Quotes about basics
page 12

Albert Einstein photo

“The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we can't grasp them. There is a pattern in creation.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 10

Arthur Jensen photo

“The study of race differences in intelligence is an acid test case for psychology. Can behavioral scientists research this subject with the same freedom, objectivity, thoroughness, and scientific integrity with which they go about investigating other psychological phenomena? In short, can psychology be scientific when it confronts an issue that is steeped in social ideologies? In my attempts at self- analysis this question seems to me to be one of the most basic motivating elements in my involvement with research on the nature of the observed psychological differences among racial groups. In a recent article (Jensen, 1985b) I stated:I make no apology for my choice of research topics. I think that my own nominal fields of expertise (educational and differential psychology) would be remiss if they shunned efforts to describe and understand more accurately one of the most perplexing and critical of current problems. Of all the myriad subjects being investigated in the behavioral and social sciences, it seems to me that one of the most easily justified is the black- white statistical disparity in cognitive abilities, with its far reaching educational, economic, and social consequences. Should we not apply the tools of our science to such socially important issues as best we can? The success of such efforts will demonstrate that psychology can actually behave as a science in dealing with socially sensitive issues, rather than merely rationalize popular prejudice and social ideology.”

Arthur Jensen (1923–2012) professor of educational psychology

p. 258
Source: Differential Psychology: Towards Consensus (1987), pp. 438-9

Ryan C. Gordon photo
Thom Yorke photo
Brian Wilson photo
Ben Bernanke photo
Jane Roberts photo

“Basically there is no difference between precognition and telepathy. The apparent difference is the result of an inadequate understanding of the nature of time.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 240, Page 3
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 6

Rene Balcer photo
Milton Friedman photo

“The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic foundation of the free market system they purport to represent and defend.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin

Jean Monnet photo
Max Scheler photo

“There is usually no ressentiment just where a superficial view would look for it first: in the criminal. The criminal is essentially an active type. Instead of repressing hatred, revenge, envy, and greed, he releases them in crime. Ressentiment is a basic impulse only in the crimes of spite. These are crimes which require only a minimum of action and risk and from which the criminal draws no advantage, since they are inspired by nothing but the desire to do harm. The arsonist is the purest type in point, provided that he is not motivated by the pathological urge of watching fire (a rare case) or by the wish to collect insurance. Criminals of this type strangely resemble each other. Usually they are quiet, taciturn, shy, quite settled and hostile to all alcoholic or other excesses. Their criminal act is nearly always a sudden outburst of impulses of revenge or envy which have been repressed for years. A typical cause would be the continual deflation of one's ego by the constant sight of the neighbor's rich and beautiful farm. Certain expressions of class ressentiment, which have lately been on the increase, also fall under this heading. I mention a crime committed near Berlin in 1912: in the darkness, the criminal stretched a wire between two trees across the road, so that the heads of passing automobilists would be shorn off. This is a typical case of ressentiment, for any car driver or passenger at all could be the victim, and there is no interested motive. Also in cases of slander and defamation of character, ressentiment often plays a major role...”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Alvin M. Weinberg photo
Ariel Sharon photo
Richard Stallman photo
Nick Herbert photo

“Physicists, for all their odd notions, are basically a conservative lot.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 4, Facing The Quantum Facts, p. 55

Eduardo Torroja photo
Jesse Ventura photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Johnny Marr photo
Max Frisch photo

“Does not everyone who describes something he has experienced believe basically that whatever happens to him has some sort of relevance.”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Sketchbook 1946-1949

Ai Weiwei photo
Hyman George Rickover photo
Barbara Hepworth photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Chemical reasoning, as used both in applications and in basic research, resembles a detective story in which tangible clues lead to a mental picture of events never directly witnessed by the detective.”

