Quotes about clearing
page 24

“Well, Secretary Clinton, you're not in the White House yet. And let us be clear that every proposal that I have introduced has been paid for. For example, all right, who in America denies that we have an infrastructure that is crumbling? Roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, who denies that?
Who denies that real unemployment today, including those who have given up looking for work and are working part-time is close to 10 percent? Who denies that African-American youth unemployment, real, is over 50 percent.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2010s, 2016, Democratic Presidential Debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (11 February 2016)

Youth, Water, Time, Parting

“It is clear, we say, as if to see through something were to know it.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#181
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“A clear horizon — nothing to worry about on your plate, only things that are creative and not destructive and that's withing yourself. Within me I can't bear quarreling, I can't bear feelings between people. I think hatred is wasted energy and it's all non-productive. I'm very sensitive. A sharp word, said by a person who has a temper, if they're close to me, hurts me for days. I know we're only human, we do go in for these various emotions, call them negative emotions but when all these are removed and you can look forward, and the road is clear ahead, and now you're going to create something. I think that's as happy as I would ever want to be.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

Hitchcock's Definition of Happiness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14dOICbwSIs (YouTube video), excerpt from CBC's interview 'A Talk with Alfred Hitchcock' (1964). Quoted in "Hitchcock's Secret to Happiness" http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/hitchcocks-secret-to-happiness/254769/ by Maria Popova, The Atlantic (20 March 2012).

Happiness, People, Feeling, Thinking

“And then a funny thing happened to me…except when I think about it, it wasn't very funny at all. There must be a line in all of us, a very clear one, just like the line that divides the light side of a planet from the dark. I think they call that line the terminator. That's a very good word for it. Because at that moment I was freaking out, and at the next I was as cool as a cucumber.”

Stephen King book Rage

Rage (1977)

Thinking, Light

“Khamenei is not the first ruler of Iran with whom poets have run into trouble. For some 12 centuries poetry has been the Iranian people’s principal medium of expression. Iran may be the only country where not a single home is found without at least one book of poems. Initially, Persian poets had a hard time to define their place in society. The newly converted Islamic rulers suspected the poets of trying to revive the Zoroastrian faith to undermine the new religion. Clerics saw poets as people who wished to keep the Persian language alive and thus sabotage the ascent of Arabic as the new lingua franca. Without the early Persian poets, Iranians might have ended up like so many other nations in the Middle East who lost their native languages and became Arabic speakers. Early on, Persian poets developed a strategy to check the ardor of the rulers and the mullahs. They started every qasida with praise to God and Prophet followed by panegyric for the ruler of the day. Once those “obligations” were out of the way they would move on to the real themes of the poems they wished to compose. Everyone knew that there was some trick involved but everyone accepted the result because it was good. Despite that modus vivendi some poets did end up in prison or in exile while many others spent their lives in hardship if not poverty. However, poets were never put to the sword. The Khomeinist regime is the first in Iran’s history to have executed so many poets. Implicitly or explicitly, some rulers made it clear what the poet couldn’t write. But none ever dreamt of telling the poet what he should write. Khamenei is the first to try to dictate to poets, accusing them of “crime” and” betrayal” if they ignored his injunctions.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry, Ashraq Al-Awsat (Jul 11, 2015).

God, People, Books, Faith

“It is clear that I will end my career without having coached Barça.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.insideworldsoccer.com/2010/04/jose-mourinho-i-could-never-coach-barca.html 2010

“My proximity to the sheep, cattle, and geese who are now my neighbors in the country is what has finally turned me into a vegetarian. I talk to these animals when I walk. Sometimes I am lucky enough to make physical contact with them, and as I look into their eyes I see not only the innocence, but also the clear fact that those eyes are no less complicated in their structure than my own. Don't we now have enough tasty things to eat from the garden and all the delicious ways to prepare them?”

Mary Tyler Moore (1936–2017) American actress, television producer

After All https://books.google.it/books?id=siBPpd0BdeQC (New York: Putnam, 1995), p. 27

Way, Animals, Country

“I for one would never be a party, unless the law were clear, to saying to any man who put forward his views on those most sacred things, that he should be branded as apparently criminal because he differed from the majority of mankind in his religious views or convictions on the subject of religion. If that were so, we should get into ages and times which, thank God, we do not live in, when people were put to death for opinions and beliefs which now almost all of us believe to be true.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

Reg. v. Bradlaugh and others (1883), 15 Cox, C.C. 230.

Death, God, People, Age

“Let us begin by observing that the word "system" is almost never used by itself; it is generally accompanied by an adjective or other modifier: physical system; biological system; social system; economic system; axiom system; religious system; and even "general" system. This usage suggests that, when confronted by a system of any kind, certain of its properties are to be subsumed under the adjective, and other properties are subsumed under the "system," while still others may depend essentially on both. The adjective describes what is special or particular; i. e., it refers to the specific "thinghood" of the system; the "system" describes those properties which are independent of this specific "thinghood."
This observation immediately suggests a close parallel between the concept of a system and the development of the mathematical concept of a set. Given any specific aggregate of things; e. g., five oranges, three sticks, five fingers, there are some properties of the aggregate which depend on the specific nature of the things of which the aggregate is composed. There are others which are totally independent of this and depend only on the "set-ness" of the aggregate. The most prominent of these is what we can call the cardinality of the aggregate…
It should now be clear that system hood is related to thinghood in much the same way as set-ness is related to thinghood. Likewise, what we generally call system properties are related to systemhood in the same way as cardinality is related to set-ness. But systemhood is different from both set-ness and from thinghood; it is an independent category.”

Robert Rosen (1934–1998) American theoretical biologist

Source: "Some comments on systems and system theory," (1986), p. 1-2 as quoted in George Klir (2001) Facets of Systems Science, p. 4

Way, Mathematics, Nature, Dependency

“The part which is nearest to the earth… is without knots and is "clear." But the upper part, on account of the great heat in it throws up branches into the air through the knots and this… is called "knotwood" because of its hardness and knottiness. The lowest part, after the tree is cut down and the sapwood of the same thrown away, is split up into four pieces and prepared for joiner's work, and so is called clearstock.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IX, Sec. 7

Tree, Parting

“If I was Noah, I would have gone, Hang on a minute, I've just seen somethin' that looks a bit like this, let it drown, have a bit of a clear out, but he was messin' about savin' everythin”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Podcast Series 1 Episode 5
On the Bible

