Quotes about beginning
page 22

“From these beginnings, as it were, have issued bitterness, contentious obstinancy, lack of amenity, hasty judgement, anger, and an intense desire for revenge—to say nothing of headstrong will; that which many damn, by word at least, was my delight.”

Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer

Source: The Book of My Life (1930), Ch. 13 Customs, Vices and Errors

Revenge, Anger

“AND thus the Fourth Mode is a state of emptiness,
made one with God in bare love and in Divine Light,
free and empty of all the observances of love,
above actions, and enduring a pure and simple love,
which consumes and annihilates in itself the spirit of a man,
so that he forgets himself, and knows neither himself nor God,
nor any creature, nor aught else but Love alone,
which he tastes and feels and possesses in simple emptiness.
He feels himself one Breadth with Love, Which is measureless, comprehending all things,
and Itself for ever remaining incomprehensible.
He sees himself made one with the eternal Length,
which is immovable, without beginning or ending,
going before and following after all created things”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Twelve Beguines

Love, God, Feeling, Light

“We must have a new commitment to excellence and transparency at MU. The leadership of the school failed the students who expected more from the great university they chose to attend. Professor Click, on the grounds of an institution that is supposed to carry the banner of free thought and expression, on a campus with one of the world’s leading journalism schools -- trampled on the First Amendment, the very sacred defender of individual thought. The actions of a rogue professor and rudderless leaders have embarrassed the university and our state. To begin moving forward, it is long past time for the University to remove Professor Click. We must renew our commitment to Mizzou, which really is a commitment to the students, who are the future of our great state.”

Eric Schmitt (1975) American politician, lawyer

Reforming Mizzou: Earning back the taxpayers’ trust http://www.columbiatribune.com/bf4d55bb-fee4-5a97-8341-2824a3baba05.html (January 10, 2016)

World, School, Universe, Time

“Mister President and Madam first lady, distinguished guests, and residents of Goree Island, citizens of Senegal, I'm honored to begin my visit to Africa in your beautiful country. For hundreds of years on this island, peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty. Today, we gather in respect and friendship, mindful of past wrongs and dedicated to the advance of human liberty.”

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

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

Friendship, People, Fear, Beauty

“In the beginning of AH 697 ‘Alãu’d-Dîn sent Almãs Beg and Nasrat Khãn along with other chiefs of Dehlî and the army of Sindh, for the conquest of Gujarãt… Gujarãt had a very famous idol which was not only of the same name as Somnãt but was also equally prestigious. The Musalmans got hold of this idol and had it sent to Dehlî so that it could be trampled upon…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn ‘Alãu’d-Dîn Khaljî (AD 1296-1316) Gujarat
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

“The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step. So we must never neglect any work of peace within our reach, however small.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 508; this begins with a phrase derived from one in the Tao Te Ching, by Laozi

Peace

“But Hitler didn't strive for the annihilation of the Jews - he stressed that fact in public life and in the newspapers. Hitler merely said at the beginning that Jewish influence was too great, that of all the lawyers in Berlin, eighty percent were Jewish. Hitler thought that a small percentage of the people, the Jews, should not be allowed to control the theater, cinema, radio, et cetera.”

Franz von Papen (1879–1969) German chancellor

To Leon Goldensohn (30 March 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.
1940s

Life, People

“The past few years were filled with indicators that the sociology of language is beginning to become established not only as a field of study and investigation, but also as an academic area of studies.”

Thomas Luckmann (1927–2016) American-Austrian sociologist

Thomas Luckmann. The sociology of language, Bobbs-Merrill, 1975. p. 56

Study, Past

“Yoga teaches that whatever we want in life we can have if we are willing to provide it for others. So if yogis want to be free, they understand that to deprive others of freedom will ultimately not benefit their project—to be free themselves. Following that logic, yogis abhor slavery and examine their own lives to find ways that they themselves might be condoning slavery and then eradicate those ways of acting. The fact is that animals who are raised for food are slaves. Making kind choices when it comes to the food we eat is one of the most basic ways to begin to ensure our own happiness and freedom. The cause for our own happiness, health, and freedom lies in how happy and free we can make the lives of others. The definition of others includes other animals.”

Sharon Gannon (1951) American yoga teacher

Simple Recipes for Joy (2014)

Life, Happiness, Health, Food

“The open system approach to organizations is contrasted with common-sense approaches, which tend to accept popular names and stereotypes as basic organizational properties and to identify the purpose of an organization in terms of the goals of its founders and leaders.
The open system approach, on the other hand, begins by identifying and mapping the repeated cycles of input, transformation, output, and renewed input which comprise the organizational pattern. This approach to organizations represents the adaptation of work in biology and in the physical sciences by von Bertalanffy and others.”

Daniel Katz (1903–1998) American psychologist

Source: The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966), p. 33

Sense, Science

“Metaphors and Similes are the beginning of the democratic system of envy.”

Giannina Braschi book United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

Envy

“In brief, all this Mammon- Gospel, of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and Devil take the hindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiest Gospels ever preached on Earth; or altogether the shabbiest.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

“It would be a good thing, if the systems planner's germination was moral outrage and not just a mild felt need. In other words, I do not think we should view the major problems of the world today with calm objectivity. We shouldn't first ask ourselves for a precise and operational definition of malnutrition. We should begin with 'kids are starving in great numbers, damn it all!”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1980s and later, Thought and Wisdom (1982), p. 17

World, Problem, Thinking

“Over me, around me, closing in on me, embracing me ever nearer, was the Eternal; that which was before the beginning, and that which triumphs over the end; that enormous void in which all light and life and being is but the thin and vanishing splendour of a falling star, the cold, the stillness, the silence—the infinite and final Night of space.”

