Quotes about clearing
page 20

“We are all familiar with the passionate and closely argued appeal against censorship by the outstanding Soviet writer A. Solzhenitsyn. He as well as G. Vladimov, G. Svirsky, and other writers who have spoken out on the subject have clearly shown how incompetent censorship destroys the living soul of Soviet literature, but the same applies of course to all other manifestations of social thought, causing stagnation and dullness and preventing fresh and deep ideas.
Such ideas, after all, can arise only in discussion, in the face of objections, only if there is a potential possibility of expressing not only true but also dubious ideas. This was clear to the philosophers of ancient Greece and hardly anyone nowadays would have any doubts on that score. But after fifty years of complete domination over the minds of an entire nation, our leaders seem to fear even allusions to such a discussion.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, The Threat to Intellectual Freedom

Fear, Soul, Literature, Idea

“Home ought to be our clearing house, the place from which we go forth lessoned and disciplined, and ready for life.”

Kathleen Norris (1880–1966) American writer

Home http://books.google.com/books?id=XEVKAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Home+ought+to+be+our+clearing+house+the+place+from+which+we+go+forth+lessoned+and+disciplined+and+ready+for+life%22&pg=PA48#v=onepage (1928)

Life, Home, Housing

“From my days as a Marine in combat, to my tenure working undercover in the FBI, to my service as a Congressman representing the hardworking families on Staten Island and Brooklyn, I have spent my entire life fighting on behalf of the People with honor and integrity. The past 24 hours haven’t changed a thing, and I plan to work harder than ever for the people I am exceedingly proud to represent. To my constituents, let me be absolutely clear: the trumped-up charges against me are false and after my peers see the truth, justice will prevail. And while this groundless witch hunt proves there are powerful forces dedicated to tarnishing my reputation as part of a political vendetta, I’ll tell you what it doesn’t do: It doesn’t take back the billions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy aid I fought for in Congress, it doesn’t undo my flood insurance reform bill that will spare millions of Americans from skyrocketing premiums and home foreclosures, and it doesn’t negate the countless success stories of my office helping constituents with difficult challenges, from losing health coverage thanks to Obamacare, to being denied veteran survivor benefits, to helping our seniors deal with multiple daily struggles, simply put…the lives my staff and I have touched for the better are innumerable. And that’s why I am so heartened by the outpouring of love and support – I am truly humbled to work for the most salt of the earth people in the world. Which is why I am back working hard and doing what I’ve done from day one, relentless trying to improve their quality of life through old fashioned hard work and determination.”

Michael Grimm (1970) American politician

Facebook (29 April 2014) https://www.facebook.com/repmichaelgrimm 2010s

Love, Life, People, Health

“The onset of evolutionism brought with it the concept of branching phylogenies. The branching image, so clear and succinct, has come to underlie all our thinking about organisms and evolution.”

Stuart Kauffman (1939) American biophysicist

Source: The origins of order: Self-organization and selection in evolution (1993), p.5

Thinking

“And though the union is without intermediary, The manifold works that God does In heaven and earth are, however, Hidden from the spirit. For though God gives Himself as He is with a clear distinction, He gives Himself in the soul’s essence, Where the soul’s powers are unified Above reason And undergo God’s transformation In simplicity. In this place all is full And overflowing, for the spirit feels itself As one truth and one richness And one unity with God.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

God, Truth, Feeling, Soul

“We are not put into this world to sit still and know; we are put into it to act.
It is true that in order to learn men must for a little while withdraw from action, must seek some quiet place of remove from the bustle of affairs, where their thoughts may run clear and tranquil, and the heats of business be for the time put off; but that cloistered refuge is no place to dream in.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“ Princeton for the Nation's Service http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/mudd/online_ex/wilsonline/4dn8nsvc.html”, Inaugural address as President of Princeton (25 October 1902); this speech is different from his 1896 speech of the same title. 1900s

Men, World, Dreams, Business

“Always, the rulers of an order, consistent with their own interests and solely of their own design, have employed what to them seemed to be the most optimal and efficient means of maintaining unquestioned social and economic advantage. Clear-cut superiority in things social and economic—by whatever means—has been a scruples-free premise of American ruling class authority from the society's inception to the present. The initial socioeconomic advantage, begotten by chattel slavery, was enforced by undaunted violence and the constant threat of more violence.”

Huey P. Newton (1942–1989) Co-founder of the Black Panther Party

War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America (June 1980)

Optimism

““My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child.Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child.””

Charlotte Brontë book Jane Eyre

Bessie's song (Ch. 3)
Jane Eyre (1847)

Men, God, Hope, Angels

“The Open Source Definition is clear enough, and it is quite clear that the typical non-free program does not qualify. So you would think that "Open Source company" would mean one whose products are free software (or close to it), right? Alas, many companies are trying to give it a different meaning.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

Thinking

“The idea of having an ambient space-time of some specific dimension seems to play less of a role of string theory than in conventional physics, and certainly less than the kind of role that I would myself feel comfortable with. It is particularly difficult to assess the functional freedom that is involved in a physical theory unless one has a clear idea of its actual space-time dimensionality.”

Roger Penrose book Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe

Ch. 1, Mathematical Elegance as a Driving Force, p. 62 https://books.google.com/books?id=T09kCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA62. Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe (2016)

Feeling, Idea, Freedom, Time

“I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany. We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the Euro. That's quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three…. If a Chancellor is trying to push something through, he must be a man of power. And if he's smart, he knows when the time is ripe. In one case – the Euro – I was like a dictator … The Euro is a synonym for Europe. Europe, for the first time, has no more war.”

