Quotes about believer
page 59

“Comrades, it always affords me much gratification to meet my old comrades in arms of ten or fourteen years ago, and to live over again in memory the trials and hardships of those days. Hardships imposed for the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions. We believed then, and believe now, that we had a good government, worth fighting for, and, if need be, dying for. How many of our comrades of those days paid the latter price for our preserved Union! Let their heroism and sacrifices be ever green and in our memory. Let not the results of their sacrifices be destroyed. The Union and the free institutions for which they fell, should be held more dear for their sacrifices.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Speech to the Society of the Army of Tennessee (1875)

Memory, Fight

“It is above all over the question of the State that socialists are divided. Two main currents can be discerned in the factions that exist among us which correspond to differences in temperament as well as in ways of thinking, but above all to the extent that one believes in the coming revolution.
There are those, on the one hand, who hope to achieve the social revolution through the State by preserving and even extending most of its powers to be used for the revolution. And there are those like ourselves who see the State, both in its present form, in its very essence, and in whatever guise it might appear, an obstacle to the social revolution, the greatest hindrance to the birth of a society based on equality and liberty, as well as the historic means designed to prevent this blossoming. The latter work to abolish the State and not to reform it.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Source: The State — Its Historic Role (1897), I

Hope, Way, Birth, Question

“The definitions of humanism are many, but let us here take it to be the attitude of those men who think it an advantage to live in society, and, at that, in a complex and highly developed society, and who believe that man fulfills his nature and reaches his proper stature in this circumstance. The personal virtues which humanism cherishes are intelligence, amenity, and tolerance; the particular courage it asks for is that which is exercised in the support of these virtues. The qualities of intelligence which it chiefly prizes are modulation and flexibility.”

Lionel Trilling (1905–1975) American academic

Introduction
The Portable Matthew Arnold (Viking Press, 1949)

Men, Exercises, Intelligence, Courage

“It was difficult to believe these things had taken place such a very long time ago. The events seemed distant, as though he had only read about them and not experienced them at all. He knew that at this point his death was far closer, far more tangible. That was something he could almost touch. One could feel one’s mortal form progressing slowly to ruin, like that old abbey—the signs were undeniable. Things went wrong inside a man and did not come right again. That was the truth that hung over one’s head like a blade. Injuries and illnesses were no longer easily repaired. And as with some part of a painting that he could never get right, the great danger was to see nothing but what was wrong. The trap of age.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 7 (p. 89)

Death, Truth, Age, Feeling

“Hitchens: I've got another question for you, which is this: How many religions in the world do you believe to be false?
Craig: I don't know how many religions in the world there are, so I can’t answer.
Hitchens: Well, could you name... fair enough. I'll see if I can't narrow that down. That was a clumsily asked question, I admit. Do you regard any of the world's religions to be false?
Craig: Excuse me?
Hitchens: Do you regard any of the world's religions to be false preaching?
Craig: Yes, I think—yes, certainly.
Hitchens: Would you name one, then?
Craig: Islam.
Hitchens: That's quite a lot.
Craig: Pardon me?
Hitchens: That's quite a lot.
Craig: Yes.
Hitchens: Do you, therefore—do you think it's moral to preach false religion?
Craig: No.
Hitchens: So religion is responsible for quite a lot of wickedness in the world right there?
Craig: Certainly.
Hitchens: Right.
Craig: I'd be happy to concede (laughs) that. I would agree with that.
Hitchens: So if I was a baby being born in Saudi Arabia today, would you rather it was me or a Wahhabi Muslim?
Craig: Would I be—you rather be what?
Hitchens: Would you rather it was me—it was an atheist baby or a Wahhabi baby?
(Audience and Dr. Craig laugh):
Craig: I-I don't have any preference as to whether you would be... (laughing)
Hitchens: You don’t? As bad as that, O. K. Are there any—I'm sorry. I've only got a few seconds. It's a serious question. I shouldn't squander it. Are there any Christian denominations you regard as false?
Craig: Certainly.
Hitchens: Could I know what they are?
Craig: Well, I am not a Calvinist, for example. I think that certain tenets of Reformed Theology are incorrect. I would be more in the Wesleyan Camp myself. But these are differences among brethren. These are not differences on which we need to put one another in some sort of a cage. So within the Christian camp, there's a large diversity of perspectives. I'm sure there are views that I hold that are probably false, but I'm trying my best to get my theology straight, trying to do the best job. But I think all of us would recognize that none of us agree on every point of Christian doctrine, on every dot and tittle.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Craig vs Christopher Hitchens debate, Biola University, La Mirada, California, 4th April 2009 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/does-god-exist-craig-vs-hitchens-apr-2009#section_6

Happiness, World, Religion, Question

“The reason I keep mentioning God is because I believe in God. A lot of people are surprised by that, what with it being 2014 and this being a technologically advanced secular culture. God is primarily regarded as the preserve of thick white people and angry brown people. Since Friedrich Nietzsche (deceased) declared, “God is dead,” we’ve been exploring the observation of British writer G. K. Chesterton, who said, “The death of God doesn’t mean man will believe in nothing but that he will believe in anything.” I’m a good example of that: at thirteen a believer in Lakeside, at eight a believer in biscuits, at seventeen a devoted wanker, at nineteen a fanatical drug user, before winding up in the monastery of celebrity.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Death, God, People, Dead