H. G. Wells book The First Men in the Moon

Source: The First Men in the Moon (1901), Ch. 19: Mr. Bedford Alone

Life, Star, Light, Silence

“I humbly accept the Centennial Nobel Peace Prize. Forty years ago today, the Prize for 1961 was awarded for the first time to a Secretary-General of the United Nations — posthumously, because Dag Hammarskjöld had already given his life for peace in Central Africa. And on the same day, the Prize for 1960 was awarded for the first time to an African — Albert Luthuli, one of the earliest leaders of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. For me, as a young African beginning his career in the United Nations a few months later, those two men set a standard that I have sought to follow throughout my working life.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Nobel lecture (2001)

Life, Men, Peace, Time

“The most effective way to distort reality is to deny it; if we tell ourselves there isn't a problem, then we never have to worry about what to do about it. And the most effective way to deny a reality is to make it invisible. … As with any violent ideology, the populace must be shielded from direct exposure to the victims of the system, lest they begin questioning the system or their participation in it. This truth speaks for itself: why else would the meat industry go to such lengths to keep its practices invisible?”

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

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), p. 40

Truth, Way, Question, Problem

“The work process begins when I start selecting quotations from a large collection I already have, given that I use such texts often in my work and have for a long time. In fact, appropriation of this kind––along with other kinds––has been part of my work since the beginning in the ’60s. I go through hundreds of these amassed quotes from my own research and that of my staff, make my choices, and then continually add them in relation to the quotes I already have selected. The surplus meaning that is constructed by using the words of others in conjunction with each other, which is my goal, is a far more delicate operation than it may seem.”

Joseph Kosuth (1945) American conceptual artist

Joseph Kosuth at artforum.com http://artforum.com/words/id=28992, 09.20.11

Quotes, Time, Parting

“In every interview I've done since the beginning, [I'm asked] 'How do you feel about opening doors?' And I always say, 'There are two men who opened the doors for all of us, and they were Feliciano and Santana.”

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

Reuters (July 23, 2007)
2007, 2008

Men, Feeling

“From the beginning I had wanted to do something with my flying. Just being able to go up in the air and come down at the same spot wasn't very exciting. Airplanes are for going places quickly, safely and comfortably. I don't know why, but my longing had always been to go to the West Coast. First, because I had never been there, and then for various reasons you fly over all sorts of country on the way, and it is the best way to see the country.”

Eddie August Schneider (1911–1940) American aviator

[I Break a Record and have a Swell Time Besides, Flying magazine, http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Eddie_August_Schneider_October_1931_Flying_magazine_page_1_of_5.png, October 1, 1930, Eddie August Schneider]

Way, Flying, Country

“Conditions became intolerable by the time of Shahjahan when, according to Manucci, peasants were compelled to sell their women and children to meet the revenue demand. Manrique writes that the peasants were “carried off… to various markets and fairs, (to be sold) with their poor unhappy wives behind them carrying their small children all crying and lamenting…” Bernier too affirms that the unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demands of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children, who were carried away as slaves. Here was also confirmation, if not actually the beginning, of the practice of bonded labour in India.”

Shah Jahan (1592–1666) 5th Mughal Emperor

Manucci, II, p. 451.,Manrique II, p. 272., Bernier, p.205., quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

Women, Children, Time, Cry

“The story begins with a somewhat disgruntled hero, who perceived of the world as populated with stupid people, everywhere committing the environmental fallacy. The fallacy was a case not merely of the “mind’s falling into error,” but rather of the mind leading all of us into incredible dangers as it first builds crisis and then attacks crisis.
Like all heroes, this one looked about for resources, for aids that would help in a dangerous battle, and he found plenty of support – in both the past and the present. It won’t hurt to summarize the story thus far. If the intellect is to engage in the heroic adventure of securing improvement in the human condition, it cannot rely on “approaches,” like politics and morality, which attempt to tackle problems head-on, within the narrow scope. Attempts to address problems in such a manner simply lead to other problems, to an amplification of difficulty away from real improvement. Thus the key to success in the hero’s attempt seems to be comprehensiveness. Never allow the temptation to be clear, or to use reliable data, or to “come up to the standards of excellence,” divert you from the relevant, even though the relevant may be elusive, weakly supported by data, and requiring loose methods.
Thus the academic world of Western twentieth century society is a fearsome enemy of the systems approach, using as it does a politics to concentrate the scholars’ attention on matters that are scholastically respectable but disreputable from a systems-planning point of view.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Systems Approach and Its Enemies (1979), p. 145; cited in C. WEST CHURCHMAN: CHAMPION OF THE SYSTEMS APPROACH http://filer.case.edu/nxb41/churchman.html, 2004-2007 Case Western Reserve University

People, Stupidity, World, Error

“The inner ego always identifies with its source-identity as a beloved, individualized portion of the universe. It is aware of the universal love that is its heritage. It is also aware of the infinite power and strength that composes the very fabric of its being. Through being made aware of these facts, the exterior ego can begin to feel a quicker sense of support and nourishment. The knowledge can let it relax, let go, so that it feels its life couched and safe, and knows itself to be indeed a beloved child of the universe, both ancient and young at once, with an identity far beyond the annals of time. It is of great value, then, that each person remember this universal affiliation.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Way Toward Health (1997), p. 148

Love, Life, Feeling, Support

“They are hated because they satisfy their greed according to Talmudic principles. In the Jewish lawbook "Talmud" the Jews are told that the possessions of gentiles were "ownerless property", which the Jew was allowed to obtain through deceit and cheating. Whatever the "profession" may be called where the Jew earns his money, everywhere he remains a Jew. Such criminal behavior must inevitably provoke the hatred of Jews (anti-Semitism) and fighting repulsion. The fight that the Nazarene led 2000 years ago against the Jewish usurers resulted in a gruesome way of suffering and his slaughter at Calvary. The judgement passed by Jesus on the Jews marks the Jewish people for all time:
"Ye are of your father the devil! He was a murderer from the beginning."”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

