Quotes about completion
page 22

“Young people are not yet biased in their mind. They are not completely taken by their expert opinions. Expert opinions have a difficulty to go beyond of what they know. When you start in a new field, from the point of view of a scientist, you certainly are 20 years younger, because in the new field you're not yet biased and you look at certain things a little bit more relaxed and a little bit more open.”

Heinrich Rohrer (1933–2013) Swiss physicist

Interview with Heinrich Rohrer at the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 9 April, 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org.

People

“It is apparent that prisoners of war are among the most vulnerable of people. Not only are they completely under the control of their captors, but in a time of conflict, the hatred and brutality of the battlefield are very likely to be mirrored within military prison walls.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Pages 125-126
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

War, People, Time

“By August, 1913, all links in the chain of moving assembly lines were complete except the last and most spectacular one - the one we had first experimented with one Sunday morning just five years before. Again a towrope was hitched to a chassis, this time pulled by a capstan. Each part was attached to the moving chassis in order, from axles at the beginning to bodies at the end of the line. Some parts took longer to attach than others; so, to keep an even pull on the towrope, there must be differently spaced intervals between delivery of the parts along the line. This called for patient timing and rearrangement until the flow of parts and the speed and intervals along the assembly line meshed into a perfectly synchronized operation throughout all stages of production. Before the end of the year a power-driven assembly line was in operation, and New Year's saw three more installed. Ford mass production and a new era in industrial history had begun.”

Charles E. Sorensen (1881–1968) American businessman

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 130-131 ; As cited in: EyeWitness to History (2005)

History, Time, Parting, Speed

“In the face of the idea that truth might afford the opposite of satisfaction and turn out to be completely shocking to humanity at any given historical moment, … the fathers of pragmatism made the satisfaction of the subject the criterion of truth. For such a doctrine there is no possibility of rejecting or even criticizing any species of belief that is enjoyed by its adherents.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 52.

Truth, Idea

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

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

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

Books, Faith, Beauty, History

“Yes, sex may be at least in part inflected by politics, our fantasies may be at least in part a compendium of cultural myths, but the ways in which sex and fantasy ripen within the individual seem to me to vary so greatly that summaries become useless, even dangerous.But if I were to venture my own generalizations, I would say that with the collapse of other social values (those of religion, patriotism, the family and so on), sex has been forced to take up the slack, to become our sole mode of transcendence and our only touchstone of authenticity. The cry for scorching, multiple orgasms, the drive toward impeccable and virtuoso performance, the belief that only in complete sexual compatibility lies true intimacy, the insistence that sex is the only mode for experiencing thrills, for achieving love, for assessing and demonstrating personal worth — all these projects are absurd.”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

New York City (p. 282).
States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980)

Love, Family, Religion, Sex

“"What do we do if we don't go through a hole?" asked Suzy.
"I think we get smashed to bits," said Arthur. "But like Longtayle said, it's mostly holes. And the current must aim for the holes, or get directed through them. We'll be all right."
"What happens if we don't get smashed completely to bits, but just a bit smashed to bits?" asked Suzy after a while. "I mean, so we're still alive but drowning?"
"Suzy, please don't ask me these questions right now," said Arthur, with as much restraint as he could manage.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Drowned Wednesday (2005), p. 276.

Question, Thinking

“Benjamin Black is a craftsman and these are crafted works. I'm very proud of them. I think they're well made, but Banville is doing something else – he's trying to make a kind of poetry, I suppose. I'm a perfectionist. It's an illness but a good illness. It's a completely different method of writing. Banville writes with a fountain pen on paper in a manuscript book and Black works straight on to the screen. It could take me a whole morning to write a few sentences as Banville, but as Black I'd be very annoyed if I didn't have at least two or three pages done. This drives crime-writers crackers because they think I'm saying that their craft is not worth it. I'm simply saying it's a different thing. I don't know why they worry when I talk about speed; after all, Georges Simenon wrote his books in about 10 days.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Who cares whodunnit? (2013)

Books, Thinking, Speed

“Prior work has shown an association between diversification strategy and profitability. This paper replicates that association using more recent and complete data and goes on to investigate the sources of the association. Theoretical arguments are advanced which predict the association which will remain once the effects of varying industry profitability are removed. Empirical tests verify this prediction and permit the discrimination between the effects of industry and diversification strategy on profitability.”

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

Source: "Diversity and Profitability", 1982, p. 359; Abstract

“Man's quest for knowledge is an expanding series whose limit is infinity, but philosophy seeks to attain that limit at one blow, by a short circuit providing the certainty of complete and inalterable truth. Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on.”

Stanisław Lem book His Master's Voice

Source: His Master's Voice (1968), Ch. 2

Truth, Knowledge, Science

“"Mulla, Mulla, my son has written from the Abode of Learning to say that he has completely finished his studies!"
"Console yourself, madam, with the thought that God will no doubt send him more."”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Idries Shah, The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin (1973), , p. 134

God, Study, Learning

“Our call is to young India. It is the young who must be the builders of the new world,.. not those who accept the competitive individualism, the capitalism or the materialistic communism of the West as India's future ideal, not those who are enslaved to old religious formulas and cannot believe in the acceptance and transformation of life by the spirit, but all who are free in mind and heart to accept a completer truth and labour for a greater ideal…. It is with a confident trust in the spirit that inspires us that we take our place among the standard-bearers of the new humanity that is struggling to be born amidst the chaos of a world in dissolution, and of the future India, the greater India of the rebirth that is to rejuvenate the mighty outworn body of the ancient Mother.84”

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

August, 1920
India's Rebirth

Life, Truth, World, Confidence

“If there be any fact in our history beyond dispute it is that Roger Sherman expressed the universal sentiment of our fathers when he said, 'The abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United States, and the good sense of the several States would probably by degrees complete it'. In that spirit the compromises of the Constitution were made. Had not slavery at that time deprecated itself as an evil, the Constitution could not have been formed. Could the future have been foreseen, it would not have been formed. But, reasoning from the light they had, it was fair to believe as they believed, that, when the slave-trade was prohibited, the system would wither away under the double curse of Morality and Law.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

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

Law, History, Sense, Light

“Do not in any way 'prove the rule,' but on the contrary are completely valid disproofs, even though they are rare, indeed, so long as one single exception is demonstrable.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, 1935, p. 24.