Helmut Kohl (1930–2017) former chancellor of West Germany (1982-1990) and then the united Germany (1990-1998)

2002 interview for the PhD. of Jens Peter Paul, a German journalist

War, Time

“When she got to an angle of about 60 degrees, there was a sullen sort of rumbling roar as her massive boilers all left their beds and went crashing down through the bulkheads and everything that stood in their way.Up to that moment, she had stood out as clear as clear with her rows of electric lights all burning. When the boilers broke away, she was, of course, plunged into absolute darkness though her huge black outline was still perfectly distinct up against the stars and sky.Slowly she reared up on end till, at last, she was absolutely perpendicular. Then quite quietly, but quicker and quicker, she seemed just to slide away under the surface and disappear.As she vanished, everyone around me on the upturned boat, as though they could hardly believe it, just said, "She's gone."”

Charles Lightoller (1874–1952) British sailor

Interview with the BBC, 1936

Star, Light

“Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It’s a good thing we have museums to document that.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Speech at the Computer History Museum, as quoted in InfoWorld magazine (October 2001) http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/10/01/HNgatestalksmuseum_1.html 2000s

Past

“It is quite clear to you that all the people see that lower kinds of creation could have been made in a different way from that in which they really are, and as they see this lower degree in many things they think that they must have been made by chance.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

People, Way, Thinking, Chance

“If you take two words like 'tame' and 'domesticated', you're forced to think of the divergence in meaning, not the similarity. You say to yourself, in getting it clear, "A dog is a tame wolf, a cat is a domesticated tiger." A cat never really tames, while tameness is the essence of a dog's soul. You tame the wolf into a dog, but the tiger domesticates itself into a cat. In this way there's more real oppositeness between things that are like than between things that are different. The kind of oppositeness, I mean, that there is between words when you discard one in favour of another.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

Description of Life (Targ Editions, 1980)

Dogs, Way, Soul, Cats

“By becoming poor and entrusting divine revelation to a carpenter from Nazareth, God makes clear where one has to be in order to hear the divine word and experience divine presence.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: Speaking the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation, and Black Theology (1986), p. 9

God

“Kofi Annan's kangaroo court…a clear and present danger to the war on terrorism and Americans fighting it all over the world.”

Tom DeLay (1947) American Republican politician

On the International Criminal Court ~ AP [2004 July 16] http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/040715/w071572.html 2000s

War, World, Fight

“It is not as clear in Afghanistan which Iranian entity is responsible but we have intercepted weapons in Afghanistan headed for the Taliban that were made in Iran.”

Peter Pace (1945) 16th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

[Kristin, Roberts, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1741166020070417?pageNumber=1, Top U.S. general says Iranian weapons in Afghanistan, Reuters, 17 April 2007, 2007-09-26]

“We must bear in recollection that the sentiment of the picture is that of solemnity, not gaiety & nothing garish, but the contrary — yet it must be bright, clear, alive fresh, and all the front seen.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to David Lucas (15 February 1836), on the mezzo print of the 'Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows'; as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 37
1830s

“Things will be restored to their proper order. The guilty will not triumph; will not escape the general opprobrium, nor the punishment which is due to their crimes: and an ample recompense will be given to the just man, in the clear and distinct view of an astonished and admiring universe.”

Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742) French Catholic bishop and famous preacher

On the Last Day

Universe

“…the inexorable duty which has come upon you to use your political power to help our Island out of the rotten state which it has now fallen. When I think of the way in which we poured out blood and money to take Contalmaison or to hold Ypres, I cannot understand why it is we should now throw away our conquests and our inheritance with both hands, through sheer helplessness and pusillanimity. In this disastrous year we have written ourselves down as a second Naval Power, squandered our authority in Egypt, and brought India to a position when the miserable public take it as an open question whether we should not clear out of the country altogether. Currently with all this, we have so reduced our reputation abroad and among our own dominions, that as you said the other night, 'they all think we are down and out.”

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

My interest in politics is to see this position retrieved.
Letter to Lord Beaverbook (23 September 1930), quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Churchill Documents, Volume 12: The Wilderness Years, 1929–1935 (Michigan: Hillsdale Press, 2012), p. 185
The 1930s

Money, Way, Understanding, Question

“(1) If a convicted man has the money to pay the docket fee and for a transcript of the proceedings at his trial, the upper federal court, by at least reading the transcript, will ascertain whether or not there was reversible error at the trial, or whether or not there was such a lack of evidence that the defendant is entitled to a new trial or a dismissal of the indictment.
(2) If, however, the defendant is so destitute that he cannot pay the docket fee, and if the trial judge has signed a certificate of 'bad faith,' then although a reading of the transcript shows clear reversible errors, the federal appellate court is powerless to hear the appeal and thus to rectify the errors; and even if the defendant has money enough to pay the docket fee but not enough for a transcript, the upper court usually has no way of determining whether there were such errors, must therefore assume there were none, and must accordingly refuse to consider his appeal. As a consequence, a poor man erroneously convicted-- e. g., where there was insufficient proof of his guilt--must go to prison and stay there. In such a situation-- i. e., where the upper court, if it had the transcript before it, would surely reverse for insufficiency of the evidence or on some other ground, but cannot do so solely because the defendant cannot pay for a transcript-- the result is this: He is punished because he is guilty of the crime of being poor”

Jerome Frank (1889–1957) American jurist

more or less on the principle, openly avowed in Erewhon only, that one who suffers misfortunes deserves criminal punishment
United States v. Johnson, 238 F.2d 565, 568 (1956) (dissenting).