David W. Oxtoby (1951) President of Pomona college

Principles of Modern Chemistry (7th ed., 2012), Ch. 1 : The Atom in Modern Chemistry

Robert Conquest photo

“On political matters basically the best, though not infallible, source is rumor …”

Robert Conquest (1917–2015) poet and historian from England and the United States

From Grover Furr on Robert Conquest http://www.stalinsociety.org/2015/08/05/grover-furr-on-robert-conquest/ at stalinsociety.org',' 2015/08/05

Sandra Fluke photo
Desmond Morris photo
Hans Reichenbach photo

“Whereas the conception of space and time as a four-dimensional manifold has been very fruitful for mathematical physicists, its effect in the field of epistemology has been only to confuse the issue. Calling time the fourth dimension gives it an air of mystery. One might think that time can now be conceived as a kind of space and try in vain to add visually a fourth dimension to the three dimensions of space. It is essential to guard against such a misunderstanding of mathematical concepts. If we add time to space as a fourth dimension it does not lose any of its peculiar character as time. …Musical tones can be ordered according to volume and pitch and are thus brought into a two dimensional manifold. Similarly colors can be determined by the three basic colors red, green and blue… Such an ordering does not change either tones or colors; it is merely a mathematical expression of something that we have known and visualized for a long time. Our schematization of time as a fourth dimension therefore does not imply any changes in the conception of time. …the space of visualization is only one of many possible forms that add content to the conceptual frame. We would therefore not call the representation of the tone manifold by a plane the visual representation of the two dimensional tone manifold.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Paul Mason (journalist) photo
George W. Bush photo

“You know, I could run for governor and all this but I'm basically a media creation. I've never really done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil industry. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office.”

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

In an interview with the Midland Reporter Telegram on 4 July 1989, quoted in Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential (John Wiley and Sons, 2003) by James Moore and Wayne Slater, p. 161.
1980s

“I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote Search. There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove. I went out and talked to genuinely smart, remarkably interesting, first-rate people. I had an infinite travel budget that allowed me to fly first class and stay at top-notch hotels and a license from McKinsey to talk to as many cool people as I could all around the United States and the world.
I went to see Karl Weick, who had totally influenced my life. I had read his work a thousand times, and I'd never met him. I went to Oslo to talk with Einar Thorsrud, who had studied empowerment on oil tankers. I went to the Tavistock Institute in London, where the leading thinkers on organizational development were looking at why people work together effectively in team configurations under certain circumstances.
Word of the meeting got back to McKinsey USA, and I was invited to give a presentation to the top management of PepsiCo… The time was drawing near for the Pepsi presentation to take place. One morning at about 6, I sat down at my desk overlooking the San Francisco Bay from the 48th floor of the Bank of America Tower, and I closed my eyes. Then I leaned forward, and I wrote down eight things on a pad of paper. Those eight things haven't changed since that moment. They were the eight basic principles of Search.”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

Tom Peters (2001) "Tom Peters's True Confessions" in Fast Company, December 2001 ( online http://www.fastcompany.com/44077/tom-peterss-true-confessions, Nov 31, 2001).

John F. Kennedy photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Henry Suso photo
Heinz von Foerster photo
Peter F. Drucker photo

“The basic definition of the business and of its purpose and mission have to be translated into objectives.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 99

Kuruvilla Pandikattu photo

“Freedom is basically a spiritual longing/ That can only be filled by a spiritual power.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Freedom: Foster It! p. 114.
Freedom: Foster it! (2004)

Pete Doherty photo
Gloria Steinem photo
Perry Anderson photo
Rob Enderle photo

“I was recently at a meeting of analysts and vendors, and got into a conversation about Apple with one of the ex-Apple executives at the meeting. I got the sense that Tim Cook was hired because he was good at everything Jobs didn't like to do, and Phil Schiller was basically Jobs' internal fan club chairman. In other words, you really don't have a viable company without someone doing what Jobs did.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

No magic, no Apple: Cupertino's identity crisis in the fading afterglow of Jobs http://digitaltrends.com/opinion/no-magic-no-apple-cupertinos-identity-crisis-in-the-fading-afterglow-of-jobs in Digital Trends (10 August 2013)

Will Eisner photo
Frances Kellor photo
Yousef Saanei photo

“There is complete consensus on this issue. It is self-evident in Islam that it is prohibited to have nuclear bombs. It is eternal law, because the basic function of these weapons is to kill innocent people. This cannot be reversed … You cannot deliberately kill innocent people.”

Yousef Saanei (1937) Iranian grand ayatollah

As quoted in "Nuclear weapons unholy, Iran says" in SFGate (31 October 2003) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/31/MNGHJ2NFRE1.DTL.
2003

John Byrne photo

“It’s too late for someone to steal this story now, I suppose. I intended Doom to return to Latvaria and absolutely freak out when he discovered what his robots had done to Kristoff. Basically—he’d need a whole lot of new robots by the time he calmed down. And then he would devote a whole lot of time and energy to restoring Kristoff.”

