Quotes about creationism
page 5

1920s
Source: the article 'i ein Manifest' (or 'i-manifest'), Kurt Schwitters, in Merz 2. 1923; as quoted in Kurt Schwitters Merzbau: The Cathedral of Erotic Misery, by Elizabeth Burns Gamard, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2000, p. 116

Art, Idea, Nature, Loss

“At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

as interviewed by David Van Biema, "Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop," Time Magazine, Feb. 07, 2008 http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html

Christ

“In sum, the processes of evolution create initially comparatively simple dynamical systems on particular levels of organisation. The processes then lead to the progressive complexification of the existing systems and, ultimately, to the creation of simpler systems on the next higher organisational level, where complexification begins anew. Thus evolution moves from the simpler to the more complex, and from the lower to the higher level of organisation”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Laszlo (1991) The Age of Bifurcation: Understanding the Changing World. Philadelphia: Gordon & Breach. p. 112; As cited in: K.L. Dennis (2003, p. 69).

“The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger…. The evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific "fact," since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is merely a scientific theory or "guess."… It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it could accurately be termed a "myth."”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) (dissenting) http://www.belcherfoundation.org/edwards_v_aguillard_dissent.htm Has been misleadingly quoted without Scalia's statements attributing the assertions to witness testimony paragraphs earlier, "Before summarizing the testimony of Senator Keith and his supporters, I wish to make clear that I by no means intend to endorse its accuracy... Senator Keith and his witnesses testified essentially as set forth in the following numbered paragraphs:", as in Michael Stone, " Scalia Commencement Speech Supports Young Earth Creationism http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/06/scalia-commencement-speech-supports-young-earth-creationism/" (), Progressive Secular Humanist, Patheos. Misattributed

Support, Problem, Strong, Science

“You practice so you can invent. Discipline? No. The joy of practicing leads you to the celebration of the creation.”

Cecil Taylor (1929–2018) American pianist and poet

Soure: Films on Demand, Films for the Humanities & Sciences, Films Media Group, & MVD Entertainment Group. (2011). Cecil Taylor All the Notes. New York, N.Y.: Films Media Group.

Joy

“First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say, 'I am an English man practising the Jewish faith.' This is a worthy conception, and useful in the highest degree. We in Great Britain well know that during the great struggle the influence of what may be called the 'National Jews' in many lands was cast preponderatingly on the side of the Allies; and in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valour. There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews, it is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd) or of Krassin or Radek -- all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.”

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

"Zionism versus Bolshevism", Illustrated Sunday Herald (February 1920)
Early career years (1898–1929)

Life, People, World, Faith

“The foremost challenge is that of the knowledge revolution. Economic power will depend on creativity and innovation. Creation of wealth will move from traditional resources to the one asset: knowledge.”

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (1938) Jordanian businesspeople

June 27, 1999, Crans Montana Forum, Switzerland.

Knowledge, Dependency, Wealth

“I am aware that the great Plato himself, and after him, a man posterior to him in date, though not in mind, I mean Iamblichus of Chalcis (who initiated us into other branches of philosophy, and also into this by means of his discourses), did both of them as far as hypothesis goes, take for granted the fact of a Creation and assumed the universe to have been, in a certain sense, the Work of Time, in order that the most important of the effects produced by this Power, may be reduced into a shape for examination.”

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

Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)

Sense, Universe, Time

“The creation of a legal eligibility allowing the grant of an amnesty for treason is abhorrent and unacceptable. The Bill was supposed to be a search for the truth behind the tragedy of 2000, but the Bill never once mentions the word "truth."”

Graeme Leung Fijian lawyer

16 June 2005 parliamentary submission

Truth, Search

“Jesus promised the resurrection of the body, not an afterlife as a disembodied consciousness. Despite this, the followers of Jesus have always disparaged the flesh. Their belief that humans are marked off from the rest of creation by having an immortal soul has led them to disown the fate they share with other animals. They cannot reconcile their attachment to the body with their hope of immortality. When the two come into conflict it is always the flesh that is left behind.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Unsaved: Gnosticism and the cybernauts
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Fate, Hope, Soul, Animals

“The variety of minds served the economy of nature in many ways. The Creator, who designed the human brain for activity, had insured the restlessness of all minds by enabling no single one to envisage all the qualities of the creation. Since no one by himself could aspire to a serene knowledge of the whole truth, all men had been drawn into an active, exploratory and cooperative attitude.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948), Ch. 3, Part 2: The Happy Variety of Minds, p. 125.

Men, Truth, Way, Nature

“According to Dr. Ambedkar, Kapila is the source of one of Buddhism's most fundamental concepts, causality, and also of the related Buddhist rejection of the belief in a personal Creator of the universe: 'His next tenet related to causality-creation and its cause. Kapila denied the theory that there was a being who created the universe.”

Kapila Vedic sage, of the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy

Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743, with quote from Ambedkar: The Buddha and his Dhamma, 1:5:2.

