Quotes about department
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John Ashcroft photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The small and imperfect mixture of representative government in England, impeded as it is by other branches, aristocratical and hereditary, shows yet the power of the representative principle towards improving the condition of man. With us, all the branches of the government are elective by the people themselves, except the judiciary, of whose science and qualifications they are not competent judges. Yet, even in that department, we call in a jury of the people to decide all controverted matters of fact, because to that investigation they are entirely competent, leaving thus as little as possible, merely the law of the case, to the decision of the judges. And true it is that the people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositories of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the free principles of the government. Hereditary bodies, on the contrary, always existing, always on the watch for their own aggrandizement, profit of every opportunity of advancing the privileges of their order, and encroaching on the rights of the people.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Eric Holder photo
John Kennedy Toole photo
Cora L. V. Scott photo

“For a person who wants to do original, realistic, and critical work in statistics there is no atmosphere anywhere in the world today to compare with this Department.”

Leonard Jimmie Savage (1917–1971) American mathematician

Leonard Jimmie Savage, (1960) cited in: W.A. Wallis, "Leonard Jimmie Savage 1917-1971," in E Shils (ed.), Remembering the University of Chicago: teachers, scientists, and scholars. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991), 436-451; Quoted in: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson (2010).
Letter to Chicago Department before taking up a professorship at the University of Michigan.

Felix Adler photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“You should resign. It's the least you can do: Resign, along with those other spies and delinquents working in the State Department.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Chavez told Hillary Clinton in a televised speech on December 9, 2010 http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46373
2010

Mike Rosen photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Charles Lyell photo
Richard Feynman photo
Heber C. Kimball photo
Donald Barthelme photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
George W. Bush photo
Smokey Robinson photo
Charlie Beck photo

“The LAPD is still haunted by one of the most notorious police beatings ever caught on camera, the assault on Rodney King, which resulted in ferocious riots more than 20 years ago. It’s a big reason why LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who wears his body camera on his chest, is eager for his department to embrace this technology.”

Charlie Beck (1953) Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

[December 5, 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/police-departments-buying-body-cams-officers-recording/story?id=27003287&singlePage=true, Police Departments Are Buying Body Cams, and Officers Don't Have to Tell You When They're Recording, December 18, 2014, ABC News, David Wright, Victoria Thompson, Lauren Effron]
About

Aurangzeb photo

“Health to thee! My heart is near thee. Old age is arrived. Weakness subdues me, and strength has sorsaken all my members. I came a stranger into this world, and a stranger I depart. I do not know who I am, nor what I have been doing. The instant which has passed in power has left only sorrow behind it. I have not been the guardian and protector of the empire. My valuable time has been passed vainly…”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Letter to Shaw Azim Shaw, see A Translation of the Memoirs of Eradut Khan a Nobleman of Hindostan https://books.google.com/books?id=99VCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PT25 Also in The Mogul Emperors of Hindustan, A.D. 1398-A.D. 1707 https://books.google.com/books?id=m3o4BfQ4nmMC&pg=PA304 p. 304. Also in Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh https://books.google.com/books?id=w8qJAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 p. 4. Also in The Rajpoot Tribes Vol.2 by Charles Metcalfe, p. 305
Quotes from late medieval histories

Mike Oldfield photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Ayn Rand photo
Christopher Pitt photo
Peter Paul Rubens photo

“[those paintings that are] done entirely by my hand.... [those, ]done by the hand of a master skillfull in that department.... but this one not being finished, would be entirely retouched by my own hand, and by this means would pass as original; done by one of my pupils, but the whole retouched by my hand.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

In a letter of 28 April, 1618, to the collector Sir Dudley Carleton; transl. from Italian, R. Saunders Magurn, The letters of Peter Paul Rubens, Cambridge Mass., 1955, p.60-61
Rubens is indicating in this letter to a good client the level of his personal involvement in several paintings which were offered then for sale. Rubens is specifying his involvement in a variety of degrees, in relation to the attribution by pupils or by other fellow-artists - like his cooperation in many paintings with Breughel, for instance
1605 - 1625

“Hayek never really departed from the essential economic theory that he developed during the 1920s, although he expanded and deepened his analysis.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

