Quotes about clearing
page 9

““When he advanced from the capital of Karra, the Hindus, in alarm, descended into the earth like ants. He departed towards the garden of Behar to dye that soil with blood as red as tulip. He cleared the road to Ujjain of vile wretches, and created consternation in Bhilsan. When he effected his conquests in that country, he drew out of the river the idols which had been concealed in it.”66”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) in Vidisha (Madhya Pradesh) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. III, p. 542.ff
Miftahu'l-Futuh

Country

“Look, in my personal issues I'm very private. I would like to make clear that all the matters of my family, friends, my love life, is something that is for me, and I also prefer people to invent. It amuses me a lot when I read all the things they invent.”

Luis Miguel (1970) Puerto Rican singer; music producer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAnQbFJbGfM
Interview with Barbara Bermudo, 2003

Love, Life, People, Family

“Whoever, Lady, sees plain and clear
the lovely essence of your fair eyes
and doesn't from seeing them go blind
hasn't paid your looks their due.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Quem vê, Senhora, claro e manifesto
o lindo ser de vossos olhos belos,
se não perder a vista só em vê-los,
já não paga o que deve a vosso gesto.
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Quem vê, Senhora, claro e manifesto

Love

“Starting from a logically clear concept of probability, based on experience, using arguments which are usually called statistical, we can discover truth in wide domains of human interest.”

Richard von Mises (1883–1953) Austrian physicist and mathematician

Sixth Lecture, Statistical Problems in Physics, p. 220
Probability, Statistics And Truth - Second Revised English Edition - (1957)

Truth

“We have reached a crisis in world history, a crisis which demands swift and certain action…We believe in the freedom of the democratic way of life. If we serve that idea faithfully with tenacity of purpose, we have nothing to fear from Russian Communism…Communism seizes power by force, not by free choice of the people. The democratic nations must therefore have forces with which to fight it so that choice of government may be free. In the light of these convictions our task is clear. We must firstly believe in the Western way of life and serve it steadfastly. Secondly we must build up our fighting strength to be prepared to defend our ideals, for aggressive nations understand only the threat of force. The situation is already grave, but much is possible for a nation with clear intentions and the ability to carry them into action.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

New Year Message as Conservative candidate for Dartford (29 December 1950) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100896 1950s

Life, People, World, Fear

““I will not beg your forgiveness,” she said. Only her voice betrayed her fear; it was not its usual strong, clear tone. “I did what I felt was right.”
“Of course you did,” I said. “It was the wise thing to do.””

N. K. Jemisin book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 29 (p. 394)

Fear, Forgiveness, Strong

“It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Notes from Cambridge, Massachusetts (July 1842) published in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), Vol. II, p. 64.

Wisdom

“Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

World, Education, Justice, Home

“This theme of literal creation is so inwrought into the structure of historic thinking, that it will require a long struggle on the part of criticism to get rid of it. Through the influence of the Church and the philosophical schools, it may be said to have become in fact institutional, so that combating it is like fighting organised civilisation itself. Yet one can make the truth clear, that only by the dislodgment of it is the success of the deeper principle possible which is the real soul of civilisation, — I mean the principle of moral life, the life of duty freely followed.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.394

Life, Truth, School, Soul

“Democracy can't thrive under military rule — history is quite clear on this point … The police state is back, and it is even worse than Hosni Mubarak's. What is happening in Egypt today is very scary: The coup could lead society to lose its faith in democracy, which will give terrorist groups a chance to breathe again…By blocking peaceful change and weakening the Islamist groups that participate in the political process, the coup leaders support this stance and do the terrorists a favor.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

2010s, Morsy is the Arab World's Mandela (2013)

Peace, Faith, Democracy, History

“. It therefore is a very clear form of apartheid. I don’t think the Jewish people survived for 20 centuries, mostly through persecution and enduring endless cruelties, in order to now become the oppressors, inflicting cruelty on others. This new law does exactly that. That is why I am ashamed of being an Israeli today.”

Daniel Barenboim (1942) Israeli Argentine-born pianist and conductor

About the Basic Law proposal: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, Today, I Am Ashamed to Be an Israeli https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-today-i-am-ashamed-to-be-an-israeli-1.6294754 (July 22, 2018), '.

People, Law, Thinking

“The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent on each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is — insofar as it is thinkable at all — primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever does not fit into his system. The scientist, however, cannot afford to carry his striving for epistemological systematic that far. He accepts gratefully the epistemological conceptual analysis; but the external conditions, which are set for him by the facts of experience, do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted in the construction of his conceptual world by the adherence to an epistemological system. He therefore must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist: he appears as realist insofar as he seeks to describe a world independent of the acts of perception; as idealist insofar as he looks upon the concepts and theories as free inventions of the human spirit (not logically derivable from what is empirically given); as positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and theories justified only to the extent to which they furnish a logical representation of relations among sensory experiences. He may even appear as Platonist or Pythagorean insofar as he considers the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensible and effective tool of his research.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Contribution in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, p. A. Schilpp, ed. (The Library of Living Philosophers, Evanston, IL (1949), p. 684). Quoted in Einstein's Philosophy of Science http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/ 1940s