“There was an NPR story this morning, about the indigenous peoples of Australia, which might make a good column. Apparently they want to preserve their culture, language, and religion because they're slowly disappearing, which is certainly understandable. But, for some reason, they also want more stuff — better education, housing, etc. — from the Australian government. Isn't it odd that it never occurs to such groups that maybe, just maybe, the reason their cultures are evaporating is that they get too much of that stuff already? Indeed, I'm at a loss as to how mastering algebra and biology will make aboriginal kids more likely to believe — oh, I dunno — that hallucinogenic excretions from a frog have spiritual value. And I'm at a loss as to how better clinics and hospitals will do anything but make the shamans and medicine men look more useless. And now that I think about it, that's the point I was trying to get at a few paragraphs ago, when I was talking about the symbiotic relationship between freedom and the hurly-burly of life. Cultures grow on the vine of tradition. These traditions are based on habits necessary for survival, and day-to-day problem solving. Wealth, technology, and medicine have the power to shatter tradition because they solve problems.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

( August 15, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg081501.shtml) 2000s, 2001

Life, Men, People, Education

“It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally.”

William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) Dean of St Pauls

" Our Present Discontents http://books.google.com/books?id=dFYPAQAAIAAJ&q=&quot;It+is+becoming+impossible+for+those+who+mix+at+all+with+their+fellow-men+to+believe+that+the+grace+of+God+is+distributed+denominationally&quot;&pg=PA32#v=onepage" (August 1919) in Outspoken Essays (1919), p. 32

Men, God

“One reason why people cherish the delusion that they are still free long after they have lost or destroyed the liberties won by their ancestors lies in the boundless vanity of man when acting as mass. The mass in modern times believes it is sovereign. As sovereign it is free.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: Liberty (1930), p. 13

People, Time

“These facts and figures must serve as an eye-opener to the people of Mysore. I refer to them here not because I have any hopes of our reaching the levels of prosperity of the two Colonies, but because it will do us good to know what organization and human endeavour are capable of achieving under favourable conditions. / The nationality of our people rests on a religious and fatalistic basis, not on an economic basis, as in the West. There are still people among us who believe that the golden age was in the past, the world is on the down-grade and the old-word conditions might yet be reproduced some day. The Hindu ideal of life is that this world is a preparation for the next and not a place to stay in and make ourselves comfortable. We are devoted to past ideals, although, out of necessity or from prospect of personal gain, we have partly taken to Western methods of work and business. There is a yearning for the old ideals and a half-hearted acquiescence in the new and, on the whole, the genius of the people is for standing still. / If we are to follow in the wake of other countries in the pursuit of material prosperity, we must give up aimless activities and bring our ideals into line with the standards of the West, namely, to spread education in all grades, multiply occupations and increase production and wealth. All other activities should conform themselves to the economic idea.”

Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya (1860–1962) Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore

148-149
[Speeches by Sir M. Visvesvaraya, K.C.I.E, https://archive.org/details/VisvesvarayaSpeeches, 1917, Bangalore Government Press, 148]

Life, People, Age, World

“If John Logie Baird had been born in 1971 would he have been a genius? The only thing we know with any certainty is that he wouldn't have invented the television. Some people believe he would have still established his genius; that he would have simply found another arena in which to work. I disagree. I think he would have been distracted from such brainy pursuits by all that television.”

Dave Gorman (1971) English author, comedian, and television presenter

"Dave Gorman: What makes a genius?," http://artsandentertainment.independentminds.livejournal.com/274381.html The Independent (2009-03-14)

People, Thinking

“Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, "I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection". I have dubbed this kind of fallacy "the Argument from Personal Incredulity". Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

River out of Eden (1995)

Time, Personality

“I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way. Are there some elements of racism? Yes, it gets back to if we don't grow this economy, that is a ripple effect for every economic level, and because blacks are more disproportionately unemployed, they get hit the worst when economic policies don't work. That's where it starts.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

State of the Union
2011-10-09
Television, quoted in * Cain: Racism not holding anyone back
Political Ticker
2011-10-09
Kevin
Liptak
CNN
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/09/cain-racism-not-holding-anyone-back/

Way, Country

“Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.
So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalising effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.”

William Lane Craig book Reasonable Faith

[Subject: Slaughter of the Canaanites, Reasonable Faith, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767, 2011-10-20], quoted in [Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig, Richard, Dawkins, Guardian, 2011-10-20, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig, 2011-10-20]

Life, Death, God, Happiness

“We may, I believe, anticipate that the chemist of the future who is interested in the structure of proteins, nucleic acids, polysaccharides, and other complex substances with high molecular weight will come to rely upon a new structural chemistry, involving precise geometrical relationships among the atoms in the molecules and the rigorous application of the new structural principles, and that great progress will be made, through this technique, in the attack, by chemical methods, on the problems of biology and medicine.”

Linus Pauling (1901–1994) American scientist

Nobel Lecture (11 December 1954).
1940s-1960s

Problem, Future

“I believe that every man has in his soul a passion for treasure-hunting, which will often drive a coward into prodigies of valour.”

John Buchan book Prester John

Source: Prester John (1910), Ch. X

Soul, Passion

“I believe that a person should take an affirmative outlook. There are always problems in life, old and new, uncertainties, and unexpected contingencies. The optimal way to deal with this is not to give up in despair, but to move ahead using the best intelligence and resources that we have to overcome adversity.”

Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) American professor of philosophy

Quoted in: Dave Lane (2008) Isn't Religion Weird? Quotations for Atheists, p. 117

Life, Way, Intelligence, Optimism

“Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch. But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

Knight Ridder, 1 November 2002
2000

Faith, Guy

“Has, then, the influence of the crown increased since the Revolution? Down to the period of 1782 I believe the fact will not be much disputed. It was upon the notoriety of the fact, and the bad consequences it had produced, that the motions of the right hon. gentleman in favour of reform were founded. That it has increased, I think every impartial man must be compelled to admit…If, then, while the influence of the crown has so manifestly advanced, while the cause of liberty has remained the same, or has sustained a diminution of its strength, can it be said that we are standing upon the establishment of the Revolution, and adhering to the principles which it ascertained? It is, then, upon this ground of experience and the evidence of facts, upon proof of positive inconvenience and real declination from its original purity, that I should propose to recall our constitution to its true principles and to amend the system of our representation.”

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

Speech in the House of Commons (25 April 1800), reported in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXXV (London: 1819), pp. 91-93.
1800s

Thinking

“Tell me how to be in this world
Tell me how to breathe in and feel no hurt
Tell me how 'cause I believe in something
I believe in us”

James Bay (1990) British singer-songwriter

Us
Lyrics

World, Feeling, Hurt

“I believe a second factor which has weighed heavily in this matter is the attitude, or supposed attitude, of the United States. I confess that I am not greatly moved by this. Whatever may be the attitude of the American Government and public to the United Kingdom as such, my view of American policy over the last decade has been that it has been steadily and relentlessly directed towards the weakening and the destruction of the links which bind the British Empire together. [Cyril Osborne: "No!"] We can watch the events as they unfold and place our own interpretation on them. My interpretation is that the United States has for this country, considered separately, a very considerable economic and strategic use but that she sees little or no strategic use or economic value in the British Empire or the British Commonwealth as it has existed and as it still exists. Against the background I ask the House to consider the evidence of advancing American imperialism in this area from which they are helping to eliminate us.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1953/nov/05/foreign-affairs in the House of Commons (5 November 1953) on the British evacuation of the Suez Canal. 1950s

Help, Housing, Country

“According to the orthodox creeds, Christianity came with the tidings that the human race was totally depraved, and that all men were in a lost condition, and that all who rejected or failed to believe the new religion, would be tormented in eternal fire. These were not “tidings of great joy.” If the passengers on some great ship were told that the ship was to be wrecked, that a few would be saved and that nearly all would go to the bottom, would they talk about “tidings of great joy”?”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

Men, Religion, Joy

“Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the po0r rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to just love your friends. I just began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

Love, God

“Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

volume I, chapter VIII: "Religion", page 312 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=330&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

World, Soul, Distant, Appearance

“If we discriminate against them, who is to say that Muslims or Jews aren’t next? I personally believe all religion is superstition, so who is to criticize if one group believes in the lord of the underworld or magic or whatever they want?”

Marc Randazza (1969) American writer

Religion, Personality

“Some people believe themselves to be independent of surrounding influences because their lives have made rebels of them. But rebellion is not a guarantee of independence. On the contrary, it is an acute form of prejudice. The writer who has been too much dominated in childhood will put himself forward as a free thinker in his attacks on religion and family life, but this revolt is the revolt of a slave.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Life, People, Family, Religion

“I believe that Britain will be safer, stronger and better off by remaining in a reformed European Union”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted on Yle.Fi (February 20, 2016), "Finland responds positively to Britain's EU deal" http://yle.fi/uutiset/finland_responds_positively_to_britains_eu_deal/8688531 2010s, 2016

“To put it crudely, theorists can be tempted to think along the lines “If people as clever as us haven’t explained it, that’s because it can’t be explained – it’s just an accident.” I believe there are at least two important regularities among standard model parameters that do have deeper explanations, namely the unification of couplings and the smallness of the QCD θ parameter. There may well be others.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

"Multiversality" (2013)

People, Thinking

“I‘m strictly reality oriented. I don’t indulge in make-believe. I don’t wish to be where I’m not.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

2010s, 2016

Reality

“Agent Mulder believes we are not alone.”

Chris Carter (1956) American television and film producer, director and writer

Pilot [1.1] (10 September 1993) Scully to Section Chief Blevins
The X-Files (1993-2002)

“We somehow believe that our point of view is superior, higher than those of the greatest minds—either because our point of view is that of our time, and our time, being later than the time of the greatest minds, can be presumed to be superior to their times; or else because we believe that each the greatest minds was right from his point of view, but not, as he claims, simply right.”

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

“What is liberal education,” pp. 7-8
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968)

Time

“If I could believe that this was said sincerely, I could put up with anything.”

Terence Eunuchus

Act I, scene 2, 96, line 176.
Eunuchus
Original: (la) si istuc crederem/sincere dici, quidvis possem perpeti.

Sincerity

“So if I succeed in my effort at suicide tonight then this will sure be the last I’ll ever say or write on this earth. The choice is mine and I fully realize just what I am doing. I would like to have it known just why I do this. I had no choice about coming into this world and nearly all of my 38 years in it I have had very little to say or do about how I should live my life. People have driven me into doing everything I have ever done. Now the time has come when I refuse to be driven any further. Tonight I die and tomorrow I go to the grave farther than that no man can drive me I am sure glad to leave this lousy world and the lousier people that live in it. But of all the lousy people in this world I believe that I am the lousiest of them all. Today I am dirty but tomorrow I’ll be just DIRT.”

