Quotes about building
page 16

“Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy, yellow lights off in the distance.
Some place over there I had left my car and started walking, burying my head in the collar of my raincoat, with the night pulled in around me like a blanket. I walked and I smoked and I flipped the spent butts ahead of me and watched them arch to the pavement and fizzle out with one last wink. If there was life behind the windows of the buildings on either side of me, I didn't notice it. The street was mine, all mine. They gave it to me gladly and wondered why I wanted it so nice and all alone.
There were others like me, sharing the dark and the solitude, but they were huddled in the recessions of the doorways not wanting to share the wet and the cold. I could feel their eyes follow me briefly before they turned inward to their thoughts again.
So I followed the hard concrete footpaths of the city through the towering canyons of the buildings and never noticed when the sheer cliffs of brick and masonry diminished and disappeared altogether, and the footpath led into a ramp then on to the spidery steel skeleton that was the bridge linking two states.
I climbed to the hump in the middle and stood there leaning on the handrail with a butt in my fingers, watching the red and green lights of the boats in the river below. They winked at me and called in low, throaty notes before disappearing into the night.
Like eyes and faces. And voices.
I buried my face in my hands until everything straightened itself out again, wondering what the judge would say if he could see me now. Maybe he'd laugh because I was supposed to be so damn tough, and here I was with hands that wouldn't stand still and an empty feeling inside my chest.”

Mickey Spillane book One Lonely Night

One Lonely Night (1951)

Life, Cars, Feeling, Solitude

“Here let us feast, and to the feast be joined
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind;
Review the series of our lives, and taste
The melancholy joy of evils passed:
For he who much has suffered, much will know,
And pleased remembrance builds delight on woe.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XV. 398–401 (tr. Alexander Pope).
E. V. Rieu's translation:
: Meanwhile let us two, here in the hut, over our food and wine, regale ourselves with the unhappy memories that each can recall. For a man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far can enjoy even his sufferings after a time.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Suffering, Evil, Joy

“We must go to God Boot Camp and straighten our own lives up so we can help people out in the rest of the world and guide them down the stairs and out of the building into safety.”

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

"Restoring Honor" rally, Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, 2010-08-28
2010s, 2010

God, People, World, Help

“If we can build something that is capable of taking people and equipment to Mars, such that it can service a transportation infrastructure for humanity becoming a multi- planet species - which I think is a very, very important objective - then I would consider the mission of SpaceX successful, at that point.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People, Thinking, Success

“The foreign policy of the US has been one of "empire building" ever since the First World War. The Constitution authorizes government to provide for "national DE-fense", not "international OF-fense". If Americans were really interested in promoting our national safety, they would realize that a policy of constant foreign intervention directly undermines that stated goal. Our country has military forces stationed in 135 countries around the world, and we are influencing their governments and economies either directly or indirectly in every case. That is the political equivalent of poking them in the eye with a sharp stick. It is little wonder then that dozens of countries and millions of people around the world harbor more than a little resentment against us. The recent mutilation of American civilians is just the beginning of the violence that will be directed toward us if we do not bring our troops home where they belong.”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

April 2004

War, People, World, Home

“Education will enable young people quickly to familiarize themselves with the whole system of production and to pass from one branch of production to another in response to the needs of society or their own inclinations. It will, therefore, free them from the one-sided character which the present-day division of labor impresses upon every individual. Communist society will, in this way, make it possible for its members to put their comprehensively developed faculties to full use. But, when this happens, classes will necessarily disappear. It follows that society organized on a communist basis is incompatible with the existence of classes on the one hand, and that the very building of such a society provides the means of abolishing class differences on the other.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

People, Education, Way

“Annette’s communiqué is anodyne; a giggling confession off camera (shower-curtain rain in the background) that the famous Manfred Macx is in Paris for a weekend of clubbing, drugging, and general hell-raising. Oh, and he’s promised to invent three new paradigm shifts before breakfast every day, starting with a way to bring about the creation of Really Existing Communism by building a state central planning apparatus that interfaces perfectly with external market systems and somehow manages to algorithmically outperform the Monte Carlo free-for-all of market economics, solving the calculation problem. Just because he can, because hacking economics is fun, and he wants to hear the screams from the Chicago School.”

Charles Stross book Accelerando

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 2 (“Troubadour”), pp. 57-58

School, Way, Communication, Hell

“If Fred couldn’t build himself a peace treaty, the OPA would never win against the discipline and unity of an inner planet navy. But they would also never lose. War without end.
Well, what was history if not that?
And how would having the stars change anything?”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 46 (p. 467)

War, Peace, History, Star

“There is…a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed that there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the Poverty Program. There were experiments, hopes, and new beginnings. Then came the build-up in Vietnam. And I watched the program broken as if it was some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction tube. And you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor, and much of that fifty-three dollars goes for salaries to people that are not poor. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor, and attack it as such.”

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

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Men, Money, War, People

“Iron Pillar: “…In our opinion this pillar was made in the ninth century before (the birth of) Lord Jesus… When Rai Pithora built a fort and an idol-house near this pillar, it stood in the courtyard of the idol-house. And when Qutbu’d-Din Aibak constructed a mosque after demolishing the idol-house, this pillar stood in the courtyard of the mosque…
”Idol-house of Rai Pithora: “There was an idol-house near the fort of Rai Pithora. It was very famous… It was built along with the fort in 1200 Bikarmi [Vikrama SaMvat] corresponding to AD 1143 and AH 538. The building of this temple was very unusual, and the work done on it by stone-cutters is such that nothing better can be conceived. The beautiful carvings on every stone in it defy description… The eastern and northern portions of this idol-house have survived intact. The fact that the Iron Pillar, which belongs to the Vaishnava faith, was kept inside it, as also the fact that sculptures of Kirshan avatar and Mahadev and Ganesh and Hanuman were carved on its walls, leads us to believe that this temple belonged to the Vaishnava faith. Although all sculptures were mutilated in the times of Muslims, even so a close scrutiny can identify as to which sculpture was what. In our opinion there was a red-stone building in this idol-house, and it was demolished. For, this sort of old stones with sculptures carved on them are still found.
”Quwwat al-Islam Masjid: “When Qutbu’d-Din, the commander-in-chief of Muizzu’d-Din Sam alias Shihabu’d-Din Ghuri, conquered Delhi in AH 587 corresponding to AD 1191 corresponding to 1248 Bikarmi, this idol-house (of Rai Pithora) was converted into a mosque. The idol was taken out of the temple. Some of the images sculptured on walls or doors or pillars were effaced completely, some were defaced. But the structure of the idol-house kept standing as before. Materials from twenty-seven temples, which were worth five crores and forty lakhs of Dilwals, were used in the mosque, and an inscription giving the date of conquest and his own name was installed on the eastern gate…“When Malwah and Ujjain were conquered by Sultan Shamsu’d-Din in AH 631 corresponding to AD 1233, then the idol-house of Mahakal was demolished and its idols as well as the statue of Raja Bikramajit were brought to Delhi, they were strewn in front of the door of the mosque…”“In books of history, this mosque has been described as Masjid-i-Adinah and Jama‘ Masjid Delhi, but Masjid Quwwat al-Islam is mentioned nowhere. It is not known as to when this name was adopted. Obviously, it seems that when this idol-house was captured, and the mosque constructed, it was named Quwwat al-Islam…””