World, Way, Sense, Appearance

“Probably the greatest single weakness of the Sino-Soviet bloc is her shaky economy. Here is a soft spot where peaceful pressures could be devastating. No amount of Soviet propaganda can cover up the obvious collapse of the Chinese communes and the sluggish inefficiency of the Soviet collectivized farms. Every single Soviet satellite is languishing in a depression. Even Pravda has openly criticized the lack of bare essentials and the shoddy quality of Russian-made goods. These factors of austerity and deprivation add to the hatred and misery of the people which constantly feed the flames of potential revolt. Terrorist tactics have been used by the Red leaders to suppress uprisings. In spite of the virtual "state of siege" which exists throughout the Soviet empire, there are many outbreaks of violent protest. All of this explains why the Soviet leaders are constantly pleading for "free trade," "long-term loans," "increased availability of material goods from the West." Economically, Communism is collapsing but the West has not had the good sense to exploit it. Instead, the United States, Great Britain and 37 other Western powers are shipping vast quantities of goods to the Sino-Soviet bloc. Some business leaders have had the temerity to suggest that trade with the Reds helps the cause of peace. They suggest that "you never fight the people you trade with." Apparently they cannot even remember as far back as the late Thirties when this exact type of thinking resulted in the sale of scrap iron and oil to the Japanese just before World War II. After the attack on Pearl Harbor it became tragically clear that while trade with friends may promote peace, trade with a threatening enemy is an act of self-destruction. Have we forgotten that fatal lesson so soon?”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

War, People, World, Peace

“Early in life, most of us probably observe an unhappy relationship between labor and wealth — to wit, the heavier the labor, the less the wealth.
The man doing heavy manual work makes less than the man who makes a machine work for him, and this man makes less than the man sitting at a desk. The really rich people, the kind who go around on yachts and collect old books and new wives, do no labor at all.
The economic reasons for dividing the money this way are clear enough. One, it has always been done that way; and two, it's too hard to change at this late date. But the puzzling question is why, since the money is parceled out on this principle, young people are constantly being pummeled to take up a life of labor.
In any sensible world, the young would be told they could labor if they wanted to, but warned that if they did so it would cost them.”

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

"Lost Labor Love" (p.170)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Life, Money, People, Books

“This concept of capital-rebuilding is so important that it may be desirable to digress for a moment. In the broadest sense of the word, capital means the sum total of the valuable things possessed by the individuals of a society, excluding "claims," that is, mere titles to property. The word is used to mean both the inventory of these valuable things; the houses, factories, machines, livestock, stocks of raw materials, and goods in all stages of completion; and also to mean the sum of the values of these things. It should generally be clear from the context which of these two meanings is intended.”

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

Source: 1940s, The Economics of Peace, 1945, p. 5

Sense, Housing

“The Executive order that was issued on February 19, 1942, was for the sole purpose of prosecuting the war with the Axis Powers, and ceased to be effective with the end of those hostilities. Because there was no formal statement of its termination, however, there is concern among many Japanese-Americans that there may yet be some life in that obsolete document. I think it appropriate, in this our Bicentennial Year, to remove all doubts on that matter, and to make clear our commitment in the future.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)

Life, Hostility, War, Thinking

“I listened to the sermon, and I remember complete astonishment because what they were talking about were things that were just crazy. It was communion time, where you eat this wafer and are supposed to be eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. My first impression was, "This is a bunch of cannibals they've put me down among!" For some time, I puzzled over this and puzzled over why they were saying these things, because the connection between what they were saying and reality was very tenuous. How the hell did Jesus become something to be eaten?
I guess from that time it was clear to me that religion was largely nonsense--largely magical, superstitious things. In my own teen life, I just couldn't see any point in adopting something based on magic, which was obviously phony and superstitious.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

The Humanist, Mar/Apr 1991

Life, Religion, Hell, Drink

“The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on—only henceforth in my absence. (It's the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Hitch 22: A Memoir (2010), "Something of Myself".
2010s, 2010

Idea, Despair

“As air becomes the medium for light when the sun rises,
And as wax melts from the heat of fire,
So the soul drawn to that light is resplendent,
Feels self melt away,
Its will and actions no longer its own.
So clear is the imprint of God
That the soul, conquered, is conqueror;
Annihilated, it lives in triumph. What happens to the drop of wine
That you pour into the sea?
Does it remain itself, unchanged?
It is as if it never existed.
So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in,
It is united with Truth,
Its old nature fades away,
It is no longer master of itself.”

Jacopone da Todi (1236–1306) Italian Franciscan mystic

The Lauds

Love, God, Truth, Feeling

“I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

You come too.
"The Pasture", st. 1 (1914)
General sources

Spring, Water, Waiting

“Whatever analogy we choose, one thing is clear - any group with influence needs people outside that group who will criticise it. In the real world of politics and society, journalists do that - proper journalists who know what having principles means, who aim for objectivity while accepting that it is unattainable, and who are open about who pays them and who they work with.”

Bill Thompson (1960) English technology writer, born 1960

" Blog eats blog: The rise of the blogeoisie. http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DDA4.htm" by Bill Thompson, May 15, 2003.

People, World

“For ’t is always fair weather
When good fellows get together
With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.”

Richard Hovey (1864–1900) American writer

"Spring", p. 60.
Along the Trail (1898)

Weather

“Smith’s own theory, as given in the first five editions, is for the most part a theory of moral judgement —that is to say, it is an answer to the second question set out in the initial description of the subject of philosophical ethics. […] There is no thoroughgoing inquiry of what constitutes the character of virtue, as required by the first of the two questions, even though the historical survey at the end of the book deals with both questions in turn and, as it happens, gives more space to the first topic, the character of virtue, than to the second, the nature of moral judgement.
The fact is that Smith did not reach a distinctive view on the first topic. He has a distinctive view of the content of virtue, that is to say, a view of what are the cardinal virtues; but he does not give us an explanation of what is meant by the concept of moral virtue, how it arises, how it differentiates moral excellence from other forms of human excellence. […] I think that, when Smith came to revise the work for the sixth edition, he realized that he had not dealt at all adequately with the first of the two questions, and for that reason he added the new part VI, entitled ‘Of the Character of Virtue’, to remedy the omission. It is not, in my opinion, an adequate remedy, and it certainly does not match Smith’s elaborate answer to the second question. […]
Since the second of the two topics, the nature of moral judgement, is the main subject of both versions of Smith’s book, I shall give it priority in what follows. There is in fact a clear development in Smith’s view of this topic, especially in his conception of the impartial spectator, the most important element of Smith’s ethical theory.”