“Now sometimes words can serve me well
Sometimes words can go to hell
For all that they do.
And for every dream that took me high
There's been a dream that's passed me by.
I know it's so true
And I can see it clear out to the end
And I'll whisper to her now again
Because she shared my life.
For more than all the ghosts of glory
She makes up the story,
She's the only story
Of my life.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Story of a Life
Song lyrics, Sequel (1981)

Life, Dreams, Hell

“Is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

from an interview with Phil Donahue (1979): partial transcript http://www.slobodaiprosperitet.tv/en/node/847 from SiP TV ; or find link to full interview in the External links Section

People, World, Way, History

“Where the light is, and each thing clear,
Separate from all others, standing in its place,
I drink the time and touch whatever's near, And hope for day when the whole world has that face:
For what assures her present every year?
In dark accidents the mind's sufficient grace.”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

"The Beautiful American Word, Sure" http://www.pbs.org/hollywoodpresents/collectedstories/writing/write_ds_poetry.html Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)

World, Hope, Drink, Light

“Others may be regularly more flashy, though few can dazzle so dependably; and none can match him for power and refinement. He plays very loudly and very beautifully, very softly and thoroughly clean, straightforwardly, elegantly, and with a care for both the amenities of musical discourse and the clear transmission of musical thought. He is a master pianist and a master musician. There has not been his like since Busoni.”

Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982) Polish-American classical pianist

Virgil Thomson, "King of Pianists" (1949)
About

Music, Dependency

“I write with two things in mind. I want to be right with my fellow economists. After all, I've made my life as a professional economist, so I'm careful that my economics is as it should be. But I have long felt that there's no economic proposition that can't be stated in clear, accessible language. So I try to be right with my fellow economists, but I try to have an audience of any interested, intelligent person.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Booknotes interview (1994)

Life, Intelligence, Personality

“Clear and decisive leadership is crucial and we shall deliver it. It is urgent that we work on projecting our party firmly and decisively with the purpose of securing our nation’s interests through Brexit and beyond.”

Margot Parker (1943) UK politician

We Need To Unite To Fight For A Clean Brexit http://www.ukip.org/margot_parker_we_need_to_unite_to_fight_for_a_clean_brexit (November 9, 2017)

Decision

“My figures at least are not a bunch of clothes with a head and hands sticking out but more nearly resemble the strong living bodies that most pictures show. And in the latter end of a life so spent in study, you at least can imagine that painting is with me a very serious study. That I have but little patience with the false modesty which is the greatest enemy to all figure painting. I see no impropriety in looking at the most beautiful of Nature's works, the naked figure. If there is impropriety, then just where does such impropriety begin? Is it wrong to look at a picture of a naked figure or at a statue? English ladies of the last generation thought so and avoided the statue galleries, but do so no longer. Or is it a question of sex? Should men make only the statues of men to be looked at by men, while the statues of women should be made by women to be looked at by women only? Should the he-painters draw the horses and bulls, and the she-painters like Rosa Bonheur the mares and cows? Must the poor old male body in the dissecting room be mutilated before Miss Prudery can dabble in his guts?Such indignities anger me. Can not anyone see into what contemptible inconsistencies such follies all lead? And how dangerous they are? My conscience is clear, and my suffering is past.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Letter of resignation to Edward Hornor Coates, Chairman of the Committee on Instruction, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1886-02-15).

Life, Women, Men, Beauty

“You see, some people have a talent for programming. At ten to thirteen years old, typically, they're fascinated, and if they use a program, they want to know: “How does it do this?” But when they ask the teacher, if it's proprietary, the teacher has to say: “I'm sorry, it's a secret, we can't find out.” Which means education is forbidden. A proprietary program is the enemy of the spirit of education. It's knowledge withheld, so it should not be tolerated in a school, even though there may be plenty of people in the school who don't care about programming, don't want to learn this. Still, because it's the enemy of the spirit of education, it shouldn't be there in the school.
But if the program is free, the teacher can explain what he knows, and then give out copies of the source code, saying: “Read it and you'll understand everything.” And those who are really fascinated, they will read it! And this gives them an opportunity to start to learn how to be good programmers.
To learn to be a good programmer, you'll need to recognize that certain ways of writing code, even if they make sense to you and they are correct, they're not good because other people will have trouble understanding them. Good code is clear code that others will have an easy time working on when they need to make further changes.
How do you learn to write good clear code? You do it by reading lots of code, and writing lots of code. Well, only free software offers the chance to read the code of large programs that we really use. And then you have to write lots of code, which means you have to write changes in large programs.
How do you learn to write good code for the large programs? You have to start small, which does not mean small program, oh no! The challenges of the code for large programs don't even begin to appear in small programs. So the way you start small at writing code for large programs is by writing small changes in large programs. And only free software gives you the chance to do that.”

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

A Free Digital Society - What Makes Digital Inclusion Good or Bad? http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-digital-society.html#education; Lecture at Sciences Po in Paris (19 October 2011)] 2010s

People, Secret, Education, School

“For us [the young artists in Vitebsk, before 1920] Suprematism did not signify the recognition of an absolute form which was part of an already completed universal system, on the contrary; here stood revealed for the first time in all its purity the clear sign and plan for a definite new world never before experienced - a world which issues forth from our inner being and which is only now in the first stages of its formation, for this reason the square [ Malevich's Black and Red Square ] of suprematism became a beacon.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

Quote from Lissitzky's essay of 1920, 'Suprematism in World Reconstruction'; as quoted by Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, in El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, trans. Helene Aldwinckle and Mary Whittall (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1968), p. 327
1915 - 1925

World, Universe, Time, Parting

“It had become clear that the itemized changes experimentally imposed, although they could perhaps be used to account for minor differences between one period and another, yet could not be used to explain the major change - the continually increasing production. This steady increase as represented by all the contemporary records seemed to ignore the experimental changes in its upward development.”

Elton Mayo (1880–1949) Australian academic

Source: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, (1933), p. 65, chapter 3: The Hawthorne experiment Western Electric Company

Change

“Totalitarian art must be a form of classicism: the state which is founded on order and subordination demands an art with a similar basis. Romantic painting, however popular, expresses the revolt of the individual. The State also requires an art of reason by which appropriate works may be produced as required. Inspiration is outside state control. The classic attitude toward subject matter — that it should be clear and unequivocal — supports the attitude of unquestioning belief. Add the fact that totalitarian art must be real enough to please the ignorant, ideal enough to commemorate a national hero, and well enough designed to present a memorable image, and one sees how perfectly The Death of Marat fills the bill. That it happens also to be a great work of art makes it dangerously misleading.”