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

About antiquities of Delhi. Translated from the Urdu of Asaru’s-Sanadid, edited by Khaleeq Anjum, New Delhi, 1990. Vol. I, p. 305-16
Asaru’s-Sanadid

Books, Faith, Beauty, History

“In the end, what I do is about feeling. Certain buildings, certain architects generate a strong emotion. It is hard to explain, but, if am I lucky, I can find this feeling, these emotions, slowly and quietly in the darkroom when my pictures come to light.”

Hélène Binet (1959) Swiss photographer

Source: Jonathan Glancey, in The dream life of buildings http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/apr/15/artsfeatures, The Guardian, 15 April 2002

Feeling, Light, Strong

“And he walks round blocks and blocks looking for the door of the humming tinsel windowed skyscraper, round blocks and blocks and still no door. Every time he closes his eyes the dream has hold of him, every time he stops arguing audibly with himself in pompous reasonable phrases the dream has hold of him. Young man to save your sanity you've got to do one of two things… Please mister where's the door to the building? Round the block? Just round the block… one of two unalienable alternatives: go away in a dirty soft shirt or stay in a clean Arrow collar. But what's the use of spending your whole life fleeing the City of Destruction? What about your unalienable right, Thirteen Provinces? His mind unreeling phrases, he walks on doggedly. There's nowhere in particular he wants to go. If only I still had faith in words.”

John Dos Passos book Manhattan Transfer

Source: Manhattan Transfer (1925), pp. 365-366

Life, Faith, Dreams, Time

“I respect and value the ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn’t defeat the British, it didn’t get us to the moon, build our nation’s highways, or map the human genome. We did that together.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

[Drabold, Will, Read Cory Booker's Speech at the Democratic Convention, http://time.com/4421756/democratic-convention-cory-booker-transcript-speech/, 21 August 2018, Time, July 26, 2016]
2016

“Human paint, produce films and videos; they dance, dream and make music; they engage in political action, exchange goods, perform rituals, build houses start wars, act in plays, try to please patrons- and so on… They contain patterns, press the practitioners to "conform" and in this way mold their thought, their perception, their actions, and their discriminative abilities.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

pg 28.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

War, Dreams, Music, Way

“But as soon as I opened a dance school they went who does she think she is? She has become a guru! In their mind they could not accept that anyone could build a place not because they want to be a guru but because they want to give the best to a young bunch of girls. Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra was in charge of Odissi. Kalanidhi Narayan for Abhinaya. Kumudini Lakhia for Kathak. Kalyani Kuttiyamma for Mohiniattam. The Paul Taylor Dance Company did a workshop there. I was not the guru. I was the slave. I was working with my hands -- planting trees, digging the earth, typing, collecting the money. I gave up my dance.”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

On Her Nityagrama dance school in Bangalore, quoted in "I have been a hippie all my life".

Money, School, Girl, Thinking

“Theatre has nothing to do with buildings or other physical constructions. Theatre — or theatricality — is the capacity, this human property which allows man to observe himself in action, in activity.”

Augusto Boal (1931–2009) Brazilian writer

The Rainbow of Desire (1995)
Context: Theatre has nothing to do with buildings or other physical constructions. Theatre — or theatricality — is the capacity, this human property which allows man to observe himself in action, in activity. The self-knowledge thus acquired allows him to be the subject (the one who observes) of another subject (the one who acts). It allows him to imagine variations of his action, to study alternatives. Man can see himself in the act of seeing, in the act of acting, in the act of feeling, the act of thinking. Feel himself feeling, think himself thinking.

“They already had contingency plans ready in case of terrorism, violence, whatever, which they had inherited from Clinton, who had put together some terrible legislation after Timothy McVeigh blew up the building in Oklahoma City.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

2010s, "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" (2013)

“We must completely support the civil resistance throughout the Arab world. Corrupt secular nationalist rulers are as bad as corrupt undemocratic religious rulers. We must support the people all over the Muslim world with friendship and solidarity in support of democracy. We should be their partner in building mass popular trade unions to prevent them from exploitation in the market storm they are moving towards in their modernisation plans. Who on the left in Italy is working with the resistance to Gaddafi? I don’t know the answer to that but my suspicion is that there are not many. Again, you are on the wrong side of history on that. Support for democracy, for a democratic organised society, for resistance to capitalist domination and state despotism. That is the Blue Labour position. It goes without saying that China is the worst of all worlds, it combines market exploitation with state dictatorship. Blue Labour places unreserved solidity and support to the free democratic trade unions in China, and that is an important struggle for the Labour Movement all over the world.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

A Conversation with Maurice Glasman, Europa Quotidiano, 3 June 2011 http://europa.118.aws.dol.it/gw/producer/dettaglio.aspx?id_doc=127105

Friendship, People, World, Democracy

“You talk a great deal about building a better world for your children, but when you are young you can no more envision a world inherited by your children than you can conceive of dying. The society you mold, you mold for yourself.
It was this way with my generation. We were unhappy with what we inherited and we tried to reshape it in ways that would make it more tolerable to us. You were not uppermost in our thoughts.
Now, in middle age, some of us are trying to rewrite history. Some of us tell you, "We labored and dared and sacrificed — all for you — yet we hear no thanks."
You will not be unduly moved, I hope, by these laments. They are sentimental cries from persons so attached to the society they have rebuilt that they cannot bear the thought of seeing it overhauled by new proprietors.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"The Becoming Looseness of Doom" (p.79)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

Children, Age, World, Hope

“This greatly disturbed the minds of many sisters, and some brethren. The brethren stared and turned pale, and the sisters cried, Sister Howe, in particular, was very much terrified; "Oh, dear me!" said she, "what shall we do? what shall we do? The keys of the kingdom are taken from us, and what shall we do?…. I tell you again," said Sidney, with much feeling, "the keys of the kingdom are taken from you, and you never will have them again until you build me a new house."”