John 8:44-45
Sie werden gehasst, weil sie ihre Gier nach Geld nach talmudischen Grundsätzen befriedigen. Im jüdischen Gesetzbuch "Talmud" wird den Juden gesagt, dass der Besitz der Nichtjuden "herrenloses Gut" sei, den der Jude durch Wucher, durch Betrug und Übervorteilung an sich bringen dürfe. Und wie der "Beruf" auch heißen mag, in dem der Jude sein Geld verdient, überall ist und bleibt er Jude. Solch verbrecherisches Verhalten muss zwangsläufig den Hass gegen die Juden (Antisemitismus) erzeugen und Abwehrkämpfe heraufbeschwören. Der Kampf, den der Nazarener vor 2000 Jahren gegen die jüdischen Zinseintreiber führte, endete mit einem grauenvollen Leidensweg und seiner Hinschlachtung auf Golgatha. Das Urteil, das Jesus Christus über die Juden fällte, kennzeichnet das Volk der Juden für alle Zeiten:
"Ich habt zum Vater nicht Gott, sondern den Teufel. Er war ein Verbrecher und Menschenmörder von Anfang an". (Joh. VIII | 44,45.)
Foreword to the book "Juden stellen sich vor", Stürmer publishing house, 1934

Money, Hate, People, Way

“It has been a long road from that first snowy day in New Hampshire to this crowded convention city. Now begins another long journey, taking me into your cities and homes all over America. Give me your help, your hand, your voice, your vote. Recall with me the words of Isaiah: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary." As we face the coming challenge, we too, shall wait upon the Lord, and ask that he renew our strength. Then shall we be equal to the test. Then we shall not be weary. And then we shall prevail.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1960, The New Frontier

Home, Waiting, Help

“.. modern destruction begins where architectural structure is opened up and set into motion by colour relationships. The colour-planes, however, are always in orthogonal relationship.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote in Van Doesburg's article: 'Aantekeningen bij Bijlage 12 (Notes), De Zaag en de goudvischkom van P.Alma', by Theo van Doesburg; in art-magazine 'De Stijl' 1 8, June 1918, p. 93
1912 – 1919

“Not all books are created equal, and for the special ones, you begin to know it sometimes even before the work is finished, but always by the time you slam that last line home and shriek, "Done! Done!," and fall head-down across your keyboard like the runner from Marathon.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

"'A Conversation With Lois McMaster Bujold", p. 54
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

Books, Home, Time

“When I am with old friends… We recount what we have seen what we have felt the good and the evil that the Revolution has done all the assaults the days the nights the punishments and the fate of our unfortunate friends who perished in the time of Terror when good men feared for their lives We are beginning to see the twilight of the times in which our families were happy.”

Jacques-Louis Ménétra (1738–1812) glazier, tradesman

quoted in Warren Roberts (2000). Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur, Revolutionary. p. 321.

Men, Fate, Happiness, Fear

“As regards my paintings of similar compositions I cannot give you any indication [about possible 'variants' in his works] because I'm afraid I've never made a note of where my paintings have ended up... I am always at work and work is my sole passion. And unfortunately I've become aware that I must always start from the beginning, and ought to burn what I've done in the past.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

Quote in his letter of 2 Aug. 1954; as cited in Morandi 1894 – 1964, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco, Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2008; p. 42
1945 - 1964

Passion, Past, Painting

“Well, perhaps you have begun your journey toward wisdom, Mr. Flattery,” Kent said seriously. “We have such a short time and the journey is so terribly long. One cannot begin too soon.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: World Without End (1995), Chapter 11 (p. 158)

Wisdom, Time

“If we except the great name of Newton (and the exception is one that the great Gauss himself would have been delighted to make) it is probable that no mathematician of any age or country has ever surpassed Gauss in the combination of an abundant fertility of invention with an absolute vigorousness in demonstration, which the ancient Greeks themselves might have envied. It may be admitted, without any disparagement to the eminence of such great mathematicians as Euler and Cauchy that they were so overwhelmed with the exuberant wealth of their own creations, and so fascinated by the interest attaching to the results at which they arrived, that they did not greatly care to expend their time in arranging their ideas in a strictly logical order, or even in establishing by irrefragable proof propositions which they instinctively felt, and could almost see to be true. With Gauss the case was otherwise. It may seem paradoxical, but it is probably nevertheless true that it is precisely the effort after a logical perfection of form which has rendered the writings of Gauss open to the charge of obscurity and unnecessary difficulty. The fact is that there is neither obscurity nor difficulty in his writings, as long as we read them in the submissive spirit in which an intelligent schoolboy is made to read his Euclid. Every assertion that is made is fully proved, and the assertions succeed one another in a perfectly just analogical order… But when we have finished the perusal, we soon begin to feel that our work is but begun, that we are still standing on the threshold of the temple, and that there is a secret which lies behind the veil and is as yet concealed from us. No vestige appears of the process by which the result itself was obtained, perhaps not even a trace of the considerations which suggested the successive steps of the demonstration. Gauss says more than once that for brevity, he gives only the synthesis, and suppresses the analysis of his propositions. Pauca sed matura—few but well matured… If, on the other hand, we turn to a memoir of Euler's, there is a sort of free and luxuriant gracefulness about the whole performance, which tells of the quiet pleasure which Euler must have taken in each step of his work; but we are conscious nevertheless that we are at an immense distance from the severe grandeur of design which is characteristic of all Gauss's greater efforts.”

Henry John Stephen Smith (1826–1883) mathematician

As quoted by Alexander Macfarlane, Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century (1916) p. 95, https://books.google.com/books?id=43SBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA95 "Henry John Stephen Smith (1826-1883) A Lecture delivered March 15, 1902"

Pleasure, Secret, Age, Feeling

“Wars and other kinds of murder have their beginning in the hatred of the enemy and in the unwillingness to be patient with evil. Their root is in intemperate self-love and in immoderate affection for temporal possessions. These conflicts are brought into this world because men do not trust the Son of God enough to abide by his commandments.”

Petr Chelčický book The Net of Faith

The Net of Faith (c. 1443)

Love, Men, God, War

“This method of mine takes its beginnings where Cavalieri ends his Method of indivisibles…. for as his was the Geometry of indivisibles, so I have chosen to call my method the Arithmetic of infinitesimals.”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

Arithmetica Infinitorum (1656)

“Men who take up arms against the State must expect at any moment to be fired upon. Men who take up arms unlawfully cannot expect that the troops will wait until they are quite ready to begin the conflict.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons, July 8, 1920 "Amritsar" http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/churchill/am-text.htm ; at the time, Churchill was serving as Secretary of State for War under Prime Minister David Lloyd George Early career years (1898–1929)

Men, Waiting

“The moral and spiritual achievements of man do not depend on tricks or luck or on esoteric spells or on any purely external agency. One's spiritual condition depends on the "stuff" one has to begin with, on the amout and quality of study and good hard work one puts into "shaping" it. Spiritual nobility calls for persistence and effort. "First the difficult…" (6:20) "His burden is heavy and his course is long."”

