Quotes about consistency
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Ernest Flagg photo

“Economy in building consists in the aggregate of a great number of savings, which when considered separately may seem trivial, but when combined are important. The list of those here provided for… may be divided into classes as follows:”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Economy in building consists in the aggregate of a great number of savings, which when considered separately may seem trivial, but when combined are important. The list of those here provided for... may be divided into classes as follows:<!-- Introduction

Margaret Atwood photo

“A lot of being a poet consists of willed ignorance. If you woke up from your trance and realized the nature of the life-threatening and dignity-destroying precipice you were walking along, you would switch into actuarial sciences immediately.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

On Writing Poetry (1995)
Context: My English teacher from 1955, run to ground by some documentary crew trying to explain my life, said that in her class I had showed no particular promise. This was true. Until the descent of the giant thumb, I showed no particular promise. I also showed no particular promise for some time afterwards, but I did not know this. A lot of being a poet consists of willed ignorance. If you woke up from your trance and realized the nature of the life-threatening and dignity-destroying precipice you were walking along, you would switch into actuarial sciences immediately. If I had not been ignorant in this particular way, I would not have announced to an assortment of my high school female friends, in the cafeteria one brown-bag lunchtime, that I was going to be a writer. I said "writer," not "poet;" I did have some common sense. But my announcement was certainly a conversation-stopper. Sticks of celery were suspended in mid-crunch, peanut-butter sandwiches paused halfway between table and mouth; nobody said a word. One of those present reminded me of this incident recently — I had repressed it — and said she had been simply astounded. "Why?," I said. "Because I wanted to be a writer?" "No," she said. "Because you had the guts to say it out loud."

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my experiments with truth…as my life consists of nothing but those experiments.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Introduction
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)

Ann Coulter photo

“People who are afraid of ideas whitewash Reagan like they whitewash Jesus. Sorry to break it to you, but the Reagan era did not consist of eight years of Reagan joking about his naps.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Ho Ho Ho, Merry Imus!" (11 April 2007) http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?article=178.
2007
Context: One more item for the delusional Miss Grundys still obtusely citing Reagan as their model of "niceness": As governor of California, Reagan gave student protesters at Berkeley the finger. Remember that next time you ask yourself: "What would Reagan do?"
People who are afraid of ideas whitewash Reagan like they whitewash Jesus. Sorry to break it to you, but the Reagan era did not consist of eight years of Reagan joking about his naps.

John Adams photo

“The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

No. 13
1790s, Discourses on Davila (1790)
Context: Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the wolf. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest. The great art of law-giving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature, and in constituting the legislative a perfect balance against the executive power, at the same time that no individual or party can become its rival. The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries. The executive and the legislative powers are natural rivals; and if each has not an effectual control over the other, the weaker will ever be the lamb in the paws of the wolf. The nation which will not adopt an equilibrium of power must adopt a despotism. There is no other alternative. Rivalries must be controlled, or they will throw all things into confusion; and there is nothing but despotism or a balance of power which can control them.

Nicholas Lore photo

“There is no such thing as feeling "courageous". It is an imaginary emotion. Courage consists of doing what you said you would do even when you don't want to. In the face of danger you have a choice to be the delegate of either your commitments or your feelings. It's as simple and as difficult as that”

Nicholas Lore (1944) American social scientist

The Pathfinder (1998)
Context: It takes courage to be the author of your life. When you are struggling through one of the difficult parts of turning your dreams into reality, you may wonder why you always get stuck with having to put up with so much fear and uncertainty. Why, you wonder, couldn't I feel more courageous, like those other people do. You don't feel courageous because courage is not an emotion. There is no such thing as feeling "courageous". It is an imaginary emotion. Courage consists of doing what you said you would do even when you don't want to. In the face of danger you have a choice to be the delegate of either your commitments or your feelings. It's as simple and as difficult as that.

“That government only can be pronounced consistent with the design of all government, which allows to the governed the liberty of doing what, consistently with the general good, they may desire to do, and which only forbids their doing the contrary. Liberty does not exclude restraint; it only excludes unreasonable restraint.”