Carl Panzram (1891–1930) American serial killer

sic
From a letter to Henry Lesser, Leavenworth, Kansas, June 20, 1930, Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers, pgs. 208-9, (1997), Brian King, ed. ISBN 096503240X

Life, People, World, Suicide

“That was not supposed to happen. It was unthinkable, supposedly. And for ordinary people that was mostly true. But not so at a level where men began to believe that they existed outside the usual rules.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 28 (pp. 107-108)

Men, People

“I believe we have this enormous brains with the ability to process so much information for a purpose – because we were made in God's image, not in the image of an amoeba.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 130

God

“The Lost Music was his way of talking about the way he believed that old wives' tales and dance tunes and folktales were just the tangled echoes of something that's not quite of this world … something we all knew once, but have forgotten since.”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

Part One: The Hidden People, "The Quarrlsome Piper" p. 19
The Little Country (1991)

World, Music, Way, Dance

“I often meet people who are very, very staunch Southerners, some of whom feel that the Yankees are out to do the South in. But believe me, there is not, and never has been anyone, including General Sherman, who does more damage to the South then their own schools heading by their own people. They need to wake up and every part of the country needs to recognize what is being done to it by these educators, this systemic destruction of everything that people treasure and believe in.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Dangers Inherent in Public Education (March 24, 1986)

People, Education, School, Feeling

“Burton did not believe in miracles. Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles — if you knew all the facts.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Source: The Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), Chapter 23 (p. 172)

“All things… appear to be made up and produced by the coming together of these elements, so that they have been distributed by nature among an infinite number of kinds of things. Hence I believed it right to treat of the diversity and practical peculiarities of these things as well as of the qualities which they exhibit in buildings, so that persons who are intending to build may understand them and so make no mistake, but may gather materials which are suitable to use in their buildings.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter II, Sec. 2

Understanding, Nature, Appearance, Personality

“I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a safer prey.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Radio broadcast (22 June 1941) on the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), pp. 1120-1121
The Second World War (1939–1945)

War, Country

“This is a sturdy little cop thriller, and even when it stretches the bounds of plausibility, you go with it, partly because you believe -- almost against your better judgment -- in what the characters are doing.”

Stephanie Zacharek (1963) American film critic

Review http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2006/03/03/16_blocks/index.html of 16 Blocks (2006)

“In many societies the domestic social costs of adjustment to changing patterns of comparative advantage are believed to outweigh the advantages of further trade liberalization.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

Source: The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), Chapter Five, The Politics Of International Trade, p. 228

Change

“Outside America I should hardly be believed if I told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the Back Bay.”

Mary Antin book The Promised Land

Source: The Promised Land (1912), Ch. 20.

“Anyone familiar with the numerous accounts of the Buddha's extraordinary compassion and reverence for living beings … could never believe that he would be indifferent to the sufferings of domestic animals caused by their slaughter for food.”

Philip Kapleau (1912–2004) American Zen Buddhist monk

Source: To Cherish All Life (1981), pp. 56-57

Food, Suffering, Animals, Indifference

“Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he, "That when they speak truth they are not believed."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Aristotle, 9.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics

Truth

“Believe me, I work, I drudge, I grind all day long and I do so with pleasure, but I should get very much discouraged if I could not go on working as hard or even harder... I feel, Theo, that there is a power within me, and I do what I can to bring it out and free it. It is hard enough, all the worry and bother with my drawings, and if I had too many other cares and could not pay the models I should lose my head.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in Jan. 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 20 (letter 171) 1880s, 1882

Pleasure, Feeling, Drawing

“The executive branch has sometimes abused its mandate -- most famously, with the surveillance of Dr. King -- but not as much as the Church Committee would have us believe. The FBI's political spying was not the creation of right-wing reactionaries, and it was not systematically targeted at the innocent grassroots left. It was begun by our most liberal of presidents, FDR, who ordered the surveillance of fascist sympathizers in 1936. The most controversial domestic Counterinteligence Programs (Cointelpro) were actually born in the Kennedy administration, as an attempt to disrupt the Ku Klux Klan. The FBI also disrupted "Black Nationalist Hate Groups," including the Black Panthers. This was not political repression; it was a largely successful effort to deal with violent militant groups.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Uncuff the FBI: Congress Must Undo the Church Committe's Damage (2002)

Hate, Effort, Success

“Christ imparts to all believers all the spiritual blessings that He is filled with, and withholds none from any that have union with Him, be these blessings never so great, or they that receive them never so weak and contemptible in outward respects..”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 608.

Christ

“If I were an academician.... or a believer in a higher reality outside me, as most people are (lucky creatures!), I would have no need for any justification for painting landscapes, or portraits, or social realism. I would rely on my so-called common sense, on which I see and feel, and I would enjoy it. Or I would fix one point in the distant haze of that unknown reality, would try to approach it as nearly as I could, and would find solace in the fanatical belief that I am the only one who is portraying that reality which is the only truth.”