Herbert Fingarette (1921–2018) Philosopher

8:7
Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (1998)

Effort, Study, Dependency

“At the conclusion of Hollywood disaster movies and epics, time moves backward, piecing together like a jigsaw the elements that had come apart. The Titanic resumes its journey; Russell Crowe is reunited with his murdered wife and son. It's not a happy ending; it's a convention created for the purposes of an impossible sense of uplift at the end of death and tragedy: the happy beginning. Technology makes Hades unnecessary.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Friend of My Youth (2017)

Death, Happiness, Sense, Time

“Organization begins when people, even if they be only two or more, combine their efforts for a given purpose. We have shown this by the simple illustration of two people uniting their efforts to lift and move some weighty object. This combination, however, is not the first principle of organization. It is only an illustration of organization itself. To find the first principle, let us carry the illustration a step further. The efforts of these two lifters must be coordinated, which means that they must act together. If first one lifted, and then the other, there would be no unity of action, and hence no true organization of effort. Here then we find the first principles of organization.
The next thing to do in order to explain is what we mean when we call coordination the first principle. We mean that this term expresses the principles of organization in toto; nothing less. This does not mean that there are no subordinated principles; it simply means that all the others are contained in this one of co-ordination. The others are simply the principles through which co-ordination operates, and thus becomes effective.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 19

People, Effort

“The Goldberg Variations are, as explained in my booklet-text, in short, music that observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music that, like Baudelaire’s lovers, “rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.” Gould is referring here to the circular design of the work, a circularity whose development is polarized, inspired, and fed by more and more new energy fields. The result is a universe that in its significance resembles the alpha and omega of music in general, music that evolves out of nothing and disappears back into nothing as if in a state in which time stands still.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Music, Lovers, Universe, Time

“The reason that economic textbooks now begin with imaginary villages is because it has been impossible to talk about real ones. Even some economists have been forced to admit that Smith's Land of Barter doesn't really exist.

The question is why the myth is perpetuated anyway.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Three, "Primordial Debts", p. 43

Question

“These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

Revelation 3:14 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/revelation/3/ Revelation

God, Faith

“...he took his lesson of political morality as learned, his notice to quit as duly served, and supposed his education to be finished.

Everyone thought so, and the whole City was in a turmoil. Any intelligent education ought to end when it is complete. One would then feel fewer hesitations and would handle a surer world. The old-fashioned logical drama required unity and sense; the actual drama is a pointless puzzle, without even an intrigue. When the curtain fell on Gladstone's speech, any student had the right to suppose the drama ended; none could have affirmed that it was about to begin; that one's painful lesson was thrown away.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907), Chapter X Political Morality

Pain, World, Education, Feeling

“I find that I would like now, best of all, to be a good conversationalist. I know I'm not one at present. Oh, I can sit and talk a little of this and that, but I realize that I haven't any definite or profound knowledge. I won't be satisfied with just a patter, a surface glaze of information. I don't want short-cuts to learning. I want to know all about the thing I study.
I'd like to be able to hold my own, to meet on a common ground, with scientists, inventors, clerics, doctors, athletes, authors.
The most worthwhile thing in life is to store your mind with knowledge.
I wish now that I had been able to go to college, if only so that I might have had appreciations earlier in the game.
People often say to me now that I have my home, my career, fame (if you call it that), there must be nothing left for me to live for. But there is everything left to live for. All the things I don't know about, all the things I want to know about.
Pictures, I've discovered, were practically all I did know about up to very recently. I've had to work so hard, to concentrate so closely, that I never have had time to read or to travel or to think about other things. I'm just at the beginning of living…”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"Discoveries About Myself". Motion Picture, October 1930, pg. 58 & 90. (Brewster Publications). https://archive.org/stream/motionpicture1923040chic#page/n563/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/motionpicture1923040chic#page/n595/mode/2up

Life, People, Travel, Home

“No refining of one's taste in matters of art or literature, no sharpening of one's powers of insight in matters of science or psychology, can ever take the place of one's sensitiveness to the life of the earth. This is the beginning and the end of a person's true education.”

John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) British writer, lecturer and philosopher

Source: The Meaning of Culture (1929), p. 175

Life, Education, Art, Literature

“Men of intellectual and moral eminence who encourage public disobedience of the law are responsible for the acts of those who inevitably follow their counsel: the poor, the ignorant and the impressionable. For example, to the professor objecting to de facto segregation, it may be crystal clear where civil disobedience may begin and where it must end. But the boundaries have become fluid to his students and other listeners. Today in the urban slums, the limits of responsible action are all but invisible.”

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

1960s, What Has Happened to America? (1967)

Men, Law

“For all the classic social theorists, the effort to state a comprehensive view of men and society was inseparable from an interest in understanding the condition and prospects of their age. In this they simply repeated the eternal lesson that all deep thought begins and ends in the attempt to grasp whatever touches one most immediately.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Law in Modern Societyː Toward a Criticism of Social Theory (1976), p. 38

Men, Age, Understanding, Effort

“The assertion that a problem unstated is a problem unsolved seem to have escaped many builders… All too often, design and implementation begins before the real needs and system functions are fully known. The results are skyrocketing costs, missed scheduled, waste and duplication, disgruntled users and endless series of patches and repairs euphemistically called "systems maintenance"”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

D.T. Ross and K.E. Schoman (1977) "Structured analysis for requirements definition" IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. Vol 3. (1) p. 6-15; as cited in: G. Agyekum-Mensah et al. (2012) "Adaption of structured analysis design techniques methodology for construction project planning".