Universe, Personality

“What does it mean, then, to become part of God’s work in the world? What does it mean to live a Christian life? One way to answer that question is to look back into the life of the Trinity and the original creation. God made us to ever increasingly share in his own joy and delight in the same way he has joy and delight within himself. We share his joy first as we give him glory (worshipping and serving him rather than ourselves); second, as we honor and serve the dignity of other human beings made in the image of God’s glory; and third, as we cherish his derivative glory in the world of nature, which also reflects it. We glorify and enjoy him only as we worship him, serve the human community, and care for the created environment.
Another way to look at the Christian life, however, is to see it from the perspective of the final restoration. The world and our hearts are broken. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was an infinitely costly rescue operation to restore justice to the oppressed and marginalized, physical wholeness to the diseased and dying, community to the isolated and lonely, and spiritual joy and connection to those alienated from God. To be a Christian today is to become part of that same operation, with the expectation of suffering and hardship and the joyful assurance of eventual success.”

Tim Keller (pastor) book The Reason for God

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008), Ch. 14: The Dance of God

Life, Death, God, World

“His imperial fancy has laid all Nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art.”

Robert Hall (1764–1831) British Baptist pastor

On Burke; Apology for the Freedom of the Press, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Art, Nature

“As the dominant social ethic changed from a religious to a secular one, the problem of heresy disappeared, and the problem of madness arose and became of great social significance. In the next chapter I shall examine the creation of social deviants, and shall show that as formerly priests had manufactured heretics, so physicians, as the new guardians of social conduct and morality, began to manufacture madmen.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. 160.

Problem, Change, Madness

“Up to 1931 there was no reason to suppose that social changes would not, or could not, follow the same evolutionary pattern which had resulted from the increased creation and distribution of wealth during the nineteenth century. Now, after 1931, many of us felt that the disease was more deep-rooted. It had become evident that the structure of capitalist society in its old form had broken down, not only in Britain but all over Europe and even in the United States. The whole system had to be reassessed. Perhaps it could not survive at all; it certainly could not survive without radical change. Something like a revolutionary situation had developed, not only at home but overseas.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

Harold Macmillan (1966) Winds of change, 1914-1939. p. 266 as cited in Brian Vickery (2005) "Coming of age in the 1930s" ( online http://web.archive.org/web/20080531130709/http://www.lucis.me.uk/thirties.htm at archive.org) 1960s

Disease, Home, Change, Wealth

“In creation alone there is the possibility of perfection.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

May 11, 1935, published in Fire : From "A Journal of Love" : the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934-1937 (1995)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Perfection

“Only in the fever of creation could she recreate her own lost life.”

Anaïs Nin book Winter of Artifice

Winter of Artifice (1939)

Life

“[T]he thought of creation itself dictates the presence of an excessive will to receive in the souls, to fit the immense pleasure that the Creator thought to bestow upon them. For the great delight and the great desire to receive must go hand in hand.”

Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist

Introduction to the Book of Zohar, in Introduction to the Book of Zohar: Volume Two, Michael Laitman, ed., Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2005, p. 119.
Introduction to the Book of Zohar

Pleasure, Soul

“Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

The Hashish Man and Other Stories; Manic D Press; October 1996; Page 59; ISBN 0916397459

Secret, Universe

“Strictly speaking, no person who believes that wars between classes and nations are inevitable is fit to be in charge of the destiny of children. To believe in the unity of the human race and get children to believe it in early youth would mean the creation of that unity and the end of war.”

Dora Russell (1894–1986) author, feminist, socialist campaigner

Source: The Right to Be Happy (1927), Ch. V, p. 205

War, Children, Youth, Personality

“He (Babaji) is not preaching any new religion. He has come to preach the religion, which occurred at the time of Creation, and that is the Sanatan Dharma - the Eternal Religion. He has come to preach the Sanatan Dharma only. We can determine the date from which every religion started. For example, the Muslim religion was started by Mohammed 1400 years ago and this is recorded in their scriptures. Christianity started with birth of Christ, 2000 years ago. Before Christ and Mohammed existed, the world and its people were living. The Sanatan Dharma has been followed for thousands and millions of years and no one is able to trace the date it began. You may try to understand this spontaneous religion this way: the dharma (law or nature) of fire is to burn; the dharma of water is to be wet; the air has to blow. Can one tell on what day the fire started to burn, the water to be wet, and the air to blow? No one can say. Sanatan Dharma is like a great ocean. From that ocean, each country has dug canals according to their needs and purposes. But canals cannot give total satisfaction as the ocean gives complete bliss. The Lord is showing a vision of the Sanatan Dharma, which is like the great ocean, and this is the greatest form of knowledge. Until now, people only had knowledge of their canals. Now the Lord is showing us that we aren't just bubbles in a canal, but rather bubbles in the great ocean. As long as we have individuality, we are seen as bubbles; when we disappear, we are one with the ocean. (Vishnu Dutt Shastriji about Haidakhan Babaji and Sanatan Dharma)”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

25 March 1983
The Teachings of Babaji

People, World, Religion, Law

“All up and down the whole creation,
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for the old plantation,
And for the old folks at home.”