Money, Faith, Way, Error

“The motives for conceiving modern systems engineering are to be found, at least in part, in past disasters. Arthur D. Hall III [1989] cites: the chemical plant leakage in Bhopal (1986); the explosion of the NASA Challenger space shuttle (1986) and the Apollo fire (1967); the sinking of the Titanic (1912); the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl (1986) and the disaster at Three Mile Island power plant (1979). He cites, too, the capture of markets by Japan from the U. S., the decline in US productivity and the failure of the US secondary school system. He identifies the millions of people dying of starvation every year while other nations stockpile surplus food, medical disasters such as heart disease, while governments subsidize grains used to produce high cholesterol meat, milk and eggs; and many more. One implication is clear: systems engineering faces challenges well beyond the sphere of engineering.”

Derek Hitchins (1935) British systems engineer

Source: Advanced Systems Thinking, Engineering and Management (2003), p. 75-76

People, Disease, School, Food

“Working in this field I felt that I had begun a task methodologically and technically sound and necessary, the broader elaboration of which could not be expected for decades. Nevertheless it soon became clear that though these problems are difficult, they are by no means impossible to solve. One had only to clear out a number of hoary philosophical prejudices and to set his scientific goal high enough to arrive at explanation and prediction. Today it can no longer be doubted that the questions set, for example, by psychoanalysis are readily accessible to experimental clarification if only appropriate methods and concepts are employed.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, 1935, p. v-vi.

Question, Problem

“Further, it should be clear that meat in itself as protein is not much superior to eggs or nuts and could not alter the evolution of the brain – if this were so, this miracle food would have continued to enlarge humans’ brain size in succeeding years when much greater amounts of meat were consumed.”

Colin Spencer (1933) British writer

The Heretic's Feast: A History of Vegetarianism (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1996), p. 16 https://books.google.it/books?id=rIjZo-cvifAC&pg=PA16.

Food

“The personnel man should regard personal resistance as entirely normal and simply as presenting problems that he has to contend with. At the same time, he must have a clear idea of his own role and functions. He must be prepared to explain them fully when asked. He must also be prepared to take a firm initiative in cases where others take such actions as may jeopardize his role.”

William Foote Whyte (1914–2000) American sociologist

Source: Making Mondragón, 1965, p. 170; As cited in: Ickis (2014)

Idea, Problem, Time, Personality

“Plainly, the most powerful exception to the notion of a voluntary excahnge in a market economy is the labor market. The existence of a market for labor is one of the distinguishing features of a market economy: workers compete to sell their labor at the most favorable price—meaning, in practice, the highest possible wage. At the same time, however, it is clear that the market for labor is qualitatively different from the market for goods, because workers need to sell their labor to survive.”

Mimi Abramovitz (1941) non-fiction writer

Joel Blau and Mimi Abramovitz, The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy (Oxford University Press: 2010) p. 68

Time

“In the application of the ordinary principles of geometry and trigonometry to such Astronomical measures… it may sometimes be expedient to resolve the process into several successive steps, and these steps may perhaps require different kinds of treatment. But… all are simple and within ordinary comprehension, and the only complexity arises from the circumstance that the student may find it necessary to have a clear view of several such steps at once…”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

Success

“What President Obama is talking about—this idea that all faiths are equal, especially Islam and Christianity, and that all people serve God in some way—is a dangerous misconception. It is increasingly becoming common in our pluralistic and inclusive culture. But nothing could be farther from the truth. A quick study of God’s Word and key Christian doctrines makes it clear that Islam and Christianity are utterly incompatible.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

President Obama Speech: Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2016/02/04/president-obama-speech-christians-and-muslims-worship-same-god/, Around the World with Ken Ham (February 4, 2016) Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

God, People, Truth, Faith

“"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way under me," he thought, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the French soldiers with the artilleryman was ending, and eager to know whether the red-haired gunner artilleryman was killed or not, whether the cannons had been taken or saved. But he saw nothing of all that. Above him there was nothing but the sky — the lofty sky, not clear, but still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds creeping quietly over it.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. III, ch. 16
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Hope, Way

“Clearly, there are limits on the Executive power. There are limits on the Commander-in-Chief power. Youngstown Sheet and Tube tells us that. That was a case where the President issued an Executive Order to seize steel mills, cited exigent circumstances related to the Korean War. The Supreme Court stepped forward and said no, you can't do that. That is a clear example of courts doing, I think, what the Senator described. How does a court go about that? I think that certainly as a court of appeals judge, you start with the Constitution itself. You go to Supreme Court precedent, which is obviously binding on any court of appeals. You look to the prior precedents of one's own circuit, which would be binding as well. The decisionmaking can also be informed by precedents from other circuits. I think you look at those things, and you try to reach a lawful result, which is precisely that and which is not a result which is driven by passion or considerations of the moment. That is why judges have life tenure.”

Raymond Kethledge (1966) a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Confirmation of Raymond Kethledge https://www.congress.gov/110/chrg/shrg48894/CHRG-110shrg48894.htm (May 7, 2008)

Life, War, Law, Thinking

“The ever-changing display of plant forms, which I have followed for so many years, awakens increasingly within me the notion: The plant forms which surround us were not all created at some given point in time and then locked into the given form, they have been given… a felicitous mobility and plasticity that allows them to grow and adapt themselves to many different conditions in many different places. …How they can be brought together under one concept has slowly become clear to me and that this conception can be enlivened at a higher level [of consciousness]: thus I began to recognize, in the sense perceptible form, a supersensible archetype. Whoever has felt what a rich, saturated thought… has to say, will admit what a passionate movement comes to life in the spirit when we are enthused, and we anticipate the totality of what will evolve step by step…”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Goethe's Story of My Botanical Studies (1831) attributed by Frank Teichmann (tr. Jon McAlice) "The Emergence of the Idea of Evolution in the Time of Goethe" http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAIdeaEvolTeich.pdf Attributed

Life, Sense, Passion, Change

“Father, I scarcely dare to pray,
So clear I see, now it is done,
How I have wasted half my day,
And left my work but just begun.”