Problem

“What could be more absurd, to begin with, than our attitude of high moral outrage against other nations for manufacturing the selfsame weapons that we manufacture? The difference, as our leaders say, is that we will use these weapons virtuously, whereas our enemies will use them maliciously — a proposition that too readily conforms to a proposition of much less dignity: we will use them in our interest, whereas our enemies will use them in theirs.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Citizenship Papers (2003), The Failure of War

“In glittering arms and glory dressed,
High he rears his ruby crest.
There the thundering strokes begin,
There the press and there the din;
Talymalfra's rocky shore
Echoing to the battle's roar.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

"The Triumphs of Owen. A Fragment", from Mr. Evans's Specimens of the Welch Poetry (1764) http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=trow

“I'm reading a biography of St John Baptist de la Salle - Extraordinary what educational insights and experiments have existed already - and what has been forgotten!. That reformatory, for instance, which he founded on the most amazing principles somewhere around 1680…The young delinquents were detained in solitary confinement to begin with, being promoted later.. to community life.. But in their single cells they were given flowers and plants to cultivate and singing birds to breed! The prisoners took their meals together with the Brothers, and each of the boys in solitary confinement was entrusted to one particular Brother…The Jansenists were bitter opponents of the Brothers, for in all his schools de la Salle laid great stress on frequent Communion.. They did their best to oppose him personally and to hinder his work. The French Revolution wrecked his Institute, some of the Brothers were executed, others emigrated.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Letters 1951-59.

Life, Education, School, Boy

“It isn't that some gay will get some rights. It's that everyone else in our state will lose rights. For instance, parents will lose the right to protect and direct the upbringing of their children. Because our K-12 public school system, of which 90% of all youth are in the public school system, they will be required to learn that homosexuality is normal, equal and perhaps you should try it. And that will occur immediately, that all schools will begin teaching homosexuality.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

2000s

Children, Youth, School, Parent

“As the journey of "Third Text", a collaborative art project that brings together participants from all over the world, particularly from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, continues, the idea also begins contemplating those land-based projects which were somewhat abandoned in the early seventies.”

Rasheed Araeen (1935) English artist

Art Beyond Art: Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the 21st Century, London: ThirdText Publications, p. 5 (2010).

World, Art, Idea

“At the beginning of the season he told me he wanted more homers and more runs batted in. He even named the figures: 25 homers and 115 RBIs. I could have hit more homers before if I wanted to, but I never cared about hitting them. I think a.350 batting average does the same good for a team as 25 homers and 100 runs batted in. But of course, if Walker wants more homers, it's okay with me.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Voted Most Valuable In National League" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kRQhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GIwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7374%2C2380506&dq=beginning-sea-son-told-wanted by the Associated Press, in The Sarasota Journal (Wednesday, November 16, 1966), p. 20 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

Thinking, Season

“I cannot agree with you that the money in Spain has been ineffectual in producing the better hope which now exists…I still think that our opinions at the beginning and in the progress of the Spanish contest were well warranted by such data as we then had to reason upon…But I cannot say that as things have turned out, contrary certainly to any expectations, the event of the Spanish war has not been both honourable and advantageous to this country.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lady Grenville (27 October 1813), quoted in E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764-1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 174.
1810s

Money, War, Hope, Thinking

“First she studied her husband's flower arrangement. He had chosen the blossom of a single white wild rose and put a single pearl of water on the green leaf, and set it on red stones. Autumn is coming, he was suggesting with the flower, talking through the flower, do not weep for the time of fall, the time of dying when the earth begins to sleep; enjoy the time of beginning again and experience the glorious cool of the autumn air on this summer evening…soon the tear will vanish and the rose, only the stones will remain — soon you and I will vanish and only the stones will remain.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun (1975), Ch. 43

Flowers, Autumn, Tear, Sleep

“A falsehood in which some truth is not stated at the beginning, cannot be maintained in the end.”

Rashi (1040–1105) French rabbi and commentator

Deuteronomy 13,27
Ethics

Truth

“We are fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others. And we wish to penetrate by hypothesis, by daydream, by scientific investigation those leaden walls that encase the human spirit, that define it and guard it and hold it forever inaccessible. ("I love you," someone says, and instantly we begin to wonder--"Well, how much?"--and when the answer comes--"With my whole heart"--we then wonder about the wholeness of a fickle heart.) Our lovers, our husbands, our wives, our farthers, our gods--they are all beyond us.”

Tim O'Brien (1946) American novelist

Source: In the Lake of The Woods (1994), p. 101

Love, God, Lovers, Heart

“Russia’s election spectacle on March 18 isn’t only a domestic distraction. It provides Putin’s defenders in the free world with rhetorical ammunition, as do the approval polls and fake controversies over the fake opposition candidates. There is no form of democratic process or opposition in Putin’s Russia. Pretending otherwise makes you complicit in his propaganda. Stop calling them elections. Stop calling Putin a president. Stop calling to congratulate him on his victories. Let us begin the fight against Putin’s lies with the fundamental truth about what he really is.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, The Truth About Putin (2018)

Truth, World, Victory, Fight

“These Chinese novels are not perfect according to Western standards. They are not always planned from beginning to end, nor are they compact, any more than life is planned or compact. They are often too long, too full of incident, too crowded with character, a medley of fact and fiction as to material, and a medley of romance and realism as to method, so that an impossible event of magic or dream may be described with such exact semblance of detail that one is compelled to belief against all reason”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

The Chinese Novel (1938)

Life, Dreams, Perfection

“Islamic culture in its traditional form has striven to preserve this integrated spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West. […] There is the potential for establishing new and valuable links between Islamic civilisation and the West. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. Everywhere in the world people are seemingly wanting to learn English. But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn once again with our hearts, as well as our heads.”

Charles, Prince of Wales (1948) son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Speech on A Sense of the Sacred: Building Bridges Between Islam and the West http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speechesandarticles/a_speech_by_hrh_the_prince_of_wales_titled_a_sense_of_the_sa_1083050310.html to Wilton Park, 13 December 1996. 1990s

People, World, School, Way

“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”

Willa Cather book O Pioneers!