D. D. Raphael (1916–2015) Philosopher

The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy (2007), Ch. 1: Two Versions

Books, Question, Nature, Thinking

“We sometimes live to three hundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foam on the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here of those we love. We have not immortal souls, because Estelle is a star and we shall never live again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see.”

Hans Christian Andersen book The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid
Fairy Tales (1835)

Love, Soul, Star, Water

“Wadewitz said to attract more women editors, attitudes within the Wikipedia community need to change. This became clear when she revealed her gender, after writing anonymously for several years.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Wholf, Tracy (May 18, 2014). "'Wikipedian' editor took on website’s gender gap" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/. PBS NewsHour (PBS). Retrieved May 19, 2014. About

Women, Communication, Change

“I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonised, not colonisers.”

Clare Short (1946) British politician

2008-04-15 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7349166.stm

“Lucid gems are made of water; just as Crystal, which has been concreted from clear water, not always by a very great cold, as some used to judge, and by very hard frost, but sometimes by a less severe one, the nature of the soil fashioning it, the humour or juices being shut up in definite cavities, in the way in which spars are produced in mines.”

William Gilbert (astronomer) book De Magnete

English translation by Silvanus P. Thompson (1900).
De Magnete (1600)

Way, Fashion, Nature, Water

“What has become clear is that Britain cannot trust the Conservatives to run the economy. Everyone knows that I'm all in favour of apprenticeships, but let me tell you this is no time for a novice.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Speech at the Labour Party conference http://www.labour.org.uk/gordon_brown_conference, 23 September 2008. Prime Minister

Time

“Clear out 800,000 people and preserve it as a museum piece.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

On Boston, The New York Times (27 November 1955)

People

“A holy man will follow after purity of heart. He will dread all filthiness and uncleanness of spirit, and seek to avoid all things that might draw him into it. He knows his own heart is like tinder, and will diligently keep clear of the sparks of temptation. Who shall dare to talk of strength when David can fall? There is many a hint to be gleaned from the ceremonial law. Under it the man who only touched a bone or a dead body or a grave or a diseased person became at once unclean in the sight of God.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots (first published 1879).

God, Disease, Law, Heart

“I am saying cult. It is a cult of abomination. It is clear that it is abomination. The Torah punishes it with death. This is in the first line of serious sins. They say 'tendency,' 'perversion' -- nonsense. There is lust, and a person can overcome it if he wants, as with any other kind of lust. This is one of the most forbidden types of lust. The most grave.”

Shlomo Amar (1948) Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem

About the LGBT community in an interview with Israel Hayom http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=38063 (November 17, 2016)

Death, Personality

“The sovereign brilliancy of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery red. To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 2

World, Star, Personality

“She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.”

Hans Christian Andersen book The Little Match Girl

The Little Match Girl
Fairy Tales (1835)

Love, Hunger, God, Pain

“I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Toda Raba (1934)

Heart

“What I want to try to prove to you and make clear to you is that the principles of scientific management when properly applied, and when a sufficient amount of time has been given to make them really effective, must in all cases produce far large and better results, both for the employer and the employees, than can possibly be obtained under even this very rare type of management which I have been outlining, namely, the management of ‘initiative and incentive’, in which those on the management’s side deliberately give a very large incentive to their workmen, and in return the workmen respond by working to the very best of their ability at all times in the interest of their employers. I want to show you that scientific management is even far better than this rare type of management.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Testimony of Frederick W. Taylor... 1912, p. 107.

Time

“Operational analysis … cannot raise the decisive question whether the consent itself was not the work of manipulation—a question for which the actual state of affairs provides ample justification. The analysis cannot raise it because it would transcend its terms toward transitive meaning—toward a concept of democracy which would reveal the democratic election as a rather limited democratic process. Precisely such a non-operational concept is the one rejected by the authors as “unrealistic” because it defines democracy on too articulate a level as the clear-cut control of representation by the electorate—popular control as popular sovereignty.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 116

Democracy, Question, Decision

“They don’t believe in liberty. They don’t believe in China before the Communists. There is only one simple, clear task: to protect their control, to maintain their governing. Which is such a pity.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Wines, Michael. “ China’s Impolitic Artist, Still Waiting to Be Silenced http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/world/asia/28weiwei.html?pagewanted=all.” New York Times, November 28, 2009. 2000-09, 2009

“It is the habit of the boa constrictor to besmear the body of his victim with a foul slime before he devours it; and there are many people in England, and perhaps elsewhere, who seem to be unable to contemplate military operations for clear political objects, unless they can cajole themselves into the belief that their enemy are utterly and hopelessly vile. To this end the Dervishes, from the Mahdi and the Khalifa downwards, have been loaded with every variety of abuse and charged with all conceivable crimes. This may be very comforting to philanthropic persons at home; but when an army in the field becomes imbued with the idea that the enemy are vermin who cumber the earth, instances of barbarity may easily be the outcome. This unmeasured condemnation is moreover as unjust as it is dangerous and unnecessary.”

Winston S. Churchill book The River War

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (1899), Volume II pp. 394–395
(This passage does not appear in the 1902 one-volume abridgment, the version posted by Project Gutenberg).
Early career years (1898–1929)

People, Home, Idea, Personality

“Nothing at all is lost
When life has clear purpose.”

