Quotes about being
page 66

Murray Leinster photo

“It was a symptom of the insanity of human beings in a cosmos obviously designed for them to live in, but which they industriously prepare to make unlivable.”

Murray Leinster (1896–1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Time Tunnel (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 45).

Janet Yellen photo
George W. Bush photo
Clarence Thomas photo
Italo Calvino photo
Maria Bamford photo
Max Horkheimer photo
Theodore Dreiser photo

“Parents are frequently inclined, because of a time-flattered sense of security, to take their children for granted. Nothing ever has happened, so nothing ever will happen. They see their children every day, and through the eyes of affection; and despite their natural charm and their own strong parental love, the children are apt to become not only commonplaces, but ineffably secure against evil. […] The astonishment of most parents at the sudden accidental revelation of evil in connection with any of their children is almost invariably pathetic. […] But it is possible. Very possible. Decidedly likely. Some, through lack of experience or understanding, or both, grow hard and bitter on the instant. They feel themselves astonishingly abased in the face of notable tenderness and sacrifice. Others collapse before the grave manifestation of the insecurity and uncertainty of life—the mystic chemistry of our being. Still others, taught roughly by life, or endowed with understanding or intuition, or both, see in this the latest manifestation of that incomprehensible chemistry which we call life and personality, and, knowing that it is quite vain to hope to gainsay it, save by greater subtlety, put the best face they can upon the matter and call a truce until they can think. We all know that life is unsolvable—we who think. The remainder imagine a vain thing, and are full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

Source: The Financier (1912), Ch. XXVI

Philip K. Dick photo
Harriet Beecher Stowe photo
Subramanya Bharathi photo

“We shall not look at caste or religion. All human beings in this land — whether they be those who preach the vedas or who belong to other castes — are one.”

Subramanya Bharathi (1882–1921) Tamil poet

ஜாதி மதங்களைப் பாரோம் -
உயர் ஜன்மம்இத் தேசத்தில் எய்தின ராயின்
வேதிய ராயினும் ஒன்றே -
அன்றி வேறு குலத்தின ராயினும் ஒன்றே
As quoted in Freedom Fighters of India, Vol. 3, Lion M. G. Agrawal (2008), "Subramaniya Bharathi", p. 235

Subh-i-Azal photo
U.G. Krishnamurti photo
Aron Ra photo
Angela Davis photo
Albert Hofmann photo
Jesse Ventura photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Giordano Bruno photo
James Clerk Maxwell photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo

“A convincing demonstration of correctness being impossible as long as the mechanism is regarded as a black box, our only hope lies in not regarding the mechanism as a black box.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1970) " Notes On Structured Programming http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD249.PDF" (EWD249), Section 3 ("On The Reliability of Mechanisms"), p. 5.
1970s

Noam Chomsky photo

“I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Svetlana Vukovic & Svetlana Lukic on Radio B92, Belgrade, Serbia, September 19, 2001 http://www.b92.net/intervju/eng/2001/0919-chomsky.phtml.
Quotes 2000s, 2001

Thom Yorke photo
John Waters photo
Kalle Lasn photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo
Isaac Asimov photo
Leo Tolstoy photo

“I longed for activity, instead of an even flow of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to renounce self for the sake of my love. I was conscious of a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life. I had bouts of depression, which I tried to hide, as something to be ashamed of…My mind, even my senses were occupied, but there was another feeling – the feeling of youth and a craving for activity – which found no scope in our quiet life…So time went by, the snow piled higher and higher round the house, and there we remained together, always and for ever alone and just the same in each other’s eyes; while somewhere far away amidst glitter and noise multitudes of people thrilled, suffered and rejoiced, without one thought of us and our existence which was ebbing away. Worst of all, I felt that every day that passed riveted another link to the chain of habit which was binding our life into a fixed shape, that our emotions, ceasing to be spontaneous, were being subordinated to the even, passionless flow of time… ‘It’s all very well … ‘ I thought, ‘it’s all very well to do good and lead upright lives, as he says, but we’ll have plenty of time for that later, and there are other things for which the time is now or never.’ I wanted, not what I had got, but a life of challenge; I wanted feeling to guide us in life, and not life to guide us in feeling.”

Family Happiness (1859)

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.”