Political Disquisitions (1774)
Context: That government only can be pronounced consistent with the design of all government, which allows to the governed the liberty of doing what, consistently with the general good, they may desire to do, and which only forbids their doing the contrary. Liberty does not exclude restraint; it only excludes unreasonable restraint. To determine precisely how far personal liberty is compatible with the general good, and of the propriety of social conduct in all cases, is a matter of great extent, and demands the united wisdom of a whole people. And the consent of the whole people, as far as it can be obtained, is indispensably necessary to every law, by which the whole people are to be bound; else the whole people are enslaved to the one, or the few, who frame the laws for them.

André Malraux photo

“Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 12
L'espoir [Man's Hope] (1938)
Context: There are not fifty ways of fighting, there is only one, and that is to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.

Meher Baba photo

“The essence of spirituality does not consist in a specialised or narrow interest in some imagined part of life, but in a certain enlightened attitude to all the various situations which obtain in life.”

Source: Discourses (1967), Vol. I, Ch. 15 : The Life of the Spirit.
Context: The essence of spirituality does not consist in a specialised or narrow interest in some imagined part of life, but in a certain enlightened attitude to all the various situations which obtain in life. It covers and includes the whole of life. All the material things of this world can be made subservient to the divine game, and when they are thus subordained they become auxiliary to the self-affirmation of the spirit.

John Perry Barlow photo

“I wasn't tempted to vote for Bush, but I understand why people did… because he obviously had integrity. It was a terrible kind of integrity, but he does what he says and he means what he says. And what he says is terrible and what he does is terrible, but he's consistent.”

John Perry Barlow (1947–2018) American poet and essayist

Planet JH Weekly interview (2005)
Context: I wasn't tempted to vote for Bush, but I understand why people did… because he obviously had integrity. It was a terrible kind of integrity, but he does what he says and he means what he says. And what he says is terrible and what he does is terrible, but he's consistent. So I think a lot of people in Wyoming who care so much about integrity that they're willing to choose somebody that has a monstrous willingness to do any damn thing as long as he's up front about it — but that's not really quite enough for me. I mean I look forward to the day when I can be Republican again. I'm an Alan Simpson Republican.

Walter Cronkite photo

“Ours will neither be a perfect world, nor a world without disagreement and occasional violence. But it will be a world where the overwhelming majority of national leaders will consistently abide by the rule of world law, and those who won't will be dealt with effectively and with due process by the structures of that same world law.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

UN Address (1999)
Context: Ours will neither be a perfect world, nor a world without disagreement and occasional violence. But it will be a world where the overwhelming majority of national leaders will consistently abide by the rule of world law, and those who won't will be dealt with effectively and with due process by the structures of that same world law. We will never have a city without crime, but we would never want to live in a city that had no system of law to deal with the criminals who will always be with us.

John Perry Barlow photo

“Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.”

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (1996)
Context: You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Benjamin Franklin photo

“But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women, and of inexperienc’d and inconsiderate Youth of both Sexes, who have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue, and retain them in the Practice of it till it becomes habitual”

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

Letter to unknown recipient (13 December 1757) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=473. The letter was published as early as 1817 (William Temple Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, volume VI, pp. 243-244). In 1833 William Wisner ("Don't Unchain the Tiger," American Tract Society, 1833) identified the recipient as probably Thomas Paine, which was echoed by Jared Sparks in his 1840 edition of Franklin's works (volume x, p. 281). (Presumably it would have been directed against The Age of Reason, his deistic work which criticized orthodox Christianity.) Calvin Blanchard responded to Wisner's tract in The Life of Thomas Paine (1860), pp. 73-74, by noting that Franklin died in 1790, while Paine did not begin writing The Age of Reason until 1793, and incorrectly concluded that the letter did not exist. Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, included it in They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), on p. 28. Moncure Daniel Conway pointed out (The Life of Thomas Paine, 1892, vol I, p. vii) that the recipient could not be Thomas Paine, in that he, unlike Paine, denied a "particular providence". The intended recipient remains unidentified.
Parts of the above have also been rearranged and paraphrased:
I would advise you not to attempt Unchaining The Tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person.
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be Without it? Think how many inconsiderate and inexperienced youth of both sexes there are, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual.
Epistles
Context: I have read your Manuscript with some Attention. By the Arguments it contains against the Doctrine of a particular Providence, tho’ you allow a general Providence, you strike at the Foundation of all Religion: For without the Belief of a Providence that takes Cognizance of, guards and guides and may favour particular Persons, there is no Motive to Worship a Deity, to fear its Displeasure, or to pray for its Protection. I will not enter into any Discussion of your Principles, tho’ you seem to desire it; At present I shall only give you my Opinion that tho’ your Reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some Readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general Sentiments of Mankind on that Subject, and the Consequence of printing this Piece will be a great deal of Odium drawn upon your self, Mischief to you and no Benefit to others. He that spits against the Wind, spits in his own Face. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any Good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous Life without the Assistance afforded by Religion; you having a clear Perception of the Advantages of Virtue and the Disadvantages of Vice, and possessing a Strength of Resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common Temptations. But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women, and of inexperienc’d and inconsiderate Youth of both Sexes, who have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue, and retain them in the Practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great Point for its Security; And perhaps you are indebted to her originally that is to your Religious Education, for the Habits of Virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent Talents of reasoning on a less hazardous Subject, and thereby obtain Rank with our most distinguish’d Authors. For among us, it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots that a Youth to be receiv’d into the Company of Men, should prove his Manhood by beating his Mother. I would advise you therefore not to attempt unchaining the Tyger, but to burn this Piece before it is seen by any other Person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of Mortification from the Enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of Regret and Repentance. If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?