Part II, Ch. 4
O Pioneers! (1913)

History, Heart, Country

“The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct is its appeal. In any composition the material side may be more or less omitted in proportion as the forms used are more or less material, and for them substituted pure abstractions, or largely dematerialized objects. The more an artist uses these abstracted forms, the deeper and more confidently will he advance into the kingdom of the abstract. And after him will follow the gazer at his pictures, who also will have gradually acquired a greater familiarity with the language of that kingdom.
Must we then abandon utterly all material objects and paint solely in abstractions? The problem of harmonizing the appeal of the material and the non-material shows us the answer to this question. As every word spoken rouses an inner vibration, so likewise does every object represented. To deprive oneself of this possibility is to limit one's powers of expression. That is at any rate the case at present. But besides this answer to the question, there is another, and one which art can always employ to any question beginning with "must": There is no "must" in art, because art is free.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

VI. The language of Form and Colour
1910 - 1915, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911

Art, Confidence, Question, Problem

“Although the backlash is not a movement, that doesn't make it any less destructive. In fact, the lack of orchestration, the absence of a single string-puller, only makes it harder to see — and perhaps more effective. A backlash against women's rights succeeds to the degree that it appears not to be political, that it appears not to be a struggle at all. It is most powerful when it goes private, when it lodges in a woman's mind and turns her vision inward, until she imagines the pressure is all in her head, until she begins to enforce the backlash, too — on herself.”

Susan Faludi book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Page 16.
Backlash (1992)

Women, Imagination, Appearance

“Not till then did his controllers allow him to suspect that death itself might not after all cure the illusion of being a soul—nay, might prove the entry into a world where that illusion raged infinite and unchecked. Escape for the soul, if not for the body, was offered him. He became able to know (and simultaneously refused the knowledge) that he had been wrong from the beginning, that souls and personal responsibility existed. He half saw: he wholly hated. The physical torture of the burning was not fiercer than his hatred of that.”

Clive Staples Lewis book That Hideous Strength

Source: That Hideous Strength (1945), Ch. 16 : Banquet at Belbury, section 6

Death, Hate, World, Soul

“America`s relatively brief experiment with a generous welfare state was doomed by our African-American population. America tried to import the two fundamentals of the Swedish welfare state—high welfare payments and an end to social disapproval of illegitimacy—beginning about 1961. In parts of the U. S., such as heavily Scandinavian Minnesota, this worked reasonably well. But American voters were confronted with stunning speed with the realization that African-Americans responded differently than Swedes did to the new incentive structures. Welfare allowed much of African-American society to revert to African-style family structures.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

More Diversity = Less Welfare? http://www.vdare.com/articles/more-diversity-less-welfare, VDARE, March 14, 2004

Family, Parting, Speed

“A more structured connection with the mass is needed, and we must improve it in the course of the coming years. But as far as initiatives originating in the upper strata of the government are concerned, we are currently utilizing the almost intuitive method of sounding out general reactions to the great problems we confront.
In this Fidel is a master. His own special way of fusing himself with the people can be appreciated only by seeing him in action. At the great public mass meetings one can observe something like the dialogue of two tuning forks whose vibrations interact, producing new sounds. Fidel and the mass begin to vibrate together in a dialogue of growing intensity until they reach the climax in an abrupt conclusion crowned by our cry of struggle and victory.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

People, Way, Problem, Victory

“Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

What is Patriotism? (1908)

Women, Men, World, Thinking

“The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist,.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Ain't I a Woman (1981)

Women

“On this day I remember words that have stayed with me since my childhood and which matter a great deal to me today, my school motto: "I will try my outmost". This is my promise to all of the people of Britain and now let the work of change begin.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Statement at Downing Street http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page12155.asp, 27 June 2007. Statement outside 10 Downing Street immediately after becoming Prime Minister. The motto referred to is an English translation of the Latin Usque conabor. Brown said "outmost", as spelled on the BBC News transcript http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6246114.stm, but other sources usually give "utmost". Prime Minister

People, School, Change, Childhood

“In a vacuum all photons travel at the same speed. They slow down when travelling through air or water or glass. Photons of different energies are slowed down at different rates. If Tolstoy had known this, would he have recognised the terrible untruth at the beginning of Anna Karenina? 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own particular way.' In fact it's the other way around. Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalisation. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Written on the Body (1992)

Happiness, People, Family, Way

“"Work out your own salvation." Work, as well as believe; and in the daily practice of faithful obedience, in the daily subjugation of your own spirits to His Divine power, in the daily crucifixion of your flesh with its affections and lusts, in the daily straining after loftier heights of godliness and purer atmospheres of devotion and love, — make more thoroughly your own what you possess. Work into the substance of your souls that which you hare. "Apprehend that for which you are apprehended of Christ;" and remember that not a past act of faith, but a present and continuous life of loving, faithful work in Christ, which is His and yet yours, is the holding fast the beginning of your confidence firm unto the end.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 127.

Love, Life, Faith, Soul

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Mythical Phase: Symbol as Archetype

People, Art, Light, Time

“Perhaps he could organize everyone. He could stand up on something and shout slogans until he had attracted enough attention. Then he could begin some rambling speech, hoping that the people around him would be so desperate for leadership they wouldn’t notice the absurdity of what he said.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 8 (p. 124).