Stephen Foster (1826–1864) American songwriter

Old Folks at Home

Home

“No desire of the body, but for what lies in there, what lies in the flesh, the world, the thought, the creation, the illumination.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

March 2, 1936 Fire
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

World

“In the end nobody knows how it's done — how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn't explain the magic of creation. Nothing can.”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

Interview with Martin Gayford, "Hockney and the secrets of the Old Masters" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/09/22/bagay22.xml The Telegraph(22 September 2001) 2000s

Art, Understanding

“The paradox that immediately bothers everyone who learns about the second law is this: If systems tend to become more disordered, why, then, do we see so much order around us? …It seems to conflict with our "creation myth": In the beginning, there was a big bang. …no one is saying that the second law of thermodynamics is wrong, just that there is a contrapuntal process organizing things at a higher level.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995)

Law, Learning

“At its 10th December Conference in Geneva the Future of Human Rights Forum endorsed new structures and mechanisms to advance the realization of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly 65 years ago. Among important initiatives discussed by a high level panel was the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly aimed at empowering world citizens and giving them direct participation in the political processes that affect them. Democracy lives from consultation and participation and a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly can meaningfully advance this goal.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2013 Future of Human Rights Forum http://dezayasalfred.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/2013-future-of-human-rights-forum/. 2013

World, Democracy, Universe, Future

“If Good approved of his creature's creation, He breathed the painted clay-model into life by signing His name.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

From the seventh book, "The Book of Youth"
The Pillow Book

Life, Painting

“The history of technology will record that for the first time a machine of human construction, a five-and-a-half-ton missile, covered a distance of a hundred and twenty miles with a lateral deflection of only two and a half miles from the target. Your names, my friends and colleagues, are associated with this achievement. We did it with automatic control. From the artilleryman's point of view, the creation of the rocket as a weapon solves the problem of the weight of heavy guns. We are the first to have given a rocket built on the principles of aircraft construction a speed of thirty-three hundred miles per hour by means of rocket propulsion. Acceleration throughout the period of propulsion was no more than five times that of gravity, perfectly normal for maneuvering of aircraft. We have thus proved that it is quite possible to build piloted missiles or aircraft to fly at supersonic speed, given the right form and suitable propulsion. Our automatically controlled and stabilized rocket has reached heights never touched by any man-made machine. Since the tilt was not carried to completion our rocket today reached a height of nearly sixty miles. We have thus broken the world altitude record of twenty-five miles previously held by the shell fired from the now almost legendary Paris Gun.
The following points may be deemed of decisive significance in the history of technology: we have invaded space with our rocket and for the first time--mark this well--have used space as a bridge between two points on the earth; we have proved rocket propulsion practicable for space travel. To land, sea, and air may now be added infinite empty space as an area of future intercontinental traffic, thereby acquiring political importance. This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel....
So long as the war lasts, our most urgent task can only be the rapid perfection of the rocket as a weapon. The development of possibilities we cannot yet envisage will be a peacetime task. Then the first thing will be to find a safe means of landing after the journey through space…”

Walter Dornberger (1895–1980) German general

[Dornberger, Walter, Walter Dornberger, V2--Der Schuss ins Weltall, 1952 -- US translation V-2 Viking Press:New York, 1954, Bechtle Verlag, Esslingan, p17,236]

War, World, Travel, History

“It's hard to be creative and it's also hard not to think what you do is creative or hard not to be called creative because everybody is always talking about that and individuality. Everybody's always creative. And it is so funny when you say things aren't, like the shoe I would draw for an advertisement was called a 'creation', but the drawing of it was not... There are millions of actors. They're all pretty good. And how many painters are there? Millions of painters and all pretty good. How can you say one style is better then another. You ought to be able to be an Abstract-expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you're given up something.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Shoe, Feeling, Thinking, Drawing

“God has not the slightest difficulty in bringing to a fullness of creation the person who is in some way incomplete and recognises this. The problem is with those who think that they are complete, and that creation is, at least in their case, finished.”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), " The man blind from birth and the Creator's subversion of sin http://girardianlectionary.net/res/fbr_ch-1_john9.htm", p. 16-17.

God, Way, Problem, Thinking

“There was a rock that since the creation of the world had been worked upon by the pure essences of Heaven and the fine savours of Earth, the vigour of sunshine and the grace of moonlight, till at last it became magically pregnant and one day split open, giving birth to a stone egg, about as big as a playing ball. Fructified by the wind it developed into a stone monkey, complete with every organ and limb.”

Arthur Waley (1889–1966) British academic

Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 1 (p. 11)

World, Birth

“The term (system-of-systems) is being applied to the creation of new systems by bringing together existing operational systems under a single umbrella and, presumably, creating or adapting links and interactions between the operational systems, which become subsystems of the higher level umbrella system.”

Derek Hitchins (1935) British systems engineer

Source: Advanced Systems Thinking, Engineering and Management (2003), p. 80 as cited in: Jung-Ho Lewe (2005) An Integrated Decision-Making Framework for Transportation Architectures https://smartech.gatech.edu/jspui/bitstream/1853/6918/1/Jung-Ho_Lewe_200505_phd.pdf. p.