John Byrne (1950) American author and artist of comic books

I had not decided if he would be successful. Part of my brain wanted him to realize he needed the help of the other smartest guy on the planet—and there was no way he could ever go there!
2007
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22307&PN=2&totPosts=21
Revealing his aborted plans for a character named Kristoff he created in 'Fantastic Four

Bradley Joseph photo
Mark Rothko photo

“All women are basically in competition with each other for a handful of eligible men.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Anthony Kennedy photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Larry Wall photo
Paul Mason (journalist) photo
Jeremy Hardy photo
David Graeber photo
Keiji Inafune photo

“I'm often called the father of Mega Man, but actually, his design was already created when I joined Capcom. My mentor [Capcom senior member Akira Kitamura], who was the designer of the original Mega Man, had a basic concept of what Mega Man was supposed to look like. So I only did half of the job in creating him.”

Keiji Inafune (1965) Japanese video game designer

Source:Hirohiko Niizumi (23 September 2007). "TGS '07: Mega Man celebrates 20th anniversary" https://www.gamespot.com/articles/tgs-07-mega-man-celebrates-20th-anniversary/1100-6179759/. GameSpot. CBS Interactive Inc. Retrieved 1 February 2011.

Keiji Inafune photo

“I want to end comments that Capcom games made in Europe aren't really Capcom games … basically saying that whether games are created in America or Japan or anywhere in the world, I will be the one overlooking it and so it will have that Capcom flavor that fans know and love.”

Keiji Inafune (1965) Japanese video game designer

Source: "Interview with Keiji Inafune of Capcom" https://www.primagames.com/games/dead-rising-2/strategy/interview-keiji-inafune-capcom. Prima Games. Retrieved 2018-07-15.

Madhuri Dixit photo
Paul Krugman photo

“The usual and basic Keynesian answer to recessions is a monetary expansion. But Keynes worried that even this might sometimes not be enough, particularly if a recession had been allowed to get out of hand and become a true depression. Once the economy is deeply depressed, households and especially firms may be unwilling to increase spending no matter how much cash they have, they may simply add any monetary expansion to their board. Such a situation, in which monetary policy has become ineffective, has come to be known as a "liquidity trap"; Keynes believed that the British and American economies had entered such a trap by the mid-1930s, and some economists believed that the United States was on the edge of such a tap in 1992.
The Keynesian answer to a liquidity trap is for the government to do what the private sector will not: spend. When monetary expansion is ineffective, fiscal expansion—such as public works programs financed by borrowing—must take its place. Such a fiscal expansion can break the vicious circle of low spending and low incomes, "priming the pump: and getting the economy moving again. But remember that this is not by any means an all-purpose policy recommendation; it is essentially a strategy of desperation, a dangerous drug to be prescribed only when the usual over-the-counter remedy of monetary policy has failed.”

Source: Peddling Prosperity (1994), Ch. 1 : The Attack on Keynes

Lama Ole Nydahl photo
Howard Dean photo
Ivor Grattan-Guinness photo
Ringo Starr photo
Syd Mead photo
Patrick McHale (artist) photo

“I think whenever you write something you want people to like it. The best way to do that, usually, is to write what you think is good. That’s basically what everyone tries to do… just to write what they think is good. Part of that is staying true to the characters and the world (which makes it a kids show by it’s design)… and part of that is introducing deeper concepts that we, as writers, are curious about exploring”

Patrick McHale (artist) (1983) writer, storyboard artist, animator, filmmaker

which makes it more interesting for adults
Interview with Pat McHale (Adventure Time, Over the Garden Wall writer) https://crackplot.com/2015/06/13/interview-with-pat-mchale-adventure-time-over-the-garden-wall-writer/ (June 13, 2015)

Lal Bahadur Shastri photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Through our scientific genius we made of the world a neighborhood, but we failed through moral commitment to make of it a brotherhood, and so we’ve ended up with guided missiles and misguided men. And the great challenge is to move out of the mountain of practical materialism and move on to another and higher mountain which recognizes somehow that we must live by and toward the basic ends of life. We must move on to that mountain which says in substance,”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)
Context: We have allowed our civilization to outrun our culture; we have allowed our technology to outdistance our theology and for this reason we find ourselves caught up with many problems. Through our scientific genius we made of the world a neighborhood, but we failed through moral commitment to make of it a brotherhood, and so we’ve ended up with guided missiles and misguided men. And the great challenge is to move out of the mountain of practical materialism and move on to another and higher mountain which recognizes somehow that we must live by and toward the basic ends of life. We must move on to that mountain which says in substance, "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world of means — airplanes, televisions, electric lights — and lose the end: the soul?"