Naum Gabo (1890–1977) Russian sculptor

Quote of Naum Gabo (1950), cited in: Eidos: a journal of painting, sculpture and design. Nr.1, p. 32 cited in: Herbert E. Read, Sir Herbert Edward Read (1971) The philosophy of modern art: collected essays. p. 94
1936 - 1977

People, Truth, Feeling, Reality

“A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth — science — which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. IX, ch. 10
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Women, Men, People, Truth

“Are you Earthseed?
Do you believe?
Belief will not save you.
Only actions
Guided and shaped
By belief and knowledge
Will save you.
Belief
Initiates and guides action—
Or it does nothing.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 382)

Knowledge

“I don't believe we need the government's help as much as some think we do. That belief sets me apart from the Democrats, since their way of dealing with everything is to tax and spend.
I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government's business. That position rules out the Republican Party for me. As the cliché says, "I don't want Democrats in the boardroom and I don't want Republicans in the bedroom."”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Way, Business, Thinking, Help

“Europeans believe in democracy - or, at least, in republican government - but they have considered the alternatives, and continue to do so, and that scandalizes Americans.”

William Pfaff (1928–2015) American journalist

Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 2, The Challenge of Europe, p. 23.

Democracy

“The 1960s revolutions against racism, sexism and classism nearly missed out the animals. This worried me. Ethics and politics at the time simply overlooked the nonhumans entirely. Everyone seemed to be just preoccupied with reducing the prejudices against humans. Hadn’t they heard of Darwin? I hated racism, sexism and classism, too, but why stop there? As a hospital scientist I believed that hundreds of other species of animals suffer fear, pain and distress much as I did. Something had to be done about it. We needed to draw the parallel between the plight of the other species and our own. One day in 1970, lying in my bath at the old Sunningwell Manor, near Oxford, it suddenly came to me: SPECIESISM!”

Richard D. Ryder (1940) British psychologist

" Speciesism Again: The Original Leaflet http://www.veganzetta.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Speciesism-Again-the-original-leaflet-Richard-Ryder.pdf", in Critical Society, Issue 2, Spring 2010.

Pain, Hate, Fear, Lying

“We have people coming in by the millions…Am I absolutely opposed to immigration? No…We have to find a way to believe in the rule of law, believe in border control and at the same time, not villify the issue.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

Speaking in Paducah, 2009-05-09
Rand Paul set to launch Senate campaign
KY Wordsmith
http://kywordsmith.com/#/rand-paul-issues/4533680792
2010-11-17
2000s

People, Law, Way, Time

“Believing in the one thing
That has gotten us this far — That's what love is for
To help us through it
That's what love is for
Nothing else can do it
Melt our defenses
Bring us back to our senses
Give us strength to try once more
Baby, that's what love is for.”

Amy Grant (1960) American musician

"That's What Love Is For", co-written with Michael Omartian and Mark Mueller
Song lyrics, Heart in Motion (1991)

Love, Sense, Help, Baby

“I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Albert Einstein, in response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein in (24 April 1929) ; he later expanded on his comments about Spinoza's and his own ideas on religion elsewhere : "I can understand your aversion to the use of the term "religion" to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza … I have not found a better expression than "religious" for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason." — as quoted in Einstein : Science and Religion by Arnold V. Lesikar
A - F

God, Fate, World, Law

“What I aspire to in the 21st century is a global world system that inter-connects each region and country with their unique culture and socioeconomic regime. Globalization thriving amidst diversity is my vision for the next century, and I strongly believe this co-existence of diverse civilizations with global networking will create a much better world than the unilateral imposition of monolithic ideologies, such as market fundamentalism.”

Eisuke Sakakibara (1941) Japanese economist and critic

The End of Market Fundamentalism (1999)

World, Country

“I believe that I've made good judgments in the past, and I think I've made good judgments in the future.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_xcaBdBHf4

Thinking, Past, Future

“If we say that we believe in democracy, if we say that the fabric of a democratic society is one which allows for the free play of idea…then, in the name of all the gods, give that free play a chance to work within the constitutional framework.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Oct 4, 1956
1950s

God, Democracy, Idea, Chance

“Even at the religious level the creationist view is a biased one. The only creation story they mention is the one in Genesis (in which there are actually two stories — the version in the first chapter being so different from that in the second chapter that biblical scholars believe they were written hundreds of years apart). Why do they not mention the belief of the Hindus that the world began with the creation of the cosmic egg? What about the Babylonians' belief that there was not a single creationist god but two cosmic parents?”

Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) American ecologist

Naked Emperors : Essays of a Taboo-Stalker (1982)

God, World, Parent

“Some people believe that a person’s spirit is captured when they are photographed. I invite those of you who don’t believe that to take a photograph of someone you love a stab it repeatedly with a pair of scissors. Maybe they do capture something of the soul.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Love, People, Soul, Personality

“[Written on back of photograph of Ruth and Daniel]
"Ruth Levinson
Third grade teacher.
She believes in me and I can be anything I want when I grow up.
I can even change the world."”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Daniel McCallum, Chapter 28 Ira, p. 335
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

World, Change

“The miller's daughter of fourteen could not believe that high gentry behaved badly to their wives, but her mother instructed her — "Oh, child, men's men: gentle or simple, they're much of a muchness…"”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Daniel Deronda (1876)