“The Lord… said: Unless a man shall eat my flesh, he shall not have in himself eternal life. Certain of his disciples, the seventy to wit, were scandalised, and said: This is a hard saying; who can understand it? And they departed from him, and walked with him no more. His saying… seemed to them a hard one. They received it foolishly: they thought of it carnally. For they fancied, that the Lord was going to cut from his own body certain morsels and to give those morsels to them. Hence they said: This is a hard saying. But they themselves were hard: not the saying. For, if, instead of being hard, they had been mild, they would have… learned from him what those learned, who remained while they departed. For, when the twelve disciples had remained with him after the others had departed,… he instructed them, and said unto them: It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words, which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. As if he had said: Understand spiritually what I have spoken. You are Not about to eat this identical body, which you see; and you are Not about to drink this identical blood, which they who crucify me will pour out. I have commended unto you a certain sacrament. This, if spiritually understood, will quicken you. Though it must be celebrated visibly, it must be understood invisibly.”

George Stanley Faber (1773–1854) British theologian

Source: Christ's Discourse at Capernaum: Fatal to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation (1840), pp. 144-147

Matthew Prior photo

“Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave, but was loth to depart.”

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) British diplomat, poet

The Thief and the Cordelier (1718).

S. I. Hayakawa photo
Eric Holder photo
Vinod Rai photo

“"We cannot do the role of cheerleaders. We strive to provide objective feedback on the functioning of the various departments of the government." - Vinod Rai speaking at the inaugural function of a Conference of Accountants General.”

Vinod Rai (1948) Comptroller and Auditor General of India

CAG: We can’t don the role of cheerleaders http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/cag-we-can-t-don-the-role-of-cheerleaders/1013949/0

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan photo
Dean Acheson photo
Mikhail Bulgakov photo
Nathanael Greene photo

“If I leave the Quarter-master's department, I should be glad of the South Carolina appointment. How ever, I shall wish to consult your Excellency upon the affair.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (26 April 1779)

Mark Harmon photo
Lee Kuan Yew photo

“Look, Jeyaretnam can't win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time… I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

1981, as recounted by former President C. V. Devan Nair, as quoted in Beyond suspicion?: the Singapore judiciary, Francis T. Seow http://www.singapore-window.org/sw99/90321dn.htm
1980s

Chrétien de Troyes photo
Eric Holder photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I recommend that you provide the resources to carry forward, with full vigor, the great health and education programs that you enacted into law last year. I recommend that we prosecute with vigor and determination our war on poverty. I recommend that you give a new and daring direction to our foreign aid program, designed to make a maximum attack on hunger and disease and ignorance in those countries that are determined to help themselves, and to help those nations that are trying to control population growth. I recommend that you make it possible to expand trade between the United States and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I recommend to you a program to rebuild completely, on a scale never before attempted, entire central and slum areas of several of our cities in America. I recommend that you attack the wasteful and degrading poisoning of our rivers, and, as the cornerstone of this effort, clean completely entire large river basins. I recommend that you meet the growing menace of crime in the streets by building up law enforcement and by revitalizing the entire federal system from prevention to probation. I recommend that you take additional steps to insure equal justice to all of our people by effectively enforcing nondiscrimination in federal and state jury selection, by making it a serious federal crime to obstruct public and private efforts to secure civil rights, and by outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. I recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the federal government by creating a new Cabinet-level Department of Transportation and reorganizing several existing agencies. In turn, I will restructure our civil service in the top grades so that men and women can easily be assigned to jobs where they are most needed, and ability will be both required as well as rewarded. I will ask you to make it possible for members of the House of Representatives to work more effectively in the service of the nation through a constitutional amendment extending the term of a Congressman to four years, concurrent with that of the President. Because of Vietnam we cannot do all that we should, or all that we would like to do. We will ruthlessly attack waste and inefficiency. We will make sure that every dollar is spent with the thrift and with the commonsense which recognizes how hard the taxpayer worked in order to earn it. We will continue to meet the needs of our people by continuing to develop the Great Society. Last year alone the wealth that we produced increased $47 billion, and it will soar again this year to a total over $720 billion. Because our economic policies have produced rising revenues, if you approve every program that I recommend tonight, our total budget deficit will be one of the lowest in many years. It will be only $1.8 billion next year. Total spending in the administrative budget will be $112.8 billion. Revenues next year will be $111 billion. On a cash basis—which is the way that you and I keep our family budget—the federal budget next year will actually show a surplus. That is to say, if we include all the money that your government will take in and all the money that your government will spend, your government next year will collect one-half billion dollars more than it will spend in the year 1967. I have not come here tonight to ask for pleasant luxuries or for idle pleasures. I have come here to recommend that you, the representatives of the richest nation on earth, you, the elected servants of a people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe, you bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow Americans.”