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

Source: The Romantic Rebellion (1973), Ch. 1: David

Death, Art, Support, Painting

“There was a plea from honourable Members relating to the need for formal Gross National Product figures. Such figures are very inexact even in the most sophisticated countries I think they do not have a great deal of meaning, even as a basis of comparison between economies. That other countries make use of them is not, I think, necessarily a good reason to suppose that we need them. But, although I am not entirely clear what practical purpose they would serve in Hong Kong, I am sure they would be of interest. I suspect myself, however, that the need arises in other countries because high taxation and more or less detailed Government intervention in the economy have made it essential to be able to judge (or to hope to be able to judge) the effect of policies, and of changes in policies, on the economy. One of the honourable Members who spoke on this subject, said outright, as a confirmed planner, that he thought that they were desirable for the planning of our future economic policy. But we are in the happy position, happier at least for the Financial Secretary where the leverage exercised by Government on the economy is so small that it is not necessary, nor even of any particular value, to have these figures available for the formulation of policy. We might indeed be right to be apprehensive lest the availability of such figures might lead, by a reversal of cause and effect, to policies designed to have a direct effect on the economy. I would myself deplore this.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 25, 1970, page 495.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Happiness, Hope, Exercises, Thinking

“Today he (Lukashenka) won by the hands of "gorillas" in black masks. Already it is clear that there will be no Parliament in Belarus, no democratic election. The remains of a free press will disappear. A presidential Junta will govern the country… Well, we can congratulate Belarusians on the previous elections. Worse cannot be done. For ourselves, for society and for future generations.”

Vasil Bykaŭ (1924–2003) Belarusian writer

about results of Belarusian presidential election, 1994 “Ён Прыехаў, Сам Памёр, Усё Спакойна…” Апошнія Тыдні Васіля Быкава https://www.svaboda.org/amp/24853764.html // svaboda.org (in Belarusian)

Future, Country

“Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time—’

That’s the sort of thing she would have written before the rise of advertising. The correlation is perfectly clear. Advertising up, lyric poetry down.”

Frederik Pohl book The Space Merchants

Source: The Space Merchants (1953), Chapter 4 (p. 48)

Silence, Time

“The most doubtful reasoning appears to us clear and conclusive, when we can, in any way, twist it to an accordance with what we desire.”

Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847) Swiss theologian

Evangelical Meditations (1858)

Way, Appearance

“Do you see that corner of canvas there [of his painting 'La Ferme'], large as the hand, does it not seem to you that it far surpasses in intensity, in clearness, in expression, the rest of the canvas? [Sensier confirmed]. Well, then, all the rest must pass under the control of that little centre; all that which surrounds it submit itself to that diapason of light and the whole of the picture be as charged with life as that which you see there. Must we not incessantly lift ourselves, surpass ourselves, in this terrible profession of painter?”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

quote from a talk with Alfred Sensier, c. 1865; as cited in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye by Charles Sprague Smith, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, pp. 159-60
the quote is pointing to his painting 'The Farm / La Ferme', upon which Rousseau had worked for years
1851 - 1867

Life, Light, Painting

“Having traveled, having conceived, having hoped, having enlarged my love, having widened my sympathies, having come into contact with different races, different communities, different religions, different civilizations, friends, my vision is clear. I have no prejudice of race, creed, caste, or colour…. Until you students have acquired and mastered the spirit of brotherhood, do not believe it possible that you will ever cease to be sectarian… if I may use such word…. you will ever be national.”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

In a lecture she gave at age 24 to the young students, quoted in "Selected Letters, Gandhi -Sarojini Naidu Correspondence, Preface".
Poetry

Love, Religion, Hope, Travel

“Today the courts are choked with lawsuits brought by people against the New King. When they sue each other as a result of an automobile accident they in fact sue the King, for both parties are likely insured. … Steadily the courts have become clearing-houses for the insurance industry.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: From Freedom to Slavery (1996), Ch. 6 : The New King : Tyranny of the Corporate Core, p. 91

People, Housing

“It’s clear that this resistance stems largely from religion. You can find religions without creationism, but you never find creationism without religion.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

Source: Why Evolution is True (2009), p. xvii

Religion

“Law enforcement ranks are filled with people like my grandfather. But, to be clear, although I am from a law enforcement family, and have spent much of my career in law enforcement, I’m not looking to let law enforcement off the hook. Those of us in law enforcement must redouble our efforts to resist bias and prejudice. We must better understand the people we serve and protect—by trying to know, deep in our gut, what it feels like to be a law-abiding young black man walking on the street and encountering law enforcement. We must understand how that young man may see us. We must resist the lazy shortcuts of cynicism and approach him with respect and decency.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

People, Family, Law, Feeling

“It will not benefit the world if we succeed in banishing the old-fashioned wars of nations only to clear the board for social and doctrinal wars of even greater ferocity and destructiveness. This, indeed, is a growing danger. We were told that the old wars of religion had ended, but that is not much comfort if the wars of various kinds of secular religions or non-God religions are to begin and are to make Europe the arena of their hideous conflict, and if all that makes life worth living to the mass of the people is to be destroyed in the process.”

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

I Ask You—What Price Freedom? Answers, 24 October 1936.
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 364. ISBN 0903988429
The 1930s

Life, God, War, People

“Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay,
The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away:
Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Liberty Enlightening the World (1917)

World, Light

“While early American society was an agrarian society, it was fast becoming more commercial, and commercial goals made their way among its agricultural classes almost as rapidly as elsewhere. The more commercial society became, however, the more reason it found to cling in imagination to the noncommercial agrarian values. The more farming as a self-sufficient way of life was abandoned for farming as a business, the more merit men found in what was being left behind. And the more rapidly the farmers' sons moved into the towns, the more nostalgic the whole culture became about its rural past. The American mind was raised upon a sentimental attachment to rural living and upon a series of notions about rural people and rural life that I have chosen to designate as the agrarian myth. The agrarian myth represents a kind of homage that Americans have paid to the fancied innocence of their origins.
Like any complex of ideas, the agrarian myth cannot be defined in a phrase, but its component themes form a clear pattern. Its hero was the yeoman farmer, its central conception the notion that he is the ideal man and the ideal citizen.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter I, part I, p. 23

Life, Men, People, Way

“The emperor of the Latins — who hasn't been a Latin himself since the days of Charlemagne — is the successor of the Roman emperors — the ones of Rome, I mean, not those of Constantinople. But to make sure he's emperor, he has to be crowned by the pope, because the law of Christ has swept away the false law, the law of liars. To be crowned by the pope, the emperor also has to be recognized by the cities of Italy, and each of them kind of goes his own way, so he has to be crowned king of Italy — provided, naturally, that the Teutonic princes have elected him. Is that clear?”