“[Intelligent Design Theory] Creationism by another name.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://mikebloomberg.com/en/news/ny_times_bloomberg_on_everything Intelligent Design Theory

Intelligence

“Modern physics has thus revealed that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction. The dance of Shiva is the dancing universe, the ceaseless flow of energy going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one another’’. For the modern physicists, then Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter. As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomenon. Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our times, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance.”

Fritjof Capra book The Tao of Physics

Source: The Tao of Physics (1975), p. 244.

Beauty, Nature, Universe, Time

“Mercer,” Rick said.
“I am your friend,” the old man said. “But you must go on as if I did not exist. Can you understand that?” He spread empty hands.
“No,” Rick said. “I can’t understand that. I need help.”
“How can I save you,” the old man said, “if I can’t save myself?” He smiled. “Don’t you see? There is no salvation.”
“Then what’s this for?” Rick demanded. “What are you for?”
“To show you,” Wilbur Mercer said, “that you aren’t alone. I am here with you and always will be. Go and do your task, even though you know it’s wrong.”
“Why?” Rick said. “Why should I do it? I’ll quit my job and emigrate.”
The old man said, “You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.”

Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“That’s all you can tell me?” Rick said.
Source: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Chapter 15 (pp. 178-179)

Life, Smile, Understanding, Universe

“It is because of God's love that I care about the fate of atheists. When an atheist says he sees no evidence that God exists, I take the time to reason with him about creation not being an accident, even though it is intellectually demeaning to have to do so (atheism is the epitome of stupidity). It's an intellectual embarassment. But I have done so thousands of times, and will do so until my last breath… thanks alone to the love of God that dwells in me.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Love, God, Fate, Stupidity

“We have come through a strange cycle in programming, starting with the creation of programming itself as a human activity. Executives with the tiniest smattering of knowledge assume that anyone can write a program, and only now are programmers beginning to win their battle for recognition as true professionals.”

Gerald M. Weinberg (1933–2018) American computer scientist

Cited in: Michael Jay Quinn (2006) Ethics for the information age. p. 415
The Psychology of Computer Programming, 1971

Knowledge

“The current demoralization of the art world is attributable at least in part to museum interference, ideological and practical, with ongoing creation in art.”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 283, "The Old Age of Modernism"

World, Art, Parting

“Computer science research is different from these more traditional disciplines. Philosophically it differs from the physical sciences because it seeks not to discover, explain, or exploit the natural world, but instead to study the properties of machines of human creation. In this it as analogous to mathematics, and indeed the "science" part of computer science is, for the most part mathematical in spirit. But an inevitable aspect of computer science is the creation of computer programs: objects that, though intangible, are subject to commercial exchange.”

Dennis M. Ritchie (1941–2011) American computer scientist

Reflections on Software Research (1984)

World, Mathematics, Nature, Study

“We cannot go forward and build up this new world order, and this is our war aim, unless we begin to think differently…one must stop thinking in terms of property and power and begin thinking in terms of community and creation. Property is the old-fashioned way of thinking of a country as a thing, and a collection of things in that thing, all owned by certain people and constituting property; instead of thinking of a country as the home of a living society with the community itself as the first test.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

BBC Radio Broadcast, July 21, 1940. Reprinted in Priestley, Postscripts, William Heinemann Limited, 1940, and All England Listened: The Wartime Broadcasts of J.B. Priestley, Chilmark Press, 1968.

War, People, World, Way

“Secondly, the student is trained to accept historical mis-statements on the authority of the book. If education is a pre- paration for adult life, he learns first to accept without question, and later to make his own contribution to the creation of historical fallacies, and still later to perpetuate what he has learnt. In this way, ignorant authors are leading innocent students to hysterical conclusions. The process of the writers' mind provides excellent material for a manual on logical fallacies. Thirdly, the student is told nothing about the relationship between evidence and truth. The truth is what the book ordains and the teacher repeats. No source is cited. No proof is offered. No argument is presented. The authors play a dangerous game of winks and nods and faints and gestures with evidence. The art is taught well through precept and example. The student grows into a young man eager to deal in assumptions but inapt in handling inquiries. Those who become historians produce narratives patterned on the textbooks on which they were brought up. Fourthly, the student is compelled to face a galling situation in his later years when he comes to realize that what he had learnt at school and college was not the truth. Imagine a graduate of one of our best colleges at the start of his studies in history in a university in Europe. Every lecture he attends and every book he reads drive him mad with exasperation, anger and frustration. He makes several grim discoveries. Most of the "facts", interpretations and theories on which he had been fostered in Pakistan now turn out to have been a fata morgana, an extravaganza of fantasies and reveries, myths and visions, whims and utopias, chimeras and fantasies.”

Khursheed Kamal Aziz (1927–2009) historian

The Murder of History, critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan, 1993

Life, Truth, Books, Education

“The swift victory of the railway over the waterway resulted from organizational as well as technological innovation. Technology made possible fast, all-weather transportation; but safe, regular, reliable movement of goods and passengers, as well as the continuing maintenance and repair of locomotives, rolling stock, and track, roadbed, stations, roundhouses and other equipment, required the creation of a sizable administrative organization. It meant the employment of an administrative command of middle and top executives to monitor, evaluate, and coordinate the work of managers responsible for the day-to-day operations. It meant, too, the formulation of brand new types of internal administrative procedures and accounting and statistical controls. Hence, the operational requirements of the railroads demanded the creation of the first administrative hierarchies in American business.”