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

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Karel Čapek photo
Francis Escudero photo
Pete Yorn photo

“And I could never see you depart us and you’re my baby, you’re just another girl.”

Pete Yorn (1974) American musician

Just Another
Song lyrics

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Oh! moral of enjoyment! — scattered, crushed : —
The pale checks of the few that staid, like ghosts
Haunting the footsteps of departing mirth,
While the bright pictures over them looked down
Almost in mockery.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(17th July 1824) Poetic Sketches - 5th Series. Sketch the First. - Fidelity
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Tryon Edwards photo
Charles Boarman photo
Jordan Anderson photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
George W. Bush photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail;
Lo! o'er ancient forms departing,
Newer rites of grace prevail;
Faith for all defects supplying,
Where the feeble senses fail.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Pange, Lingua, stanza 5 (Tantum Ergo)

Eric Holder photo
Eric Holder photo
Nathanael Greene photo
David Hunter photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Francisco Perea photo

“Dr. [Michael] Steck [superintendent of Indian affairs for New Mexico, ] showed me a report which he is going to submit to the Indian department here, in which he disapproves your policy to colonize the Navajo Indians, decidedly. He made several other allusions to your campaign against them, which I did not like nor believe. He thinks it impossible to put the Navajo nation on the Pecos for the small space of irrigable lands at the Bosque.. <nowiki”

Francisco Perea (1830–1913) Union Army officer

</nowiki>Fort Sumner.
Note to Brigadier General James H. Carleton (Jan, 1864) as quoted in Condition of the Indian Tribes, Report of the Joint Special Committee, https://books.google.com/books?id=Pwx3GV6oqRgC Appointed under Joint Resolution of March 3, 1865 of the Two Houses of Congress (1867) p.155

Milton Friedman photo
Maxwell D. Taylor photo

“My family and I left Yokohoma in June, 1939, in time for me to enter the Army War College in what turned out to be the last class before the school closed for World War II. As we left Japan, I would have said that war between the two countries was certainly possible but I had no premonition that it was only two years away. On the opening day of the war college, a number of senior officers from the War Department attended to welcome the new class. The first man to speak I had never seen before, but he was just as impressive at first glance as he remained in my eyes in later life- George Marshall, the new Army Chief of Staff. What he said that day I do not remember, but the way he said it, I do. General Marshall never spoke anywhere without receiving the undivided attention of every listener to the words of a man who obviously knew what he was talking about. One could never imagine questioning the accuracy of his facts or challenging the soundness of his conclusions on any subject he undertook to discuss. He did not give the impression of great brilliance of mind, as General MacArthur did, but of calm strength and unshakeable will. I was to owe much to him- my service on his staff at the outbreak of the war, later the command of a division in Europe, and assignment as the Superintendent of West Point following the war. Bu my greatest privilege was the opportunity to see General Marshall in action at close range at the outbreak of World War II.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 37

Albert Gleizes photo
Dean Acheson photo

“Plainly plenty of work was waiting to be done. The question was: would the State Department do it? I proposed to have a shot at finding out.”

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), State Department Management, Leadership Perspectives

John Mandeville photo

“I have herd cownted, whan I was zong; how a worthi man departed somtyme from oure Contrees, for to go serche the World. And so he passed Ynde, and the Yles bezonde Ynde, where ben mo than 5000 Yles: and so longe he wente be See and Lond, and so enviround the World be many seysons, that he fond an Yle, where he herde speke his owne Langage, callynge on Oxen in the Plowghe, suche Wordes as men speken to Bestes in his owne Contree: whereof he hadde gret Mervayle: for he knewe not how it myghte be. But I seye, that he had gon so longe, be Londe and be See, that he had envyround alle the Erthe, that he was comen azen envirounynge, that is to seye, goynge aboute, unto his owne Marches, zif he wolde have passed forthe, till he had founden his Contree and his owne knouleche. But he turned azen from thens, from whens he was come fro.”