Lucy Mack Smith (1775–1856) American religious leader

The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother (1853), "Rigdon's Depression"

Feeling, Sister, Housing

“Disassemble the cells of a sponge (by passing them through a sieve, for instance), then dump them into a solution, and they will find their way back together and build themselves into a sponge again. You can do this to them over and over, and they will doggedly reassemble because, like you and me and every other living thing, they have one overwhelming impulse: to continue to be.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Page 380
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)

Way

“What are those lessons? Instead of building more single-family dwellings, we should build multigenerational, multifamily homes in vibrant eco-villages that share facilities, tools, labor and resources. Instead of designing cities for self-driving, single-person cars, design them for walking, biking, and public transportation with lots of places for people to meet and greet, mix and mingle. Instead of growing an economy dependent on global movements of money, people, and goods to maximize profit uncoupled from place, create economies that bring people together to maximize health and well-being in the place where they live.”

David Korten (1937) writer, sustainability advocate

How the Economy Affects Our Mental Health, September 18, 2018 https://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/when-profit-drives-us-community-suffers-20180918

Money, People, Health, Family

“Frameworks are skeletal structures of programs that must be fleshed out to build a complete application. For example, a windowing system or a simulation system can both be viewed as frameworks fleshed out by a windowed application or a simulation, respectively.”

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

Source: Object-oriented design: a responsibility-driven approach (1989), p. 13

“We are not building a new country. The Newfoundlanders and the Acadians have been here almost four centuries. The First Nations have been here almost forever. But we may be creating a new kind of country, where equality does not mean sameness but means respecting differences; and where freedom is intertwined with sharing.”

Romeo LeBlanc (1927–2009) Canadian politician

Source: Canada Day speech, Parliament Hill, 1 July 1998.

Freedom, Country

“The way I solved the theoretical problem was to go into the shop and build something concrete.”

Robert B. Leighton (1919–1997) American astronomer

finding out that he was not a theoretical but an experimental physicist, as quoted in his biographical memoir. [Jesse L. Greenstein, Robert B. Leighton, 1919—1996, Biographical Memoirs v.75, National Academy of Sciences, 1998, 0-309-06295-0, 164, http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9649&page=164]

Way, Problem

“The movement of people and ideas is … more than useful; it is sacrosanct. It forms part of the process by which the whole human race becomes both one and diverse, and makes itself more godlike, by affirming in the individual as well as in the species, its preeminence over the particular social and cultural worlds that it builds and inhabits. Both the movement of people and the movement of ideas can unsettle and frighten us, driving us back into ourselves. They can also inspire us to reimagine and to remake our interests, our ideals, and even our identities, by beginning to detach them from the settings with which we habitually associate them. Each of them is therefore an invitation to open ourselves to the new, in a world in which every man and woman has a better chance to become the original that he imagines himself to be.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Free Trade Reimaginedː The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics (2007), p. 210

People, World, Imagination, Idea

“The Bible says, God made a perfect world. Man wrecked it. By one man sin came into the world, and death by sin. It was Adam's fault. You can't blame a wrecked car on the manufacturer. Send a picture to the manufacturer of a wreck and say, "Why did you build a car like this?" It didn't look like this when it left the factory. Today, folks, we are living in a junkyard. Now I like living on planet earth, and Knoxville is a beautiful place; but, I'm telling you, folks, this is nothing compared to what Adam and Eve saw. This is a junkyard, but God's going to fix it back.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

Death, God, World, Beauty

“I have the ability to build myself up or break myself down. I stay positive. Strength comes from within.”

Hayley Williams (1988) American singer-songwriter and musician

From Hayley's Twitter. September 10, 2010. http://twitter.com/#!/yelyahwilliams/status/24055172040

“In the very first year of his reign, he [Jahangir] tortured Guru Arjun Dev to death. His contempt for Hindus comes out clearly in his Tuzuk-i-Jahãngîrî: “A Hindu named Arjun lived in Govindwal on the bank of river Beas in the garb of a saint and in ostentation. From all sides cowboys and idiots became his fast followers. The business had flourished for three or four generations. For a long time it had been in my mind to put a stop to this dukãn-e-bãtil (mart of falsehood) or to bring him into the fold of Islam.” According to other accounts, he asked the Guru to include some sûrahs of the Quran in the Ãdi Grantha, which the Guru refused to do. In the eighth year of his reign, he destroyed the temple of Bhagwat at Ajmer. He persecuted the Jains in Gujarat, and ordered that Jain monks should not be seen in his kingdom on pain of death. Finally, he sent Murtaza Khan to Kangra for reducing that city of temples. The siege lasted for 20 months at the end of which he himself went to Kangra for slaughtering cows in that sacred place of Hindus, and building a mosque where none had existed before.”

Guru Arjan (1563–1606) The fifth Guru of Sikhism

Goel, S. R. (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India.

Death, Pain, Business, Time

“There is a systemic problem with today's law enforcement.Not surprisingly, big government has been at the heart of the problem. Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies—where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.This is usually done in the name of fighting the war on drugs or terrorism.”