Die wohlfeilste Art des Stolzes hingegen ist der Nationalstolz. Denn er verrät in dem damit Behafteten den Mangel an individuellen Eigenschaften, auf die er stolz sein könnte, indem er sonst nicht zu dem greifen würde, was er mit so vielen Millionen teilt. Wer bedeutende persönliche Vorzüge besitzt, wird vielmehr die Fehler seiner eigenen Nation, da er sie beständig vor Augen hat, am deutlichsten erkennen. Aber jeder erbärmliche Tropf, der nichts in der Welt hat, darauf er stolz sein könnte, ergreift das letzte Mittel, auf die Nation, der er gerade angehört, stolz zu sein. Hieran erholt er sich und ist nun dankbarlich bereit, alle Fehler und Torheiten, die ihr eigen sind, mit Händen und Füßen zu verteidigen.
Kap. II
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Madonna photo

“The neurotic is always half-drowning in anxiety, and always being half-rescued.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis

Tony Conrad photo
John Fante photo
Carl Sagan photo

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever it has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”

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

Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/4553, May 27, 1996.

Ludwig Boltzmann photo
James D. Watson photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Albert Camus photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“Yes, first impressions do count but every single impression counts. You cannot fake being positive, but you can practise and teach yourself to appear and act in a positive manner.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Source: Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), p.18

H. G. Wells photo

“The icing on the cake is where I had to take second fiddle to Yaxeni Oriquen Garcia 2005 Ms Olympia that was a big stab in the back at the time we were instructed to reduce 20% in the muscularity round.. I normally compete at 160-162 that year being the embassador of the sport I must lead by example, which I did. I competed at 155lbs still same conditioning, shape etc…. Lord behold second fiddle to Yaxeni.. It looked as if Yaxeni had did the opposite of what the current ruling stated and she was being rewarded.. Come on we have two different body types! I have a small tapered waist line, fine detail flowing through out my body, nice harmony and she's displaying nothing but BIG. When someone refers to Yaxeni body they say she's a big girl.. She has great confidence about herself on stage, which is an EXCELLENT tool and having that can always gain you a few points, but to flat out win is RIDICULOUS and not possible… Anyhow, Yaxeni was more surprised then I when hearing her name announced victoriously. And believe it or not annoucing the winner that year was Lenda Murray, so she was probably soaking up every second of me losing as a mild way of payback. I was always told when going after the champ you have to completely knock the champ "OUT."”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

Anything close should not cause you a win.
2012-02-05
An Exclusive Interview With the Ms. Olympia Champion Iris Kyle
RX Muscle
Internet
http://www.rxmuscle.com/rx-girl-articles/female-bodybuilding/4986-an-exclusive-interview-with-the-ms-olympia-champion-iris-kyle.html
Sourced quotes, 2012

Alexej von Jawlensky photo

“When John Ryder, for instance, writes "I utter valediction to the author of my being," he means simply that he said goodbye to his mother.”

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

How to Be a Collector (1995).

Alan Kay photo
River Phoenix photo
Apollonius of Tyana photo
Bell Hooks photo

“We resist hegemonic dominance of feminist thought by insisting that it is a theory in the making, that we must necessarily criticize, question, re-examine, and explore new possibilities. My persistent critique has been informed by my status as a member of an oppressed group, experience of sexist exploitation and discrimination, and the sense that prevailing feminist analysis has not been the force shaping my feminist consciousness. This is true for many women. There are white women who had never considered resisting male dominance until the feminist movement created an awareness that they could and should. My awareness of feminist struggle was stimulated by social circumstance. Growing up in a Southern, black, father-dominated, working class household, I experienced (as did my mother, my sisters, and my brother) varying degrees of patriarchal tyranny and it made me angry-it made us all angry. Anger led me to question the politics of male dominance and enabled me to resist sexist socialization. Frequently, white feminists act as if black women did not know sexist oppression existed until they voiced feminist sentiment. They believe they are providing black women with "the" analysis and "the" program for liberation. They do not understand, cannot even imagine, that black women, as well as other groups of women who live daily in oppressive situations, often acquire an awareness of patriarchal politics from their lived experience, just as they develop strategies of resistance (even though they may not resist on a sustained or organized basis). These black women observed white feminist focus on male tyranny and women's oppression as if it were a "new" revelation and felt such a focus had little impact on their lives. To them it was just another indication of the privileged living conditions of middle and upper class white women that they would need a theory to inform them that they were "oppressed." The implication being that people who are truly oppressed know it even though they may not be engaged in organized resistance or are unable to articulate in written form the nature of their oppression. These black women saw nothing liberatory in party line analyses of women's oppression. Neither the fact that black women have not organized collectively in huge numbers around the issues of "feminism" (many of us do not know or use the term) nor the fact that we have not had access to the machinery of power that would allow us to share our analyses or theories about gender with the American public negate its presence in our lives or place us in a position of dependency in relationship to those white and non-white feminists who address a larger audience.”