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885) Novelist, poet, writer, activist

A last Prayer.

“Revolutionary war is an anti-toxin which not only eliminates the enemy's poison but also purges us of our own filth. Every just, revolutionary war is endowed with tremendous power and can transform many things or clear the way for their transformations. The Sino-Japanese war will transform both China and Japan; provided China perseveres in the War of Resistance and in the united front, the old Japan will surely be transformed into a new Japan and the old China into a new China, and people and everything else in both China and Japan will be transformed during and after the war.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On Protracted Warfare (1938)

War, People, Way, Perseverance

“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic programme. Point No. 13 in that programme demands the nationalisation of all public companies, in other words socialisation, or what is known here as socialism. … the basic principle of my Party’s economic programme should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority… the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State; it is his duty not to misuse his possessions to the detriment of the State or the interests of his fellow countrymen. That is the overriding point. The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners. If you say that the bourgeoisie is tearing its hair over the question of private property, that does not affect me in the least. Does the bourgeoisie expect some consideration from me?… Today’s bourgeoisie is rotten to the core; it has no ideals any more; all it wants to do is earn money and so it does me what damage it can. The bourgeois press does me damage too and would like to consign me and my movement to the devil.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Hitler's interview with Richard Breiting, 1931, published in Edouard Calic, ed., “First Interview with Hitler, 4 May 1931,” Secret Conversations with Hitler: The Two Newly-Discovered 1931 Interviews, New York: John Day Co., 1971, pp. 31-33. Also published under the title Unmasked: Two Confidential Interviews with Hitler in 1931, published by Chatto & Windus in 1971
1930s

Money, Feeling, Communication, Question

“Hillary Clinton pursued an agenda of clear personal ambition. She fished around among the different states in the union, decided which state would be the best object of her personal ambitions, fomented interest in that state for the sake of her personal agenda. She was a sitting First Lady at the time, so there was even some overtones of intimidation involved in all of that, and she simply used and abused the state as a platform of her personal ambition. Quite the contrary, I had no thought whatsoever of running for the U. S. Senate in the State of Illinois. I have been called in by a decision of the people in Illinois who say that they need my help. That's their choice, and that respects the sovereignty of the people because they have made the determination that they need outside help.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Alan Keyes on MSNBC's Scarborough Country, August 17, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/interviews/04_08_17scarborough.htm. 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race

People, Decision, Fish, Time

“The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.”

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

Book I, Ch. 26
Attributed
Variant: The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

Wisdom

“It is clear to me that this [his recent works and ideas on art] is art for the future. Futurism, although it has advanced beyond naturalism, occupies itself too much with human sensations. Cubism – which in its content is still too much concerned with earlier aesthetic products, and thus less rooted in its own time than Futurism – Cubism has taken a giant step in the direction of abstraction, and is in this respect of its own time and of the future. Thus in its content it is not modern, but in its effect it is.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

In a letter to H. P. Bremmer (Dutch art-critic and buyer of his paintings), Paris 29 January 1914; as quoted in Mondrian, - The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 75
1910's

Art, Idea, Nature, Time

“Typically, "progressives" and change agents have demanded more money for social programs. But today it's clear that the way we do things needs to change – and that if things were done more appropriately, more humanely, more intelligently, we might end up spending less on social programs than we do now. Take education …. Over the last 10 years or so, a handful of education reformers have … come up with exciting new ideas for changing the ways our schools are administered, the ways our children are taught, and the kinds of things they're taught. And nearly all their ideas would cost no more than our current practices cost.”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Some would actually save us money!
Source: New Options for America (1991), Chapter 11, "Our Schools Need Imagination More Than They Need Money," pp. 84–85.

Money, Children, Education, School

“Our government has a responsibility to defend our borders, but we must do so in a way that makes us safer and upholds all that is decent and exceptional about our nation.It is clear from the confusion at our airports across the nation that President Trump's executive order was not properly vetted. We are particularly concerned by reports that this order went into effect with little to no consultation with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security.Such a hasty process risks harmful results. We should not stop green-card holders from returning to the country they call home. We should not stop those who have served as interpreters for our military and diplomats from seeking refuge in the country they risked their lives to help. And we should not turn our backs on those refugees who have been shown through extensive vetting to pose no demonstrable threat to our nation, and who have suffered unspeakable horrors, most of them women and children.Ultimately, we fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. At this very moment, American troops are fighting side-by-side with our Iraqi partners to defeat ISIL. But this executive order bans Iraqi pilots from coming to military bases in Arizona to fight our common enemies. Our most important allies in the fight against ISIL are the vast majority of Muslims who reject its apocalyptic ideology of hatred. This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Statement by Senators McCain & Graham on Executive Order on Immigration (January 27, 2017) from the Office of Senator John McCain http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/1/statement-by-senators-mccain-graham-on-executive-order-on-immigration regarding [Donald J. Trump]'s Executive Order 13769 entitled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States", as quoted by Jacob Sallum from Reason magazine in Here Is What Republican Critics of Trump's Immigration Order Are Saying on January 31, 2017 http://reason.com/blog/2017/01/31/here-is-what-republican-critics-of-trump 2010s, 2017

Women, Fear, Justice, Way

“["Do you see a tie in between being a vegetarian and helping the environment?"] All of our cleaning products, lotions, shampoos, and toothpaste are organic and non-chemical, non-animal tested. You don’t have to be a vegetarian to be against animal testing, but it goes hand in hand. You know the rainforest that’s cut down or the land that’s cleared for cattle and factory farm animals, the destruction of the rain forest specifically for beef cattle is mind boggling to the both of us that they would destroy a very precious eco system just so cows have a place to eat grass. The people in South America don’t even really get to eat that beef but the land is being destroyed for it, and definitely the methane that’s produced from the cows and pigs. It’s definitely contributing to global warming. It’s hard for people to wrap their minds around the fact that their cheeseburger is making global warming worse. I think it’s an important message for people to get, but it’s hard for people to put the two together and make the connection.”