Way

“Communism is at once a complete system of proletarian ideology and a new social system. It is different from any other ideological and social system, and is the most complete, progressive revolutionary and rational system in human history. The ideological and social system of feudalism has a place only in the museum of history. The ideological and social system of capitalism has also resembles "a dying person who is sinking fast, like the sun setting beyond the western hills", and will soon be relegated to the museum. The communist ideological and social system alone is full of youth and vitality, sweeping the world with the momentum of an avalanche and the force of a thunderbolt.”

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

On New Democracy (1940)

Youth, World, History, Communication

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

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

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

Friendship, People, World, Democracy

“Has not the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her Way was to pass thro’ a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct Course; one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left, so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was completed, the poor Snake died with thirst.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania reported in Albert H. Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1907), vol. 10, pp. 57–58.
Decade unclear

Way, Drink, Decision, Time

“This year we must continue to improve the quality of American life. Let us fulfill and improve the great health and education programs of last year, extending special opportunities to those who risk their lives in our armed forces. I urge the House of Representatives to complete action on three programs already passed by the Senate—the Teacher Corps, rent assistance, and home rule for the District of Columbia. In some of our urban areas we must help rebuild entire sections and neighborhoods containing, in some cases, as many as 100,000 people. Working together, private enterprise and government must press forward with the task of providing homes and shops, parks and hospitals, and all the other necessary parts of a flourishing community where our people can come to live the good life. I will offer other proposals to stimulate and to reward planning for the growth of entire metropolitan areas. Of all the reckless devastations of our national heritage, none is really more shameful than the continued poisoning of our rivers and our air. We must undertake a cooperative effort to end pollution in several river basins, making additional funds available to help draw the plans and construct the plants that are necessary to make the waters of our entire river systems clean, and make them a source of pleasure and beauty for all of our people. To attack and to overcome growing crime and lawlessness, I think we must have a stepped-up program to help modernize and strengthen our local police forces. Our people have a right to feel secure in their homes and on their streets—and that right just must be secured. Nor can we fail to arrest the destruction of life and property on our highways.”

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

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, People, Health, Pleasure

“Fellow citizens, there is little necessity on this occasion to speak at length and critically of this great and good man, and of his high mission in the world. That ground has been fully occupied and completely covered both here and elsewhere. The whole field of fact and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln. His personal traits and public acts are better known to the American people than are those of any other man of his age. He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches. Even those who only knew him through his public utterance obtained a tolerably clear idea of his character and personality. The image of the man went out with his words, and those who read them knew him.”

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

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

People, Age, World, Feeling

“Memento mori—remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die—what makes this any different from a half hour?”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 209

Death, Stupidity, Personality

“Any satisfactory reproduction of the Conics must fulfil certain essential conditions: (1) it should be Apollonius and nothing but Apollonius, and nothing should be altered either in the substance or in the order of his thought, (2) it should be complete, leaving out nothing of any significance or importance, (3) it should exhibit under different headings the successive divisions of the subject, so that the definite scheme followed by the author may be seen as a whole.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

p, 125
Apollonius of Perga (1896)

Success

“It was all completely incomprehensible to me. I was fearful of the language. You had to look up every third word.”

Kevin Kline (1947) American actor

On his initial reaction, as a student, to the works of Shakespeare, The Washington University Record http://record.wustl.edu/archive/1996/01-25-96/1834.html (25 January 1996)

Fear

“Good deeds remain good, no matter whether we know how the world was made or not. Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer. We know, at least, what his fate is now, namely, to be wedded to the vileness.
The question for anyone to decide, who hesitates between good and evil, is whether he aspires to be a full-weight man, or merely the fragment, nay, the counterfeit of a man. Only he who ceaselessly aims at moral completeness is, in the true sense, a human being.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)

Death, Fate, World, Question

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

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

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

“Why did not Indians enter White society, particularly in view of the numerous attempts by Whites to "civilize" them? The answer is that White settlers possessed no traditions and institutions comparable to the Indians' hospitality and sharing, adoption, and complete social integration. …Whites who educated Indians did so with the idea that the Indians would return to their own people as missionaries to spread the gospel, not that they might become functioning parts of White society.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

People, Education, Idea, Parting

“Stock markets are never better performing than during a hyperinflation. Interest rates are rock bottom, but only through artificial means. Gross Private Domestic Investment is still falling off a cliff, having already completely erased ten years of investment from the record of history. Here is a fundamental factor that suggests that terrible things are still to come our way. And I guess I'll have to put this in italics because the point seems to be lost in the shuffle: unemployment is still rising, even soaring straight to double digits!
The sociology of this intrigues me to no end. Unemployment is one of the human elements that journalists are supposed to glom onto. Oh, look at poor Bob and Jane and how they lost their jobs and have nowhere to go, etc., etc. Talk about human interest! Where are the weepy stories about the plight of people wandering around with no work? Instead, we get happy clappy stories about how things are not nearly as bad as they might be had the great and powerful Obama of Oz not appeared to save the day. There is also the remarkable spin that things are getting worse, yes, but at a slower pace than before – an observation that might be most commonly heard in Hell.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

6 August 2009 "Obama and the Economy" http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/obama-economy125.html 2000s

Happiness, People, Way, History

“How long
Do works endure? As long
As they are not completed.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Wie lange
Dauern die Werke? So lange
Als bis sie fertig sind.
"About the way to construct enduring works" [Über die Bauart langdauernder Werke] (1932), trans. Frank Jones in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 193
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“"Life" in this "society" being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of "society" being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. [1].