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

2010s

War, Law, Problem, Thinking

“We've fallen way behind. Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Space.com interview (2000)

Way

“The word model is used as a noun, adjective, and verb, and in each instance it has a slightly different connotation. As a noun "model" is a representation in the sense in which an architect constructs a small-scale model of a building or a physicist a large-scale model of an atom. As an adjective "model" implies a degree or perfection or idealization, as in reference to a model home, a model student, or a model husband. As a verb "to model" means to demonstrate, to reveal, to show what a thing is like.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1960s, Scientific method: optimizing applied research decisions, 1962, p. 108 as cited in: Charles West Churchman, Richard O. Mason (1976) World modeling: a dialogue. p. 23.

Home, Sense, Perfection

“When I started out, I believed that there were very distinct systems paradigms, and there was a need to choose and defend yours against other people’s paradigms. Today I prefer to see a systems perspective as something that you develop over a lifetime. It’s like building a house that evolves: you can redecorate it, even build an extension.”

Gerald Midgley (1960) New Zealand acaedmic

Midgley (2012) Interview with systems thinker Gerald Midgley http://www.shiftn.com/news/detail/interview_with_systems_thinker_gerald_midgley, March 5, 2012.

People, Housing

“It left me there, the Compleat Young Girl, hell on wheels. I could build one-fifteenth of a log cabin, kill one-thirty-first of a tiger, kiss, do needlepoint, pass through an obstacle course, and come pretty close (in theory) to killing somebody with my bare hands. What did I have to worry about?”

Alexei Panshin book Rite of Passage

Source: Rite of Passage (1968), Chapter 14 (p. 187).

Girl, Hell, Kiss

“In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter years in it and he sells it before the roof is on. He plants a garden and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing. He brings a field into tillage and leaves other men to gather the crops. He embraces a profession and gives it up. He settles in a place which he soon afterward leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure he instantly plunges into the vortex of politics and if at the end of a year of unremitting labour he finds he has a few days' vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days to shake off his happiness.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV-IXX, Chapter XXIX.

Men, Happiness, Travel, Tree

“It's the subjugation of the entire world, it's communism, it's the immortality of mummies in mausoleums. It is the radiance of suns and rulers. It's a tower that takes ten thousand years to build. It's the might of armies, it's the burning of witches, it's the movement of people, continuous and unifying. It's the great copulation of nations, it's the swallowing of the smaller ones by the bigger ones, of the weaker ones by the stronger ones.”

Yurii Andrukhovych book The Moscoviad

The Moscoviad
Source: The Moscoviad. Yuri Andrukhovych. Spuyten Duyvil, New York City. ISBN1933132523, p. 177-178

People, World, Communication, Sun

“Apparently some fire-eaters to-day have been saying "Never again must we allow ourselves to get into the same condition of military unprepardness, so we are going to build up a vast war machine in this country in order to surround defeated Germany with a sea of peaceful tranquillity…" It looks as though the consequences of defeat will be more desirable than those of victory.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Hansard, House of Commons 5th series, vol. 402, col. 1559.
Speech in the House of Commons on 2 August 1944.
1940s

War, Peace, Victory, Sea

“The business of software building isn't really high-tech at all. It's most of all a business of talking to each other and writing things down. Those who were making major contributions to the field were more likely to be its best communicators than its best technicians.”

Tom DeMarco (1940) American software engineer, author, and consultant

Why Does Software Cost So Much?: And Other Puzzles of the Information Age, (1995), p. 218.

Communication, Business

“The main point is, did God tell him to make a boat, or did Noah just use his captain common sense? Cause there are a number of us, if we were somewhere where it was raining and raining and raining and raining and raining and raining and raining and raining, and we had a big pile of wood, some of us might put two and two together and go, "I'm gonna make a bloody boat!" Others might go, "I'm gonna make a hairdresser's", "I'm gonna build a monkey emporium.", "I'm gonna build a big pair of wooden shoes, that would fit a giant." … But he made a boat. Oh, he was quite sensible! And what did he put on the boat? His family. What else? Animals. Which animals? Any he could find. Did he put two of every animal in the world on the boat? No! How can I be so sure? Try it!”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Stripped (2009)

God, World, Family, Shoe

“He (the photographer) has practically created a new thing out of materials gathered from nature; upon a foundation of fact he has allowed his imagination to build up an entirely fictitious scene, and the truth of the effect will depend upon how far his perceptions have been trained by studying nature at various times, so as to know how things might look under certain circumstances.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Printing the picture and controlling its formation, p. 78

Truth, Imagination, Nature, Study

“We build models to increase productivity, under the justified assumption that it's cheaper to manipulate the model than the real thing. Models then enable cheaper exploration and reasoning about some universe of discourse. One important application of models is to understand a real, abstract, or hypothetical problem domain that a computer system will reflect. This is done by abstraction, classification, and generalization of subject-matter entities into an appropriate set of classes and their behavior.”

Stephen J. Mellor (1952) British computer scientist

Source: MDA Distilled. Principles of Model-Driven Architecture, 2003, p. 35-36.

Behavior, Understanding, Problem, Universe

“The peoples of Europe are a work in progress and always must be… The history of the people of Europe has not ended -- it never will. Ethnogenesis is a process of the present and future as much as it is the past. No efforts of romantics, politicians, or social scientists can preserve once and for all some essential soul of a people or nation. Nor can any effort ensure that nations, ethnic groups, and communities of today will not vanish utterly in the future. The past may have set the parameters within which one can build the future, but it cannot determine what that future must be.”

Patrick J. Geary (1948) historian

Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe, Princeton University Press, 2003

People, Soul, History, Communication

“If you want to build a major firm, you cannot do it by having a modest vision.”

Ronald Cohen (1945) British businessman

Book The Second Bounce of the Ball (2007)

“The first thoughts, which gave rise to his Principia, he had, when he retired from Cambridge in 1666 on account of the plague. As he sat alone in a garden, he fell into a speculation on the power of gravity; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually thought: why not as high as the moon? said he to himself.”