Men, Daughters

“But on the other hand, the understanding, reflection, is also a gift of God. What shall one do with it, how dispose of it if one is not to use it? And if one then uses it in fear and trembling not for one’s own advantage but to serve the truth, if one uses it that way in fear and trembling and furthermore believing that it still is God who determines the issue in its eternal significance, venturing to trust in him, and with unconditional obedience yielding to what he makes use of it: is this not fear of God and serving God the way a person of reflection can, in the somewhat different way than the spontaneously immediate person, but perhaps more ardently. But if this is the case, does not a maieutic element enter into the relation to other man or to various other men. The maieutic is really only the expression for a superiority between man and man. That is exists cannot be denied-but existence presses far more powerfully upon the superior one precisely because he is a maieutic (because he has the responsibility) than upon the other. As far as I am concerned, there has been no lack of witnesses. All my upbuilding discourses are in fact in the form of direct communication. Consequently there can be a question only about this, something that has occupied me for a long time (already back in earlier journals): should I for one definitely explain myself as author, what I declare myself to be, how I from the beginning understood myself to be a religious author. But now is not the time to do it; I am also somewhat strained at the moment, I need more physical recreation.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

JP VI 6234 (Pap. IX A 222 1848)
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

Men, God, Truth, Fear

“I believe, entertainment has its pros and cons. It is important, but too much involvement of kids can deter them from achieving their key goals.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Talking about kids (1) http://m.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/I-am-a-girl-next-door-Shreya-Ghoshal/articleshow/9455640.cms

“We're going to [put] more of these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family. Let people like Pat Moynihan and [special consultant] Leonard Garment and others believe in all that crap. But I don't believe in it. Work, work — throw 'em off the rolls. That's the key.”

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

1970s, Tape transcripts (1971)

People, Family

“It seems a mad business to confront these dictators without weapons or military force, and at the same time try to tame and cow the spirit of our people with peace films, anti-recruiting propaganda and resistance to defence measures. Unless the free and law-respecting nations are prepared to organise, arm and combine, they are going to be smashed up. This is going to happen quite soon. But I believe we still have a year to combine and marshal superior forces in defence of the League and its Covenant.”

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

Letter to Robert Cecil (9 April 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 722
The 1930s

People, Peace, Law, Business

“Too many Japanese believe that they can say whatever they like in Japanese ('that statement was for a domestic audience' is very often an excuse for gaffes), as though Japanese is some secret code.”

Debito Arudou (1965) Author/activist with Japanese citizenship born in the USA

Debito Arudou on defending the Japanese weeklies, as well as Ryann Connell and his collaborators, by suggesting that the Mainichi Shimbuns now defunct WaiWai column was "an essential guide to Japanese attitudes and editorial directives." Justin Norrie, "Japan rails at Australian's tabloid trash" http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/japan-rails-at-australians-tabloid-trash/2008/07/04/1214951041660.html?page=2, Brisbane Times (2008-07-05)

Secret

“In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation — and reason is the best confirmation.”

Dennis Lindley (1923–2013) British statistician

2. Stylistic Questions. p. 24–25.
Understanding Uncertainty (2006)

Help, Personality

“Islam is the first school of social thought that recognizes the masses as the basis, the fundamental and conscious factor in determining history and society not the elect as Nietzsche thought, not the aristocracy and nobility as Plato claimed, nor great personalities as Carlyle and Emerson believed, not those of pure blood as Alexis Carrel imagined, not the priests or the intellectuals, but the masses.”

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

Source: On the sociology of Islam: lectures. (1979), p. 49; as cited in: Ali Mirsepassi (2000) Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization, p. 126.

School, Imagination, History, Personality

“I believe that the royal family are a focus of patriotism, of loyalty, of affection and of esteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Statement in the House of Commons (24 July 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108162 Third term as Prime Minister

Family, Loyalty

“The Protestant churches generally hold that the elements of the sacrament are flesh and blood only in a tropical sense; they nourish our souls as meat and the juice of it would our bodies. But the Catholics maintain that they are literally just that; although they possess all the sensible qualities of wafer-cakes and diluted wine. But we can have no conception of wine except what may enter into a belief, either —
# That this, that, or the other, is wine; or,
# That wine possesses certain properties.
Such beliefs are nothing but self-notifications that we should, upon occasion, act in regard to such things as we believe to be wine according to the qualities which we believe wine to possess. The occasion of such action would be some sensible perception, the motive of it to produce some sensible result. Thus our action has exclusive reference to what affects the senses, our habit has the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon our senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon. Now, it is not my object to pursue the theological question; and having used it as a logical example I drop it, without caring to anticipate the theologian's reply. I only desire to point out how impossible it is that we should have an idea in our minds which relates to anything but conceived sensible effects of things. Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects; and if we fancy that we have any other we deceive ourselves, and mistake a mere sensation accompanying the thought for a part of the thought itself. It is absurd to say that thought has any meaning unrelated to its only function. It is foolish for Catholics and Protestants to fancy themselves in disagreement about the elements of the sacrament, if they agree in regard to all their sensible effects, here or hereafter.
It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The final sentence here is an expression of what became known as the Pragmatic maxim, first published in "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" in Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 12 (January 1878), p. 286

Soul, Motivation, Idea, Question

“At this time, Icelanders were said to be the poorest people in Europe, just as their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers had been, all the way back to the earliest settlers; but they believed that many long centuries ago there had been a Golden Age in Iceland, when Icelanders had not been mere farmers and fisherman as they were now, but royal-born heroes and poets who owned weapons, gold, and ships.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)

People, Age, Way, Time

“It's perfectly understandable and proper for one to be anti-Semite, but to exterminate women and children is so extraordinary, it's hard to believe. No defendant here wanted that.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

To Leon Goldensohn, June 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Women, Children, Understanding

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.

And I mean the president starts off with 48, 49, 4— he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. 47% of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes — doesn't connect. So he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich.