Deendayal Upadhyaya photo

“Large-scale riots in East Pakistan have compelled over two lakh Hindus and other minorities to come over to India. Indians naturally feel incensed by the happenings in East Bengal. To bring the situation under control and to prescribe the right remedy for the situation it is essential that the malady be properly diagnosed. And even in this state of mental agony, the basic values of our national life must never be forgotten. It is our firm conviction that guaranteeing the protection of the life and property of Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan is the responsibility of the Government of India. To take a nice legalistic view about the matter that Hindus in Pakistan are Pakistani nationals would be dangerous and can only result in killings and reprisals in the two countries, in greater or lesser measure. When the Government of India fails to fulfill this obligation towards the minorities in Pakistan, the people understandably become indignant. Our appeal to the people is that this indignation should be directed against the Government and should in no case be given vent to against the Indian Muslims. If the latter thing happens, it only provides the Government with a cloak to cover its own inertia and failure, and an opportunity to malign the people and repress them. So far as the Indian Muslims are concerned, it is our definite view that, like all other citizens, their life and property must be protected in all circumstances. No incident and no logic can justify any compromise with truth in this regard. A state, which cannot guarantee the right of living to its citizens, and citizens who cannot assure safety of their neighbours, would belong to the barbaric age. Freedom and security to every citizen irrespective of his faith has indeed been India’s sacred tradition. We would like to reassure every Indian Muslim in this regard and would wish this message to reach every Hindu home that it is their civic and national duty to ensure the fulfillment of this assurance.”

Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968) RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Joint statement for the Indo-Pak confederation that D Upadhyaya signed, on 12 April 1964, with Dr Lohia, quoted in L.K. Advani, My Country My Life (2008)

Andrew Sega photo

“I'm not a big fan of asynchronicity just for its own sake - a lot of people push rhythmic variation so far that the basic pulse of the music gets lost”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

and the listener is confused
Static Line interview, 1998

Michael Polanyi photo
Michele Simon photo
Alan Tower Waterman photo

“It may also be pertinent to ask whether a greater effort in the less expensive basic stages of research may not lead to reductions of effort in the far costlier stages of development and prototype construction.”

Alan Tower Waterman (1892–1967) American physicist

in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March 1953), Vol. 9, No. 2,ISSN 0096-3402, published by Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc., p. 38.

Khalil Gibran photo
Jane Goodall photo

“This very real difference between GM plants and their conventional counterparts is one of the basic truths that biotech proponents have endeavoured to obscure. As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals – and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science.
They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that the new foods were safe. Yet this, as Druker points out, was clearly not true.
Druker describes how amazingly successful the biotech lobby has been – and the extent to which the general public and government decision makers have been hoodwinked by the clever and methodical twisting of the facts and the propagation of many myths. Moreover, it appears that a number of respected scientific institutions, as well as many eminent scientists, were complicit in this relentless spreading of disinformation.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Senior academic condemns ‘deluded’ supporters of GM food as being ‘anti-science’ and ignoring evidence of dangers (4 March 2015) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2979645/Senior-academic-condemns-deluded-supporters-GM-food-anti-science-ignoring-evidence-dangers.html#ixzz4BZ4NnMuY
Foreword to Altered Genes, Twisted Truth (2015)

“Knowledge of the components of the atom and of the forces that hold them together stimulated entirely new fields of basic science and technology that continue to the present.”

David W. Oxtoby (1951) President of Pomona college

Principles of Modern Chemistry (7th ed., 2012), Ch. 1 : The Atom in Modern Chemistry

Atal Bihari Vajpayee photo
William J. Brennan photo
Tracey Ullman photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Algis Budrys photo

“Young man, you’re living proof that our basic policy is right. I wouldn’t trust an ignoramus like you with the information required to cut his throat.”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The End of Summer, p. 23
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

Dylan Moran photo
Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis photo