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1918–2007) American historian

Source: The Visible Hand (1977), p. 87.

Business, Victory, Weather

“You that trust in your own righteousness, arrogate to yourselves the honor of the greatest thing that even God Himself ever did. You seem not only sufficient to perform Divine works, but such is your pride and vanity, that you are not content without taking upon you to do the very greatest work that ever God Himself wrought. God's works of providence are greater than those of creation. To take on yourself to work out redemption, is a greater thing than if you had taken it upon you to create a world.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 542.

God, World

“Leibnitz, the great mathematician, published his 'Protogaea' in 1680. He imagined this planet to have been originally a burning luminous mass, and that ever since its creation it has been undergoing gradual refrigeration. Nearly all the matter of the earth was at first encompassed by fire. When the outer crust had at length cooled down sufficiently to allow the vapors to be condensed, they fell and formed a universal ocean, investing the globe, and covering the loftiest mountains. Further consolidation produced rents, vacuities, and subterranean caverns, and the ocean, rushing in to fill them, was gradually lowered. The principal feature of this theory, the gradual diminution of the original heat, and of an ancient universal ocean, were adopted by Buffon and De Luc, and entered under different modifications, into a great number of succeeding systems.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.3, p. 45
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Imagination, Mountain, Universe

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

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

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

Life, Truth, School, Soul

“Our god is the wonderful law of creation, whose amazing unity of all things shows itself if wonderful flowers, in growing trees, in new born children, in the secrets of a mother, in the growth of our people, in work and accomplishment and creation, in life itself. It is the joy we have in everything. How beautiful everything is. Do you feel the same way? I am so happy to be alive.”

Robert Ley (1890–1945) Nazi politician

Speech given on March 31, 1939. Quoted in Die Hoheitsträger and titled "Wir oder die Juden" - By Robert Ley - (May 1939), pages 4-6.

Life, God, Happiness, Children

Wú Chéng'ēn book Monkey

Monkey, chapter 1 (trans. Arthur Waley)
Journey to the West [Xiyouji] (1592)

World, Birth

“St. George is the hero who goes out to confront the dragon, and he frees the virgin from its grasp. I would say that's a pretty straight forward story about the sexual attractiveness of the masculine spirit that's willing to forthrightly encounter the unknown. It is a straight biological representation to me, and it's a really, really old story. It's the oldest written story we have, and it's basically the ancient Mesopotamian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, which basically plays out that story. You've basically seen this story played out a hundred different ways, and you never get tired of it, because it's the central story of mankind.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Source: "Biblical Series III: God and the Hierarchy of Authority" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_GPAl_q2QQ

Way

“Modern science was born in the period beginning with Copernicus's work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (l543) and ending with Newton's Philosophia Naturalis Philosophiae Mathematica.
For reasons not to be entered into here, mediaeval scholasticism had not succeeded in finding an effective method for the investigation of natural phenomena. And Humanism, though indirectly instrumental in the creation of natural science through the promotion of knowledge of Greek works on mathematics, mechanics, and astronomy, had not been able to find the new paths that science would have to follow. The conviction shared by the two movements, viz. that science was something which mankind had once possessed, but had since lost, turned men's eyes towards the past instead of to the future — to ancient books instead of to new investigations and experiments.
The creation of modern science required a different philosophy. Man had to realize that if science is to grow, each generation must make its own contribution; and that the accumulated wisdom of antiquity is useful only as a starting-point for new research.”

Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis (1892–1965) Dutch historian

Source: Simon Stevin: Science in the Netherlands around 1600, 1970, p. 1; Lead paragraph

Wisdom, Men, Books, Mathematics

“In retrospect we might have been more cautious about allowing the creation in the 1950s of substantial Muslim communities here, although when one observes the, in some ways, greater problems which France and Germany have in this respect, it is an illusion to believe that in the integrated world of today any major country can remain exclusively indigenous.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

'On Race Relations and the Rushdie Affair', The Independent Magazine (4 March 1989), p. 16, quoted in Elham Manea, Women and Shari'a Law: The Impact of Legal Pluralism in the UK (I.B. Tauris, 2016), p. 256.
1980s

World, Way, Communication, Problem

“The point of following Jesus isn't simply so that we can be sure of going to a better place than than this after we die. Our future beyond death is enormously important, but the nature of the Christian hope is such that it plays back into the present life. We're called, here and now, to be instruments of God's new creation, the world-put-to-rights which has already been launched by Jesus and of which Jesus's followers are supposed to be not simply beneficiaries but also agents.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