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

Source: (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 10.

George Holmes Howison photo

“For life eternal is life germinating in that true and only Inclusive Reason, the supreme consciousness of the reality of the City of God, — the Ideal that seats the central reality of each human being in an eternal circle of Persons, and establishes each as a free citizen in the all-founding, all-governing Realm of Spirits”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The City of God and the True God as its Head (In Royce’s “The Conception of God: a Philosophical Discussion Concerning the Nature of the Divine Idea as a Demonstrable Reality”), p.113

Daniel Buren photo
Albert Einstein photo
Charles Darwin photo
Muhammad photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo

“Let's consider first Hayek's claim that prices in free market capitalism do not give people what they morally deserve. Hayek's deepest economic insight was that the basic function of free market prices is informational. Free market prices send signals to producers as to where their products are most in demand (and to consumers as to the opportunity costs of their options). They reflect the sum total of the inherently dispersed information about the supply and demand of millions of distinct individuals for each product. Free market prices give us our only access to this information, and then only in aggregate form. This is why centralized economic planning is doomed to failure: there is no way to collect individualized supply and demand information in a single mind or planning agency, to use as a basis for setting prices. Free markets alone can effectively respond to this information.
It's a short step from this core insight about prices to their failure to track any coherent notion of moral desert. Claims of desert are essentially backward-looking. They aim to reward people for virtuous conduct that they undertook in the past. Free market prices are essentially forward-looking. Current prices send signals to producers as to where the demand is now, not where the demand was when individual producers decided on their production plans. Capitalism is an inherently dynamic economic system. It responds rapidly to changes in tastes, to new sources of supply, to new substitutes for old products. This is one of capitalism's great virtues. But this responsiveness leads to volatile prices. Consequently, capitalism is constantly pulling the rug out from underneath even the most thoughtful, foresightful, and prudent production plans of individual agents. However virtuous they were, by whatever standard of virtue one can name, individuals cannot count on their virtue being rewarded in the free market. For the function of the market isn't to reward people for past good behavior. It's to direct them toward producing for current demand, regardless of what they did in the past.
This isn't to say that virtue makes no difference to what returns one may expect for one's productive contributions. The exercise of prudence and foresight in laying out one's production and investment plans, and diligence in carrying them out, generally improves one's odds. But sheer dumb luck is also, ineradicably, a prominent factor determining free market returns. And nobody deserves what comes to them by sheer luck.”

Elizabeth S. Anderson (1959) professor of philosophy and womens' studies

How Not to Complain About Taxes (III): "I deserve my pretax income" http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2005/01/how_not_to_comp_1.html (January 26, 2005)

George Holmes Howison photo
Edmund White photo
John of St. Samson photo
Bernhard Riemann photo
Warren Farrell photo
Michel De Montaigne photo

“Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book III, Ch. 13
Attributed
Variant: Of all the infirmities we have, 'tis the most savage to despise our being. (Charles Cotton translation)

Helen Suzman photo

“Every Nationalist MP should go to at least one funeral for unrest victims heavily disguised as human beings, instead of sitting on their green benches in parliament, insulated like fish in an aquarium.”

Helen Suzman (1917–2009) South African politician

As quoted in "A lone voice has been silenced" https://web.archive.org/web/20160913173321/http://hsf.org.za/siteworkspace/the-star-pg-11.pdf (2 January 2009), by Peter Sullivan, The Star
1970s

Anthony Burgess photo
Daniel Johns photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Why shouldn't a madman dream of being sane?”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 14 (p. 224)

Alexander Hamilton photo

“The laws of certain states …give an ownership in the service of negroes as personal property…. But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty—and when the captor in war …thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

As quoted in Papers of Alexander Hamilton http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/five-founders-on-slavery.html, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961-), 19:101-2
Philo Camillus no. 2 (1795)

Hermann Hesse photo
Elbert Hubbard photo

“An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)

Billy Collins photo
Edward R. Murrow photo
John of St. Samson photo
Frank B. Jewett photo
Ralph Klein photo

“The government should be getting out of the business of being in business.”

Ralph Klein (1942–2013) Canadian politician

Source: As quoted in "The best quotes from Ralph Klein’s colourful public life" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-best-quotes-from-ralph-kleins-colourful-public-life/article10577310/, The Globe and Mail

John Rupert Firth photo

“There is always the danger that the use of traditional grammatical terms with reference to a wide variety of languages may be taken to imply a secret belief in universal grammar. Every analysis of a particular ‘language’ must of necessity determine the values of the ad hoc categories to which traditional names are given. What is here being sketched is a general linguistic theory applicable to particular linguistic descriptions, not a theory of universals for general linguistic description.”