Life, Women, Money, Sex

“The European Union is happy to suck money from member states like a giant leech, with absolutely no respect for how it is spent. Whenever more transparency is called for, they simply hide behind smoke and mirrors and fancy words, and completely ignore common sense. They show a total lack of respect to the citizens of the European Union. The problem with the EU is that it spends money like it is going out of fashion, when actually it’s the Euro which is going out of fashion right now, with so many countries now questioning its membership.”

Jill Seymour (1958) British politician

Where is the transparency? More EU smoke and mirrors… http://jillseymourukip.org/where-is-the-transparency-more-eu-smoke-and-mirrors/ (February 28, 2017)

Money, Happiness, Fashion, Question

“We approach one another as if we were separate entities and see the other only from a limited point of view – not as part of us; we do not open ourselves to others with complete faith. When we first encounter objects or persons we think, because of this feeling of separateness, that they are just as we find them and nothing else. But if my attitude towards this person is of love, interest, oneness, then I will lose that first impression of having accidentally found them and will grow beyond my limitations towards something at once more intimate and more vast.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

Love, Faith, Feeling, Thinking

“Whether it be in the toleration of sharia courts, or the turning of a blind eye to cultural practices which go against our laws, too often it has been women who have been the victims of those problems. I have always believed that a multi-ethnic society such as ours can be successful if it can be united by a common set of values and sense of identity, instead of a constant emphasis on division. It’s amazing to think that this was once considered outlandish. It can be difficult to explain this crucial difference in a city like London. More than one TV interviewer has asked me how, as UKIP’s Mayoral candidate, I can appeal to such a multicultural place as our capital. But this is to miss the point entirely. Like anybody else, I enjoy the huge profusion of completely diverse cuisine, fashion and music. Indeed the different cultural influences on our city are so big and ingrained it’s easy to take them for granted. But this is not the same thing as ensuring and, indeed, standing up for the common values and laws which should and must underpin any cohesive society. Here, as across Europe, one of those values – enshrined in our legal system – is that everybody is equal before the law regardless of their gender, sexuality or ethnicity.”

Peter Whittle (politician) (1961) British author, politician, and journalist

‘Cultural Cringe’: Women Are The First Victims Of State-Sponsored Multiculturalism http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/13/2764329/ (January 13, 2016)

Women, Law, Music, Fashion

“A painting is complete when it has the shadows of a god.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Statement attributed to Rembrandt in early biographies, as quoted in The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt: Reinventing an Old Master in Nineteenth-Century France (2003) by Alison MacQueen This quote is not to find in the source, Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt: Reinventing an Old Master in Nineteenth-Century France, 2003,p. 287 https://books.google.nl/books?id=N0dVqAsR5k0C&pg=PA292&lpg=PA292&dq=The+Rise+of+the+Cult+of+Rembrandt:+Reinventing+an+Old+Master+in+Nineteenth-century+France&source=bl&ots=SgL2TN2Xct&sig=ZJuOkH35vmifBkzcu5ASLdLyhTI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjx17OkrpfVAhWKnBoKHQlxA0oQ6AEIVzAJ#v=onepage&q=The%20Rise%20of%20the%20Cult%20of%20Rembrandt%3A%20Reinventing%20an%20Old%20Master%20in%20Nineteenth-century%20France&f=false/The undated quotes

God, Painting

“The knower is the Purusa (the conscious principle) who cognizes the reflection from the Will-to-know by conjunction. The knowable consists of all the characteristics present in the essence of the Will-to know. This, then the knowable behaves like a magnet. It is useful only when placed here. On account of its capacity of knowability, it becomes the possession of the lord, the Purusa, who is of the nature of power of knowing. It becomes the object of the act of enjoyment, in as much as although by nature independent, it becomes dependent on another, existing as it does for fulfilling the object of that other…. The conjunction therewith is the cause, by giving that up is secured the complete remedy of pain, in as much as that is found to be the cause of removal the real thing, the cause of pain.”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

in p. 125.
Sources, The Yoga Darsana Of Patanjali With The Sankhya Pravacana Commentary Of Vyasa

Pain, Nature, Dependency

“In every previous application of the quantum law, Planck's law, that the energy is h [Planck's constant] times the frequency, had been used to deduce the energy of a quantum when the frequency of the radiation was already known. In the present case the formula was used the other way; the energy of the emitted photon was known to begin with, and the formula was utilized to deduce its frequency. The frequencies calculated in this way are found to agree completely and exactly with those of the spectrum of hydrogen.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Law, Way, Time

“If we would taste God, and feel in ourselves Eternal Life above all things, We must go forth into God with a faith that is far above our reason, And there dwell, simple, idle, without image, Lifted up by love into the Unwalled Bareness of our intelligence. For when we go out from ourselves in love, and die to all observances in ignorance and darkness, Then we are made complete, And transfigured by the Eternal Word, Image of the Father. And in this emptiness of spirit we receive the Incomprehensible Light, Which enfolds and penetrates us as air is penetrated by the light of the sun; And this Light is nought else but a fathomless gazing and seeing. What we are, that we gaze at; and what we gaze at, that we are. For our thought, our life, our being, are lifted up in simplicity, And united with the Truth, that is God. Therefore in this simple gazing we are one life and one spirit with God
—And this I call the seeing life.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Love, Life, God, Truth

“There is one kind of judge. There is an independent judge under our Constitution. And the fact that they may have been a Republican or Democrat or an independent in a past life is completely irrelevant to how they conduct themselves as judges. And I think two centuries of experience has shown us that that ideal which the Founders established can be realized and has been realized and will continue to be realized.”