Source: Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (2006), p. xi

Life, Death, God, World

“Now, at present Britain has no V. A. T., and the questions whether this new tax should be introduced, how it should be levied, and what should be its scope, would be matters of debate in the country and in Parliament. The essence of parliamentary democracy lies in the power to debate and impose taxation: it is the vital principle of the British House of Commons, from which all other aspects of its sovereignty ultimately derive. With Britain in the community, one important element of taxation would be taken automatically, necessarily and permanently out of the hands of the House of Commons…Those matters which sovereign parliaments debate and decide must be debated and decided not by the British House of Commons but in some other place, and by some other body, and debated and decided once for the whole Community…it is a fact that the British Parliament and its paramount authority occupies a position in relation to the British nation which no other elective assembly in Europe possesses. Take parliament out of the history of England and that history itself becomes meaningless. Whole lifetimes of study cannot exhaust the reasons why this fact has come to be, but fact it is, so that the British nation could not imagine itself except with and through its parliament. Consequently the sovereignty of our parliament is something other for us than what your assemblies are for you. What is equally significant, your assemblies, unlike the British Parliament, are the creation of deliberate political acts, and most of recent political acts. The notion that a new sovereign body can be created is therefore as familiar to you as it is repugnant, not to say unimaginable, to us. This deliberate, and recent, creation of sovereign assemblies on the continent is in turn an aspect of the fact that the continent is familiar, and familiar in the recent past, with the creation of nation states themselves. Four of the six members of the Community came into existence as such no more than a century or a century and a half ago – within the memory of two lifetimes.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Lyons (12 February 1971), from The Common Market: The Case Against (Elliot Right Way Books, 1971), pp. 65-68.
1970s

Democracy, Imagination, History, Communication

“The creation of children is not justifiable in a majority of unions between the sexes; but when the creation responses are justifiably undertaken, there is sound psychological ground for advising the woman to provide, beforehand, sufficient funds of her own to carry both herself and the child through the period of her physical incapacity for appetitive work. There is sound psychological ground, also, for requiring the male to share equally at least, in the home work and the care of children.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

Source: The Emotions of Normal People (1928), p. 395 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.18 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda" by Michelle R. Finn.

Children, Sex, Home

“The eye projects and focuses the inner image (idea) onto the physical world in the same manner that a motion picture camera transfers an image onto a screen. The mouth creates words. The ears create sound. The difficulty in understanding this principle is due to the fact that we’ve taken it for granted that the image and sound already exist for the senses to interpret. Actually the senses are the channels of creation by which idea is projected into material expression.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 13

World, Idea, Understanding, Sense

“The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems — the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behaviour and religion.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

First Annual Report of the Arts Council (1945-1946)

Life, Religion, Problem, Heart

“And as far as [it's] presumptuous to say that God used twenty-four hour days, God, God coulda done it in six seconds. I think he did it in six days just to select, just to create a week for us. There's certainly no scientific reason, there's no lunar reason or solar reason why we have a seven day week. But just about every culture in the world operates on a seven day week. It's just like it's kind of built-in. And I think that's remnants, people remembering from the original creation when God established this seven day week.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Coast-to-Coast AM interview (August 2-3, 2000)

God, People, World, Thinking

“In poetic creation there is no
question of overcoming matter, as the
idle aesthetic proclaimed
by so many people would have it – but to free matter.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

ATV 187; p. 151
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

People, Question

“P. S. Managed to avoid the hoyden Emily Thompkinson, who has purloined my creation and added things of her own. Nefarious Creature!”

Emma Thompson (1959) British actress and writer

Golden Globe Award Speech

“He knew that this creature, though imperfect, though a mere creature, a mere figment of his own creative power, was yet in a manner more real than himself. For beside this concrete splendor what was he but a mere abstract potency of creation? Moreover in another respect the thing that he had made was his superior, and his teacher. For as he contemplated this the loveliest and subtlest of all his works with exultation, even with awe, its impact upon him changed him, clarifying and deepening his will. As he discriminated its virtue and its weakness, his own perception and his own skill matured. So at least it seemed to my bewildered, awe-stricken mind.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter XV: The Maker and His Works; 2. Mature Creating (p. 179)

Teachers, Change

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

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

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

Men, Truth, Secret, World

“Society is not the criminal but the force which keeps crime in check. When social controls weaken, man’s innate cruelty bursts forth. The rapist is created not by bad social conditioning influences but by a failure of social conditioning. Feminists, seeking to drive power relations out of sex, have set themselves against nature. In western culture, there are no nonexploitative relationships. Everyone has killed in order to live. Nature’s universal law of creation from destruction operates in mind as in matter. As Freud, Nietzsche’s heir, asserts, identity is conflict. Each generation drives its plow over the bones of the dead.</b”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 2

Law, Sex, Failure, Nature

“God prior to this time, had given revelation to this youth, on many occasions. The first one that he gave to him was in the spring of 1820, before Joseph Smith was of the age of fifteen. Then a wonderful revelation was given to him, the first one he ever received. In a great and glorious open vision, in answer to his prayers, there was the manifestation of two of the great personages in the heavens-not angels, not messengers, but two persons that hold the keys of authority over all the creations of the universe. Who were they? God the Eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ, through whom God the Father made the worlds!”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 21:308 (September 19, 1880).
Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision

God, Youth, Age, World

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Life, Death, Pain, Family

“They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge … no Gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command … But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of Creation; for we knew the Universe when it was young.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Profiles of the Future (1962)
1960s

God, Imagination, Knowledge, Universe

“Andrej’s mind, like any sane human’s … was a constantly convulsing dialectical unity of consciousness and subconsciousness, the battening down and channelling of dreams and desires, the recurring re-creation of the subliminal by the contradictory, the rational-capricious ego. And vice versa. The interaction of levels of consciousness into an unstable and permanently self-renewing whole.”