John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) English linguist

Source: "A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930-1955." 1957, p. 21; as cited in: Olivares, Beatriz Enriqueta Quiroz. The interpersonal and experiential grammar of Chilean Spanish: Towards a principled Systemic-Functional description based on axial argumentation. Diss. University of Sydney, 2013.

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo

“There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans. Islam came out as the enemy of the ' But'. The word ' But' as everybody knows, is the Arabic word and means an idol. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Moslem mind idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha. To the Muslims, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Islam came into being Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar, and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia. In all these countries Islam destroyed Buddhism.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

"The Decline and Fall of Buddhism", in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. III (1987), Government of Maharashtr­a, p. 229 https://books.google.com/books?id=18W1AAAAIAAJ&q=%22the+mission+to+destroy+Buddhism.+Islam+destroyed+Buddhism+not+only+in+India+but+%22&dq=%22the+mission+to+destroy+Buddhism.+Islam+destroyed+Buddhism+not+only+in+India+but+%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiCrd-YwL7LAhUGbj4KHVa2DekQ6AEIIzAB

Aron Ra photo
Gerhard Richter photo
Adi Da Samraj photo
Bernard Lewis photo

“There are other difficulties in the way of accepting imperialism as an explanation of Muslim hostility, even if we define imperialism narrowly and specifically, as the invasion and domination of Muslim countries by non-Muslims. If the hostility is directed against imperialism in that sense, why has it been so much stronger against Western Europe, which has relinquished all its Muslim possessions and dependencies, than against Russia, which still rules, with no light hand, over many millions of reluctant Muslim subjects and over ancient Muslim cities and countries? And why should it include the United States, which, apart from a brief interlude in the Muslim-minority area of the Philippines, has never ruled any Muslim population? The last surviving European empire with Muslim subjects, that of the Soviet Union, far from being the target of criticism and attack, has been almost exempt. Even the most recent repressions of Muslim revolts in the southern and central Asian republics of the USSR incurred no more than relatively mild words of expostulation, coupled with a disclaimer of any desire to interfere in what are quaintly called the "internal affairs" of the USSR and a request for the preservation of order and tranquillity on the frontier.
One reason for this somewhat surprising restraint is to be found in the nature of events in Soviet Azerbaijan. Islam is obviously an important and potentially a growing element in the Azerbaijani sense of identity, but it is not at present a dominant element, and the Azerbaijani movement has more in common with the liberal patriotism of Europe than with Islamic fundamentalism. Such a movement would not arouse the sympathy of the rulers of the Islamic Republic. It might even alarm them, since a genuinely democratic national state run by the people of Soviet Azerbaijan would exercise a powerful attraction on their kinsmen immediately to the south, in Iranian Azerbaijan.
Another reason for this relative lack of concern for the 50 million or more Muslims under Soviet rule may be a calculation of risk and advantage. The Soviet Union is near, along the northern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan; America and even Western Europe are far away. More to the point, it has not hitherto been the practice of the Soviets to quell disturbances with water cannon and rubber bullets, with TV cameras in attendance, or to release arrested persons on bail and allow them access to domestic and foreign media. The Soviets do not interview their harshest critics on prime time, or tempt them with teaching, lecturing, and writing engagements. On the contrary, their ways of indicating displeasure with criticism can often be quite disagreeable.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“To say more while saying less is the secret of being simple.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Simplicity http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21390/Simplicity
From the poems written in English

Herman Dooyeweerd photo

“This universal character of referring and expressing, which is proper to our entire created cosmos, stamps created reality as meaning, in accordance with its dependent non-self-sufficient nature. Meaning is the being of all that has been created and the nature even of our selfhood. It has a religious root and a divine origin.”

Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977) Dutch philosopher

Source: A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Volume I: The Necessary Presuppositions of Philosophy (trans. William S. Young and David H. Freeman), p. 4 ( full context http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/dooy002newc05_01/dooy002newc05_01_0004.php#4)

“The concept of communication includes all of those processes by which people influence one another… This definition is based on the premise that all actions and events have communicative aspects, as soon as they are perceived by a human being; it implies, furthermore, that such perception changes the information which an individual processes and therefor influences him.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Source: Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, 1951, p. 6 as cited in: Stewart L. Tubbs, Robert M. Carter (1978) Shared Experiences in Human Communication. p. 1

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