Brett Kavanaugh (1965) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination OF Brett M. Kavanaugh to be Ciruit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit https://www.congress.gov/108/chrg/shrg24853/CHRG-108shrg24853.htm (April 27, 2004)

Life, Thinking, Past

“A strong and independent Judiciary is necessary for our republic to remain strong, for our democracy to survive, and for the rule of law to flourish. To understand what I mean by independence, let me first clarify what independence is not. Judicial independence does not mean complete freedom from scrutiny or criticism. Judges' decisions may be criticized, and the nature of the job virtually guarantees it. After all, in every court case there will be a loser. Judges must resist the temptation to craft their opinions to avoid criticism or to seek approval, whether from the press, the public, the academy, or Congress.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech to American Enterprise Institute (January 17, 2007)

Law, Democracy, Understanding, Nature

“The postwar [WWII] GI Bill of Rights - and the enthusiastic response to it on the part of America's veterans - signaled the shift to the knowledge society. Future historians may consider it the most important event of the twentieth century.
We are clearly in the midst of this transformation; indeed, if history is any guide, it will not be completed until 2010 or 2020. But already it has changed the political, economic and moral landscape of the world.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1990s and later, Post-Capitalist Society (1993), p. 3

World, History, Knowledge, Change

“The world and Christianity have completely opposite conceptions. The world says of the apostles, of the Apostle Peter as their spokesman, "He is drunk,"-and the Apostle Peter admonishes, "Become sober." Consequently the secular mentality considers Christianity to be drunkenness, and Christianity considers the secular mentality to be drunkenness. "Do become reasonable, come to your senses, try to become sober"-thus does the secular mentality taunt the Christian. And the Christian says to the secular mentality, "Do become reasonable, come to your senses, become sober." The difference between secularity and Christianity is not that one has one view and the other another-no, the difference is always that they have the very opposite views, that what one calls good the other calls evil, what the one calls love the other calls selfishness, what the one calls piety the other calls impiety, What the one calls being drunk the other calls being sober. it is precisely the drunken man, the apostle, who finds it necessary to bring home to the sober (I assume) world the admonition: "Become sober!"”

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

This very admonition may, as intended, most severely wound the callous secular mentality, which as a rule cannot be wounded very easily or disconcerted.
Judge for Yourself, p. 96-97 1851
1850s, Judge For Yourselves! 1851 (1876)

Love, World, Home, Sense

“The extreme ignorance and gullibility of the foreign press provides the negationists with a strategic cover. Most English-knowing Indians believe that the Western intelligentsia is more objective and competent, and they keep on believing this even in domains where the West is completely ignorant and incompetent. So the negationists feel supported in the back by an outside world which they can manipulate but which many in India still consider as a standard of truth. If the Hindu leadership had taken the trouble of studying the mental determinants of India's political configuration, it would have blown this cover away by spreading first-hand information to the foreign media, and educating them about the Stalinist-Islamic grip on the Indian establishment.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, Negationism in India, (1992)

Truth, World, Education, Feeling

“Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)

Life, Death, Motivation, Suffering

“We only agreed to suspend activities in those areas where we did not have technical problems. This is what they are saying now in their negotiations. We completed the Isfahan project, which is the UCF where yellowcake is converted into UF4 and UF6 during suspension. While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan, but we still had a long way to go to complete the project. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan. Today, we can convert yellowcake into UF4 and UF6, and this is a very important matter. In fact, UF6 is what the centrifuges feed on; it is the feed material for centrifuges. Therefore, it was important for us to conclude that process.”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

Touting Iran's nuclear progress during Iran's temporary suspension of enrichment activities
2004 speech to the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council

Way, Problem, Parting

“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit — the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge. From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals. … This star, our own good earth, made many a successful journey around the heavens ere man was made, and whole kingdoms of creatures enjoyed existence and returned to dust ere man appeared to claim them. After human beings have also played their part in Creation's plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk To the Gulf, 1916, chapter 6: Cedar Keys, pages 160-161

Pain, Star, Knowledge, Universe

“In the great way of going beyond, no endeavor is complete without being one with myriad things. This is ocean mudra samadhi.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

Ocean Mudra Samadhi (1242)

Way

“Our difficulty comes, of course, in deciding where ethical coercion ends and unethical violence begins. The only person who is able to escape from this dilemma is the complete anarchist who repudiates every form of restraint and compassion—and such a man has no solution to offer for the imminently menacing problems of the hour. All other persons are obliged to draw the line somewhere, and orderly progress depends upon intellectual keenness and ethical sensitiveness with which the situation is confronted.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

The Personality of Jesus (1932)

Problem, Drawing, Dependency, Personality

“What advantage will be gained by even a purely abstract definition of real numbers of a higher type, I am as yet unable to see, conceiving as I do of the domain of real numbers as complete in itself.”

Richard Dedekind (1831–1916) German mathematician

p, 125
Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen (1872)

“I think people are great in many different ways. So, I think some justices are great because they have extraordinary wisdom, they have an understanding of how to apply the law in their times … in a way that's completely consistent with … the text of the law and the purposes of the law, and in a way that's completely right for the times in which they live in.”

Elena Kagan (1960) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Interview on C-SPAN (9 December 2010) http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/297143-1.

Wisdom, People, Justice, Law

“What, then, is the Constitution? I will tell you. It is not even like the British Constitution, which is made up of enactments of Parliament, decisions of Courts, and the established usages of the Government. The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people. I am careful to make this statement here; in America it would not be necessary. It would not be necessary here if my assailant had shown the same desire to be set before you the simple truth, which he manifested to make out a good case for himself and friends.”

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

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

People, Truth, Decision

“Tonight, I also want to say that I'm also thinking about my mother and father. I know my mother would be completely over the moon about this. I think my dad would too. I'm sorry he couldn't see this. This really was his life’s work but I can say this: I know how proud he'd be of the province we all love.”

Rachel Notley (1964) 17th Premier of Alberta

Rachel Notley during her 2015 victory speech. "Notley's Way: How the Alberta premier became determined." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/the-alberta-ndps-rachel-notley-she-is-a-child-of-the-party/article24338069/ May 8, 2015.