China Miéville book Perdido Street Station

Source: Perdido Street Station (2000), p. 553

Dreams

“No work which is destined to become a classic can look like the classics which have preceded it. In art, as in biology, there is heredity but no identity with the ascendants. Painters inherit characteristics acquired by their forerunners; that is why no important work of art can belong to any period but its own, to the very moment of its creation. It is necessarily dated by its own appearance. The conscious will of the painter cannot intervene.”

Juan Gris (1887–1927) Spanish painter and sculptor

Quote from 'On the Possibilities of Painting,' lecture, Sociétés des études philosophiques et scientifiques pour l'examen des idées nouvelles, Sorbonne, Paris (1924-05-15), printed in the Transatlantic Review, # 16 (June 1924), pp. 482-488; trans. Douglas Cooper in Horizon, # 80 (August 1946), pp. 113-122

Art, Appearance

“Centuries of their labor would not reveal to them any more of Creation than they already knew. Yet through their endeavor, men would glimpse the unimaginable artistry of Yahweh's work, in seeing how ingeniously the world had been constructed. By this construction, Yahweh's work was indicated, and Yahweh's work was concealed.”

Ted Chiang book Stories of Your Life and Others

Tower of Babylon; first appeared in Omni, 1990.
Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)

Men, World

“We must also point out that it is precisely the metaphysical element of painting that provokes the creation of a physical substance that corresponds to its necessities, a material that permits the metaphysical element to manifest itself in the painted form it desires.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

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

Painting

“Time! Time! Time! — we must not impugn the Scripture Chronology, but we must interpret it in accordance with whatever shall appear on fair enquiry to be the truth for there cannot be two truths. And really there is scope enough: for the lives of the Patriarchs may as reasonably be extended to 5000 or 50000 years apiece as the days of Creation to as many thousand millions of years.”

John Herschel (1792–1871) English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and photographer

Letter to Charles Lyell after being inspired by his Principles of Geology (1830-1833)

Truth, Appearance, Time

“When the utter absurdity of the Mosaic account of creation became apparent to all thoughtful men, the church changed the reading of the Bible. Then it was pretended that the “days” of creation were vast periods of time. When it was shown to be utterly impossible that the sun revolved around the earth, then the account given by Joshua of the sun standing still for the space of a whole day, was changed into a figure of speech. It was said that Joshua merely conformed to the mode of speech common in his day; and that when he said the sun stood still, he merely intended to convey the idea that the earth ceased turning upon its axis. Is there a sensible man in the world who believes this wretched piece of ignorance?”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)

Men, World, Idea, Change

“I've always thought that the stereotype of the dirty old man is really the creation of a dirty young man who wants the field to himself.”

Hugh Downs (1921) American broadcaster

Attributed

“At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Robert Jastrow (1925–2008) American astronomer

God and the Astronomers (1978), p. 116; (p. 107 in 1992 edition).

Faith, Dreams, Mountain, Science

“Well, if Evolution is true […] you’re just a bit of protoplasm that washed up on the beach. Matter of fact, you’re part of the problem because you’re one of the polluters of the environment and the more of you we can get rid of, the better. And by the way folks, if Evolution is true, that is normal thinking. Get rid of humanity because we’re the problem. But if Creation is true, we’re the purpose of this creation. God did it for us.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Age of the Earth

God, Way, Problem, Thinking

“The successful sale of British Telecom…reveals a vast and untapped yearning among ordinary people for a direct stake in the ownership of British enterprise. Investment in shares has begun to take its place, with ownership of a home and either a bank or building society deposit, as a way for ordinary people to participate in enterprise and wealth creation. We are seeing the birth of people's capitalism.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

On the privatisation of BT (November 1984), quoted in The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (London: Bantam, 1992), p. 224.

People, Way, Home, Birth

“Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

More Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian (1856), p. 207

God

“Art is neither the monopoly of a nation, nor of a social class, or the major age. People of outstanding talents and fine feelings, people who are not lacking in imagnation and the sense of creation, as well as good will-power. They are privileged to be involved in ART.”

Sadik Kaceli (1914–2000) Albanian artist

Source: Sadik Kaceli, may 1945, Source: Monografi Kaceli

People, Age, Art, Feeling

“Yes, a man ought to be courageous enough, loyal enough, and rich enough, not to produce but one prodigious work, in order that this work should be a chef-d'oeuvre, and glorify the man in his creation... If I could have my wish, I would be a millionaire for nothing else save to effect the genesis of a single and unique picture, to consecrate myself thereto and to find my pleasure therein, to suffer and joy in it, until, content with my work, after years of trial, I could sign it and say: 'There my powers stop and there my heart ceases to beat.”