Chế Lan Viên (1920–1989) Vietnamese writer

"When You Have Purpose", as quoted in Understanding Vietnam by Neil Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), p. 267, and in Renovating Politics in Contemporary Vietnam by Zachary Abuza (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), p. 58

Life

“I would have known right away who you was when the sun blotted out your face the way it did when I took you to the grape arbor. I would have known at once when my water broke. And when I did see your face it had more than a hint of what you would look like after all these years. I would have known who you were right away because the cup after cup of water you drank proved and connected to the fact that you dribbled clear spit on my face the day I got to 124. I would have known right off, but Paul D distracted me. Otherwise I would have seen my fingernail prints right there on your forehead for all the world to see. From when I held your head up, out in the shed. And later on, when you asked me about the earrings I used to dangle for you to play with, I would have recognized you right off, except for Paul D.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 20

World, Way, Water, Sun

“There is clear truth in the idea that a struggle from the lower classes of society, towards the upper regions and rewards of society, must ever continue. Strong men are born there, who ought to stand elsewhere than there.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters

Men, Truth, Idea, Strong

“This law covers many pages. But the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down. If it is dear that State officials still intend to discriminate, then Federal examiners will be sent in to register all eligible voters. When the prospect of discrimination is gone, the examiners will be immediately withdrawn. And, under this act, if any county anywhere in this Nation does not want Federal intervention it need only open its polling places to all of its people.”

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

1960s, Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)

People, Law, Heart

“The slavery debate has been really a death-struggle from that moment. Mr. Clay thought not. Mr. Clay was a shrewd politician, but the difference between him and Calhoun was the difference between principle and expediency. Calhoun's sharp, incisive genius has engraved his name, narrow but deep, upon our annals. The fluent and facile talents of Clay in a bold, large hand wrote his name in honey upon many pages. But time is already licking it away. Henry Clay was our great compromiser. That was known, and that was the reason why Mr. Buchanan's story of a bargain with J. Q. Adams always clung to Mr. Clay. He had compromised political policies so long that he had forgotten there is such a thing as political principle, which is simply a name for the moral instincts applied to government. He did not see that when Mr. Calhoun said he should return to the Constitution he took the question with him, and shifted the battle-ground from the low, poisonous marsh of compromise, where the soldiers never know whether they are standing on land or water, to the clear, hard height of principle. Mr. Clay had his omnibus at the door to roll us out of the mire. The Whig party was all right and ready to jump in. The Democratic party was all right. The great slavery question was going to be settled forever. The bushel-basket of national peace and plenty and prosperity was to be heaped up and run over. Mr. Pierce came all the way from the granite hills of New Hampshire, where people are supposed to tell the truth, to an- nounce to a happy country that it was at peace — that its bushel-basket was never so overflowingly full before. And then what? Then the bottom fell out. Then the gentlemen in the national rope -walk at Washington found they had been busily twining a rope of sand to hold the country together. They had been trying to compromise the principles of human justice, not the percentage of a tariff; the instincts of human nature and consequently of all permanent government, and the conscience of the country saw it. Compromises are the sheet-anchor of the Union — are they? As the English said of the battle of Bunker Hill, that two such victories would ruin their army, so two such sheet- anchors as the Compromise of 1850 would drag the Union down out of sight forever.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Death, Happiness, People, Truth

“We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don’t clear anybody. We don’t condemn anybody.”

J. Edgar Hoover (1895–1972) American law enforcement officer and first director of the FBI

Look magazine (14 June 1956).

“If there is to be a competition, there must be some basis for resolving it. It is also clear that the competition should be experienced based.”

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

, p. 53
Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity (1995), Ch 2. Adaptive Systems

“What colour are they now, thy quiet waters?
The evening star has brought the evening light,
And filled the river with the green hillside;
The hill-tops waver in the rippling water,
Trembles the absent vine and swells the grape
In thy clear crystal.”
Quis color ille vadis, seras cum propulit umbras Hesperus et viridi perfudit monte Mosellam! tota natant crispis iuga motibus et tremit absens pampinus et vitreis vindemia turget in undis.

Ausonius Mosella

Quis color ille vadis, seras cum propulit umbras
Hesperus et viridi perfudit monte Mosellam!
tota natant crispis iuga motibus et tremit absens
pampinus et vitreis vindemia turget in undis.
"Mosella", line 192; translation from Helen Waddell Mediaeval Latin Lyrics ([1929] 1943) p. 31.

Star, Light, Water

“[T]he individual in whom the will for the light is strong and clear finds his heart inextricably bound up with the struggle of the forces of light in his native place and time. Much as he may long for the opportunity of fuller self- expression in a happier world, he knows that for him self-expression is impossible save in the world in which his mind is rooted. The individual in whom the will for the light is weak soon persuades himself that his opportunity lies elsewhere.”

Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) British novelist and philosopher

Part V The Reign of Darkness, 3. Diabolic World Empire.
Darkness and the light (1941/42)

World, Light, Strong, Time

“Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, what is this too but seeing the thing sufficiently? The word that will describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakspeare's morality, his valour, candour, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world!”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Men, Truth, Secret, World

“[Our goal was to] translate aspects of culture never successfully recorded by the scientist, although often caught by the artist, into some form of communication sufficiently clear and sufficiently unequivocal to satisfy the requirements of scientific enquiry.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Balinese Character (1942), p. xi

Communication

“Everyone in Boston of a certain age knows the story of Rosie Ruiz, the marathoner who crossed the Boston finish line in 1980 at 2:31.56, flabby thighs and all, having barely broken a sweat. Despite mounting skepticism, she basked in the glory of having run the third-fastest female marathon in history – for a few days, that is, until a couple of students remembered seeing her jump out of the crowd half a mile from the finish.
Something of the sort has been going on recently with the shade of Friedrich von Hayek. The Austrian economist, who died in 1992 just short of what would have been his ninety-third birthday, never made false claims for himself – far from it: he knew all too well the loneliness of the long distance runner. And scrupulous work as editor by the late W. W. Bartley, interpreter Bruce Caldwell, and biographer Alan Ebenstein, have made it possible to see the man clear.
But the claims conservatives are making about the role he played as an economist are beginning to smack of Ruizismus. That is, they have jumped a caricature out of the bushes late in the day and claim that their guy ran a great race.”