Love, Life, Thinking

“When you are put into a big city jail, you will probably be frightened, lonely, humiliated, and completely drained of any spirit. This is normal. Talk to the fellow prisoners, write, play cards, read, doodle, do anything to keep your mind occupied, but above all do not verbalize your misfortune to your fellow prisoners. Each one of them has had similar situations, and is sick of thinking about it.”

William Powell (author) book The Anarchist Cookbook

"Postscript", p. 157.
The Anarchist Cookbook (1971)

Thinking, Reading

“This is why we believe that a well-ordered idea of ecology and professionalism can stem only from art – art in the sense of the sole, revolutionary force, capable of transforming the earth, humanity, the social order etc.... Art is, then, a genuinely human medium for revolutionary change in the sense of completing the transformation from a sick world to a healthy one. In my opinion only art is capable of doing it.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

1980's
Source: Times Thermic Machine, 1982

World, Art, Idea, Sense

“I was traveling in Greece as a teenager, and for those who haven't been to Greece, it's absolutely covered in olive groves — stunted, gnarly little bonsai-type trees. And I was driving on a moped and a huge black stallion had pulled away from its stake and was just going nuts in this tiny, tiny, hobbit-like forest. It was just such a powerful image, this enormous beast let loose and going wild in a fairy-tale wood of tiny trees… The song itself is really about going through the process of making the first album. It was a very strange experience and a very steep learning curve. For the previous 10 or 15 years, I'd been completely my own boss — when you play a gig, you just play your new song, the new song is always your favorite. And here I was having to make an album of stuff that's never gonna go away. I was being asked to make these huge decisions, so really the song is just about learning to listen to your guts again. There's actually very few times in our lives now when we have to do that.”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

On influences in writing her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree", in a Barnes & Noble Interview with David Sprague (February 2006).

Travel, Decision, Tree, Learning

“I was never capable of being an average pupil. I would either seem refractory to any teaching and give the impression of being completely dumb or I would fling myself on my work with a frenzy, a patience, and a willingness to learn that astonished everybody. But to awaken my zeal, it was necessary to offer me something I liked. Once my appetite had been whetted, I became ravenously hungry.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), pp. 5-6

Learning, Patience

“Man is completely out of phase with nature. Nature is woman. Man is the intruder. The man who re-attunes himself with nature is the man who de-mans himself or eliminates himself as man.”

Jill Johnston book Lesbian Nation

Lesbian Nation, p. 190.

Nature

“Until 1989, there was a complete consensus in all sources (Hindu, Muslim and European) which spoke out on the matter, viz. that the Babri Masjid had been built in forcible replacement of a Hindu temple.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Who is a Hindu, (2001)

“I Gladly avail myself of the opportunity of inscribing to you, for a second time, a work of mine on Algebra, as a sincere tribute of my respect, affection and gratitude.
I trust that I shall not be considered as derogating from the higher duties which, (in common with you), I owe to my station in the Church, if I continue to devote some portion of the leisure at my command, to the completion of an extensive Treatise, embracing the more important departments of Analysis, the execution of which I have long contemplated, and which, in its first volume I now offer to the public, under the auspices of one of my best and dearest friends.”

George Peacock (1791–1858) Scottish mathematician

Vol. I: Arithmetical Algebra To the Rev. James Tate, M.A. Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's p. i
A Treatise on Algebra (1842)

Time, Sincerity, Gratitude

“Gaskell… had to keep his stately soldiers upright and uniformly oriented… by crafting the brain and spinal cord from an arthropod digestive tube, while forming a completely new gut below. …Gaskell thought that his move would rescue the theory of linear progress, with its necessary transition of arthropod into vertebrate, from the absurdities of the old inversion theory.”

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

"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 327
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

“To my delight, Federico had seen Dans la ville blanche (1983) by Swiss director Alain Tanner. Enthusiastic about Bruno Ganz’s performance, he also was impressed by the film’s startling visual poetry of Lisbon achieved by transferring inferior film stock onto 35mm. It was exactly this kind of uncomplicated technical innovation that inspired Federico during the writing of Attore. Conceived in 1992, Attore focused on the craft and the psychology of actors. Having completed a film treatment with roles for Mastroianni, Giulietta Masina, and Paolo Villagio, Fellini was now wondering if he should provide Marcello with a home movie camera to be used in a loosely Shakespearian sense that all the world’s a film set. The 8mm footage of intimate memories of the theatre from his Rimini childhood would then be transferred to 35mm – a most intriguing idea that would have been a new departure for the Maestro had he lived to bring it to the screen.”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

On Fellini’s last film project, Attore
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)

World, Home, Idea, Departure

“The economic crisis was a reflection of narcissism and very primitive defense mechanisms (such as a complete denial of economic reality) built into the financial system. The best and brightest MBA students have been going into investment banking; many of them used their brains essentially to play casino games, and not to add much value to society.
Now, we’ve seen the result. Look at the least-admired professions in most countries over the years: telemarketers and used-car salesmen. Today, you have bankers and CEOs achieving the same low rating. Companies like Citibank — which was the brainchild of one of the most visibly narcissistic executives in the world, Sanford Weill — have essentially collapsed. They have grown too complex for the people who work there to understand. I strongly question what the different parts of Citibank have in common. No matter what kinds of regulatory reforms are initiated, more companies will collapse this way, because narcissism breeds this kind of unmanageable grandiosity.”

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries (1942) Dutch academic

Manfred Kets de Vries in: " The Thought Leader Interview: Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10209?gko=cbe31," in: Strategy + business. May 10, 2010. Originally published by Booz & Company.

