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favor it. For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Epistle Dedicatory, Paris, April 15-25, 1651
Leviathan (1651)

World, Way

“When Luther stood before the emperor and the representatives of church and state, he begged to be refuted, and if he were refuted, he promised to keep silence; but as he was not, he continued to preach and he preached boldly in the name of truth as one that had authority. Therefore let religious progress be made as in the era of the Reformation, not in complaisance to popular opinion, but squarely in the name of truth.”

Paul Carus (1852–1919) American philosopher

Homilies of Science p. 31
Homilies of Science 1892

Truth, Silence

“These Disciplines [mathematics] serve to inure and corroborate the Mind to a constant Diligence in Study; to undergo the Trouble of an attentive Meditation, and cheerfully contend with such Difficulties as lie in the Way. They wholly deliver us from a credulous Simplicity, most strongly fortify us against the Vanity of Scepticism, effectually restrain from a rash Presumption, most easily incline us to a due Assent, perfectly subject us to the Government of right Reason, and inspire us with Resolution to wrestle against the unjust Tyranny of false Prejudices. If the Fancy be unstable and fluctuating, it is to be poised by this Ballast, and steadied by this Anchor, if the Wit be blunt it is sharpened upon this Whetstone; if luxuriant it is pared by this Knife; if headstrong it is restrained by this Bridle; and if dull it is roused by this Spur. The Steps are guided by no Lamp more clearly through the dark Mazes of Nature, by no Thread more surely through the intricate Labyrinths of Philosophy, nor lastly is the Bottom of Truth sounded more happily by any other Line. I will not mention how plentiful a Stock of Knowledge the Mind is furnished from these, with what wholesome Food it is nourished, and what sincere Pleasure it enjoys. But if I speak farther, I shall neither be the only Person, nor the first, who affirms it; that while the Mind is abstracted and elevated from sensible Matter, distinctly views pure Forms, conceives the Beauty of Ideas, and investigates the Harmony of Proportions; the Manners themselves are sensibly corrected and improved, the Affections composed and rectified, the Fancy calmed and settled, and the Understanding raised and excited to more divine Contemplation. All which I might defend by Authority, and confirm by the Suffrages of the greatest Philosophers.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 31: Prefatory Oration

Pleasure, Truth, Lie, Food

“I never give orders. I sell my ideas to my associates if I can. I accept their judgment if they convince me, as they frequently do, that I am wrong. I prefer to appeal to the intelligence of a man rather than attempt to exercise authority over him.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Alfred P. Sloan in: Industrial Digest and Commidities and Finance, (1925), Vol. 4. p. 16

Exercises, Intelligence, Idea

“Geoffrey Robertson: You don't think that this man deserves to die?
Yusuf Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act — perhaps, yes.”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Hypotheticals : "A Satanic Scenario" Granada Television (5 May 1989)

Thinking

“We unfold out of the Idea of Space the propositions of geometry, which are plainly truths of the most rigorous necessity and universality. But if the idea of space were merely collected from observation of the external world, it could never enable or entitle us to assert such propositions: it could never authorize us to say that not merely some lines, but all lines, not only have, but must have, those properties which geometry teaches. Geometry in every proposition speaks a language which experience never dares to utter; and indeed of which she but half comprehends the meaning.”

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

Part 1, Book 1, ch. 7, art. 1.
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)

Truth, World, Idea, Universe

“Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, [but] every character is an extension of the author's own personality.”

Edward Albee (1928–2016) American playwright

The New York Times (18 September 1966)

People, Personality

“Article 141 of the Constitution says that the law declared by the Supreme Court is binding on all courts and authorities in the territory of India. Unwillingly Article 141 has now become the thief of Judicial Time. The Laws' proverbial delays are not because there are too many laws, but because there are just too many reported judgments and orders concerning them. Cashing in on Art 141 every single case in the Supreme Court) and even in the High Courts-is dutifully printed and reported by a variety of competing reporting agencies who want their law reports to sell as widely as possible. The "judgement - factory" has become over - commercialized, and quite a large number of the 30 million cases now pending in various Courts in India can be attributed-atleast in part-to this peculiar Indian malady: "case-law diarrhoea."”

Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician

Quoted in Fali Sam Nariman Felicitated, May 2001, 24 December 2013, PUCL Bulletin http://www.pucl.org/reports/National/2001/nariman.htm,.