Susie Feldman (1982) American actress

"Watch “The Two Coreys” this Sunday", interview with PETA (27 July 2007) https://www.peta.org/blog/watch-two-coreys-sunday/.

People, Thinking, Grass, Help

“Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society, Ch. IV: The Aristocratic Ideal

Fate, World

“Decision theory can be pursued not only for the purposes of building foundations for political economy, or of understanding and explaining phenomena that are in themselves intrinsically interesting, but also for the purpose of offering direct advice to business and governmental decision makers. For reasons not clear to me, this territory was very sparsely settled prior to World War II. Such inhabitants as it had were mainly industrial engineers, students of public administration, and specialists in business functions, none of whom especially identified themselves with the economic sciences. Prominent pioneers included the mathematician, Charles Babbage, inventor of the digital computer, the engineer, Frederick Taylor and the administrator, Henri Fayol.
During World War II, this territory, almost abandoned, was rediscovered by scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians concerned with military management and logistics, and was renamed “operations research” or “operations analysis.””

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

So remote were the operations researchers from the social science community that economists wishing to enter the territory had to establish their own colony, which they called “management science”.
1960s-1970s, "Rational decision making in business organizations", Nobel Memorial Lecture 1978

War, World, Communication, Understanding

“[W]e should be clear that neither genuine religious nor genuine moral impulses will ever be expressed in terms that tie the two essentially together. If you view religion as necessary for ethics, you’ve reduced us to the ethical level of 4 year olds. "If you follow these commandments you’ll go to heaven, if you don’t' you'll burn in hell" is just a spectacular version of the carrots and sticks with which you raise your children.”

Susan Neiman (1955) American academic

Beyond Belief conference (November 2006)

Children, Religion, Hell

“In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving."”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

But the fighter still remains.
The Boxer
Song lyrics, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970)

Anger

“Off in his head, he solved extraordinary problems of mathematics, science, medicine, the humanities. He wrote poetry, saw music. … People have told him, with your IQ you should be a genius. I was a genius and have long since abused myself into a state of average and like it better that way. Now there comes a momentary clearing, a moment of satorial splendor, and then it goes oblique. It fades away like blown dust.”

Robert Olmstead (1954) American writer

America By Land (1993)

People, Music, Way, Mathematics

“I'm a — I'm a, um, a godmother which is just, that's fun to be a godmother, she is so precious, she's the light of my life, she's two… or five or something, and she's, uh… I don't know, I've never seen her — the pictures are precious, she just seems so, y'know… She lives clear across town, I don't have that kind of time, but, um… Well, I send money and stuff, it's not like I don't have a connection….”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Taste This

Life, Money, Light, Time

“Above all, most Irish nationalists entertain the fiction of Irish exceptionalism, the false conviction that Ireland suffered more under British colonialism than any other comparable people. Let me be clear. I am not saying something nasty did not happen in the historical woodshed. What I am saying is that what happened was neither as nasty as we believe, nor did it last as long as we believe, nor was it all the work of some beastly British soldier passing by.”

Eoghan Harris (1943) Irish journalist

The crazy knot that binds us to Britain, Eoghan Harris, Irish Independent http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-crazy-knot-that-binds-us-to-britain-466689.html,

People, Suffering, Falseness

“I met him Cummingham around 1953 after a performance I saw. He was teaching and making dances for his company and was already working with John Cage. What interested me initially wasn't just the movement but also the music he worked with, which was unfamiliar to me... Later Bob Rauschenberg had been doing sets and costumes for the Cunningham Company... I can't say exactly how, but for a period of time, Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg, and I saw each other frequently and exchanged ideas. John [Cage] was very interested in presenting his ideas to other people, so it was impossible to be around and not to learn... He could apply his ideas on space and time to painting, or music or architecture... I don't have a clear sense of cause and effect in my painting, but it is probably there.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Jasper Johns, by Bryan Robertson and Tim Marlow, Tate, in 'The Art Magazine', London, Winter 1993, pp. 40, 47
1990s

People, Music, Idea, Sense

“Here is my proposal. Israel should announce an immediate unilateral cessation in retaliation against terrorist attacks. This moratorium would be in effect for a short period, say four or five days, to give the Palestinian leadership an opportunity to respond to the new policy. It would also make it clear to the world that Israel is taking an important step in ending what has become a cycle of violence. Following the end of the moratorium, Israel would institute the following new policy if Palestinian terrorism were to resume. It will announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

"New response to Palestinian terrorism", The Jerusalem Post, 2002-03-11

World

“Reading someone else's newspaper is like sleeping with someone else's wife. Nothing seems to be precisely in the right place, and when you find what you are looking for, it is not clear then how to respond to it.”

Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic

Page 60.
Stepping Westward (1965)

Sleep, Reading

“Atheist is really ʺa thoroughly honest, unambiguous term,ʺ it admits of no paltering and of no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is for clear‐cut issues and unambiguous speech.”

Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer

Theism Or Atheism: The Great Alternative (1921), Chapter XIII: Agnosticism.