Henry Pemberton (1694–1771) British doctor

As cited in: Pierre Bayle, ‎John Peter Bernard, ‎John Lockman (1738), A general dictionary, historical and critical http://books.google.com/books?id=UWhZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA783, p. 783; Preface to View of Newton's Philosophy, (1728)

Mountain, Appearance

“Love's very pain is sweet,
But its reward is in the world divine
Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Epipsychidion

Source: Epipsychidion (1821), l. 595

Love, Pain, World

“We do know from the numbers of people who have come out already--and from the anger that we know exists in the communities where we live--that people want to fight. They don't necessarily know how to fight or what to do. But they want to, and that's important because it means people want things to be different, and that's an important starting place to work with. For people who want to do something, and do it now, this means we have to be both patient in terms of how larger movements develop, but also urgent about doing the work of organizing for the things we can do now. Movements aren't built by waiting for the struggle to develop and build itself--it's based on what we do today.”

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (1950) American academic and author

The fight against racism doesn't stop here (2013)

People, Communication, Waiting, Fight

“The people of Vietnam, north and south, seek the same things, the shared needs of man, the needs for food and shelter and education—the chance to build and work and till the soil, free from the arbitrary horrors of battle, the desire to walk in the dignity of those who master their own destiny. For many painful years, in war and revolution and infrequent peace, they have struggled to fulfill those needs. It is a crime against mankind that so much courage, and so much will, and so many dreams, must be flung on the fires of war and death. To all of those caught up in this conflict we therefore say again tonight, 'Let us choose peace, and with it the wondrous works of peace, and beyond that, the time when hope reaches toward consummation, and life is the servant of life'. In this work, we plan to discharge our duty to the people whom we serve. This is the State of the Union. But over it all—wealth, and promise, and expectation—lies our troubling awareness of American men at war tonight.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, Death, Men, Pain

“Agriculture is the backbone of the livelihood security system of nearly 700 million people in the country and we need to build our food security on the foundation of home grown food.”

M. S. Swaminathan (1925) Indian scientist

Agri Quotes, 25 November 2013, Zeenews India http://zeenews.india.com/mahindrasamriddhi/agriawards/agri.html,

People, Food, Home, Country

“Aimee Teegarden: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U. S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?
Caitlin Upton: I personally believe that U. S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should—our education over here in the U. S. should help the U. S., uh, or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq, and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.”

Caitlin Upton (1989) American model

2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant, 24 August 2007 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww The Yale Book of Quotations designated the response the second most memorable quote of 2007 http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/12/19/us-quotes-odd-idUSN1959512020071219 Upton won the 2007 World Stupidity Award for the Stupidest Statement of the Year https://web.archive.org/web/20090106013000/http://www.stupidityawards.com/Stupidest_Statement_of_the_Year.html

Children, People, World, Education

“Whoever lives a noble life for Christ and God — he is one of God's workmen, working on that building of which God is the supreme Architect.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 120

Life, God, Christ

“One of the influences in his design for the tower was the Tower of Babel the sense of building the impossible” that “has something mythic about it. The spaces inside the structure, in between the twisting steel, are “cathedral like”, according to Balmond, while according to Kapoor, the intention is that visitors will engage with the piece as they wind “up and up and in on oneself” on the spiral walkway.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

His views of Arcelormittal Orbit
Anish Kapoor Opens the Door:Modern Artist Creates Monuments that Transcend Space & Time

Sense

“It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Truth, Future

“Hey listen, I'm here to warn people, you keep telling me to shut up! This isn't a game! Okay? Our government, the US, is building FEMA camps. We have an NDAA where they disappear people now. You have this "arrest for public safety", life in prison. It's basically off with their heads, disappear 'em, take 'em away. Infowars dot com. Liberty is rising. Liberty is rising! Freedom will not stop! You will not stop freedom! You will not stop the Republic! Humanity is awakening! Infowars dot com! No, you guys are crazy, thinking that the public's too stupid! You're crazy, thinking the public doesn't know! You're crazy, thinking the public isn't waking up!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

BBC's Sunday Politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch9gQ9JOe3Y, 9 June 2013. 2013

Life, People, Stupidity, Guy

“I’m the Duke of Riverside. I build things here and pretty much keep the peace, and discourage certain behaviors. If you think all that has been achieved through entirely civil and lawful means, you’ve had your head in a bucket.”

Ellen Kushner book The Privilege of the Sword

Part IV, Chapter V (p. 385)
The Privilege of the Sword (2006)

Peace, Law, Behavior, Thinking

“Nothing could have been greater than the pride of serving this city. I do not believe — I am sure I speak for my colleagues on all sides — nothing else that happens to us in our lives will be as rewarding and fulfilling as the years that we have spent in this building.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Speech at the last meeting of the Greater London Council (27 March 1986); quoted in "GLC : The Inside Story" (1999) by Wes Whitehouse, p. 174.

“The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization….
The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.
The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.
It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.
But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Remarks at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (May 22, 1964). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, book 1, p. 704.
1960s

Life, Wisdom, Men, Hunger

“So, it is true that one’s homeland is entirely human, emotional and that it is the root of action, of authority, of responsibility from which one can build Europe. What elements? Well, [nation] States, because only States are valid, are legitimate, in this respect, in addition they are capable of… As I have already said and I repeat, that at the present time, there cannot be any other Europe than that of the States, apart of course from myths, fictions, parades. From this solidarity depends all hope of uniting Europe in the political field and in the field of defense, as in the economic field. From this solidarity depends, therefore, the destiny of Europe as a whole, from the Atlantic to the Urals.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Alors, il est vrai que la Patrie est un élément humain, sentimental et que c’est sur des éléments d’action, d’autorité, de responsabilité qu’on peut construire l’Europe. Quels éléments? Eh bien, les États, car il n’y a que les États qui, à cet égard, soient valables, soient légitimes et en outre soient capables de réaliser… J’ai déjà dit et je répète, qu’à l’heure qu’il est, il ne peut pas y avoir d’autre Europe possible que celle des États, en dehors naturellement des mythes, des fictions, des parades. De cette solidarité dépend tout espoir d’unir l’Europe dans le domaine politique et dans le domaine de la défense, comme dans le domaine économique. De cette solidarité dépend, par conséquent, le destin de l’Europe tout entière, depuis l’Atlantique jusqu’à l’Oural.
Press conference, Elysée Palace, Paris, 15 May 1962
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2

Hope, Time, Dependency

“A man may make his way across the Atlantic in a skiff, for all I know; but if you are intending to cross the sea, take my advice, and secure passage in a first-class steamer, and you will be more likely to get there. So it is with these heathen millions. I do not know but some of them may drift, and we shall find them in the city of God. But I do know that by giving them the gospel, by building up and supporting among them a Christian church, we shall greatly multiply their chances for heaven.”