David Warsh (1944) American journalist

"Ruizismus among the Austrians," 4 December 2011

Age, Guy, History, Birthday

“Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition--and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do--clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth--the naked shining truth.”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Hercule Poirot
Death on the Nile (1937)

Truth

“Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Symposiacs, book viii. Question IX
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Sea

“.. I will endeavour to make clear to men of good will what the word 'material' means with regard to painting and that, without the material substance of paint, a painting is not a work of art but merely a decorative object, or rather, if it deals with an invented painting, the value of the image resides in its spiritual content.
In order to be a work of art, a painting must be very well painted and the good quality of the paint depends completely on the material substance of the paint with which it is executed. This matter, which constitutes the substance of painting, is composed of two elements which are equally important and absolutely inseparable: physical substance and metaphysical substance. These two elements complete each other reciprocally and when they are of a superior quality, create a masterpiece by way of their absolute harmony.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Quote from De Cirico's text 'A DISCOURSE ON THE MATERIAL SUBSTANCE OF PAINT', 1942 http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/541-547Metafisica5_6.pdf, p. 542 1920s and later

Men, Art, Way, Painting

“It is quite clear from what has been said and written that, time after time after time, there has been a conspiracy between the Conservative Front Bench in this House and the inbuilt Conservative majority in the House of Lords to defeat legislation that has passed through the House of Commons…I warn the House of Lords of the consequences…it is our strong view that the House of Lords should recall that its role is not that of a wrecking chamber, but of a revising chamber. In recent weeks, it has been wrecking legislation passed by this House.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1976/nov/09/economic-policy in the House of Commons (9 November 1976) Prime Minister

Strong, Time, Housing

“The reason for the lack of business in this House is perfectly clear and it is not the responsibility of this House to deal with the matter. The Taoiseach and the cabal that runs Fine Gael have decided that they will take over the role previously held by Fianna Fáil as the slightly constitutional party. They have decided to destroy the Seanad by refusing to refer legislation to it.”

David Norris (1944) Irish scholar, independent Senator, and gay and civil rights activist

14 May 2013 http://www.kildarestreet.com/sendebates/?id=2013-05-14a.7&s=speaker%3A210#g37

Business, Housing

“Some of God's children, the "holy people", the writer among the number, though not associated with the "Miller movement", nor with the denomination subsequently organized, which calls itself the "Second Advent Church," have been looking at and "earnestly waiting" for Michael's Kingdom; and gladly we bear testimony to the "blessedness" of the wonderfully clear unfoldings of our Father's plan, at and since the fall of 1874 - the end of the 1335 days.
Words fail us to express this blessedness! Only those who have been refreshed in spirit with this new wine of the Kingdom could appreciate it, if we could describe it. It is therefore something to be felt, rather than told. It was at and since the ending of those 1335 prophetic, symbolic days that the previous views of the Lord's presence, and the fact that we are even now living in the time of the "harvest" of this Gospel age, and in the time of the setting up of our Michael's (Christ's) Kingdom, came to be known.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 88.

God, Children, People, Age

“God told him to bring two of every sort, not two of every species, no, two of every sort. He said, bring them after his kind, after their kind, after his kind. The Bible is real clear on that topic. You bring all the kinds, not every species. You only have to bring those the whose nostrils have the breath of life, of those on dry land. Noah did not have to bring any fish on the ark. They had plenty of water outside. He also did not have to bring any bugs on the Ark, because bugs do not have nostrils. Bugs breathe through their skin, through spiracles. Insects were not required to be on the Ark. Insects can survive a flood just fine. Go any place where there has been a flood, after the water goes down. Walk out into the mud and tell me the first thing that you notice. Bugs by the millions and millions, right? Insects did not have to go on the ark. Some of them might have been on there but they did not have to be.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

Life, God, Fish, Water

“I think when a man first discovers that two and two is four, there is 'beauty' in that; and we can see why. But if people stand and look at the moon and one says 'I think it's just beautiful tonight' and the other says 'The moon makes me feel awful' we are both 'clear'. A geometric shape – we know why we like it; and an unreasonable shape; it has a certain mystery that we recognize as real; but it is difficult to put these things in an objective way.”

William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter

as cited in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 221: Remark in the 'Artists' Session' at Studio 35, 1950.
1950s

People, Beauty, Way, Feeling

“Since 'tis certain that Earth and Jupiter have their Water and Clouds, there is no reason why the other Planets should be without them. I can't say that they are exactly of the same nature with our Water; but that they should be liquid their use requires, as their beauty does that they be clear. This Water of ours, in Jupiter or Saturn, would be frozen up instantly by reason of the vast distance of the Sun. Every Planet therefore must have its own Waters of such a temper not liable to Frost.”

Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher

Book I http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/huygens/huygens_ct_en.htm, p. 27 Cosmotheoros (1695; publ. 1698)

Beauty, Nature, Water, Sun

“I could throw 56-pound words clear across the Grand Canyon. As a matter of course, I went into politics.”