World

“It is not my duty as an historian to predict the future, only to observe and interpret the past. But its lesson is clear enough; we have lived too long out of contact with reality, and now the time has come to rebuild our lives.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 24 (p. 183)

Reality, Time, Past, Future

“he seldom or never spoke except actually to convey an idea. Measured by quantity of words, he was a talker of fully average copiousness; by extent of meaning communicated, he was the most copious I have listened to. How in few sentences he would sketch you off an entire biography, an entire object or transaction, keen, clear, rugged, genuine, completely rounded In! His words came direct from the heart by the inspiration of the moment.”

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

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Communication, Idea, Heart

“My grandfather asked in his will that whenever it became possible, his name should be cleared so that he would no longer be denounced as a 'traitor to patriotism'. My grandfather has had a great effect on me during my life.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

"The transition to democracy was based on a base of harmony and little remembrance." (It was good that the Transition) "[...] was like that, because at the time the wounds were still open. That problem affected an entire generation of Spaniards. However, the generation that I come from is drawn to politics in a context of democracy and liberty, and now it's only fair that the sacrifices that many people made are recognised and that people know exactly what happened to their relatives, because it's their right [...] this right doesn't involve looking back with a grudge, but completely the opposite: it means looking back with serenity, to find out the truth [...] it means building a stronger country, a country that can look at all of its citizens with absolute serenity, so that they feel recognised in our project of contemporary democracy".
Interview in 2005 in the book "Zapatero and the Citizens' World" by Calamai and Garzia.
As President, 2005

Life

“And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favour the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity—beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds, and a growing body of knowledge—and to check the procreation of base and servile types, of fear-driven and cowardly souls, of all that is mean and ugly and bestial in the souls, bodies, or habits of men. To do the latter is to do the former; the two things are inseparable. And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness, and cowardice and feebleness were saved from the accomplishment of their desires, the method that has only one alternative, the method that must in some cases still be called in to the help of man, is death. In the new vision death is no inexplicable horror, no pointless terminal terror to the miseries of life, it is the end of all the pain of life, the end of the bitterness of failure, the merciful obliteration of weak and silly and pointless things.”

H. G. Wells book Anticipations

Anticipations (1902)

Life, Death, Men, Pain

“The philosopher … subjects experience to his critical judgment, and this contains a value judgment — namely, that freedom from toil is preferable to toil, and an intelligent life is preferable to a stupid life. It so happened that philosophy was born with these values. Scientific thought had to break this union of value judgment and analysis, for it became increasingly clear that the philosophic values did not guide the organisation of society.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 126

Life, Stupidity, Intelligence, Freedom

“As I write, it is not yet clear who has won the presidential election. Win or lose, though, Mr Obama was not and is not the president. The Hawaiian long-form "birth certificate" he publicly endorsed and posted at the White House website last year as proof that he was born in the jurisdiction of the U. S. and is thus constitutionally eligible to be president is a forgery.”

Christopher Monckton (1952) British public speaker and hereditary peer

Win or lose, Obama was not and is not the president http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/win-or-lose-obama-was-not-and-is-not-the-president/ WorldNetDaily, November 6, 2012.

Birth, Housing

“The red thought rose up inside Blaine’s brain: Why not kill him now?
For the killing would come easy. He was an easy man to hate. Not on principle alone, but personally, clear down to his guts.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time is the Simplest Thing

Source: Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Chapter 26 (p. 206)

Hate, Personality

“The various parts of the body cannot be perceived as simple units and have no clear relationship to one another. In almost every detail the body is not the shape that art has led us to believe it should be.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. 1: The Naked and the Nude

Art, Parting

“Yes, in fact I was almost single-handed in protesting about holding the prisoners of war. It was largely on the pressure of Mujibur Rahman that Mrs Gandhi was holding them. Because she obviously recognised Bangladesh and his (Mujibur's) stand was clear: Let them recognise Bangladesh as an independent state and then we will free them. And that's what we did later.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

I Don't Know One Editor In India Who Is Well-Read

War

“Given the extensive involvement of state violence in the process by which the corporate elite not only achieved its wealth in the past but continues to maintain and augment it in the present, it is clear that the massive inequalities of wealth that characterise present-day “capitalist” society are radically inconsistent with any approach to justice in holdings that is even remotely Nozickian.”

Roderick Long (1964) American philosopher

Source: "Left-libertarianism, market anarchism, class conflict and historical theories of distributive justice" (2012), p. 425

Justice, Past, Wealth

“The word is clear only to the kind who on peak or plain, from dark northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles, through all wine and want, through lies and unfamiliar truth, dark or light, are governed by the unknown gods, and though each man knows the law, no man may give tongue to it.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

"The Clan of No Name" (1899); published in the anthology Wounds in the Rain (1900)

God, Truth, Law, Light

“Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but…
I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street
'Cause they can't make opinions meet about God,
I can't believe in you.”

Andy Partridge (1953) British musician

"Dear God".
Skylarking (1986)

God, People, Feeling, Tear

“This is a reality that our investigators repeatedly encountered in their interviews of police and city officials, their conversations with local residents, and their review of thousands of pages of records and documents. This evidence pointed to an unfortunate and unsustainable situation that has not only severely damaged relationships between law enforcement and members of the community, but made professional policing vastly more difficult – and unnecessarily placed officers at increased risk. And today – now that our investigation has reached its conclusion – it is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action. Let me be clear: the United States Department of Justice reserves all its rights and abilities to force compliance and implement basic change.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Justice, Law, Communication, Reality

“In order to stay clear of pain, we must know and know why we feel best while having pain.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

Pain, Feeling

“The helm went down hard and we just cleared the rocks. Otherwise it would have been the end of this poor craft. Our ancient skipper, who was responsible for the error in pilotage, is now wearing what is called his "stuffed monkey expression!"”

Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) British saint, poet, novelist

To Lucy Menziens, from the yacht Wulfruna, Salcombe, S.Devon dated August 10, 1925.
Letters

Error

“I also am concerned about judges who imagine they see everything in society addressed in the Constitution. It is worth remembering that the Constitution is a very brief document. It defines the structure and authority of the federal government and protects a limited list of sacred rights. It does not, and was never intended to, address every legal issue that might arise in our nation’s history. Democracy is well-served when the Court says, in effect, "the Constitution simply does not comment on this issue." In contrast, constitutionalizing an issue takes it out of the democratic process. If the people disagree with a court decision based on the law, they have a remedy in the political process. Through their elected representatives, they can change the law. But once a court declares a law to be unconstitutional or prohibits some agency action on constitutional grounds, it is limiting the options of the people. Such a step should be taken only where it is clear that the Constitution has truly spoken on the issue and forbidden what the political branches have determined to do.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech to American Enterprise Institute (January 17, 2007)

People, Law, Democracy, Imagination

“Music when the lights go out
Love goes cold in shades of doubt
The strange face in my mind is all too clear
Music when the lights come on
The girl I thought I knew has gone
And with her my heart has disappeared”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

"Music When the Lights Go Out" (with Carl Barat)
Lyrics and poetry

Love, Music, Girl, Light

“Christopher Columbus discovered the West Indies, and Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. We do not call their achievements creations because they are not personal enough. The West Indies were there all the time; and as for the telephone, we feel that Bell's ingenious thought was somehow not fundamental. The groundwork was there, and if not Bell then someone else would have stumbled on the telephone almost as accidently as on the West Indies.
By contrast, we feel that Othello is genuinely a creation. This is not because Othello came out of a clear sky; it did not. There were Elizabethan dramatists before William Shakespeare, and without them he could not have written as he did. Yet within their tradition Othello remains profoundly personal; and though every element in the play has been a theme of other poets, we know that the amalgam of these elements is Shakespeare's; we feel the presence of his single mind. The Elizabethan drama would have gone on without Shakespeare, but no one else would have written Othello…”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

Source: The Creative Process, 1958, p. 97-98: As quoted in: S.P. Sector (‎1997). A Study of Issues Relating to the Patentability of Biotechnological Subject Matter. Footnote 51. https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/ip00201.html

Feeling, Time, Personality

“Shortly afterwards the moon rose with a very clear sky, and [he] kept watch.”

Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron

E poco appresso levatasi la luna, e 'l tempo essendo chiarissimo, [egli] vegghiava.
Fifth Day, Third Story (tr. J. M. Rigg)
The Decameron (c. 1350)

“These words are being written in reply to the verbal message sent by you. I have been asked (by you) to tell (you) about suppression of the rebellion of Jats in the environs of Delhi.
The fact is that this recluse (meaning himself) has witnessed in the occult world the downfall of the Jats in the same way as that of the Marhatahs. I have also seen it in a dream that Muslims have taken possession of the forts and the country of the Jats, and that Muslims have become masters of those forts and that country as in the past. Most probably, the Ruhelas will occupy those Jat forts. This has been determined and decided in the most secret world. This recluse has not the shadow of a doubt about that. But the way that victory will be achieved is not yet clear. What is needed is prayers from those special servants of Allah who have been chosen for this purpose.
…But keep one thing in your mind, namely, that the Hindus who are apparently in your’s and your government’s employ, are inclined towards the enemies in their hearts. They do not want that the enemies be exterminated. They will try a thousand tricks in this matter, and endeavour in every way to show to your honour that the path of peace is more profitable.
Make up your mind not to listen to this group (the Hindu employees). If you disregard their advice, you will reach the height of fulfilment. This recluse knows of this (fulfilment) as if he is seeing it with his own eyes.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

To Najibuddaulah Translated from the Urdu version of K.A. Nizami, Shãh Walîullah Dehlvî ke Siyãsî Maktûbãt, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, pp. 106-07.
From his letters

Secret, World, Peace, Dreams

“Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorrèd shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 64; comparable to: "Erant quibus appetentior famæ videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur" (Translated: "Some might consider him as too fond of fame, for the desire of glory clings even to the best of men longer than any other passion"), Tacitus, Historiae, iv. 6; said of Helvidius Priscus.

Life, Hope, Home, Thinking

“Let the Turks now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province that they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to those heaps and heaps of dead, the violated purity alike of matron and of maiden and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. There is not a criminal in a European jail, there is not a criminal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise and over-boil at the recital of that which has been done, which has too late been examined, but which remains unavenged, which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions which produced it and which may again spring up in another murderous harvest from the soil soaked and reeking with blood and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame. That such things should be done once is a damning disgrace to the portion of our race which did them; that the door should be left open to their ever so barely possible repetition would spread that shame over the world!”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

1870s

God, World, Law, Hope

“The impressions we receive, which often appear merely chaotic, consist of three elements; the impression of the color of the object, its form, and of its combined color and form, i. e., of the object itself. At this point the individuality of the artist comes to the front and disposes, as he wills, these three elements. It is clear, therefore, that the choice of object (i. e., of one of the elements in the harmony of form) must be decided only by a corresponding vibration in the human soul..”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote of Kandinsky, Munich, 1910; as cited in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 450
1910 - 1915

Color, Soul, Appearance

“I don't think it's a good idea for politicians to design television programmes, but what we can do is design policies - and by implementing those policies we help to create an environment in which talented people can do great things, and significant and dynamic creative companies can be built for this generation and the next generation. That means having the infrastructure, the skills, and the education. We need a clear vision. We need to identify the opportunities and provide the resources.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Broadcasting Speech (August 8, 2007)