People, World, Cars, Way

“In dealing with its subject, [this book] exercises complete fidelity to truth; unlike secularist and Marxist writers, it does not believe in re-writing and fabricating history. Its aim is to raise the informational level of our people and to make them better aware of the more persistent ideological forces at work.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

People, Truth, Books, Exercises

“Yesterday we came across a cemetery that had been completely destroyed by shellfire. The graves had been blown up, and the coffins lay about in the most uncomfortable positions. The shells had unceremoniously exposed their distinguished occupants to the light of day, and bones, hair, and bits of clothing could be seen through cracks in the burst-open coffins.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

letter to his first wife Minna, from the front, 1915; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 14
1900s - 1920s

Light, Clothes

“.. before I die I should like to bring two paintings to completion. What matters is to touch the limit, the essence of things.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

in an interview, Sept. 1939; as quoted in Morandi 1894 – 1964, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco, Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2008; p. 44
1925 - 1945

Painting

“The field equation may… be given a geometrical foundation, at least to a first approximation, by replacing it with the requirement that the mean curvature of the space vanish at any point at which no heat is being applied to the medium—in complete analogy with… the general theory of relativity by which classical field equations are replaced by the requirement that the Ricci contracted curvature tensor vanish.”

Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

Footnote
Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

“My experience of ships is that on them one makes an interesting discovery about the world. One finds one can do without it completely.”

Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic

Page 74.
Stepping Westward (1965)

World

“Without complete and accurate data, we are left with 'ideological thunderbolts'. And that helps spark unrest and distrust and does not help us get better. Because we must get better, I intend for the FBI to be a leader in urging departments around this country to give us the facts we need for an informed discussion, the facts all of us need, to help us make sound policy and sound decisions with that information.”

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

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Decision, Help, Country

“Hands in his pockets he began to walk aimlessly down the sidewalk runnel. And, each minute, feeling more and more scared and desperate. Everything was falling apart around him. And he seemed helpless to halt the collapse; he could only witness it, completely impotent, snatched up and gripped by processes too powerful for him to understand.”

Philip K. Dick book Clans of the Alphane Moon

Source: Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 9 (p. 139)

Feeling, Understanding

“I think some of these schemes - and I think particularly of the Jimmy Carr scheme - I have had time to read about and I just think this is completely wrong.”

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

About comedian Jimmy Carr's tax arrangements, speaking to ITV News during a round of TV interviews during his trip to Mexico - " David Cameron Brands Jimmy Carr's Tax Arrangements 'Morally Wrong' http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/20/david-cameron-jimmy-carr-tax_n_1612757.html", The Huffington Post UK, 20 June 2012 2010s, 2012

Thinking, Time, Reading

“In art progress does not consist in extension, but in the knowledge of limits.
Limitation of means determines style, engenders new form, and give impulses to creation.
Limited means often constitute the charm and force of primitive painting. Extension, on the contrary, leads the arts to decadence.
New means, new subjects.
The subject is not the object; it is a new unity, a lyricism which grows completely from the means.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

Source: 1908 - 1920, quotes from Artists on Art...(1972), p. 423 - short quotes by Georges Braque on 'Means' - Paris, 1917

Art, Knowledge, Painting

“According to Husserl, that 'act of meaning', or the use of a given phrase as an expression of a certain language, consists in the fact that a sensory content appears in consciousness, by means of which one might think visually about that phrase, should that content be joined by an appropriate intention directed to that phrase. But when a given phrase is used as an expression belonging to a certain language, then that sensory content is joined by another intention, not necessarily a representative one, which is however in principle directed to something other than that phrase itself. Together with the sensory content in question, that intention makes up a uniform experience, but neither the experiencing of that sensory content, nor that intention is a complete, independent experience. Both the one and the other are non-independent parts of the experience as a whole. The meaning of a given expression (as a type) would be, according to Husserl, the type under which that intention joined to the sensory content must fall if the given phrase is to be used as an expression belonging precisely to that language”

Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963) Philosopher, logician

Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, On the Meaning of Expressions, Lwow 1931. (original title: O znaczeniii wyrazen.) p. 19-20; as cited in: Schaff (1962;299)

Question, Thinking, Appearance, Parting

“We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man— for that has to a certain extent been attained already— but how to secure his complete material independence.”

Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) British economic historian

Source: Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884), p. 151

Problem

“(I support Mugabe) Because we have completed the process of decolonisation while Zimbabwe has not.”

Benjamin Mkapa (1938) Tanzanian politician and former president

When asked why he continued to support President Mugabe. http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/jun23c_2008.html 2005

Support

“The only man completely at peace is a man without a navel.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Old saying in Randland
(15 October 1994)

Peace

“We're really not very good about putting music in a social and political context, particularly classical music. It's all sort of above everything. But in South Africa, everything is politicised. You play a piece of classical music out there and you are making a real cultural statement. Or you play with a marimba band and you are saying something else. I think that's the way things should be. The way people write about music makes it seem completely devoid of social context. And audiences drift away as a result.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

Financial Times, 11/11/1999
On Classical Music

People, Music, Way, Thinking

“The soul completely dominated by its desire for spiritual instruction is never sated.”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

The Philokalia Vol. 4, Faber and Faber.

Soul

“There is wisdom in madness and strong probability of truth in all accusations, for people are complete and everybody is capable of everything”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

Wisdom, People, Truth, Strong

“It naturally follows that the creature you love next best is the person — the God-lover or God-hater (almost never, apparently, anything in between), the saint or profligate, moralist or complete immoralist — who can write a poem that is a poem.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)

Love, God, Lovers, Nature

“It's a good idea for diplomats to keep their word in small matters. It makes the later complete betrayals more of a surprise.”

John Barnes book Earth Made of Glass

Earth Made of Glass (1998)

Idea, Betrayal

“Even today, as regards East Timor, where our brutal Indonesian satellite (authors of the 1965-1966 butcheries) have very possibly killed as many people as did the Khmer Rouge, there is a virtually complete blackout of information in the Free Press. This is a bloodbath carried out by a friendly power and is thus of little interest to our readers. It is a “benign bloodbath” in our terminology.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, p. 22.