Henry Fountain Ashurst (1874–1962) United States Senator from Arizona

"The Silver-Tongued Sunbeam" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896290-1,00.html. Time (June 8, 1962)

“As stars in the night sky glittering
round the moon's brilliance blaze in all their glory
when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm…
all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs
and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts
the boundless, bright air and all the stars shine clear
and the shepherd's heart exults.”

Homér Iliad

VIII. 551–555 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Alexander Pope's translation:
: As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Star, Heart, Night

“I know that some people in the U. S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism… Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy… The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security to its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”

Lars Løkke Rasmussen (1964) Danish politician

"Nordic Solutions and Challenges: A Danish Perspective" http://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-minister-bernie-sanders (October 2015), speech to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. 2010s, 2015

Life, People, Dreams, Freedom

“The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) second president of Egypt

As quoted in [The Game of Nations, The Amorality of Power Politics, Copeland, Miles, 216, 1970, 4, Simon and Schuster]

Stupidity

“In the records referring to the rise of Vijayanagara, the Marathas, and the Sikhs, the religious motive is brought into a sharper focus. These records leave us in no doubt that the defence of Hindu Dharma was uppermost in the minds of Madhava Vidyaranya, Samartha Ramdas, and Guru Tegh Bahadur. The purpose for which the sword was unsheathed by Harihar and Bukka, Shivaji and the Sikhs, becomes quite clear in many poems written in praise of these heroes by a number of Hindu poets. The purpose, we are told, was to save the cow, the Brahmin, the šikhã, the sûtra, the honour of Hindu women, and the sanctity of Hindu places of worship.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Women, Motivation

“Yet we are natural god-makers, a fact that certainly should be taken into consideration by our psychologies. In fact, our god-making tendencies characterize us. Throughout history, we've consistently formed these mental models of godly beings, who then, through visions and revelations, make their messages clear to the conscious mind, laying down the rules for our civilizations, structuring our institutions and directing our military establishments also, whatever their sophistication, or lack of it.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 216

God, History, Nature

“We would have to make clear to our German ally our disagreement on three points: treatment of the occupied countries, excesses towards the Jews, and relations with the Papacy. One ought to try to create a true European federation respectful of each nationality.”

Ugo Cavallero (1880–1943) Italian general

To Alberto Pirelli. Quoted in "All Or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941-1943" - Page 67 - by Jonathan Steinberg - History - 2002

Country

“[Fitzpatrick] seems a strapping and genteel looking young man, and more fit to be a starcher to laundress than a trooper, but to a keen observer he has the wrong appearance to have anything like a clear conscience or a manly heart. The deceit is plain lit to be seen in the white cabbage-hearted looking face.”

Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger

Cameron Letter (1878)

Appearance, Heart

“It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 38.

Mathematics, Science

“The case of methodology is analogous though less clear. Nobody would object to the subject of methodology being science, or some pseudo science. On closer inspection, however, this agreement is no more than a verbal coincidence. It rests on what is meant by science, as reported as a subject of methodology. In fact the subject methodologists call science is more often than not different from what scientists call science. Methodologists are inclined to consider a science as a linguistic system whereas the scientist would only admit that his science has a language, not that it is a language.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Source: Realistic models in probability (1968), p. 1

Science

“I have a feeling that sooner or later I shall arrive at something legitimate, only I must begin, not with hypotheses, but with specific instances, no matter how minute. If I then succeed in distinguishing a clear structure, I get more from it than from a lofty imaginary construction. And the typical will automatically follow from a series of examples.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (Bern, April 1902), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 442
1895 - 1902

Feeling

“On Al Gore: "The Eco-Messiah sternly talks up the old Nazi comparisons: "what we're facing is an ecological Holocaust, and the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin." That 221,000 kilowatt-hours might suggest that, if this is the ecological Holocaust, Gore's pad is Auschwitz. But, as his spokesperson would no doubt argue, when you're faced with ecological Holocausts and ecological Kristallnachts, sometimes the only way to bring it to an end is with an ecological Hiroshima. The Gore electric bill is the eco-atom bomb: you have to light up the world in order to save it.”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

, March 4 2007

World, Way, Light

“The only way to make it clear to him that he should not come here to our lists in the future, is to teach him a hard lesson, and that is done by continually re-adding cc's back to him -- because the mails talk about him -- even when his friends come our mailing lists and delete the his address from the cc list. Like this message, which adds him back in. Richard, you are a lying cheating hypocrite.”

Theo de Raadt (1968) systems software engineer

[Re: Real men don't attack straw men, MARC, openbsd-misc (Mailing list), http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119761726816776, 2007-12-14, 2017-04-20]

Way, Lying, Future, Cheating

“That it has pleased God to make Holy Scripture obscure in certain places lest, if it were perfectly clear to all, it might be vulgarized and subjected to disrespect or be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error.”

Pope Gregory VII Pope from 1073 to 1085

In response to the request made in 1079 by Vratislaus, duke of Bohemia, seeking permission to use Slavonic in local church services.
Awake! magazine December 2011, page 7; They Tried to Keep God’s Word From the Masses.

God, People, Error, Intelligence

“In 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in Vietnam, with friends and adversaries throughout the world. Since Christmas your government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam. Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all 113 that we have relations with, and some that we don't. We have talked to the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace. In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear. We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination—that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without fear. The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification. This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard. We have also made it clear—from Hanoi to New York—that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any proposals—four points or 14 or 40—and we will consider the views of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future. We have said all this, and we have asked—and hoped—and we have waited for a response. So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure.”