Aristotle photo
Dinah Craik photo

“Nevertheless, taking life as a whole, believing that it consists not in what we have, but in our power of enjoying the same”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Context: Nevertheless, taking life as a whole, believing that it consists not in what we have, but in our power of enjoying the same; that there are in it things nobler and dearer than ease, plenty, or freedom from care — nay, even than existence itself; surely it is not Quixotism, but common-sense and Christianity, to protest that love is better than outside show, labour than indolence, virtue than mere respectability

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh photo

“For conservation to be successful it is necessary to take into consideration that it is a characteristic of man that he can only be relied upon to do anything consistently which is in his own interest.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

World Wildlife Fund: British National Appeal Banquet, London (1962)
The Environmental Revolution: Speeches on Conservation, 1962–77 (1978)
Context: For conservation to be successful it is necessary to take into consideration that it is a characteristic of man that he can only be relied upon to do anything consistently which is in his own interest. He may have occasional fits of conscience and moral rectitude but otherwise his actions are governed by self-interest. It follows then that whatever the moral reasons for conservation it will only be achieved by the inducement of profit or pleasure.

H.L. Mencken photo

“His technical equipment consists simply of an armamentarium of deceits”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

On elected politicians
1920s, Notes on Democracy (1926)
Context: Ostensibly he is an altruist devoted whole-heartedly to the service of his fellow-men, and so abjectly public-spirited that his private interest is nothing to him. Actually, he is a sturdy rogue whose principal, and often sole aim in life is to butter his parsnips. His technical equipment consists simply of an armamentarium of deceits. It is his business to get and hold his job at all costs. If he can hold it by lying he will hold it by lying. if lying peters out he will try and hold it by embracing new truths. His ear is ever close to the ground.

Taliesin photo

“I have been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Battle of the Trees
Context: I have been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
I have been the light of lanterns,
A year and a half.
I have been a continuing bridge,
Over three score river mouths.

Edward Witten photo

“Physics has progressed to a domain where experiment is a little difficult… Nevertheless, the fact that we have a rich logical structure which constrains us a lot in terms of what is consistent, is one of the main reasons we are still able to make advances.”

Edward Witten (1951) American theoretical physicist

"Edward Witten" interview, Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1992) ed. P.C.W. Davies, Julian Brown
Context: In Newton's day the problem was to write something which was correct - he never had the problem of writing nonsense, but by the twentieth century we have a rich conceptual framework with relativity and quantum mechanics and so on. In this framework it's difficult to do things which are even internally coherent, much less correct. Actually, that's fortunate in the sense that it's one of the main tools we have in trying to make progress in physics. Physics has progressed to a domain where experiment is a little difficult... Nevertheless, the fact that we have a rich logical structure which constrains us a lot in terms of what is consistent, is one of the main reasons we are still able to make advances.