Umberto Eco book Baudolino

Source: Baudolino (2000), Chapter 3, "Baudolino explains to Niketas what he wrote as a boy"

Law, Way, Nature, Christ

“Futurologists have been multiplying like flies since the day Herman Kahn made Cassandra's profession "scientific," yet somehow not one of them has come out with the clear statement that we have wholly abandoned ourselves to the mercy of technological progress. The roles are now reversed: humanity becomes, for technology, a means, an instrument for achieving a goal unknown and unknowable.”

Stanisław Lem book His Master's Voice

Source: His Master's Voice (1968), Ch. 11

“In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Donald Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation. And so Kennedy was killed, and al-Qaida wasn't present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade. But after it became clear to you that it was an unjust and unnecessary war, you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, Rumsfeld.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

As quoted in The Washington Post http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/09/bin_laden_rumsfeld_responsible.html, Osama bin Laden, video, September 2007.

War, Time, Housing, Anger

“Chris Wallace: Where do you stand on the right of return?
Herman Cain: The right of return? The right of return?
Chris Wallace: The Palestinian right of return.
Herman Cain: That's something that should be negotiated. That's something that should be negotiated.
Chris Wallace: Do you think the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land?
Herman Cain: Yes. But under — but not under Palestinian conditions. Yes. They should have a right to come back if that is a decision that Israel wants to make. Back to — it's up to Israel to determine the things they will accept. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it real clear in his statement following the statement that President Obama made. They are wiling to make some concessions. They are willing to give on a lot of things. They are willing to be compassionate. I don't think they have a big problem with people returning.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Fox News Sunday
2011-05-22
Television
Fox News
10:05
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday/transcript/herman-cain-his-presidential-bid-sen-mitch-mcconnell-talks-foreign-policy-debt-reduction?page=3#ixzz1NCzc1xGW
2011-10-08

People, Problem, Thinking, Decision

“If philosophy aims at being a theoretical mode of thought and speech, can it have a rhetorical character and be expressed in rhetorical forms? The answer seems obvious. Theoretical thinking, as a rational process, excludes every rhetorical element because pathetic influences—the influences of feeling—disturb the clarity of rational thought. …
To prove means to show something to be something, on the basis of something. To have something through which something is shown and explained definitively is the foundation of our knowledge. Apodictic, demonstrative speech is the kind of speech which establishes the definition of a phenomenon by tracing it back to ultimate principles, or archai. It is clear that the first archai of any proof and hence of knowledge cannot be proved themselves because they cannot be the object of apodictic, demonstrative, logical speech; otherwise they would not be the first assertions. Their nonderivable, primary character is evident from the fact that we neither can speak nor comport ourselves without them, for both speech and human activity simply presuppose them. But if the original assertions are not demonstrable, what is the character of the speech in which we express them? Obviously this type of speech cannot have a rational-theoretical character….
Basic premises cannot have an apodictic, demonstrative character and structure but are thoroughly indicative….
Arche … cannot have a rational but only a rhetorical character. Thus the term "rhetoric" assumes a fundamentally new significance; "rhetoric" is not, nor can it be the art, the technique of an exterior persuasion; it is rather the speech which is the basis of the rational thought.”

Ernesto Grassi (1902–1991) Italian philosopher

Source: Rhetoric as Philosophy (1980), pp. 18-19

Art, Feeling, Knowledge, Thinking

“As to the issues on which we part ways with the Committee, I have already stated that our reviews indicate that the detention and interrogation program produced useful intelligence that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. But let me be clear. We have not concluded that it was the use of EITs (Enhanced interrogation techniques) within that program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them. The cause and effect relationship between the use of EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable.”

John O. Brennan (1955) 7th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery CIA Director John O. Brennan Response to SSCI Study on the Former Detention and Interrogation Program https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2014-speeches-testimony/remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-cia-director-john-o-brennan-response-to-ssci-study-on-the-former-detention-and-interrogation-program.html

Way, Intelligence, Help, Parting

“The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces, but conversely; what happens to a part of the whole is, in clear-cut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole.”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

Source: Productive thinking, 1945, p. 84

Law, Parting

“.. as I met with Mr. (Dunning there. There is something exclusive of the clear and deep understanding of that gentleman most exceedingly pleasing to me. He seems the only man who talks as Giardini plays, if you know what I mean; he puts no more motion than what goes to the real performance, which constitutes that ease and gentility peculiar to damned clever fellows... He is an amazing compact man in every respect.... and besides this neatness in outward appearance, his storeroom seems cleared of all French ornaments and gingerbread work, everything is simplicity and elegance and in its proper place, no disorder or confusion in the furniture.... Sober sense and great acuteness are marked very strong in his face.... but there is genius (in our sense of the word). (It) shines in all he says. In short, Mr. Jackson of Exeter [his friend], I begin to think there is something in the air of Devonshire that grows clever fellows. I could name four or five of you, superior to the product of any other county in England.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, 2 Sept. 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 384 (Appendix A - Letter VII) 1755 - 1769

Understanding, Thinking, Sense, Strong

“We live in a liberal democracy…. That’s what we created in this country. I think we should be very clear on this. You know, this country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment… It was the idea that people could talk, reason, have dialogue, discuss the issues. It wasn't founded on the idea that someone would get struck by a divine inspiration and know everything right from wrong. I mean, people who founded this country had religion, they had strong beliefs, but they believed in reason, in dialogue, in civil discourse. We can’t lose that in this country. We've got to get it back.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

Interview with Bill Maher, on Real Time with Bill Maher (5 September 2003) http://www.safesearching.com/billmaher/print/t_hbo_realtime_090503.htm

People, Religion, Democracy, Idea

“To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But it is more complicated than that because simulating is not pretending: "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littré). Therefore, pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false," the "real" and the "imaginary."”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

The Precession of Simulcra, The Divine Irreference Of Images
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

Reality, Falseness

“Questions and answers click into each other like cogs of a machine. Each person has nothing but quite definite tasks. The various professions are concentrated at definite places. One eats while in motion. Amusements are concentrated in other parts of the city. And elsewhere again are the towers to which one returns and finds wife, family, gramophone, and soul. Tension and relaxation, activity and love are meticulously kept separate in time and are weighed out according to formulae arrived at in extensive laboratory work. If during any of these activities one runs up against a difficulty, one simply drops the whole thing; for one will find another thing or perhaps, later on, a better way, or someone else will find the way that one has missed. It does not matter in the least, but nothing wastes so much communal energy as the presumption that one is called upon not to let go of a definite personal aim. In a community with energies constantly flowing through it, every road leads to a good goal, if one does not spend too much time hesitating and thinking it over. The targets are set up at a short distance, but life is short too, and in this way one gets a maximum of achievement out of it. And man needs no more for his happiness; for what one achieves is what moulds the spirit, whereas what one wants, without fulfillment, only warps it. So far as happiness is concerned it matters very little what one wants; the main thing is that one should get it. Besides, zoology makes it clear that a sum of reduced individuals may very well form a totality of genius.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities (1930–1942)

Love, Life, Happiness, Family

“The water won't clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek.”