Law, Art, Time, Parting

““Then be silent,” said Titus, and in spite of his anger, the heady wine of autocracy tasted sweet upon his tongue—sweet and dangerous—for he was only now learning that he had power over others, not only through the influence of his birthright but through a native authority that was being wielded for the first time—and all this he knew to be dangerous, for as it grew, this bullying would taste ever sweeter and fiercer and the naked cry of freedom would become faint and the Thing who had taught him freedom would become no more than a memory.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 77 (p. 774)

Freedom, Learning, Memory, Wine

“His [the author's] renown has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure.”

Washington Irving book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

"The Westminster Abbey [The Poets' Corner]".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)

Pleasure

“In hindsight, I have come to believe the discovery of the tapes may prove to be an historic event in more than one way. At a time when the United States government acknowledges that 2 million conversations were overheard by authorized eavesdroppers in a twelve month period, and at least an equal number were being recorded by private dectecies, suspicious spouses, corporate spies, special agents, and blackmailers; at a time when people like me conduct their lives under the assumption that their telephone lines are tapped; and at a time when devices such as the bug-in-the-martini-olive are proliferating, the disastrous consequences that flowed from Nixon’s fateful decision to record White House conversations may serve to awaken the nation to the threat posed to the little privacy that remains to us.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

page 92
At That Point in Time, Tapes and the threat of wiretapping

Fate, People, Way, Decision

“It is a common myth that idlers are incapable of working. The term “idler” is used as a pejorative by the forces of dullness and authority as they like the idea that idleness equates to evil, and they want society at large to despise the idler. The non-idler cannot understand the paradox of the working idler. He likes things to be simple: you are either working, or not working.”

Tom Hodgkinson (1968) British writer

“Idleness and Industry,” The Idler.

Idea, Understanding, Evil

“As the Knowledge of Nature tends to enlarge the human Mind, and give us more noble, more grand, and exalted Ideas of the AUTHOR of Nature, and if well pursu'd, seldom fails producing something useful to Man.”

Ebenezer Kinnersley (1711–1778) American scientist

Advertisement for his Course of Experiments in Electricity, 1751.

Idea, Nature, Knowledge

“We have thus shown that 1799 began the period called the Time of the End; that in this time Papacy is to be consumed piece-meal; and that Napoleon took away not only Charlemagne's gifts of territory (one thousand years after they were made), but also, afterward, the Papacy's civil jurisdiction in the city of Rome, which was recognized nominally from the promulgation of Justinian's decree, A. D. 533, but actually from the overthrow of the Ostrogothic monarchy, A. D. 539 - just 1260 years before 1799. This was the exact limit of the time, times and a half of its power, as repeatedly defined in prophecy. And though in some measure claimed again since, Papacy is without a vestige of temporal or civil authority to-day, it having been wholly "consumed". The Man of Sin, devoid of civil power, still poses and boasts; but, civilly powerless, he awaits utter destruction in the near future, at the hands of the enraged masses (God's unwitting agency), as clearly shown in Revelation.
This Time of the End, or day of Jehovah's preparation, beginning A. D. 1799 and closing A. D. 1914, though characterized by a great increase of knowledge over all past ages, is to culminate in the greatest time of trouble the world has ever known; but it is nevertheless preparing for and leading into that blessed time so long promised, when the true Kingdom of God, under the control of the true Christ, will fully establish an order of government the very reverse of that of Antichrist.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 59.

God, Age, World, Knowledge

“The author took the only course in cartography available to him in 1937; it must have been fairly typical of the few being offered in America: lectures based largely on personal experiences were supplemented by a relatively few assigned readings, and by Deetz and Adam’s Elements of Map Projection.”

Arthur H. Robinson (1915–2004) American geographer

No textbook was used because there was none in English. <br class="br">Robinson (1970, p. 189) referring to himself in the third person; As cited in: Jake Coolidge (2009) " Arthur H. Robinson: A Look at a Career http://jakecoolidge.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/arthur-h-robinson-a-look-at-a-career/". Oct 15, 2009

Reading, Personality

“The reduction of the executive power is the wish of neither the chambers nor the country…During all my magistracy, I will see, in accord with the responsible ministers, that the government of the republic maintains intact, under the control of parliament, the authority which it must have…It is possible for a people to be effectively pacific only on condition that they are always ready for war. A diminished France, a France exposed through her own fault to challenges or humiliations, would no longer be France.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Speech to the Chamber (20 February 1913), quoted in Gordon Wright, Raymond Poincaré and the French Presidency (New York: Octagon Books, 1967), pp. 64-65.