John Quincy Adams photo

“The duties of man consist in alternate action and meditation, mutually aiding and relieving each other; and both, directed with undeviating aim, to the progressive improvement of himself and his fellow creatures.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

"Society and Civilization" in the American Review (July 1845)
Context: The duties of man consist in alternate action and meditation, mutually aiding and relieving each other; and both, directed with undeviating aim, to the progressive improvement of himself and his fellow creatures. Heaven has given him in charge, to promote the happiness and well-being of himself, his wife, his children, his kindred, his neighbors, his fellow citizens, his country, and his kind; and the great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community, that this gradation of duties, may be made to harmonize in all its parts — that in the operation of human institutions upon social action, self-love and social may be made the same.

Samuel Butler photo

“Sensible painting, like sensible law, sensible writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing what to omit as what to insist upon.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Detail
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting
Context: One reason why it is as well not to give very much detail is that, no matter how much is given, the eye will always want more; it will know very well that it is not being paid in full. On the other hand, no matter how little one gives, the eye will generally compromise by wanting only a little more. In either case the eye will want more, so one may as well stop sooner or later. Sensible painting, like sensible law, sensible writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing what to omit as what to insist upon.

James Anthony Froude photo

“A man is born into the world — a real man — such a one as it has never seen; he lives a life consistently the very highest; his wisdom is the calm earnest voice of humanity; to the worldly and the commonplace so exasperating, as forcing upon them their own worthlessness — to the good so admirable that every other faculty is absorbed in wonder.”

Fragments of Markham's notes
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: A man is born into the world — a real man — such a one as it has never seen; he lives a life consistently the very highest; his wisdom is the calm earnest voice of humanity; to the worldly and the commonplace so exasperating, as forcing upon them their own worthlessness — to the good so admirable that every other faculty is absorbed in wonder. The one killed him. The other said, this is too good to be a man — this is God. His calm and simple life was not startling enough for their eager imagination; acts of mercy and kindness were not enough, unless they were beyond the power of man. To cure by ordinary means the bruised body, to lift again with deep sympathy of heart the sinking sinner was not enough. He must speak with power to matter as well as mind; eject diseases and eject devils with command. The means of ordinary birth, to the oriental conception of uncleanness, were too impure for such as he, and one so holy could never dissolve in the vulgar corruption of the grave.
Yet to save his example, to give reality to his sufferings, he was a man nevertheless. In him, as philosophy came in to incorporate the first imagination, was the fulness of humanity as well as the fulness of the Godhead. And out of this strange mixture they composed a being whose life is without instruction, whose example is still nothing, whose trial is but a helpless perplexity. The noble image of the man is effaced, is destroyed. Instead of a man to love and to follow, we have a man-god to worship. From being the example of devotion, he is its object; the religion of Christ ended with his life, and left us instead but the Christian religion.

“The world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact …that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)
Context: The world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact... that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction.... in a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.... The medieval world was... not without a sense of order. Ordinary men and women... had no doubt that there was such a design, and their priests were well able, by deduction from a handful of principles, to make it, if not rational, at least coherent.... The situation we are presently in is much different.... sadder and more confusing and certainly more mysterious.... There is no consistent, integrated conception of the world which serves as the foundation on which our edifice of belief rests. And therefore... we are more naive than those of the Middle Ages, and more frightened, for we can be made to believe almost anything.

Sallustius photo
Sallustius photo
Sallustius photo
Sallustius photo

“The essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which always is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which possesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal. Neither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies. Neither are they separate from the first cause nor from one another, just as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from the soul.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

II. That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not in space.
Variant translation:
The essences of the gods are neither generated; for eternal natures are without generation; and those beings are eternal who possess a first power, and are naturally void of passivity. Nor are their essences composed from bodies; for even the powers of bodies are incorporeal: nor are they comprehended in place; for this is the property of bodies: nor are they separated from the first cause, or from each other; in the same manner as intellections are not separated from intellect, nor sciences from the soul.
II. That a God is immutable, without Generation, eternal, incorporeal, and has no Subsistence in Place, as translated by Thomas Taylor
On the Gods and the Cosmos

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Zaman Ali photo

“People wealth consists upon their freedom, individual resources and good social life.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9672844-people-wealth-consists-upon-their-freedom-individual-resources-and-good

Alfredo Rocco photo
Antonie Pannekoek photo
Joseph Addison photo
Joseph Chamberlain photo
William Kingdon Clifford photo
Karl Pearson photo
Derek Parfit photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Vimalakirti photo
William Harcourt photo
Ho Chi Minh photo