Jim Hightower (1943) Texas author and liberal political activist

Bill Moyers Journal, 30 April 2010

Water

“You need clear, energetic minds, in order to appreciate the exalted character of the truth, to value the atonement, and to place the right estimate upon eternal things.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Counsels On Diet and Foods (1938), Section 2, p. 47

Truth

“I want to make it clear to England, I am not a party girl.”

Paz de la Huerta (1984) American actress

ES Magazine, 13 Jan 2012, pages 26-29

Girl

“But a top down approach can take you only so far – even in a hierarchical organisation like an Army. I can impress my senior leaders with the need to change and give them clear guidance as to how to proceed but it is vital to get buy in at all levels of the organisation.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Change

“It's evident that Darwin saw evolution not as progressive or improving, but as an activity that happens moment by moment. From this it is clear that evolution has no plan. It has neither memory nor foresight. No vestige of cosmic strivings from some remote beginning; no prospect of revelatory culmination in some transcendent end.”

Henry Gee (1962) British paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and editor

The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution, by Henry Gee, p. 12

Memory

“Cool how many layers of my mind there are to clear, each time I do it…& how different my world is then.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

12 February 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/36269718428073984 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

World, Time

“I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

2000s, Speech at the Four Seasons, New York (25 September 2008)

World, Future

“When I contemplate the green serenity of the fields or look into the depths of clear eyes through which shines a fellow-soul, my consciousness dilates, I feel the diastole of the soul and am bathed in the flood of the life that flows about me, and I believe in my future; but instantly the voice of mystery whispers to me, "Thou shalt cease to be!" the angel of Death touches me with his wing, and the systole of the soul floods the depth of my spirit with the blood of divinity.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality

Life, Death, Angels, Feeling

“There is a clear acknowledgement all over the world that we should not teach people to read and then to leave them without literature. For they would then relapse into a dreary and ultimately dangerous state of half-education, in which they would be easily satisfied by crude semi-pictorial approximations of the strip cartoon and by the abundant supply of degenerate literature which destroys, rather than promotes, a capacity to face the problems of the world with skill and courage”

A.D. Patel (1905–1969) Fijian politician

His argument for the introduction of a colony-wide library system in 1955.

People, World, Education, Literature

“The choice for Scotland is quite clear. We can choose to remain a bit part player - unable to advance our interests and influence the international agenda other than through the United Kingdom. Alternatively, as in independent country, we can actively seek responsibility - eager for the opportunity to help shape the great global debates.”

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

Scotland in the World Forum (February 4, 2008)

Help, Parting, Country

“Since the late 1960s macroeconomic debates in the United States have centered on the competing interpretations of the new classical and new Keynesian macroeconomics. The initial new classical model developed in the early 1970s by Robert E. Lucas, Jr., combined market-clearing, imperfect information, and rational expectations. After much testing, it was eventually rejected in the late 1970s for failing to explain why business cycles lasted on average four years while information delays lasted only a few weeks. It was soon replaced by a second new classical approach, the Real Business Cycle (RBC) model, which was also based on continuous market clearing and competitive equilibrium, but now generated the business cycle through serially correlated procyclical technology shocks.”

Robert J. Gordon (1940) American economist

Robert J. Gordon, Are Procyclical Productivity Fluctuations a Figment of Measurement Error? (1992).

Business

“The image of God always abides in the soul, whether this image be obsolete and clouded over as to amount to almost nothing; or whether it be obscured or disfigured, as is the case with sinners; or whether it be clear and beautiful as is the case with the just.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I, q. 93, art. 8, ad 3
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

God, Beauty, Soul

“"What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously.
"I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue."”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Dying Earth (1950), Chapter 6, "Guyal of Sfere"

Question

“They know of no solutions to the paradoxes of the Middle East and Europe, the Far East and Africa except the landing of Marines. Being baffled, and also being very tired of being baffled, they have come to believe that there is no way out—except war—which would remove all the bewildering paradoxes of their tedious and now misguided attempts to construct peace. In place of these paradoxes they prefer the bright, clear problems of war—as they used to be. For they still believe that "winning" means something, although they never tell us what.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

The Causes of World War Three (1960)

War, Peace, Way, Problem

“In the conflict of ideologies the Hindus have made their position perfectly clear. We hate Nazism and Fascism. We are the enemies of Hitler and Mussolini. We are longing and struggling for our own emancipation and we want to repel any dictator who would try to reduce sections of humanity to slavery to serve the whims of his own megalomania.”

Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee (1895–1971) Indian politician

Hindu Politics, p. 26

Hate

“It soon became clear that the only real long-term solution to the problems that I encountered is to start using computers in the verification of mathematical reasoning.”

Vladimir Voevodsky (1966–2017) Russian mathematician

Univalent Foundations, Vladimir Voevodsky, IAS, March 26, 2014 http://www.math.ias.edu/vladimir/files/2014_IAS.pdf p. 13

Mathematics, Problem

“My grandfather, a teacher of religion, could think of nothing better than to place my father – his eldest son, still a child – as a clerk with a firm of herring wholesalers, and his youngest son with a barber. No, my father was not a clerk, but, for thirty-two years, a plain workman [in the Jewish ghetto of Vitebsk ]. He lifted heavy barrels, and my heart used to twist like a Turkish pretzel as I watched him carrying those loads and stirring the little herrings with his frozen hands... Sometimes my father's clothes would glisten with herring brine. The light played above him, besides him. But his face, now yellow, now clear, would sometimes break into a wan smile.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 23
1920's, My life (1922)

Religion, Smile, Thinking, Light

“How can man understand God, since he does not yet understand his own mind, with which he endeavors to understand Him? The infinity of God is not mysterious, it is only unfathomable — not concealed, but incomprehensible. It is a clear infinity — the darkness of the pure, unsearchable sea.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 267.