War, People, Country

“Ibn-ul-Asir says that Qutbuddin Aibak made “war against the provinces of Hind… He killed many, and returned home with prisoners and booty.” In Banaras, according to the same authority, Muhammad Ghauri’s slaughter of the Hindus was immense. “None was spared except women and children." No wonder that slaves began to fill the households of every Turk from the very beginning of Muslim rule in India. Fakhr-i-Mudabbir informs us that as a result of the Muslim achievements under Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak, “even a poor householder (or soldier) who did not possess a single slave before became the owner of numerous slaves of all description …””

Qutb al-Din Aibak (1150–1210) Turkic peoples king of Northwest India

Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7 (quoting Kamil-ut-Tawarikh, E and D, II, p. 250-1; Tarikh-i-Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah, p. 20.)

Women, War, Children, Home

“The Bill of Rights must be subjected to no 'interpretation' of any kind except in terms of the original intent of the Founding Fathers, a group of individuals who had just barely defeated the most overbearing, ruthless, and dangerously violent government in the history of the world. Even the British people were having trouble with it at the time.
The Bill of Rights represents an historic bargain between those who advocated a strong central government — and whose political ideas and wishes are expressed in the main body of the Constitution — and those who did not. Without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution ceases to be valid; any legitimate authority that derives from it ceases to exist.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Toward an International Bill of Rights Union," http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?p=36 31 August 2007.

People, World, History, Idea

“All that I will say is that in 1939 I voluntarily returned from Australia to this country to serve as a private soldier in the war against Germany and Nazism. I am the same man today… It does not follow that because a person resident in this country is not English that he does not enjoy equal treatment before the law and public authorities. I set my face like flint against discrimination.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Reacting to Tony Benn's speech that "the flag hoisted at Wolverhampton [Powell's constituency] is beginning to look like the one that fluttered over Dachau and Belsen" (3 June 1970), from Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell (Phoenix, 1999), p. 556.
1970s

War, Law, Personality, Country

“After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not "manufactured" by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. … The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition…. The greatness of the liturgy depends - we shall have to repeat this frequently — on its unspontaneity.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2000, The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000)

Faith, Law, Way, Idea

“Yet all this is not ressentiment. These are only stages in the development of its sources. Revenge, envy, the impulse to detract, spite, *Schadenfreude*, and malice lead to ressentiment only if there occurs neither a moral self-conquest (such as genuine forgiveness in the case of revenge) nor an act or some other adequate expression of emotion (such as verbal abuse or shaking one's fist), and if this restraint is caused by a pronounced awareness of impotence. There will be no ressentiment if he who thirsts for revenge really acts and avenges himself, if he who is consumed by hatred harms his enemy, gives him “a piece of his mind,” or even merely vents his spleen in the presence of others. Nor will the envious fall under the dominion of ressentiment if he seeks to acquire the envied possession by means of work, barter, crime, or violence. Ressentiment can only arise if these emotions are particularly powerful and yet must be suppressed because they are coupled with the feeling that one is unable to act them out—either because of weakness, physical or mental, or because of fear. Through its very origin, ressentiment is therefore chiefly confined to those who serve and are dominated at the moment, who fruitlessly resent the sting of authority. When it occurs elsewhere, it is either due to psychological contagion—and the spiritual venom of ressentiment is extremely contagious—or to the violent suppression of an impulse which subsequently revolts by “embittering” and “poisoning” the personality. If an ill-treated servant can vent his spleen in the antechamber, he will remain free from the inner venom of ressentiment, but it will engulf him if he must hide his feelings and keep his negative and hostile emotions to himself.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Hostility, Fear, Feeling, Forgiveness

“The power of an idea to serve as the foundation of co-ordination is so great that one may observe many examples of co-ordination even in the absence of any single leader or of any framework of authority.”

Luther H. Gulick (1892–1993) American academic

Source: "Notes on the Theory of Organization," 1937, p. 38

Idea

“Disobedience to authority is one of the most natural and healthy acts.”

Antonio Negri book Empire

210
Empire

Nature

“The Chinese authorities think of artists as prostitutes. And in reality it’s true: in the Communist system artists just represent what the power structure seeks them to represent. It is prostitution.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Truth to Power, 2008

Thinking, Reality

“The outlaw will often wonder whether asserting the right to know, to taste, to experience, to judge is not an act of arrogance. … To become an outlaw, I must decide that my personal experience rather than the mores of the tribe is the authority upon which I will base my judgments. In a bold act of self-love and self-trust, the outlaw proclaims that individual to be higher than the universal.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 130

Love, Universe, Personality

“A theory of haptics is expounded which the author feels will establish "a foundation for the Haptics of form and the psychology of the blind." He differentiates between "Haptics of an essentially optical character" and "pure or autonomous Haptics" such as is experienced by those blind from early childhood. The weaknesses of certain psychological theories such as Gestalt, are discussed in terms of Révész's haptic theory. Part II of the book analyzes the aesthetics of haptic form and the art of the blind. The work of blind sculptors is presented and is analyzed.”