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

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

People, World, Fear, Peace

“I stand on the threshold of new missions and life is making new demands upon me. No matter what further tasks I shall be carrying out, it is perfectly clear to me that the complete liberation of the working woman and the creation of the foundation of a new sexual morality will always remain the highest aim of my activity, and of my life.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Life

“Liberalism has merely cleared a field in which every soul and every corporate interest may fight with every other for domination. Whoever is victorious in this struggle will make an end of liberalism; and the new order, which will deem itself saved, will have to defend itself in the following age against a new crop of rebels.”

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

"The Irony of Liberalism"
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Age, Soul, Victory, Fight

“The human aspect of industry has changed very considerably in the last fifty years. The nature and range of these changes are still partly unknown to us, but the question of their significance is no longer in dispute. Whereas the human problems of industry were regarded until recently as lying within the strict province of the specialist, it is now beginning to be realized that a clear statement of such problems in particular situations is necessary to the effective thinking of every business administrator and every economic expert.”

Elton Mayo (1880–1949) Australian academic

Source: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, (1933), p. 1, Chapter 1: Fatigue; Lead paragraph

Lying, Question, Business, Nature

“Space-time is curved in the neighborhood of material masses, but it is not clear whether the presence of matter causes the curvature of space-time or whether this curvature is itself responsible for the existence of matter.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

p, 125
The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Time

“I had determined to go as far as declaring in abstruse and puzzling utterances the future causes of the "common advent", even those truly cogent ones that I have foreseen. Yet lest whatever human changes may be to come should scandalise delicate ears, the whole thing is written in nebulous form, rather than as a clear prophecy of any kind.”

Nostradamus (1503–1566) French apothecary and reputed seer

Letter from Salon to his son Cesar (March 1555) as translated by Peter Lemesurier http://www.propheties.it/nostradamus/letters/cesar.htm

Change, Future

“A clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind, and far higher than accumulations of brick and granite and plaster and stucco, however cunningly put together.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Self-Culture (1838)

“Ayşe Erkoç learned long ago that the secret of doing anything illicit in Istanbul is to do it in full public gaze in the clear light of day. No one ever questions the legitimacy of the blatant.”

Ian McDonald book The Dervish House

Source: The Dervish House (2010), Ch. 7, §7 (p. 251).

Secret, Question, Light, Learning

“The orthodox doctrines of economics which were dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a clear message. They supported laisser faire, free trade, the gold standard, and the universally advantageous effects of the pursuit of profit by competitive private enterprise.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Introduction, p. vii
Economic Heresies (1971)

Support, Universe

“Dale C. Thomson Alexander Mackenzie, Clear Grit, 1960. 14960, Macmillan of Canada, 436 pages”

Alexander Mackenzie (1822–1892) 2nd Prime Minister of Canada

References

“All international investment agreements under negotiation should include a clear provision stipulating that in case of conflict between the human rights obligations of a State and those under other treaties, human rights conventions prevail”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the adverse impacts of free trade and investment agreements on a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx. 2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly

“If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that the ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells us events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our cannoes, feed our children. If we sell our land, you must learn, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.”

Chief Seattle (1786–1866) Duwamish chief

Misattributed

Life, Children, People, Learning

“Since becoming a central banker, I have learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Speaking to a Senate Committee in 1987, as quoted in the Guardian Weekly, November 4, 2005.
1980s

Learning

“The rest were standing around in hatless, smoky little groups of twos and threes and fours inside the heated waiting room, talking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Source: Franny and Zooey (1961), Franny (1955), p. 1

World, Waiting

“I would like to admit the clear error I made in front of all Spanish citizens.”

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

January 2007, apologising for his announcement on 29th December 2006, "in a year things will be even better"/ As President, 2007 Source: El País: Minuto a minuto del debate sobre política antiterrorista en el Congreso http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Minuto/minuto/debate/politica/antiterrorista/Congreso/elpepuesp/20070115elpepunac_9/Tes (Spanish).

Error

“I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army as vicious, brutal, mad-dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and have compared us to such characters as john dillinger and ma barker. It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, see, or hear, that we are the victims. The victims and not the criminals.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)

Dogs, Thinking, Parting, Painting

“I was perversely delighted to see the Catholic Church and the Vatican go after nuns because I think they made a major error. People are quite clear in viewing nuns as the servants and the teachers and the supporters of the poor. You contrast that with the fact that the Vatican did virtually nothing about long-known pedophiles, and it’s just too much.
Their stance on abortion is also quite dishonest historically, because as the Jesuits (who always seem to be more honest historians of the Catholic Church) point out, the Church approved of and even regulated abortion well into the mid-1800s. The whole question of ensoulment was determined by the date of baptism. But after the Napoleonic Wars there weren’t enough soldiers anymore and the French were quite sophisticated about contraception. So Napoleon III prevailed on Pope Pius IX to declare abortion a mortal sin, in return for which Pope Pius IX got all the teaching positions in the French schools and support for the doctrine of papal infallibility. … My favorite line belongs to an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston. Flo Kennedy and I were in the backseat talking about Flo’s book, Abortion Rap (1971), and the driver turned around and said, “Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” I wish I’d gotten her name so we could attribute it to her.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

The Humanist interview (2012)

Men, War, People, Books

“The analysis is clear, we have a great problem with Islam, in the Netherlands too. The solution is not so complicated; what is missing are political guts and a feeling of urgency. Immigration from Islamic countries should be forbidden. We must learn to be intolerant with the intolerant, in the street, in the mosque, in court. We must answer hatred and violence by terrorists with exclusion and intolerance and show who the boss in the Netherlands is.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Den Haag laf tegen islamitisch extremisme http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2005/07/22/den-haag-laf-tegen-islamitisch-extremisme-10580808-a530504, NRC Handelsblad (22 July 2005). Quoted in Tradition and Future of Islamic Education (2009) by Wilna A. J. Meijer, p. 24. 2000s

Feeling, Problem, Learning, Country

“Slavery, that was a kind of alchemy for such White folk, or so they reckoned. They calculated a way of turning each bead of a Black man’s sweat into gold and each moan of despair from a Black woman’s throat into the sweet clear sound of a silver coin ringing on the money-changer’s table. There was buying and selling of souls in that place. Yet there was nary a one of them who understood the whole price they paid for owning other folk.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Prentice Alvin (1989), Chapter 1.