Charles Henry Fowler (1837–1908) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 417.

God, Way, Support, Chance

“Devolutionary reform will not provide a factory, a machine or jobs, build a school, train a doctor or put a pound on pensions.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

South Wales Echo (November 1, 1975).

School, Training

“I think most Americans understood that the My Lai massacre was not representative of our people, of the war we were fighting, or of our men who were fighting it; but from the time it first became public the whole tragic episode was used by the media and the antiwar forces to chip away at our efforts to build public support for our Vietnam objectives and policies.”

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

As quoted in Convergences (2005) [second edition] by Robert Atwan, [Bedford/St. Martin's. p. 403]
2000s

Men, War, People, Support

“But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 6.
Resolution and Independence (1807)

Love

“Tadzik Gumiński (later a reader in pediatry), who was also fascinated by astronomy, lived at Szpitalna Street and I lived at Garncarska Street. Not far from our homes, at Podwale, where the scientific bookstore is now located, was the optical shop Maruńczak and the Company. And in this store, as little kids, we bought lenses and other parts necessary to build the telescope. This telescope, of course, was primitive. But thanks to it, we spent many nights observing the sky, deciphering star systems. It was really great fun.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Bętkowska, Teresa (August–September 2010). "Mistrz niszowej dyscypliny" http://www2.almamater.uj.edu.pl/126/17.pdf (PDF). Alma Mater (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University (126–127): pp. 41–46.

Home, Star, Parting, Night

“A wedding. According to Chris, they didn't die on the boat. They got washed up on a shore in a jungle island. The queen gave birth to a baby boy. They build a treehouse. They get eaten by a leopard…”

Jennifer Lee (1971) American motion picture writer and director.

Boy, Birth, Wedding, Baby

“[After describing a hopper for feeding winter game:] If you think you're too old to enjoy building such contraptions — that only Boy Scouts get a kick out of such nonsense — just try it. You may end up by building several.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

radio talk http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AldoLeopold/AldoLeopold-idx?type=turn&id=AldoLeopold.ALYale&entity=AldoLeopold.ALYale.p0535&isize=XL "Feed Early to Keep Game at Home", 2 November 1933. 1930s

Game, Boy, Thinking, Winter

“We built tall buildings, but we have not become any taller.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Things,” p. 87
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Game”

“We want to make reparation to the Palestinian people for the crimes of Balfour which were committed in the building behind me, when one person, on behalf of one country, promised a second people the lands of a third people - the Palestinians. We are determined that we should stop the privatization of basic services of the British people. We are determined to defend the liberty of the British people which is being taken away day by day under the name of anti-terrorism. Ancient freedoms, which we had for hundreds of years, are being taken away from us under the name of the war on terror, when the real big terrorists are the governments of Britain and the United States. They are the real rogue states breaking international law, invading other people's countries, killing their children in the name of anti-terrorism, when in fact, all they're achieving is to make more terrorists in the world, not less, to make the world more dangerous, rather than less. These are our priorities.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

Interview on Abu Dhabi TV http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP91805, June 1, 2005

War, Children, People, World

“We've deployed thousands of National Guard members to assist the Border Patrol. We've upgraded technology at our borders. We've added infrastructure, including new fencing and vehicle barriers. We're adding thousands of new beds in our detention facilities so we can continue working to end catch and release] at our southern border. During the course of my administration we have apprehended and sent home more 6 million people entering our country illegally. And I thank the Border Patrol for their hard work. The Secure Fence Act builds on this progress. The bill authorizes the construction of hundreds of miles of additional fencing along our southern border.”

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

2000s, 2004, Signing of Secure Fence Act of 2006

People, Home, Country

“Brethren, let me close with a note of buoyant optimism and also a word of caution that masonry is not always on trial, but we, as Masons, are perpetually on trial. Let us remind ourselves that Masonry represents Manhood at its best and let me venture to express the hope that in building the City of Fraternity or what W. M Mallaradya more appropriately calls it, the Ideal Temple of Humanity and in fostering its growth, we shall be able to qualify ourselves to be men of true enlightenment, character, integrity, gentility and sympathetic understanding and Masons with a burning desire to dedicate ourselves to the service of humanity in our own limited sphere of activity.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

In his address to the members of the Masonic Fraternity on the occassion of his joining as member of the Masonic Lodge. quoted in "Article # 14 Initiate responds to his Toast R.W.Bro. Jaya Chamaraja Wadeyar".

Men, Hope, Optimism, Understanding

“We can now determine, easily and relatively cheaply, the detailed chemical architecture of genes; and we can trace the products of these genes (enzymes and proteins) as they influence the course of embryology. In so doing we have made the astounding discovery that all complex animal phyla - arthropods and vertebrates in particular - have retained, despite their half-billion years of evolutionary independence, an extensive set of common genetic blueprints for building bodies.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 330
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Animals

“Knowledge of these multiple and ever-more aggressive raids across the country constituted an identifiable pattern of conduct within and by the federal government and amongst its various agencies. For all intents and purposes, federal agents had become 'soldiers' using military training, tactics, techniques, equipment, language, dress, organization, and mindset and they were escalating their behavior. Therefore, this bombing was also meant as a pre-emptive or pro-active strike against these forces and their command and control centers within the federal building. When an aggressor force continually launches attacks from a particular base of operation, it is sound military strategy to take the fight to the enemy.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

2000s, Why I Bombed the Murrah Federal Building (2001)

Behavior, Knowledge, Fight, Training

“It is perhaps a redeeming feature of the year that celebrity endorsements may be seen as the kiss of death to any political campaigning. The unanimous acclamation of Clinton by the famous and the lovey chorus for Remain were to no avail. It is better to build relationships and do politics with the poor rather than the rich.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Blue Labour, A Christmas Message http://www.bluelabour.org/2016/12/22/a-christmas-message-from-lord-glasman/

Death, Kiss

“This use of building blocks to generate internal models is a pervasive feature of complex adaptive systems.”