People, Education, Idea, Thinking

“I have also cleared the electromagnetic theory of light from all unwarrantable assumption, so that we may safely determine the velocity of light by measuring the attraction between bodies kept at a given difference of potential, the value of which is known in electromagnetic measure.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Letter to C. Hockin, Esq. (Sept 7, 1864) as quoted by Lewis Campbell, William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell: With Selections from His Correspondence and Occasional Writings https://books.google.com/books?id=B7gEAAAAYAAJ (1884)

Light

“For some time now it has been clear that intermedia art is trending toward that point at which all the phenomena of life on earth will constitute the artist’s palette. It is the purpose of this chapter to illuminate the direction of that trend and to cite a few pertinent examples. As with all other Paleocybernetic phenomena, the direction is simultaneously toward inner and outer space, the microcosm and the macrocosm. On the one hand, intermedia environments turn the participant inward upon himself, providing a matrix for psychic exploration, perceptual, censorial, and intellectual awareness; on the other hand technology has advanced to the point at which the whole earth itself becomes the “content” of aesthetic activity. The term “light show” must now be expanded virtually to include the aurora borealis, since hemispherical lumia displays are possible in the creation of artificial plasma clouds in space (see color plates), the launching of rockets to generate atmospherical events, or urban environmental generators such as Nicholas Schoffer’s monumental Cybernetic Light Tower, which transforms the skies of Paris into panoramic fantasias of color.”

Gene Youngblood book Expanded Cinema

Source: Expanded Cinema, 1970, p. 348; The Artist as Ecologist http://www.screeningthepast.com/2011/11/the-artist-as-ecologist/

Life, Art, Color, Light

“Clearing the deck is great, but sailing adventurous waters is the real game. (Just can't do it w/out a clear deck.)”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

10 March 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/10288329405 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Game, Water

“Sister, awake! close not your eyes,
The day her light discloses;
And the bright morning doth arise
Out of her bed of roses.

See the clear sun, the world's bright eye,
In at our window peeping;
Lo, how he blusheth to espy
Us idle wenches sleeping!

Therefore awake, make haste I say,
And let us without staying
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the park a maying.”

Thomas Bateson

Sister, awake! close not your eyes

World, Sister, Sleep, Light

“The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge. It recognizes aesthetic, moral, and religious ideas and experiences as a species, in this case of mental structures or of images, which clearly interacts with other species in the world's great' ecosystem.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 20

World, Idea, Knowledge, Universe

“So, we’ve reached the state that George Will described. He said there’s a certain kind of liberal that wants diversity in everything, except thought. And so, we do need certain kinds of diversity. But the key to remember is that, diversity by its very nature is divisive, and so, what’s the function of your group? If your group needs cohesion, you don’t want diversity. If your group needs good, clear thinking and you want people to challenge your prejudices, then you need it. So in the academic world, we need that kind of diversity, and we don’t have it.”

Jonathan Haidt (1963) American psychologist

"The Psychology Behind Morality" (12 June 2014) http://www.onbeing.org/program/jonathan-haidt-the-psychology-behind-morality/transcript/6347#main_content

People, World, Nature, Thinking

“The heterodox current in Judaism led by Jesus seems to have had no notion of an immortal soul, created by God and then infused into the body: immortality meant being raised from the dead in the body one had in life, then living for ever in a world without decay or corruption. In the Christian religion invented by Paul and Augustine, which was strongly influenced by Plato, immortality meant something quite different – a life out of time, enjoyed by the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ of the departed. How this Platonic immortality could preserve anything like the persons that once lived was not made clear.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Cross-correspondences (pp. 32-3)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)

Life, God, World, Religion

“Once we have funded our national security and our homeland security, the final great priority of my budget is economic security for the American people. To achieve these great national objectives — to win the war, protect the homeland, and revitalize our economy — our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term, so long as Congress restrains spending and acts in a fiscally responsible manner. We have clear priorities and we must act at home with the same purpose and resolve we have shown overseas: We'll prevail in the war, and we will defeat this recession.”

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

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

War, People, Home

“It is interesting that when you actually subpoena the emails and the correspondence of the oil industry, as the Attorney-General of New York State has done, it unveiled a record of deception for decades. It’s all there and it’s all clear, and it’s all terrifying, basically.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

“People in Russia say that those who do not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union have no heart, and those that do regret it have no brain. We do not regret this, we simply state the fact and know that we need to look ahead, not backwards. We will not allow the past to drag us down and stop us from moving ahead. We understand where we should move. But we must act based on a clear understanding of what happened..”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Interview with German television channel ARD and ZDF, May 2005. Kremlin, RU, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/05/05/2355_type82912type82916_87597.shtml (May 2005) 2000 - 2005

People, Understanding, Past, Heart

“It’s clear that male human beings should never have been left in control of the world all these centuries. Many of you are wonderful beyond belief, but too many others will always be bloody lunatics.
Your sex is simply built that way. Its better side gave us power and light, science and reason, medicine and philosophy. Meanwhile the dark half spent its time dreaming up unimaginable hells and putting them into practice.”

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 9 (p. 225)

World, Dreams, Sex, Way

“The absolute justice of the system of things is as clear to me as any scientific fact. The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so–for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all–nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1860s, Reply to Charles Kingsley (1860)

Justice, Sun

“And sounding in advance its victory,
My song jets forth so clear, so proud, so peremptory,
That the horizon, seized with a rosy trembling,
Obeys me.”

Edmond Rostand Chantecler

Et sonnant d’avance sa victoire,
Mon chant jaillit si net, si fier, si peremptoire
Que l’horizon, saisi d'un rose tremblement,
M’obéit.
Act II, Sc. 3
Chantecler (1910)

Victory