I mean, that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-09-17
Secret Video: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He Really Thinks of Obama Voters
David
Corn
w:David Corn
Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
2012-09-18
Posed question: "For the past three years, all everybody's been told is 'don't worry, we'll take care of you'. How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections to convince everybody, you've got to take care of yourself?"
2012

People, Health, Food, Housing

“If I were to run, I'd run as a Republican. They're the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they'd still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

There is no record of Trump ever saying this; sometimes "People magazine, 1998" is incorrectly given as the "source" of this quotation — snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/1998-trump-people-quote/; truthorfiction.com https://www.truthorfiction.com/donald-trump-said-republicans-are-the-dumbest-group-of-voters/ Misattributed

Lie, Country

“We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.
We believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and reasonableness, a reasonableness that goes beyond labels, that doesn't distort or promise to do things that we know we can't do.
We believe in a government strong enough to use words like "love" and "compassion" and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities.
We believe in encouraging the talented, but we believe that while survival of the fittest may be a good working description of the process of evolution, a government of humans should elevate itself to a higher order.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Love, Reality, Strong

“If time is treated in modern physics as a dimension on a par with the dimensions of space, why should we a priori exclude the possibility that we are pulled as well as pushed along its axis? The future has, after all, as much or as little reality as the past, and there is nothing logically inconceivable in introducing, as a working hypothesis, an element of finality, supplementary to the element of causality, into our equations. It betrays a great lack of imagination to believe that the concept of "purpose" must necessarily be associated with some anthropomorphic deity.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

Epilogue
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959)

Imagination, Reality, Time, Past

“You have called upon us to expose ourselves to all the subtle machinations of their malignity for all time. And now, what do you propose to do when you come to make peace? To reward your enemies, and trample in the dust your friends? Do you intend to sacrifice the very men who have come to the rescue of your banner in the South, and incurred the lasting displeasure of their masters thereby? Do you intend to sacrifice them and reward your enemies? Do you mean to give your enemies the right to vote, and take it away from your friends? Is that wise policy? Is that honorable? Could American honor withstand such a blow? I do not believe you will do it. I think you will see to it that we have the right to vote. There is something too mean in looking upon the Negro, when you are in trouble, as a citizen, and when you are free from trouble, as an alien. When this nation was in trouble, in its early struggles, it looked upon the Negro as a citizen. In 1776 he was a citizen. At the time of the formation of the Constitution the Negro had the right to vote in eleven States out of the old thirteen. In your trouble you have made us citizens. In 1812 General Jackson addressed us as citizens; 'fellow-citizens'. He wanted us to fight. We were citizens then! And now, when you come to frame a conscription bill, the Negro is a citizen again. He has been a citizen just three times in the history of this government, and it has always been in time of trouble. In time of trouble we are citizens. Shall we be citizens in war, and aliens in peace? Would that be just?”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, What the Black Man Wants (1865)

Men, War, Peace, History

“They say be careful who you believe,
Be careful who you trust.
Did you smile when you pulled the trigger
That dropped me in the dust?”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Billy the Kid
Lyrics, Echo (1999)

Smile

“You must not give way to desires which you don't believe in. I know what you desire. You should, however, either be capable of renouncing these desires or feel wholly justified in having them. Once you are able to make your request in such a way that you will be quite certain of its fulfillment, then the fulfillment will come. But at present you alternate between desire and renunciation and are afraid all the time. All that must be overcome.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Demian (1919)

Way, Feeling, Time

“When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion. I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.”

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

The Anas (February 1, 1800). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-01_Bk.pdf, pp. 352–353 1800s

Secret, Religion, Departure

“I’ll buy that means also I believe it.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#157
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“I had been taught that while the Sun indeed affects the upper and outer atmosphere of the Earth, purported connections with the troposphere and weather and climate were uniformly wacky and to be distrusted. I still believe that to some extent, for there is a hypnotism about cycles that seems to attract people. It draws all kinds of creatures out of the woodwork. The claims that were made for associations between weather events and the Sun I thought were pretty preposterous. One of those that turned up was this notion that Gene told me about. About the work of Walter Maunder 100 years before, when he had thought that there was a prolonged period of time in the 1600s when the Sun wasn’t so active.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

People, Time, Sun, Drawing

“Consider that the turkey's experience may have, rather than no value, a negative value. It learned from observation, as we are all advised to do (hey, after all, this is what is believed to be the scientific method). Its confidence increased as the number of friendly feedings grew, and it felt increasingly safe even though the slaughter was more and more imminent. Consider that the feeling of safety reached its maximum when the risk was at the highest!”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), pp. 40–41 (Taleb attributes the parable of the turkey to Bertrand Russell, who originally wrote of a chicken.)

Feeling, Confidence, Learning

“I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 484 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=505&itemID=F376&viewtype=side, in the second (1860) edition

Life, Secret, Law, Tree

“I've been identified with pink throughout my career, but I'm not as crazy about it as I've led people to believe. My favorite colors are actually neutrals—black and white—but then who thinks of a movie queen in black and white? Everything has to be in living color.”