People

“We are blessed with a spirit that is one with the spirit of the universe. This spirit is called "reiseishin". The moon is clearly reflected in the water when the water is calm. In the same way when our mind and body are unified and calm, our "reiseishin" manifests itself completely. Once this happens all suffering and wicked desires fall away, and the universal spirit of love and protection for all things appears in us. Let us strive to realise our "reiseishin".”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

17 : Reiseishin - the universal mind
Ki Sayings (2003)

Love, Way, Suffering, Universe

“In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!" At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Autobiography (1873)

Life, Happiness, Question, Change

“A man can stand being told that he must submit to a severe surgical operation, or that he has some disease which will shortly kill him, or that he will be a cripple or blind for the rest of his life; dreadful as such tidings must be, we do not find that they unnerve the greatest number of mankind; most men, indeed, go coolly enough even to be hanged, but the strongest quail before financial ruin, and the better men they are, the more complete, as a general rule, is their prostration.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 66

Life, Men, Disease

“Undoubtedly one of the most important provisions in the preparation for national defense is a proper and sound selective service act. Such a law ought to give authority for a very broad mobilization of all the resources of the country, both persons and materials. I can see some difficulties in the application of the principle, for it is the payment of a higher price that stimulates an increased production, but whenever it can be done without economic dislocation such limits ought to be established in time of war as would prevent so far as possible all kinds of profiteering. There is little defense which can be made of a system which puts some men in the ranks on very small pay and leaves others undisturbed to reap very large profits. Even the income tax, which recaptured for the benefit of the National Treasury alone about 75 per cent of such profits, while local governments took part of the remainder, is not a complete answer. The laying of taxes is, of course, in itself a conscription of whatever is necessary of the wealth of the country for national defense, but taxation does not meet the full requirements of the situation. In the advent of war, power should be lodged somewhere for the stabilization of prices as far as that might be possible in justice to the country and its defenders.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Men, War, Justice, Law

“I never conduct any of the ballets I conducted for the Ballets Russes, without my mind's eye being completely aware of the dancers.”

Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) French conductor

Monteux

“The structure of the nobility is changed along with that of the state, but it preserves its continuity with the past intact. Knighthood, on the other hand, as the exclusive warrior-class and upholder of secular culture, decays completely. The process is protracted and the ideals of chivalry do not lose their alluring splendour from one day to the next—least of all in the eyes of the middle classes. But behind the scenes everything is set for the fall of Don Quixote.—The decline of the knighthood has been connected with the new methods of warfare introduced in the late Middle Ages, and it has been pointed out that the heavily accoutred cavalry suffered a severe reverse whenever they met the infantry of the new mercenary armies or the foot of the peasant brigades.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

The Social History of Art, Volume I. From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages, 1999, Chapter IV. The Middle Ages

Age, Suffering, Change, Past

“Tradition is only a readymade. It’s for us to make a new gesture—to use it as a reference, more as a starting point than conclusion. Of course, there are very different attitudes and interpretations about our past and our memory of it. And ours is never a complete one, but is broken. In China, but also in my practice.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Escape from Propaganda, 2009

Memory, Past

“In times of old, as we are told,
When men more child-like at the feet
Of Jesus sat, than now,
A chivalry was known more bold
Than ours, and yet of stricter vow,
Of worship more complete.”

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

Life Without and Life Within (1859), Sub Rosa, Crux

Men, Time

“With regard to the diagonal, too, I am in complete agreement with you [with Theo van Doesburg ]. As soon as it appears together with straight [horizontal and vertical] lines, I believe it should be condemned... A while back I started a thing entirely in diamonds [diamond-shape] like this [his sketch in the letter of several diamond-forms]. I have to find out if it's possible: intellectually I'm inclined to say it is. There's something to be said for the idea, because perpendicular and flat lines can be seen everywhere in nature; by using a diagonal line I would be canceling that out. But I'm inclined to say that this cannot be combined with perpendicular and flat lines or with different kinds of slanting lines.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

quote about the growing controversy between Mondrian and Van Doesburg. concerning the use of diagonal lines
Source: quote from a letter of Mondrian to Theo van Doesburg, undated, c. May 1918; as cited in Mondrian, -The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 120

Idea, Nature, Appearance

“We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth.”

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

President Trump's inaugural address https://www.whitehouse.gov/inaugural-address (20 January 2017) 2010s, 2017, January

World

“Imagine how frustrating it is, being completely locked up and watching your family leave, your wife and children, and not being able to do anything about it.”

Tommy Lee (1962) American drummer

http://www.drdrew.com/article.asp?id=393.

Children, Family, Imagination

“More generally it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.”

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

"When Religion Steps on Science’s Turf", Free Inquiry (1998)

Religion, Universe, Science

“What do animal rights advocates want? For most avowed rightists, that's easy: The complete liberation of animals from human exploitation as quickly as possible. Yet while we work diligently to achieve such a status for animals over the long term, we also have a duty to respect the "rights" of those individuals who are currently suffering to a life less miserable. To dismiss opportunities to ameliorate their pain and distress is to treat those animals as mere abstractions rather than as sentient beings inherently worthy of consideration now—a position, ironically, often held by the very exploitive institutions we seek to overturn.”

Kirsten Rosenberg American singer

United Poultry Concerns Third Annual Forum: "Do Animal Welfare Campaigns & Reforms Hurt or Help Animal Rights & Abolition?" (8-9 December 2001, Machipongo, Virginia) http://www.upc-online.org/forum2001speakers.html.

Life, Pain, Suffering, Animals

“When we look at the Anthropogenic Global Warming argument, it seems on the surface that we are completely full of ourselves and yet at the same time terribly dubious, sometimes completely without hope, and utterly given to embracing our own fallibility as a cause célèbre. We show no faith in ourselves by accepting this idea that we’ve caused Global Warming and still none in the idea that we can stop it. These are hollow beliefs put forth to enrich the power of the few whom offer us the way to salvation.”