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

as quoted by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, pp. 160-61
undated quotes

Pleasure, Courage, Suffering, Heart

“It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot.
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly –
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads –
The allotment of death.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

"Hawk Roosting", line 10
Lupercal (1960)

Death, Tear, Flying

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

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Life

“The cultivation of science is a luxury of no common kind amid the bustle and vexation of life, and is quite compatible with the most active professional duties. Your education and the example you have had to copy will, I am sure, guard you against those presumptuous and skeptical opinions which scientific knowledge too often engenders. In the ardour of pursuit and under the intoxication of success scientific men are apt to forget that they are the instrument by which Providence is gradually revealing the wonders of creation, and that they ought to exercise their functions with the same humility as those who are engaged in unfolding the mysteries of His revealed will.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

In a letter to James David Forbes, as found in Life and letters of James David Forbes, p. 39.

Life, Men, Education, Exercises

“From his childhood onward this boy [the future Edward VIII] will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score—[Cries of ‘Oh, oh!’]—and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation. [Cries of ‘Oh, oh!’] A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliance will follow—[Loud cries of ‘Oh, oh!’ and ‘Order!’]—and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill.”

Keir Hardie (1856–1915) Scottish socialist and labour leader

Cries of Divide!
House of Commons speech (1894)

People, World, Boy, Future

“The curriculum (to a certain extent) and the practice of teaching, ignoring the policy of segregation or apartheid, could not offer preparation for service within the black community. By simply blindly producing pupils formed on a European mould, the vain expectation was created that they, in spite of the said national policy, would still be able to fill posts in the white community. This is that is meant by the unhealthy creation of white collar ideals and the causing of widespread frustration among the so-called learned natives.”

Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966) Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966

Verwoerd in 1954, as quoted and translated by J. J. Venter in H.F. Verwoerd: Foundational aspects of his thought https://www.koersjournal.org.za/index.php/koers/article/download/511/636, Koers 64(4) 1999: 415–442

Communication, Learning

“The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Fear of Drowning By Numbers

Secret, Universe

“No artist's masterpiece can match a mother's creation of a successful child, one who has been freed to explore and to grow. … Success is measured not only by who we are, but by what gifts we give. As the old chief said, "The gift is not complete until it is given again."”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Ah, the mother whose gift to the world is a person!
Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 17 : Success Redefined, p. 194

World, Success, Personality

“But suppose we were to teach creationism. What would be the content of the teaching? Merely that a creator formed the universe and all species of life ready-made? Nothing more? No details?”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"The Dangerous Myth of Creationism" in Penthouse (January 1982); reprinted as Ch. 2 : "Creationism and the Schools" in The Roving Mind (1983), p. 16
General sources

Life, Universe

“May not the sacred text, on a liberal interpretation, or with the benefit of new light reflected from nature, or derived from learning, be shewn to be as much in harmony with the novelties of this volume as it has been with geology and natural philosophy? What is there in the laws of organic creation more startling to the candid theologian than in the Copernican system or the natural formation of strata?”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 389-390

Law, Nature, Light, Learning

“Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, over 100 major conflicts around the world have left some 20 million dead.”

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016) 6th Secretary-General of the United Nations

In a speech in 1992. Cited in Awake! magazine, 1995, 9/8; article: How Was the World 50 Years Ago?
1990s

World, Dead

“I didn't use the music from the scene in which Godzilla dies in GODZILLA - KING OF THE MONSTERS for the one in which he does actually meltdown because Godzilla was not what I was trying to focus on this time. Instead, I tried to focus on the dark side of humanity, which lead to the creation of atomic weapons, and Godzilla.”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Music, Time

“Certainly, there is no general principle that prevents the creation of an economic theory based on other hypotheses than that of rationality.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

1970s-1980s, "Rationality of Self and Others in an Economic System", 1986

“Having a little fun at my work does not make me any less of an artist and people who appreciate truly beautiful and original creations in pottery are not frightened by innocent tomfoolery!”

Clarice Cliff (1899–1972) English ceramic artist

Pasadena Evening Post (1931)

People, Beauty

“creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience”

James Barr (1924–2006) British bible scholar

“The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which man can have the chance to live by values that give meaning to life.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. 3

Life, People, Health, Books

“It is the body that is immortal. It is living from moment to moment. As a human body it is an extraordinary piece of creation. But as a human being he is rotten because of the culture.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Quoted in The Sage And the Housewife (2005) by Shanta Kelker, Ch. 3

“I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them.
Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill. But the mystery and the beauty of the world is overwhelmingly amazing, and there's no scientific explanation of how it came about. To say that it was generated by random numbers, that does seem, you know, sort of an uncharitable view. I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don't know.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Response when he was asked whether he believed in God, at his interview with the Rolling Stone Magazine http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140313#ixzz367A061i0. March 27, 2014. The Rolling Stone Interview (2014)

Life, God, People, World

“The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.”

Phillip E. Johnson Wedge strategy

This is from a summary of Johnsons ideas on the "Wedge strategy" which appeared in "Missionary Man" by Rob Boston in Church and State Magazine (April 1999) http://web.archive.org/web/20010508032051/http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs4995.htm, and not a direct quote. See also "Bad Philip Johnson Quote" at Panda's Thumb http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/02/post-4.html Misattributed

God, People, Truth, Question

Quotes about creationism page 5

Quotes about creationism
page 5