John H. Holland (1929–2015) US university professor

Source: Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity (1995), Ch 1. Basic Elements, p. 37

“Building community for its own sake is like attending a cancer support group without having cancer.”

Alan Hirsch (1959) South African missionary

Source: The Faith of Leap (2011), p. 117

Communication, Support

“Pictures have their skeleton, muscles, and skin like human beings. One may speak of the specific anatomy of the picture. A picture representing 'a naked person' must not be created by the laws of human anatomy, but only by those of compositional anatomy. First one builds an armature on which the picture is to be constructed.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1908), # 840, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1903 - 1910

Law, Personality

“In the modern world, material is only wealth if you can get rid of it. The British miner cannot eat his coal, nor clothe his children with it, nor build his house with it. If coal is to mean for the British miner food and shelter and clothing, he must get rid of it. Get rid of it, that is, to someone who has money, sell it. But how is that someone to get money? He can only get it by one means: By getting rid of his material to someone who has money, who can only get money by getting rid of his material — round the world.”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Money, Children, World, Food

“A pattern is a fully realized form original, or model accepted or proposed for imitation. With patterns, small piecework is standardized into a larger chunk or unit. Patterns become the building blocks for design and construction. Finding and applying patterns indicates progress in a field of human endeavor.”

Peter Coad (1953) American software entrepreneur

Source: Object-oriented patterns. (1992), p. 158

“Abu Musa reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "A believer in respect of another believer is like a building whose parts support one another." and he intertwined his fingers.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 222
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Support, Parting

“This young century will be liberty's century. By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America. Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America.”

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

Acceptance speech at Republic National Convention (September 2, 2004)
2000s, 2004

World, Dreams, Hope, Home

“The funding being lavished on abortion campaigners amounts to unwarranted and unwanted interference in Ireland’s affairs in a bid to smash the pro-life ethos that protects both mothers and babies. Two decades of persistent public engagement and education has maintained Ireland’s pro-life majority, and, in that time, abortion campaigners have failed to win the necessary public support to build momentum for abortion legislation. But they are now openly availing of the massive global funding being made available to efforts to overturn Ireland’s pro-life laws. As in many other jurisdictions, since they cannot get the people to agree with abortion, they want to use the courts and the massive wealth and power of a tiny elite minority to foist abortion on the nation.”

Niamh Uí Bhriain (1970) Irish activist

Source: The US Billionaires Funding the Push For Abortion in Ireland http://www.thelifeinstitute.net/blog/2012/03/11/the-us-billionaires-funding-the-push-for-abortion-in-ireland/ (March 11, 2012)

Life, People, Education, Law

“I then went on to suggest that we make a serious effort to gauge the demand over the next five to ten years, and make plans to meet that demand. In building new facilities, I suggested that we "use corporation funds for such new plants needed for armament if that gives us better control over same from the long term position in relation to the master plan." Accelerated depreciation made the use of corporate funds all the more feasible, and relieved the government of the necessity of providing capital for the plants.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: My Years with General Motors, 1963, p. 387 (1964 edition)

Gauge, Effort

“I’m pretty serious about what I’m doing. I’m not as unapproachable as many would say and I’m not as grumpy (as they would say), (but I get) a little frustrated sometimes with the lobbyists and bureaucrats, (and) if they’d let us do our jobs we’d be a lot better off. I’m a little older than most in this building, and with social media this whole thing has changed. We’ve got so many (Senate) members that are glued to their phones and the perception of what people are saying about them, rather than just doing their business and their job. I’m walking down the hallway and I get a few people run into me because they’re too busy looking on their cell phones, and I’ll chastise them and tell them to pay attention to what you’re doing.”

Ron Richard (1947) American politician

Ron Richard denies being a ‘grumpy old man,’ but says he’s serious about running the Missouri Senate http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ron-richard-denies-being-grumpy-old-man-says-he-s-serious-about-running-missouri-senate#stream/0 (January 4, 2016)

People, Business, Change

“The modern systems view, which flowered during World War II (though building on principles in the wind much earlier), has already borne its first fruits and is in danger of a superficial acceptance into the corpus of sociology by way of the incorporation of some of its now common vocabulary.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. vii.

War, World, Way, Flowers

“"I often see people saying 'Nobody has produced an invulnerable software system; therefore, nobody will ever produce an invulnerable software system.'"By the same bogus reasoning, nobody will ever reach Mars; nobody will ever find MD5 collisions; nobody will ever cure cancer; nobody will ever prove the Poincare conjecture; nobody will ever clone a human; nobody will ever build a 1GHz CPU; nobody will ever find SHA-1 collisions; nobody will ever break the sound barrier; etc."”

Daniel J. Bernstein (1971) American mathematician, cryptologist and programmer

15 January 2005
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.crypt/msg/49c4cd60d948032d
On testing

People

“Particular individuals do not recur, but their building blocks do.”

John H. Holland (1929–2015) US university professor

Source: Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity (1995), Ch 2. Adaptive Systems, p. 79

“To give without sympathy is to build a temple without the idol and is as futile as painting a picture with black ink on a black-board.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Painting

“Our civilization seems to be suffering a second curse of Babel: Just as the human race builds a tower of knowledge that reaches to the heavens, we are stricken by a malady in which we find ourselves attempting to communicate with each other in countless tongues of scientific specialization… The only goal of science appeared to be analytical, i. e., the splitting up of reality into ever smaller units and the isolation of individual causal trains…We may state as characteristic of modern science that this scheme of isolable units acting in one-way causality has proven to be insufficient. Hence the appearance, in all fields of science, of notions like wholeness, holistic, organismic, gestalt, etc., which all signify that, in the last resort, we must think in terms of systems of elements in mutual interaction…”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Attributed to Bertalanffy in: Mark Davidson (1983) Uncommon Sense, the Life and Thoughts of Ludwig von Bertalanffy. Houghton Mifflin, p. 159, as cited in: Thomas Mandel (2004) " Is there a general System? http://www.isss.org/primer/gensystm.htm" on isss.org Attributed from memory and posthumous publications

Way, Communication, Knowledge, Thinking

“Unfortunately, buildings are not like drawings. You can't just erase them.”