God, Understanding, Sea

“Although dialogue, by itself, will not be sufficient to address these issues – because concrete action is needed – initiating a broad, frank, and inclusive conversation is a necessary and productive first step. In all of the Civil Rights Division’s activities in Ferguson – as in every pattern-or-practice investigation the Division has launched over the last six years – our aim is to help facilitate and inform this conversation; to make certain it leads to concrete action; and to ensure that law enforcement officers in every part of the United States live up to the same high standards of professionalism. It is clear from our work throughout the country—particularly the work of our Civil Rights Division—that the prospect of police accountability and criminal justice reform is an achievable goal; one that we can reach with law enforcement and community members at the table as full partners.”

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

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Justice, Law, Communication, Help

“My boat is moored by mist-veiled rivershore;
I'm grieved to see the setting sun no more.
On boundless plain clouds hang atop the tree;
In water clear the moon seems near to me.”

Meng Haoran poet from the Tang Dynasty

Tree, Water, Sun

“The second superstring revolution (1994-??) has brought non-perturbative string physics within reach. The key discoveries were the recognition of amazing and surprising "dualities." They have taught us that what we viewed previously as five theories is in fact five different perturbative expansions of a single underlying theory about five different points! It is now clear that there is a unique theory, though it may allow many different vacua…. Three different kinds of dualities, called S, T, and U have been identified."”

John Henry Schwarz (1941) American theoretical physicist

pp. 4–5

“The traditional sciences … constitute … a preparation for a higher knowledge and a way of approach to it, and by virtue of their hierarchical arrangement according to the levels of existence to which they refer, they form, as it were, so many rungs by which it is possible to climb to the level of pure intellectuality. It is only too clear that modern sciences cannot in any way serve either of these purposes; this is why they can be no more than “profane science,” whereas the traditional sciences … are effectively incorporated in “sacred science.””

René Guénon (1886–1951) French metaphysician

Source: The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), pp. 65-66

Way, Knowledge, Science

“"What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower
Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour?
Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand
If the bright morning dawns upon the land.""The stars are clear above me, scarcely one
Has dimm'd its rays in reverence to the sun;
But yet I see, on the horizon's verge,
Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge."”

Charles Mackay (1814–1889) British writer

The Watcher On The Tower
Voices from the Crowd, and Town Lyrics (1857)

Star, Light, Sun

“We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are forced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrument sheweth the agent to be limited by rules of another’s prescription, and that he cannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it seems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited agent useth no tool or instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above all limitation or prescription whatsoever.”

George Berkeley book Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Philonous to Hylas. The Second Dialogue.
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

Law, Way, Nature

“Suppose then I want to give myself a little training in the art of reasoning; suppose I want to get out of the region of conjecture and probability, free myself from the difficult task of weighing evidence, and putting instances together to arrive at general propositions, and simply desire to know how to deal with my general propositions when I get them, and how to deduce right inferences from them; it is clear that I shall obtain this sort of discipline best in those departments of thought in which the first principles are unquestionably true. For in all 59 our thinking, if we come to erroneous conclusions, we come to them either by accepting false premises to start with—in which case our reasoning, however good, will not save us from error; or by reasoning badly, in which case the data we start from may be perfectly sound, and yet our conclusions may be false. But in the mathematical or pure sciences,—geometry, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, the calculus of variations or of curves,—we know at least that there is not, and cannot be, error in our first principles, and we may therefore fasten our whole attention upon the processes. As mere exercises in logic, therefore, these sciences, based as they all are on primary truths relating to space and number, have always been supposed to furnish the most exact discipline. When Plato wrote over the portal of his school. “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” he did not mean that questions relating to lines and surfaces would be discussed by his disciples. On the contrary, the topics to which he directed their attention were some of the deepest problems,—social, political, moral,—on which the mind could exercise itself. Plato and his followers tried to think out together conclusions respecting the being, the duty, and the destiny of man, and the relation in which he stood to the gods and to the unseen world. What had geometry to do with these things? Simply this: That a man whose mind has not undergone a rigorous training in systematic thinking, and in the art of drawing legitimate inferences from premises, was unfitted to enter on the discussion of these high topics; and that the sort of logical discipline which he needed was most likely to be obtained from geometry—the only mathematical science which in Plato’s time had been formulated and reduced to a system. And we in this country [England] have long acted on the same principle. Our future lawyers, clergy, and statesmen are expected at the University to learn a good deal about curves, and angles, and numbers and proportions; not because these subjects have the smallest relation to the needs of their lives, but because in the very act of learning them they are likely to acquire that habit of steadfast and accurate thinking, which is indispensable to success in all the pursuits of life.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Source: Lectures on Teaching, (1906), pp. 291-292

Life, God, Truth, World

“Suppose you have two friends, James and Joanna, who are becoming increasingly fond of each other. At some point you realize that in their hearts they both have made a commitment to spending the rest of their lives together. But James has not yet admitted this to himself, or declared himself to Joanna. What is holding him back is a certain exaggerated trust in his own rationality, preventing him from acknowledging the validity of any impulse in himself he cannot completely understand. You are sure that once he comes to see how misplaced this trust is, he will realize that he has in fact been committed to a life with Joanna for some time and this commitment has been controlling the way he already lives his life and his decisions about how to spend his time and devote his energies. Now does James believe he is going to get married to Joanna? You are not clear what to say. If you ask him to profess such a belief, he will probably say he does not know, one way or the other. But his life-choices indicate the condition of his heart, and in that sense he does already have the belief. Another thing you do not know is how things are actually going to turn out for James. It all depends on which of the two dispositions prevails, his love for Joanna or his pride in his intellect.”

John E. Hare (1949) British philosopher

Source: "Kant on the Rational Instability of Atheism" (2006), pp. 63-64

Love, Life, Way, Understanding

“I am not indeed ignorant that certain over-wise people will call these legends "old wives' fables," and not worth listening to; but I think, for my part, that in such matters it is better to believe the testimony of nations than of those witty individuals, whose little soul is acute indeed, but has a clear insight into no one thing.”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

Upon The Mother Of The Gods (c. 362-363)

People, Soul, Thinking, Parting

“He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.”

John Milton Comus

Source: Comus (1634), Lines 381-385

Soul, Light, Sun

“A commander in chief sends America's sons and daughters into battle in a foreign land only after the greatest care and a lot of prayer. We ask a lot of those who wear our uniform. We ask them to leave their loved ones, to travel great distances, to risk injury, even to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice of their lives. They are dedicated. They are honorable. They represent the best of our country, and we are grateful. To all the men and women in our military, every sailor, every soldier, every airman, every coast guardsman, every Marine, I say this: Your mission is defined. The objectives are clear. Your goal is just. You have my full confidence, and you will have every tool you need to carry out your duty.”