Géza Révész (1878–1955) Hungarian psychologist and musicologist

Géza Révész (1950)., Psychology and art of the blind. Oxford, England: Longmans. Abstract.

Books, Art, Feeling, Parting

“She must be a fool with a witness, who can believe a man, proud and vain as he is, will lay his boasted authority, the dignity and prerogative of his sex, on moment at her feet, but in prospect of taking it up again to more advantage; he may call himself her slave a few days, but it is only in order to make her his all the rest of his life.”

Mary Astell (1666–1731) English feminist writer

Reflection upon Marriage, as quoted in Astell: Political Writings, p. 44.

Life, Fools, Sex

“Saint Paul says, with regard to charity, “He that will not work, let him not eat.” And it says that a man and his faith are to be judged by his responsibility towards them of his own household, his family in particular and the Christian community and he that is not charitable here is worse than an infidel and has denied the faith. Well, the biblical perspective stresses that we are to love our neighbor as ourself. We are to be mindful of his needs. And it puts it on a personal and a moral level. When you put welfare in the place of charity and it becomes a function of a vast bureaucracy to administer it is depersonalized. It no longer considers the individual. It is interested in dehumanizing it, because the statist perspective is not moral nor personal. Its goal is statist power, statist authority, the predominance of the state in every and any sphere where it has controls.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Christian Charity vs Welfarism (September 4, 1996)

Love, Family, Faith, Communication

“In the case of a novel, or any imaginative work, especially if the tone is poetic, my own preference is for ending with a touch of symbolism which shall leave the reader brooding. A fine novel, a well-written story, "proves" nothing. Certain characters have played their parts, life goes on, and the final passage may be allowed to remain with one foot in the air, as is the case with some of Chopin's conclusions. But there is no absolute rule in such matters, and there are epic novelists who like to end on a powerful crescendo, as Ravel does in Bolero, or Dvorak in the New-World Symphony. Composition has features which are common to all the arts, and the author can learn as much about his business in the concert hall as in the library.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

The Art of Writing

Life, World, Art, Imagination

“From the nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the limits which any particular society has circumscribed around itself are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment only. This may be done by themselves, assembled collectively, or by their legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; and if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of the society may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, and occupancy will give him title.”

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

1770s, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)

Way, Nature

“The present volume, introductory to a series of works in more ample detail, is submitted to the public as a specimen of the manner in which the author conceives technological subjects should be discussed.”

Andrew Ure (1778–1857) Scottish doctor and chemist

Source: The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, p. viii

“Between Capitalism and Socialism there is no relationship of true and false. Both are instincts, and have the same historical rank, but one of them belongs to the Past, and one to the Future. Capitalism is a product of Rationalism and Materialism, and was the ruling force of the 19th century. Socialism is the form of an age of political Imperialism, of Authority, of historical philosophy, of superpersonal political imperative.”

Francis Parker Yockey book Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics

Source: Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics (1948), Chapter titled: Marxism, p. 84-85 Noontide Press edition.

Age, Past, Future, Falseness

“In any proposed external communication from God, the channels of human faculty are never to be got rid of; so, if they do not in their own native quality constitute divine vouchers, they must operate as barriers to any communication with God. Of God, who is essentially supersensible, there can be no such thing as a presentation directly to our senses; and all belief that sensible facts mean his real presence must rest at last on inferential judgments of our reason, while these will be nothing but self-continuing circles, worthless for evidence, unless our reason is granted to have in itself the real revelation of what accords with the Divine mind. An absolutely direct utterance of God in the external world, evident strictly in itself, is thus upon close examination unintelligible and unthinkable. Yet this is what is implied in a consistent doctrine of Authority.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Right Relation of Reason to Religion, p.240-1

God, World, Communication, Sense

“For a typical author, obscurity is a far greater threat than piracy.”

Tim O'Reilly (1954) Irish computer programmer

Sunday Tribune magazine (25 September 2005)

“There is no other science where judgements are tested in blood and answered in the servitude of the defeated, where the acknowledged authority is the leader who has won or who instills confidence that he can win.”

Bernard Brodie (1910–1978) American nuclear strategist

As quoted in "Military air power : the CADRE digest of air power opinions and thoughts", compiled by Charles M. Westenhoff

Confidence, Science

Quotes about author page 18

Quotes about author
page 18