“Revolutionary morality consists in absolute loyalty to the Party and the people.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

"On Revolutionary Morality" (1958)
1950's, On Revolutionary Morality (1958)

Robert Sheckley photo
Franz Bardon photo
Shivaji photo
Mao Zedong photo
Amiri Baraka photo

“I guess I was the most unbohemian of all bohemians. My bohemianism consisted of not wanting to get involved with the stupid stuff that I thought people wanted you to get involved with — … namely America…”

Amiri Baraka (1934–2014) African-American writer

On his bohemian status in “Remembering Activist Poet Amiri Baraka” https://www.npr.org/2014/01/10/261379770/fresh-air-remembers-activist-poet-amiri-baraka in NPR (2014 Jan 10)

Pope John Paul II photo

“It is helpful to recall that the death of the person is a single event, consisting in the total disintegration of that unitary and integrated whole that is the personal self. The death of the person, understood in this primary sense, is an event which no scientific technique or empirical method can identify directly.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Human experience shows that once death occurs certain biological signs inevitably follow, which medicine has learnt to recognize with increasing precision. In this sense, the "criteria" for ascertaining death used by medicine today should not be understood as the technical-scientific determination of the exact moment of a person's death, but as a scientifically secure means of identifying the biological signs that a person has indeed died.
Address to the 18th International Congress of the Transplantation Society, 29 August 2000

Lauretta Bender photo
Charles Stross photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Mary McCarthy photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Albert Einstein photo
James Madison photo
Gottfried Leibniz photo

“The love of God consists in an ardent desire to procure the general welfare, and reason teaches me that there is nothing which contributes more to the general welfare of mankind than the perfection of reason.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

Closing sentence of the Preface to the general science (1677) (in P. Wiener (ed.), Leibniz Selections, Macmilland Press Ltd, 1951).

Roy Jenkins photo
John S. Bell photo

“Bohr was inconsistent, unclear, willfully obscure and right. Einstein was consistent, clear, down-to-earth and wrong.”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

quoted in Graham Farmelo, " Random Acts of Science http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/books/review/Farmelo-t.html", The New York Times (June 11, 2010)

Immanuel Kant photo

“A whole from necessary substances is impossible. The whole, therefore, of substances is a whole of contingent things, and the world consists essentially of only contingent things.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section IV On The Principle Of The Form Of The Intelligible World

Immanuel Kant photo
Immanuel Kant photo
Amet-khan Sultan photo

“Love and boundless devotion to the great Motherland does not exclude love for the native land, for the native places, and graves of ancestors; on the contrary, this last love decorates and enhances the love for the great Motherland, it adorns and enriches human happiness … Our Great Homeland consists of our native lands: the great friendly family of Soviet peoples consists of our people, of our families. Everything that hinders the world, the happiness of the family and the people, should be carefully studied and eliminated, because peace, friendship and the power of our country, our people depend on it. Proceeding from these convictions, in the name of friendship and happiness of all nations, I am the son of my people, at the same time infinitely loyal to the Great Motherland, my own Communist Party – a citizen of the USSR – a son of the Soviet people, I appeal to the Leninist Party: 1. My people are humiliated and offended by the fact that they were expelled from their native land without need or reason. Return them to their native land - Crimea. 2. Equality is taken away from the people. Restore this equality, and allow them into the monolithic friendly family of the peoples of the USSR as an equal people.”

Amet-khan Sultan (1920–1971) WWII fighter pilot and twice Hero of the Soviet Union who went on to become test pilot

Любовь и беспредельная преданность великой Родине не исключают любви к родному краю, к родным местам, могилам своих предков, наоборот, эта последняя любовь украшает и усиливает любовь к великой Родине, она украшает и обогащает человеческое счастье… Великая наша Родина состоит и из наших родных краев: великая дружественная семья советских народов состоит из наших народов, из наших семей. Всё, что мешает миру, счастью семьи и народа, должно быть заботливо изучено и устранено, ибо от этого зависит мир, дружба и могущество нашей страны, нашего народа. Исходя из этих убеждений, во имя дружбы и счастья всех народов, я — сын своего народа, вместе с тем беспредельно преданный Великой Родине, родной Коммунистической партии — гражданин СССР — сын советского народа, обращаюсь к ленинской партии с просьбой: 1. Народ мой унижен, оскорблён тем, что безвинно, без нужды и основания выслан из родного края. Верните его в родной край — Крым. 2. У народа отнято равноправие. Восстановите это равноправие, верните его в монолитную дружественную семью народов СССР как равноправный народ.
From a petition he signed (letter) http://ndkt.org/yu.-osmanov-ob-amethane-sultane.html to the leadership of the Soviet Union resquesting the rehabilitation and right of return for the Crimean Tatar people
Quotes by Amet-khan