Jayne Mansfield (1933–1967) American actress, singer, model

Here They Are Jayne Mansfield (1992)

People, Color, Thinking

“Bureau of Ordnance, Richmond
January 17, 1864
General Lee:
I have the honor to present to you with this letter Mr. Andries Rhoodie of Rivington, North Carolina, who has demonstrated in my presence a new rifle, which I believe may prove to be of the most significant benefit conceivable to our soldiers. As he expressed the desire of making your acquaintance & as the Army of Northern Virginia will again, it is likely, face hard fighting in the months ahead, I send him on to you that you may judge both him & his remarkable weapon for yourself. I remain,
Your most ob't servant,
Josiah Gorgas
Colonel”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 5

Fight

“I do not believe that affection can exist with truth, without the ideal, and without blending with itself all that is best and most earnest in our nature.”

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

No.21. Woodstock — ALICE LEE.
No.22. Marmion — CONSTANCE. See under The Monthly Magazine
Literary Remains

Truth, Nature

“In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings. I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies Larcenys, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. for all of these things I am not the least bit sorry. I have no conscience so that does not worry me. I don’t believe in Man, God nor devil. I hate the whole damed human race including myself.”

Carl Panzram (1891–1930) American serial killer

sic
Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers, p. 169, (1997), Brian King, ed. ISBN 096503240X

God, Hate

“For the intimate fusion of touch, temperature and sometimes also taste and smell sensations into a single unified total impression raises the question of whether we do not have here Gestalt qualities which are built up upon a foundation belonging to several sensory regions. As can easily be recognized, it is just as possible that a complex of, say, touch and temperature sensations should provide the foundation for a Gestalt quality as should a complex of sound sensations. Indeed no a priori objection can be raised even against the idea that there should exist sound-colour-Gestalten spanning the data of the senses of sound and vision as something like a bridge - even though we do not believe that we can detect anything of this sort in sensation.”

Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932) Austrian philosopher

Source: "On Gestalt Qualities," 1890, p. 97

Idea, Question, Sense

“It is at any rate evident, that a large and ample province remains for the exercise of Providence, without its being naturally perceptible by us; because obscurity, when applied to the interruption of laws, bears a necessary proportion to the imperfection of our knowledge when applied to the laws themselves, or rather to the effects which these laws, under their various and incalculable combinations, would of their own accord produce. And if it be said, that the doctrine of Divine Providence, by reason of the ambiguity under which its exertions present themselves, can be attended with no practical influenceupon our conduct; that, although we believe ever so firmly that there is a Providence, we must prepare, and provide, and act, as if there were none; I answer, that this is admitted: and that we further allege, that so to prepare, and so to provide, is consistent with the most perfect assurance of the reality of a Providence; and not only so, but that it is probably one advantage of the present state of our information, that our provisions and preparations are not disturbed by it. Or if it be still asked, Of what use at all then is the doctrine, if it neither alter our measures nor regulate our conduct? I answer again, that it is of the greatest use, but that it is a doctrine of sentiment and piety, not (immediately at least) of action or conduct; that it applies to the consolation of men's minds, to their devotions, to the excitement of gratitude, the support of patience, the keeping alive and the strengthening of every motive for endeavouring to please our Maker; and that these are great uses.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 26 : The Goodness of the Deity.

Men, Law, Exercises, Motivation

“But if some mind very different from ours were to look upon some property of some curved line as we do on the evenness of a straight line, he would not recognize as such the evenness of a straight line; nor would he arrange the elements of his geometry according to that very different system, and would investigate quite other relationships as I have suggested in my notes.
We fashion our geometry on the properties of a straight line because that seems to us to be the simplest of all. But really all lines that are continuous and of a uniform nature are just as simple as one another. Another kind of mind which might form an equally clear mental perception of some property of any one of these curves, as we do of the congruence of a straight line, might believe these curves to be the simplest of all, and from that property of these curves build up the elements of a very different geometry, referring all other curves to that one, just as we compare them to a straight line. Indeed, these minds, if they noticed and formed an extremely clear perception of some property of, say, the parabola, would not seek, as our geometers do, to rectify the parabola, they would endeavor, if one may coin the expression, to parabolify the straight line.”

Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) Croat-Italian physicist

"Boscovich's mathematics", an article by J. F. Scott, in the book Roger Joseph Boscovich (1961) edited by Lancelot Law Whyte.
"Transient pressure analysis in composite reservoirs" (1982) by Raymond W. K. Tang and William E. Brigham.
"Non-Newtonian Calculus" (1972) by Michael Grossman and Robert Katz.

Fashion, Nature

“Power is no linger seen as inheriting its legitimacy from some divine authority; it is a mere convention which we adhere to because we are born and educated into it, and because we see others conform to it. Its strength lies in the fact that we believe that others believe in it: power is no more than the illusion of power. The exercise of power is a constant fight to keep up appearances.”

Ivar Ekeland (1944) French mathematician

Source: The Best of All Possible Worlds (2006), Chapter 8, The End of Nature, p. 164.

Education, Exercises, Appearance, Fight

“For many years he had suffered from consumption, aggravated perhaps by his work of glass polishing. On Sunday, February 21, 1677, the end came unexpectedly, and almost suddenly. …
Credit must be given to Colerus [John Kohler]… for his downright contradiction of the tales concerning Spinoza's death-bed which were circulated, it would seem, by persons who thought it would tend to edification to represent Spinoza as the blustering infidel of popular orthodox polemics, who is invariably assailed by doubt and disquietude in his last moments, and as invariably strives to disguise them with feeble bravado. Colerus very honestly says that the people of the house… knew nothing of any such matters, and did not believe a word of them.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Selected works, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1880)

Death, People, Suffering, Housing