Anthony Watts (1958) American television meteorologist

The adapability of man to his climate http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/04/07/the-adapability-of-man-to-his-climate/, wattsupwiththat.com, April 7, 2007. 2007

Faith, Hope, Way, Idea

“I know something about how the first encyclopedias were developed in the 18th century. And those encyclopedias almost completely excluded the history of women. And it’s one argument that we make all the time.”

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.

Women, History, Time

“Get ready for Russia to cast itself as the protector, not only of the Alawites but also of other minorities such as Turcoman, Armenians and, more interestingly for Moscow, Orthodox Christians who have fled Islamist terror groups such as ISIS. Russia has always seen itself as the “Third Rome” and the last standard-bearer of Christianity against both Catholic “deviation” and Islamist menace. By controlling a new mini-state, as a “safe haven for minorities,” Russia could insist that if Syria returns to some normality it be reconstituted as a highly decentralized state. This is what Putin is also demanding in Georgia and Ukraine. The Syrian coast will become another Crimea, if not completely annexed, at least occupied. Unless stopped, the Putin treatment will not end in Syria. The two next candidates could be Moldova and Latvia, both of which have large Russian-speaking minorities.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Putin is turning the Syrian coast into another Crimea http://nypost.com/2015/09/19/putin-is-turning-the-syrian-coast-into-another-crimea/, New York Post (September 19, 2015). New York Post

“Both of them have seen many young Western men arrive here on business missions and completely lose control of their sphincters and become impediments to any kind of organized activity. Daily hired Wall because, like Daily, he is a stable family man who has his act together…and they seem to be making excellent progress toward their goal, which is to run two really expensive wires across the Malay Peninsula. They tend to be absolutely straight shooters…. Their openness would probably be career suicide in the atmosphere of Byzantine court-eunuch intrigue that is public life in the United States today. On the other hand, if I had an unlimited amount of money and woke up tomorrow morning with a burning desire to see a 2,000-hole golf course erected on the surface of Mars, I would probably call men like Daily and Wall, do a handshake deal with them, send them a blank check, and not worry about it.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

"Mother Earth Mother Board," cover story in Wired, 4.12 (1996)

Life, Men, Money, Family

“I remember the first time I saw a photograph of Lenda Murray in a magazine. I was in complete awe, I cut out that picture and placed it on my refrigerator and, from that point on, my goal was to develop a physique like hers.”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

2008-04-08
Iris Kyle, Ms. Olympia
IFBBPRO.com
Internet
http://www.ifbbpro.com/features/iris-kyle-ms-olympia/
Sourced quotes, 2008

Time

“My publication was for a fine purpose. Certain snobs may now look down on it and call it common or even pornographic, but until the end of the war, I had Hitler's greatest respect, and Der Stürmer had the party's complete support. At our height, we had a circulation of 1.5 million. Everybody read Der Stürmer, and they must have liked it or they wouldn't have bought it. The aim of Der Stürmer was to unite Germans and to awaken them against Jewish influence which might ruin our noble culture.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

To Leon Goldensohn, April 6, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

War, Support, Reading

“I think the best thing the Federal Gov. can do when it comes to education K-12 is to abolish the Federal Department of Education. The Federal Department of Education gives each state about 11 cents out of every school dollar that every state spends but it comes with about 16 cents worth of strings attached. So what I think the country … people do not understand is it’s a negative to take federal money… So just get the fed. govt. out of education completely. Leave education to the states. Fifty laboratories of innovation and best practice and in my opinion we would have some fabulous innovation that would get emulated because we are all so competitive.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
Sound Government

Money, People, Education, School

“The realities of globalization can be seen in something as simple as the investigation of a car crash. If a patrolman investigated a fatal accident in the 1970s, the victims and the witnesses were both likely from the local community; and if the officer climbed into the wreckage, to look for some malfunction in the vehicle, he would probably see from the serial numbers that the car was made in the U. S. He could put all that together, and make his case. But Consider the death of Princess Diana. This accident involved an English citizen, with an Egyptian boyfriend, crashed in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian, who was drunk on Scotch whiskey, followed closely by Italian paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles, and finally treated with Brazilian medicines by an American doctor. In this case, even leaving aside the fame of the victims, a mere neighborhood canvass would hardly have completed the forensic picture, as it might have a generation before.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

The New Paradigm: Merging Law Enforcement and Intelligence Strategies (2006)

Death, Cars, Communication, Reality

“Michelle was so mature beyond her years, so thoughtful and perceptive. She really prodded me about what the job would be like because she had lots of choices. I offered it to her on the spot, which was totally inappropriate because I should have talked to the mayor first. But I just knew she was really special.
Barack never grills. That's part of what is so effective about him: He puts you completely at ease, and the next thing you know he's asking more and more probing questions and gets you to open up and reflect a little bit. That night we talked about his childhood compared to my childhood and realized we both had rather…unusual childhoods.
Married in 1983, separated in 1987, and divorced in 1988. Enough said. He was a physician. He passed away. I want to say in about 1991.
We grew up together. We were friends since childhood. In a sense, he was the boy next door. I married without really appreciating how hard divorce would be.
I have to tell you: My daughter is in seventh heaven about me being in Vogue. Nothing else I have done has fazed her at all. But this! She's like, 'Oh, Mom. You don't understand. This is really big.'
I have never heard him yell, Ever. Not once in seventeen years. He's not a yeller.
Because my dad worked at the university, he could swing by and take Laura to school and pick her up from her first day of nursery school until the day she graduated from high school. They would often have breakfast and have these wonderful conversations.”

Valerie Jarrett (1956) Chicago lawyer, businesswoman, civic leader; senior advisor to U.S. Senator Barack Obama

September 2008 interview with Vogue https://web.archive.org/web/20080930190831/http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/2008_Oct_Valerie_Jarrett//

School, Boy, Moms, Understanding

Quotes about completion page 22

Quotes about completion
page 22