People, Hope

“I say looking at the next 100 years that there are two trends in the world today. The first trend is toward what we call a type one civilization, a planetary civilization… The danger is the transition between type zero and type one and that’s where we are today. We are a type zero civilization. We get our energy from dead plants, oil and coal. But if you get a calculator you can calculate when we will attain type one status. The answer is: in about 100 years we will become planetary. We’ll be able to harness all the energy output of the planet earth. We’ll play with the weather, earthquakes, volcanoes. Anything planetary we will play with. The danger period is now, because we still have the savagery. We still have all the passions. We have all the sectarian, fundamentalist ideas circulating around, but we also have nuclear weapons. …capable of wiping out life on earth. So I see two trends in the world today. The first trend is toward a multicultural, scientific, tolerant society and everywhere I go I see aspects of that birth. For example, what is the Internet? Many people have written about the Internet. Billions and billions of words written about the Internet, but to me as a physicist the Internet is the beginning of a type one telephone system, a planetary telephone system. So we’re privileged to be alive to witness the birth of type one technology… And what is the European Union? The European Union is the beginning of a type one economy. And how come these European countries, which have slaughtered each other ever since the ice melted 10,000 years ago, how come they have banded together, put aside their differences to create the European Union? …so we’re beginning to see the beginning of a type one economy as well…”

Michio Kaku (1947) American theoretical physicist, futurist and author

"Will Mankind Destroy Itself?" http://bigthink.com/videos/will-mankind-destroy-itself (29 September 2010)

Life, People, World, Idea

“True transformation occurs only when we can look at ourselves squarely and face our attachments and inner demons, free from the buzz of commercial distraction and false social realities. We have to retreat into our own cocoons and come face-to-face with who we are. We have to turn toward our own inner darkness. For only by abandoning its attachments and facing the darkness does the caterpillar's body begin to spread out and its light, beautiful wings begin to form.”

Julia Butterfly Hill book The Legacy of Luna

Source: The Legacy of Luna (2000), Ch. 8

Beauty, Reality, Light, Falseness

“In those early amorphous years of life, when memory had only just begun, when life was full of Beginnings and no Ends, and everything was Forever”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things (1997)

Life, Memory

“Now why, if freedom is striven after for love of the I after all — why not choose the I himself as beginning, middle, and end?”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Dover 2005, p. 163
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

Love, Freedom

“I observe, that of late Chymistry begins, as indeed it deserves, to be cultivated by Learned Men who before despis’d it; and to be pretended to by many who never cultivated it, that they may be thought not to ignore it: Whence it is come to passe, that divers Chymical Notions about Matters Philosophical are taken for granted and employ’d, and so adopted by very eminent Writers both Naturalists and Physitians. Now this I fear may prove somewhat prejudicial to the Advancement of solid Philosophy: For though I am a great Lover of Chymical Experiments, and though I have no mean esteem of divers Chymical Remedies, yet I distinguish these from their Notions about the causes of things, and their manner of Generation.”

Robert Boyle book The Sceptical Chymist

Source: The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Preface Introductory to the Following Treatise

Men, Fear, Lovers, Learning

“How is a man to find where he belongs in life? The more original he is, the less likely is he to find his place prepared for him. He must not expect to see from the beginning what mould his life will take… The power to work on faith is what distinguishes great men.”

Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American sociologist

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 111

Life, Men, Faith

“But when I talk to people who are Darwinists or evolutionists and say, 'Well, how did life begin' -- they're…they don't have an answer. I mean, they have an answer, but it's a BS answer. It's an answer that wouldn't make sense to a small child.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

Youtube: Ben Stein on Glenn Beck's show about Intelligent Design, Ben Stein on Glenn Beck's show about Intelligent Design, 13 November 2007, 2008-04-18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHbdMbSLfb4,

Life, People, Sense

“Hello everyone!
I suppose that you think that nothing much is happening at the moment. Ah ah ah! Well, that's what I want to talk to you all about: endings. Now, endings normally happen at the end. But, as we all know, endings are just beginnings. You know, once these things really get started, it's jolly hard to stop them again.
However, as we have all come this far, I think, under the circumstances, the best solution is that we all just keep going. Let's keep going inside, never an ending. Let's remember that this world wants fresh beginnings. I feel here, in this Country, and throughout the world, we are crying out for beginnings, beginnings!
We never want to hear this word "endings". I know you don't want to sit down. Of course, you're looking for the good start. Of course you're looking for a fresh start.
Isn't that charming? Do you know, I really feel I could dance…”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Amarok (1990)

World, Feeling, Thinking, Dance

“Prostrating myself mentally before my Guide, I cried, "How is it, O divine ideal of consummate loveliness and wisdom that I see thy inside, and yet cannot discern thy heart, thy lungs, thy arteries, thy liver?" "What you think you see, you see not," he replied; "it is not given to you, nor to any other Being to behold my internal parts. I am of a different order of Beings from those in Flatland. Were I a Circle, you could discern my intestines, but I am a Being, composed as I told you before, of many Circles, the Many in the One, called in this country a Sphere. And, just as the outside of a Cube is a Square, so the outside of a Sphere presents the appearance of a Circle."Bewildered though I was by my Teacher's enigmatic utterance, I no longer chafed against it, but worshipped him in silent adoration. He continued, with more mildness in his voice. "Distress not yourself if you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland. By degrees they will dawn upon you. Let us begin by casting back a glance at the region whence you came.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

Wisdom, Understanding, Thinking, Teachers

“I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty.... but only vaguely. At fifty, that is in 1880, I formulated the idea of unity, without being able to render it. At sixty, I am beginning to see the possibility of rendering it.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

(c. 1890); as quoted in Painting Outside the lines, Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 30 Jun 2009, p. 84
1890's

Age, Idea, Understanding

“Finally — well, he wasn't the president, he was the chancellor — Hitler, decided that it was the only empathetic thing to do, is to put this child down and put him out of his suffering. It was the beginning of the T4, which led to genocide everywhere. It was the beginning of it. Empathy leads you to very bad decisions many times.”

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

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-05-26
Beck cites Hitler example to state that "empathy leads you to very bad decisions"
Media Matters for America
2009-05-26
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200905260067
2000s, 2009

Decision, Suffering, Time

“Nell: Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.Nagg: Oh?Nell: Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

Endgame (1957)

World

“An odd outlook on life is the beginning of good comedic writing.”

Phil Vischer (1966) American puppeter

Interview article at InfuzeMag.com http://www.infuzemag.com/interviews/archives/2004/03/phil_vischer_in.html

Life

“It seems as if there are almost two different kinds of religion, one of which brutally divides, and one of which unites (or can unite). How do we tell them apart, and how might we begin to switch allegiance from the former to the latter?”

Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker

Why Do Religions Teach Love and Yet Cause So Much War?

Religion

“It was heroic!"
"Heroic, is it? Bedad, it's epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of my genius.”