Richard Roth, Jr. American architect

Source: As quoted in Meredith L. Clausen, "The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream" http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=E6qRuyzOogIC&pg=PA275&lpg=PA275&dq=%22Unfortunately,+buildings+are+not+like+drawings.+You+can%27t+just+erase+them.%22&source=bl&ots=wkwiw7U92A&sig=4fGIk_ufWMT3wv_c6l6k8uaYMv0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HYlHVNHNJ4Lb7Aa86oHwCA&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Unfortunately%2C%20buildings%20are%20not%20like%20drawings.%20You%20can%27t%20just%20erase%20them.%22&f=false, p.275

Drawing

“In a world where numbers inexorably take over as our means of identification, like flowing lava threatening to suffocate and fosilize all breathing life in its path; in a world where "normality" is defined as keeping your cool; where sex is so available that the only way to preserve any inner center is to have intercourse without committing yourself — in such a schizoid world, which young people experience more directly since they have not had time to build up the defenses which dull the senses of their elders, it is not surprising that will and love have become increasingly problematic and even, as some people believe, impossible of achievement.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 1 : Introduction : Our Schizoid World, p. 32

Love, Life, People, World

“The staircase that leads to God. What does it matter if it is make-believe, if we really climb it? What difference does it make who builds it, or if it is made of marble or word, of brick, stone, or mud? The essential thing is that it be solid and that in climbing it we feel the peace that is inaccessible to those who do not climb it.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

God, Peace, Feeling

“More and more parents are coming to realize their children are suffering at the hands of a system built to strangle any reform, any innovation, or any change.... This realization is becoming more evident as the momentum builds for an education revolution.”

Betsy DeVos (1958) 11th United States Secretary of Education

From remarks at the American Federation of Children made in May of 2016, as quoted in "Betsy DeVos, the (Relatively Mainstream) Reformer," by Michael McShane, EducationNext (2017), Volume 17 (No. 3). http://educationnext.org/betsy-devos-relatively-mainstream-reformer-education-secretary/#.WJo0Cp2xCzE.twitter

Children, Education, Parent, Suffering

“I’m trying to transmit the visions of creativity and build institutions that are incredibly catalytic to their fields.”

Paul Allen (1953–2018) American inventor, investor and philanthropist

The New York Times: "Paul Allen’s Philanthropy Mirrors His Passions and Business Approach" https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/giving/paul-allens-philanthropy-mirrors-his-passions-and-business-approach.html (02 November 2015)

“No sooner were the merits of Mr. Arkwright’s inventions fully understood, from the great increase of materials produced in a given time, and the superior quality of the goods manufactured; no sooner was it known, that his assiduity and great mechanical abilities were rewarded with success; than the very men, who had before treated him with contempt and derision, began to devise means to rob him of his inventions, and profit by his ingenuity. Every attempt that cunning could suggest for this purpose was made; by the seduction of his servants and workmen, (whom he had with great labour taught the business) a knowledge of his machinery and inventions was fully gained. From that time many persons began to pilfer something from him; and then by adding something else of their own, and by calling similar productions and machines by other names, they hoped to screen themselves from punishment. So many of these artful and designing individuals had at length infringed on his patent right, that he found it necessary to prosecute several: but it was not without great difficulty, and considerable expence, that he was able to make any proof against them; conscious that their conduct was unjustifiable, their proceedings were conducted with the utmost caution and secresy. Many of the persons employed by them were sworn to secresy, and their buildings and workshops were kept locked up, or otherwise secured. This necessary proceeding of Mr. Arkwright, occasioned, as in the case of poor Hargrave, an association against him, of the very persons whom he had served and obliged. Formidable, however, as it was, Mr. Arkwright persevered, trusting that he should obtain in the event, that satisfaction which he appeared to be justly entitled to.”

Richard Arkwright (1732–1792) textile entrepreneur; developer of the cotton mill

Source: The Case of Mr. Richard Arkwright and Co., 1781, p. 23-24

Men, Hope, Art, Business

“Yet there is no gainsaying but that it must have been somewhat sweeter in that dewy morning of creation, when it was young and fresh, when the feet of the tramping millions had not trodden its grass to dust, nor the din of the myriad cities chased the silence forever away. Life must have been noble and solemn to those free-footed, loose-robed fathers of the human race, walking hand in hand with God under the great sky. They lived in sunkissed tents amid the lowing herds. They took their simple wants from the loving hand of Nature. They toiled and talked and thought; and the great earth rolled around in stillness, not yet laden with trouble and wrong. Those days are past now. The quiet childhood of Humanity, spent in the far-off forest glades and by the murmuring rivers, is gone forever; and human life is deepening down to manhood amid tumult, doubt, and hope. Its age of restful peace is past. It has its work to finish and must hasten on. What that work may be—what this world's share is in the great design—we know not, though our unconscious hands are helping to accomplish it. Like the tiny coral insect working deep under the dark waters, we strive and struggle each for our own little ends, nor dream of the vast fabric we are building up for God.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love, Life, God, Age

“A massive turquoise glacier feeds into Magdalenefjord, with chunks of ice as big as buildings breaking off and landing in the water to float away as icebergs. As I swam past them, with my head in the water, I heard a tantalising sound: a snap-crackle-pop, just like Rice Krispies in milk. It was the sound of tiny air bubbles being released from the ice – air that had been trapped there as much as 3,000 years ago. To swim through this sound, I thought, is to swim in history.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

p 61, describing his swim in the Svalbard archipelago (2005)
21 Yaks And A Speedo (2013)

History, Water, Past

“My collages are only ideas for things much larger – things to cover walls. In fact all the things that I have done I would like to see much larger. I am not interested in painting as it has been accepted for so long – to hang on walls of houses as pictures. To hell with pictures – they should be the wall – even better – on the outside wall – of large buildings. Or stood up outside as billboards or a kind of modern 'icon'. We must make our art like the Egyptians, the Chinese & the African and the Island primitives – with their relation to life. It should meet the eye direct.”

Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) American painter, sculptor, and printmaker

Quote in a letter to John Cage, 4 September 1950; as quoted in "Ellsworth Kelly, a Retrospective", ed. Diane Waldman, Guggenheim museum, New York 1997, p. 11
1950 - 1968

Life, Art, Idea, Hell