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

2000s, 2001, Invasion of Afghanistan (October 2001)

Love, Women, Men, Travel

“Multilateral organizations have responsibilities. For 8 years, the nations in this assembly have worked together to confront the extremist threat. We've witnessed successes and setbacks, and through it all a clear lesson has emerged: The United Nations and other multilateral organizations are needed more urgently than ever. To be successful, we must be focused and resolute and effective. Instead of only passing resolutions decrying terrorist attacks after they occur, we must cooperate more closely to keep terrorist attacks from happening in the first place. Instead of treating all forms of government as equally tolerable, we must actively challenge the conditions of tyranny and despair that allow terror and extremism to thrive. By acting together to meet the fundamental challenge of our time, we can lead toward a world that is more secure and more prosperous and more hopeful.”

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

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

World, Hope, Time, Success

“It is not solely by weapons that ISIS imposes its control. More important is the terror it has instilled in millions in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and, increasingly, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Indeed, Jordan’s panic-driven decision to execute two jihadists in response to the burning of its captured pilot is another sign of the terror Daesh has instilled in Arab governments and much of the public. In the short run, terror is a very effective means of psychological control of unarmed and largely defenseless populations. Even in areas far from Daesh’s reach, growing numbers of preachers, writers, politicians and even sheiks and emirs, terrorized by unprecedented savagery, are hedging their bets. Today, Daesh is a menacing presence not only in Baghdad but in Arab capitals from Cairo to Muscat — an evil ghost capable of launching attacks in the Sinai and organizing deadly raids on Jordanian and Saudi borders. ISIS enjoys yet another advantage: It has a clear strategy of making areas beyond its control unsafe. No one thinks Daesh can seize Baghdad, but few Baghdadis feel they’re living anything close to a normal life. Daesh’s message is clear: No one is safe anywhere, including in non-Muslim lands, until the whole world is brought under “proper Islamic rule.””

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

How ISIS is winning: The long reach of terror http://nypost.com/2015/02/05/how-isis-is-winning-the-long-reach-of-terror/, New York Post (February 5, 2015). New York Post

Life, World, Feeling, Thinking

“Relational processing entails treating whole relationships as operands. Its primary purpose is loop-avoidance, an absolute requirement for end users to be productive at all, and a clear productivity booster for application programmers.”

E. F. Codd (1923–2003) computer scientist

Relational Database: A Practical Foundation for Productivity (1982)

“The present article is almost wholly devoted to a single problem—the definition of truth. Its task is to construct—with reference to a given language—a materially adequate and formally correct definition of the term 'true sentence. This problem, which belongs to the classical problems of philosophy, raises considerable difficulties. For although the meaning of the term 'true sentence' in colloquial language seems to be quite clear and intelligible, all attempts to define this meaning more precisely have hitherto been fruitless, and many investigations in which this term has been used and which started with apparently evident premisses have often led to paradoxes and antinomies (for which, however, a more or less satisfactory solution has been found). The concept of truth shares in this respect the fate of other analogous concepts in the domain of the semantics of language.”

Alfred Tarski (1901–1983) Polish-American logician

"The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages" (1931) in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938 (1956) Tr. J. H. Woodger.

Fate, Truth, Intelligence, Problem

“The Creator is called—“Clearing the eyes of the man”—by the name of the action, which He performs by removing Malchut from the eyes of Partzuf. When the Creator removes the egoism from the eyes of a man, a man is awarded to discover the good.”

Baruch Ashlag (1907–1991) Polish rabbi

Dargot HaSulam

“It is generally acknowledged that the Government are running, in the Maze prison, one of the most liberal and humane prison regimes anywhere…What hunger strikers are asking for—the one who died last was in fact a murderer; let us not mince our words—is political status by easy stages. They cannot have it. They are murderers and people who use force and violence to obtain their ends. They have made perfectly clear what they want. They cannot and will not have it.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Prime Minister's Questions (4 May 1981) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104649 regarding the 1981 Irish hunger strike. First term as Prime Minister

Hunger, People

“I am very concerned about the lack of a clear objective from the president on what his goals are in Libya and our role should be. As Obama has recently authorized the launch of air strikes in Libya, I believe the American people and Congress deserve an explanation. I'm asking for the president to explain. It's the president's responsibility to explain on what basis these actions are being taken.”

Kristi Noem (1971) South Dakota politician

Montgomery, David. Thune, Noem want answers on Libya http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_57540f4e-562d-11e0-9f87-001cc4c03286.html, Rapid City Journal. March 24, 2011.

People

“The most important motivation for the research work that resulted in the relational model was the objective of providing a sharp and clear boundary between the logical and physical aspects of database management.”

E. F. Codd (1923–2003) computer scientist

Relational Database: A Practical Foundation for Productivity (1982)

Motivation

“Of course, there have been myriad conceptions of God since the dawn of civilization. There are the Abrahamic conceptions of God, including the monotheistic God of Judaism and the trinitarian God of Christians. In Buddhism, God is almost non-theist. In fact, conceptions of God vary so widely there’s no clear consensus on the definition of God. In short, believers believe God has an incorporeal (immaterial) existence, and that there’s an afterlife…According to biocentrism, a new “theory of everything,” the material and immaterial worlds are co-relative. Life and consciousness represents one side of the equation, matter and energy the other. They can’t be divorced; split them and the reality is gone. Although the current scientific paradigm is based on the belief that the world has an objective observer-independent existence, a long list of experiments shows the opposite.”

Robert Lanza (1956) American medical doctor

Biocentrism and the Existence of God http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/does-god-exist-or-not-new_b_802103.html, Huffington Post, January 3, 2011.

Life, God, World, Reality

“Our generation faces only one danger, that we might say to ourselves this is not our problem, and that we will pass it off to the distant future. That we might shrug and say to ourselves that a thousand years is a long time. That we will become complacent and conclude that this problem will take care of itself.
But I say to you, we should take no satisfaction in the fact that we ourselves are in no physical danger. This is a hazard to our world, to everything we hope to pass on to future generations. And it is clear that we should act now, while we have the time.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Introduction
Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Omega (2003)

World, Hope, Problem, Distant

“It was clear that if I didn't spend the rest of my life concentrating on string theory, I would simply be missing my life's calling.”