Charley Toorop photo

“The new artist-society will consist of painters, sculptors and architects. The founders don’t intend that the character of the union will be determined by one single art movement. They believe that there is room for every important expression of this period and they intend the new union as a gathering place for the best young artists, who will collectively determine the character of the society.”

Charley Toorop (1891–1955) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: tekst in circulaire van Charley Toorop, in het Nederlands:) De nieuwe vereeniging zal bestaan uit schilders, beeldhouwers en architecten. De oprichters stellen zich niet op het standpunt, dat het karakter der vereeniging door één enkele kunstrichting bepaald wordt. Zy gelooven dat voor iedere belangrijke uiting van deze tyd plaats is en bedoelen de nieuwe vereeniging als verzamelplaats voor de beste jonge kunstenaars, die gezamenlyk het karakter van de vereeniging bepalen.
text of Charley Toorop, in a circular for possible members of the new artist-society 'A.S.B.', Amsterdam 8 Dec. 1926; in the Archive J.J.P. Oud, Nederlands Architectuur museum, Rotterdam
before 1930

Charles Webster Leadbeater photo
Enoch Powell photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“Despairingly, sometimes, I seek the comfort of a benign god, Shaarilla. My mind goes out, lying awake at night, searching through black barrenness for something—anything—which will take me to it, warm me, protect me, tell me that there is order in the chaotic tumble of the universe; that it is consistent, this precision of the planets, not simply a brief, bright spark of sanity in an eternity of malevolent anarchy.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Elric sighed and his quiet tones were tinged with hopelessness. “Without some confirmation of the order of things, my only comfort is to accept the anarchy. This way, I can revel in chaos and know, without fear, that we are doomed from the start—that our brief existence is both meaningless and damned. I can accept, then, that we are more than forsaken, because there was never anything there to forsake us. I have weighed the proof, Shaarilla, and must believe that anarchy prevails, in spite of all the laws which seemingly govern our actions, our sorcery, our logic. I see only chaos in the world. If the book we seek tells me otherwise, then I shall gladly believe it. Until then, I will put my trust only in my sword and myself.”
Source: The Elric Cycle, The Weird of the White Wolf (1977), Chapter 1, “A Woman Who Would Risk Grief to Her Soul” (p. 451)

William Logan (author) photo

“Two things are essential to the astrologer, namely, a bag of cowries and an almanac, When any one comes to consult him he quietly sits down, facing the sun, on a plank seat or mat, murmuring some mantrams or sacred verses, opens his bag of cowries and pours them on the floor. With his right hand he moves them slowly round and round, solemnly inciting meanwhile a stanza or two in praise of his guru or teacher and of his deity, invoking their help. He then stops and explains what, lie has been doing, at the same time taking a handful of cowries from the heap and placing them on one side. In front is a diagram drawn with chalk on tire floor and consisting of twelve compartments. Before commencing operations with the diagram he selects three or five of the cowries highest up in tho heap and places them in a line on the right-hand side. These represent Ganapati (the Belly God, the remover of difficulties), the sun, the planet Jupiter, Sarasvati (the Goddess of speech), and his own Guru or preceptor. To all of those the astrologor gives due obeisance, touching his ears and the ground three times with both hands. The cowries are next arranged in the compartments of tho diagram and are moved about from compartment to compartment by the astrologer, who quotes meanwhile tho authority on which ho makes such moves. Finally he explains the result, and ends with again worshipping the deified cowries who were witnessing the operation as spectators.”