Money, Way, Soul, Despair

“Jesus … never laughed. Nothing has ever equaled the seriousness of his life; it is clear that pleasure, recreation, anything that could divert the mind, had no part in it. The life of Jesus was utterly taut, wholly caught up in God and in the woes of men, and he gave to nature only what he could not have refused it without destroying it.”

Pierre Nicole (1625–1695) French Jansenists

Essais de Morale (1753), XIII, 390, in The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927) as translated by Mary Ilford (1968), p. 118

Life, Men, God, Pleasure

“I stopped reading the comics page a long time ago. It seems that whoever is in charge of what to put on that page is given an edict that states: “For God’s sake, try to be as bland as possible and by no means offend any one!” Thus, whenever something like Doonesbury would come along, it would be continually censored and, if lucky, eventually banished to the editorial pages. The message was clear: Keep it simple, keep it cute, and don’t be challenging, outrageous or political.
And keep it white!
It’s odd that considering all the black ink that goes into making the comics section (and color on Sundays) that you rarely see any black faces on that page. Well, maybe it’s not so odd after all, considering the makeup of most newsrooms in our country. It is even more stunning when you consider that in many of our large cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago where the white population is barely a third of the overall citizenry, the comics pages seem to be one of the last vestiges of the belief that white faces are just…well, you know…so much more happy and friendly and funny!
Of course, the real funnies are on the front pages of most papers these days. That’s where you can see a lot of black faces. The media loves to cover black people on the front page. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper.
Oops, there I go playing the race card. You see, in America these days, we aren’t supposed to talk about race. We have been told to pretend that things have gotten better, that the old days of segregation and cross burnings are long gone, and that no one needs to talk about race again because, hey, we fixed that problem.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the “whites only” signs are down, but they have just been replaced by invisible ones that, if you are black, you see hanging in front of the home loan department of the local bank, across the entrance of the ritzy suburban or on the doors of the U. S. Senate”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

100 percent Caucasian and going strong!
Foreword to "The Boondocks Treasury: a Right to be Hostile" by Aaron McGruder, (2003).
2003

Love, Men, God, Happiness

“When the facts are in, it may well turn out that the more extreme condemnations were in fact correct. But even if that turns out to be the case, it will in no way alter the conclusions we have reached on the central question addressed here: how the available facts were selected, modified, or sometimes invented to create a certain image offered to the general population. The answer to this question seems clear, and it is unaffected by whatever may be discovered about Cambodia in the future.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Source: After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, p. 293.

Way, Question, Future

“A cloud masses, the sky darkens, leaves twist upward, and we know that it will rain. We also know that after the storm, the runoff will feed into groundwater miles away, and the sky will grow clear by tomorrow. All of these events are distant in time and space, if they're all connected within the same pattern. Each has an influence on the rest, and influence that is usually hidden from view. You can only understand the system of rainstorm by contemplating the whole not any part of the pattern.
Businesses and other human endeavors are also systems. They, too, are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it's doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get resolved.”

Peter M. Senge book The Fifth Discipline

Source: The Fifth Discipline (1990), p. 7 as cited in: Vivien Martin (2003) Leading Change in Health and Social Care. p. 37

Understanding, Business, Problem, Distant

“For the sake of national integration in India, it is imperative to set the record straight, to reverse this process of absolutizing any minor difference in identity into a separatist claim to a nation-state. In the specific case of the Sikhs, the obvious fact should be made clear, that Sikh identity is integrated in a hierarchy of differentiation within Hinduism : it is a Bhakti sect within the broad Vaishnava tradition within Sanatana Dharma.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

“I spent on the Other Earth many "other years," wandering from mind to mind and country to country, but I did not gain any clear understanding of the psychology of the Other Men and the significance of their history till I encountered one of their philosophers, an aging but still vigorous man whose eccentric and unpalatable views had prevented him from attaining eminence.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter III: The Other Earth; 1. On the Other Earth (p. 26)

Men, Age, History, Understanding

“The " general" definition may give you no hint as to the way in which a particular assertion is meant to be interpreted. When, therefore, as in formal debate, a proposition is advanced by persons other than those who discuss it, clearness in defining is not sufficient. In such cases a definition must have two qualities: it must be clear, and it must be satisfactory to the persons addressed. They must know what the speaker means, and they must be convinced that his meaning is the correct one, — correct for that particular proposition at the time and place and under the conditions of that particular debate. Otherwise, they may object in the end that he has proved, not the given proposition, but another which he has substituted for it by means of arbitrary definitions.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 27; partly cited in: Branham (2013, p. 39)

Way, Time, Personality

“There [is] no little vigour and force added to words, when they are delivered in a neat and fine way, and somewhat out of the ordinary road, common and dull language relishing more of the clown than the gentleman. But herein also affectation must be avoided; it being better for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express himself, than by those words which may smell either of the lamp or inkhorn.”

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648) Anglo-Welsh soldier, diplomat, historian, poet and religious philosopher

Source: The Autobiography, Pp. 35-6

Way

Quotes about clearing page 9

Quotes about clearing
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