Edward Witten (1951) American theoretical physicist

as quoted by John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (1996)

Life

“When we arrived at New York I went, straight after clearing customs, to the Algonquin Hotel. I would not claim as of right a room in my own flat, since Hortense must now regard it as hers. After a couple of whisky sours in the Blue Bar I walked up Fifth Avenue. The September heat was intense and the air was all woollen shirts aboil. The town was full of jumbo steaks and ice cream, the shops pleaded that we buy useless gadgets. This was not Europe. This was very far from being Europe. Victory in Europe and Asia confirmed the excellence of the American way of life. Strong appetite and inviolable health. The afternoon sun was higher here than in any town of Europe, forced upwards by the skyscrapers. The place was rife with life.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Life, Health, Way, Strong

“From the very beginning of the Constructivist Movement it was clear to me that a constructed sculpture, by its very method and technique brings sculpture very near to architecture... My works of this time up to 1924.... are all in the search for an image which would fuse the sculptural element with the architectural element in one unit. I consider this Column the culmination of that search.”

Naum Gabo (1890–1977) Russian sculptor

Quote of Gabo, as cited in: Simon Wilson (1991), Tate Gallery: An Illustrated Companion, Tate Gallery, London, revised edition. p. 146
undated

Search, Time

“People attack Scientology, I never forget it, always even the score. People attack auditors, or staff, or organizations, or me. I never forget until the slate is clear.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Manual Of Justice (1959).

People, Forgetting

“No doubt, hatred and cursing are not the proper attitude. It is true also that to look upon all things and all people with a calm and clear vision, to be uninvolved and impartial in one's judgments is a quite proper yogic attitude. A condition of perfect samata [equanimity] can be established in which one sees all as equal, friends and enemies included, and is not disturbed by what men do or by what happens. The question is whether this is all that is demanded from us. If so, then the general attitude will be of a neutral indifference to everything. But the Gita, which strongly insists on a perfect and absolute samata, goes on to say, 'Fight, destroy the adversary, conquer.' If there is no kind of general action wanted, no loyalty to Truth as against Falsehood except for one's personal sadhana, no will for the Truth to conquer, then the samata of indifference will suffice. But here there is a work to be done, a Truth to be established against which immense forces are arrayed, invisible forces which can use visible things and persons and actions for their instruments. If one is among the disciples, the seekers of this Truth, one has to take sides for the Truth, to stand against the forces that attack it and seek to stifle it. Arjuna wanted not to stand for either side, to refuse any action of hostility even against assailants; Sri Krishna, who insisted so much on samata, strongly rebuked his attitude and insisted equally on his fighting the adversary. 'Have samata,' he said, 'and seeing clearly the Truth, fight.' Therefore to take sides with the Truth and to refuse to concede anything to the Falsehood that attacks, to be unflinchingly loyal and against the hostiles and the attackers, is not inconsistent with equality…. It is a spiritual battle inward and outward; by neutrality and compromise or even passivity one may allow the enemy force to pass and crush down the Truth and its children. If you look at it from this point, you will see that if the inner spiritual equality is right, the active loyalty and firm taking of sides is as right, and the two cannot be incompatible.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

September 13, 1936
India's Rebirth

Men, Hostility, Children, People

“He is no longer a city dweller who has even once in his life caught a ruff or seen how, on clear and cool autumn days, flocks of migrating thrushes drift over a village. Until his death he will be drawn to freedom.”

Anton Chekhov book Gooseberries

Gooseberries (1898)

Life, Death, Autumn, Freedom

“I have grown accustomed to the disrespect expressed by some of the participants for their colleagues in the other disciplines. "Why, Dan," ask the people in artificial intelligence, "do you waste your time conferring with those neuroscientists? They wave their hands about 'information processing' and worry about where it happens, and which neurotransmitters are involved, but they haven't a clue about the computational requirements of higher cognitive functions." "Why," ask the neuroscientists, "do you waste your time on the fantasies of artificial intelligence? They just invent whatever machinery they want, and say unpardonably ignorant things about the brain." The cognitive psychologists, meanwhile, are accused of concocting models with neither biological plausibility nor proven computational powers; the anthropologists wouldn't know a model if they saw one, and the philosophers, as we all know, just take in each other's laundry, warning about confusions they themselves have created, in an arena bereft of both data and empirically testable theories. With so many idiots working on the problem, no wonder consciousness is still a mystery. All these charges are true, and more besides, but I have yet to encounter any idiots. Mostly the theorists I have drawn from strike me as very smart people – even brilliant people, with the arrogance and impatience that often comes with brilliance – but with limited perspectives and agendas, trying to make progress on the hard problems by taking whatever shortcuts they can see, while deploring other people's shortcuts. No one can keep all the problems and details clear, including me, and everyone has to mumble, guess and handwave about large parts of the problem.”

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

Consciousness Explained (1991)

People, Intelligence, Problem, Time

“Comics were the source of my entertainment and interest. But they’re the kind of standard Japanese stuff that Japanese kids enjoy. When I got to university, there was a layer of culture shock that hit me. I began to learn about modern and abstract art. Until that time my drawings were more realistic in style. Then I was opened up to abstract images. I was encountering things I’ve never paid attention to or recognized before. I liked that, behind those abstract images, there was always an idea. That set me thinking about art in terms of ideas, rather than depictions. What could I make that had a clear idea behind it, looked unique, and yet wasn’t alienating? All of that led me to the aesthetic of my games.”

Fumito Ueda (1970) Japanese video game designer

Fumito Ueda: Colossus in the Shadow https://medium.com/@SimonParkin/fumito-ueda-colossus-in-the-shadow-80e200a727dd (December 13, 2016)

Art, Game, Idea, Thinking

“Don't you know that the principal business of women, all down the ages, has been to go along after the men and clear up the everlasting muss they made? Well, we are still at the same task. Our politics are no more corrupt than our housekeeping would be if we let you run it alone.”

Gertrude Breslau Hunt (1869–1952)

Woman's Voice: An Anthology (1918)

Women, Men, Age, Business

“If Karl Rove is watching today, Karl, I want you to hear me loud and clear: I am going to provide tax cuts to ease the burdens for 31 million American families — and lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty — by raising the taxes on 0.1 percent of families — those who make more than $1,000,000 a year. You don't have to read my lips, I'm saying it. And if that makes me an 'old-style' Democrat, then I accept that label with pride and I dare you to come after me for it.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

Families First tax plan speech (5 January 2004), reported in Clark unveils tax plan" — CNN (5 January 2004) http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/05/elec04.prez.clark.taxes/

Children, Family, Reading

“To really belong, we have got, first, to get it clear with ourselves that we do not belong and do not want to belong to an unfree world. As free men and women we have got to reject much of it and to know why we are rejecting it.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

Source: Letters & Autobiographical Writings (1954), p. 187.

Women, Men, World