Malabar Manual, Page 142 https://archive.org/details/MalabarLogan/page/n154
Malabar Manual (1887)

Simone Weil photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Iain Duncan Smith photo
Heinrich Himmler photo
Garry Kasparov photo

“For inspiration I look to those great players who consistently found original ways to shock their opponents. None did this better than the eighth world champion, Mikhail Tal.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

The "Magician of Riga" rose to become champion in 1960 at age twenty-three and became famous for his aggressive, volatile play.
Part I, Chapter 5, Talent, p. 60-61
2000s, How Life Imitates Chess (2007)

Baruch Spinoza photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“A propaganda system will consistently portray people abused by enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own government or clients will be unworthy.”

The evidence of worth may be read from the extent and character of attention and indignation. […] the U.S. media’s practical definitions of worth are political in the extreme and fit well the expectations of a propaganda model. While this differential treatment occurs on a large scale, the media, intellectuals, and public are able to remain unconscious of this fact and maintain a high moral and self-righteous tone. This is evidence of an extremely effective propaganda system. […] The worth of a victim Popieluszko [Polish priest] is valued at somewhere between 137 and 179 times that of a victim in the U.S. client states, or, looking at the matter in reverse, a priest murdered in Latin America is worth less than a hundredth of a priest murdered in Poland.
Source: Manufacturing Consent, with Noam Chomsky, 1988, pp. 37, 39.

“As a mathematical object, the constitution is maximally simple, consistent, necessarily incomplete, and interpretable as a model of natural law. Political authority is allocated solely to serve the constitution.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

There are no authorities which are not overseen, within nonlinear structures. Constitutional language is formally constructed to eliminate all ambiguity and to be processed algorithmically. Democratic elements, along with official discretion, and legal judgment, is incorporated reluctantly, minimized in principle, and gradually eliminated through incremental formal improvement. Argument defers to mathematical expertise. Politics is a disease that the constitution is designed to cure.
"A Republic, If You Can Keep It" https://web.archive.org/web/20140327090001/http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/articles/12321 (2013) (original emphasis)

Richard Kalich photo

“Richard Kalich is a successful novelist, one who has succeeded in consistently producing perplexing fictions that fail to categorize themselves and escape the warping influence of authorial intent.”

Richard Kalich novelist

Christopher Leise, Electronic Book Review, Central Park West Trilogy: The Nihilesthete, Penthouse F, Charlie P.

Aryabhata photo
Paul Bernays photo
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac photo

“It is not true that on an exchange of commodities we give value for value. On the contrary, each of the two contracting parties in every case, gives a less for a greater value. … If we really exchanged equal values, neither party could make a profit. And yet, they both gain, or ought to gain. Why? The value of a thing consists solely in its relation to our wants. What is more to the one is less to the other, and vice versa.”

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780) French academic

… It is not to be assumed that we offer for sale articles required for our own consumption. … We wish to part with a useless thing, in order to get one that we need; we want to give less for more. … It was natural to think that, in an exchange, value was given for value, whenever each of the articles exchanged was of equal value with the same quantity of gold. … But there is another point to be considered in our calculation. The question is, whether we both exchange something superfluous for something necessary.
Le Commerce et le Gouvernement (1776), as quoted in Marx's Capital, Vol. I, Ch. 5.

C. V. Raman photo

“Dr. C. V. Raman was the greatest scientist of modern India and one of the greatest intellects our country has produced in its long history. His mind was like the diamond, which he studied and explained. His life’s work consisted in throwing light upon the nature of lights, and the world honoured him in many ways for the new knowledge which he won for science.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India quoted in [Cahn, R.W., The Coming of Materials Science, http://books.google.com/books?id=CCmJMr_K5NIC&pg=PA234, 16 March 2001, Elsevier, 978-0-08-052942-4, 272]

Henri de Saint-Simon photo
Peter Barlow (mathematician) photo

“Opinions derived from long experience are exceedingly valuable, and outweigh all others, while they are consistent with facts and with each other; but they are worse than useless when they lead, as in this instance, to directly opposite opinions.”

Peter Barlow (mathematician) (1776–1862) British mathematician and physicist

[Peter Barlow, Second report addressed to the directors and proprietors of the London and Birmingham Railway company, founded on an inspection of, and experiments made on the Liverpool and Manchester railway, B. Fellowes, 1835, 4]

“He is the most consistently successful South African movie maker around, firmly cornering the giggle market.”

Jamie Uys (1921–1996) South African film director

Jani Allan, "(Still) letting the good times roll", Sunday Times (1979), republished in Face Value by Jani Allan.

Paul Scholes photo