Rafael Sabatini book Captain Blood

Source: Captain Blood (1922), Ch. IX: "The Rebels-Convict"

“Yes. There was a period when I tried to avoid looking at Greek – and Renaissance – sculpture of any kind; when I thought that the Greek and Renaissance were the enemy and that one had to throw all that over and start again from the beginning of primitive art. It's only in the last ten or fifteen years that I've begun to know how wonderful the elgin Marbles are.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote from 'Henry Moore', an interview by Donald, in 'Horizon', New York, Nov. 1960
1955 - 1970

Art

“That body is still new to her, she's still trying it out, thinking it through, a bit like a kid walking the streets with a loaded gun and deciding whether he's packing it to protect himself or to begin a life of crime.”

Philip Roth book The Dying Animal

The Dying Animal (2001)

Life, Thinking

“Learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with them and change them.”

Peter M. Senge (1947) American scientist

The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990)

Learning, Change

“I saw full surely that all the works that God hath done, or ever shall, were fully known to Him and aforeseen from without beginning. And for Love He made Mankind, and for the same Love would be Man.”

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

Summations, Chapter 57

Love, God

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.”

Charlton Ogburn (1911–1998) American journalist and author

From "Merrill's Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure" http://www.harpers.org/archive/1957/01/0007289 in the January 1957 issue of Harper's Magazine Usually misattributed to Petronius See Brown, David S. "Petronius or Ogburn?", Public Administration Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1978), p. 296 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-3352(197805%2F06)38%3A3%3C296%3APOO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z alternate version:As a result, I suppose, of high-level changes of mind about how we were to be used, we went though several reorganizations. Perhaps because Americans as a nation have a gift for organizing, we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization, and a wonderful method it is for creating the illusion of progress at the mere cost of confusion, inefficiency and demoralization. The Maurauders (1959) chapter 2, page 60

Life, Learning, Change, Time

“Today we preach that science is not science unless it is quantitative. We substitute correlations for causal studies, and physical equations for organic reasoning. Measurements and equations are supposed to sharpen thinking, but, in my observation, they more often tend to make the thinking noncausal and fuzzy. They tend to become the object of scientific manipulation instead of auxiliary tests of crucial inferences.
Many - perhaps most - of the great issues of science are qualitative, not quantitative, even in physics and chemistry. Equations and measurements are useful when and only when they are related to proof; but proof or disproof comes first and is in fact strongest when it is absolutely convincing without any quantitative measurement.
Or to say it another way, you can catch phenomena in a logical box or in a mathematical box. The logical box is coarse but strong. The mathematical box is fine-grained but flimsy. The mathematical box is a beautiful way of wrapping up a problem, but it will not hold the phenomena unless they have been caught in a logical box to begin with.”

John R. Platt (1918–1992) American physicist

John R. Platt (1964) " Science, Strong Inference -- Proper Scientific Method (The New Baconians) http://256.com/gray/docs/strong_inference.html. In: Science Magazine 16 October 1964, Volume 146, Number 3642. Cited in: Gerald Weinberg (1975) Introduction to General Systems Thinking. p. 1, and in multiple other sources.

Beauty, Way, Mathematics, Problem

“In a parched African landscape like this at Omo, man first put his foot to the ground. That seems a pedestrian way to begin the ascent of man.”

Jacob Bronowski The Ascent of Man

Episode 1: "Lower than the Angels"
The Ascent of Man (1973)

Way

“The Russian Armies and all the peoples of the Russian Republic have rallied to the defence of their hearths and homes. … The aggressor is surprised, startled, staggered. For the first time in his experience mass murder has become unprofitable. He retaliates by the most frightful cruelties. As his armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated. Scores of thousands—literally scores of thousands—of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German police-troops upon the Russian patriots who defend their native soil. Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century, there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale. And this is but the beginning. Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks. We are in the presence of a crime without a name.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (24 August 1941), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 1173
The Second World War (1939–1945)

People, Home, Time

“By inherited instinct we are all Communists at heart; and if the isolated Ego of self gets the upper hand for a time he produces results so terrifying that the mistake of allowing him to rule is speedily made apparent, and we begin to seek a way whereby we may return to the kindly sway of the spirit of Altruism.”

Keir Hardie (1856–1915) Scottish socialist and labour leader

Source: From Serfdom to Socialism (1907), p. 34

Way, Time, Heart

“No one can be certain what the future will bring. No one can say whether the time has come for an easing of the struggle. But history and our own conscience will judge us harsher if we do not now make every effort to test our hopes by action. And this is the place to begin.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty speech

Hope, History, Effort, Time

“[The Cinderella Complex] used to hit girls of sixteen or seventeen, preventing them, often, from going to college, hastening them into early marriages. Now it tends to hit women after college—after they've been out in the world awhile. When the first thrill of freedom subsides and anxiety rises to take its place, they begin to be tugged by that old yearning for safety: the wish to be saved.”

Colette Dowling (1938)

Source: The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence (1981), pp. 69–70

Women, Marriage, World, Girl

“There is no doubt that America is a superpower of the world and we cannot ignore them. I think that Americans should gradually begin to adopt positive behavior rather than doing evil. They should not expect an immediate reaction in return for their positive measures. It will take time.”

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934–2017) Iranian politician, Shi'a cleric and Writer

Remarks in an interview about Iran nuclear program and the United States http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2005/05/rafsanjani-urges-us-to-begin-thaw-in.html (May 19, 2005) 2005

World, Behavior, Thinking, Evil

“[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Great Divorce

Source: The Great Divorce (1944–1945), Ch. 9

Death, Pleasure, Dreams, Suffering

“In the beginning let's say Weather Report was a joint thing. Then, after the second album there's no question about it, it became more and more my group. Wayne wanted it like that, but we were always 'partners in crime.”

Joe Zawinul (1932–2007) austrian composer and pianist

No Wayne, no Weather Report.
As quoted in Nicholson, Stuart. "Jazz-Rock: A History". Schirmer Books. 1998.

Question, Weather

Quotes about beginning page 22

Quotes about beginning
page 22