John Mandeville (1300–1372) writer

I have heard recounted many times when I was young, how a worthy Man departed some-time from our Countries to go search the World. And so, he passed Ind and the Isles beyond Ind, where be more than 5000 Isles. And so long he went by Sea and Land, and so environed the World by many Seasons, that he found an Isle where he heard Folk speak his own Language, calling on Oxen at the Plough, such Words as Men speak to Beasts in his own Country; whereof he had great Marvel, for he knew not how it might be. But I say, that he had gone so long by Land and by Sea, that he had environed all the Earth; and environing, that is to say, going about, he was come again unto his own Borders; and if he would have passed further, he had found his Country and Things well-known. But he turned again from thence, from whence he was come.
Source: The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, Kt., Ch. 17

Aron Ra photo
Zbigniew Brzeziński photo

“It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

“What is liberal education,” p. 7
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968)

Nathanael Greene photo
Colin Wilson photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Tom Tancredo photo
Adolf Eichmann photo

“Every department was trying to squeeze everything possible out of the Jews, to winkle it out by threatening them with the big bad Eichmann.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Charlie Beck photo

“I think this is a department that reflects the city and reflects it not only in the makeup of the personnel — which is the most diverse department in the city by far — but also in the diversity of our thought and the recognition that policing is a very complicated social contract with the people that live in this city, and that social contract requires action on both parts.”

Charlie Beck (1953) Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

Quoted in: December 5, 2014, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck earns good reviews; tough challenges lie ahead, Los Angeles Daily News, August 9, 2014, Brenda Gazzar http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20140809/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-earns-good-reviews-tough-challenges-lie-ahead,

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

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

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

Donald J. Trump photo

“Today, I would like to provide the American people with an update on the White House transition and our policy plans for the first 100 days. Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed are being brought in and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to Make America Great Again. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America First. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America – creating wealth and jobs for American workers. As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time. These include the following: On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy – including shale energy and clean coal – creating many millions of high-paying jobs. That's what we want, that's what we've been waiting for. On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated, it's so important. On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks, and all other form of attacks. On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker. On ethics reform, as part of our plan to Drain the Swamp, we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the Administration – and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class. I will provide more updates in the coming days, as we work together to Make America Great Again for everyone.”

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

A Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xX_KaStFT8 (21 November 2016)
2010s, 2016, November

Daniel Drake photo

“Probably there is no department of science, no form o humanity, in which greater advances have been made of late years, than in the medical and moral management of the insane. When we contrast the spacious and airy apartments of the insane. When we contrast the spacious and airy apartments and the grounds of our asylums, with the dark, and narrow, and dirty cells, in which, twenty years ago, the best accommodated of these poor creatures were immured - their neat and confortable dress, with their former rags and nakedness - their wholesome food, with their former rags and nakedness - their wholesome food, their former rations - and abovel all, the kindness and affection which is shown to them noew, with their ulter neglect in the days when they were executed from the privileges and society of men, we find ourselves shuddering at the thought of what we have seen, and lost in admiration of what we now see.
Wherever the Christian religion exists, we find the same rapid advances making towards the accomplishment of the great purposes of humanity. It seems as if the miracles of our Saviour were meant as protoypes of what his religion was to accomplish. It is by the influence of this religion of the march of science and philosophical discovery, that, by all Christian nations, the winds and the waves have been rebuked - that man is enabled to ride out the storm upon the ocean, as if it were hushed, and, like Peter of old, to walk upon the sea as on dry land.”

Daniel Drake (1785–1852) American physician and writer

Daniel Drake (1834). The Western Journal of the Medical & Physical Sciences http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=gtpXAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Volume 7, p. 618

“Such was the man who was sent on an embassy to Ajmir, in order that the Rai (Pithaura) of that country might see the right way without the intervention of the sword, and that he might incline from the track of opposition into the path of propriety, leaving his airy follies for the institutes of the knowledge of Allah, and acknowledging the expediency of uttering the words of martyrdom and repeating the precepts of the law, and might abstain from infidelity and darkness, which entails the loss of this world and that to come, and might place in his ear the ring of slavery to the sublime Court (may Allah exalt it!) which is the centre of justice and mercy, and the pivot of the Sultans of the worldand by these means and modes might cleanse the fords of good life from the sins of impurity'…'The army of Islam was completely victorious, and 'an hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell'… After this great victory, the army of Islam marched forward to Ajmir, where it arrived at a fortunate moment and under an auspicious bird, and obtained so much booty and wealth, that you might have said that the secret depositories of the seas and hills had been revealed….'While the Sultan remained at Ajmir, he destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established”

Hasan Nizami Persian language poet and historian

About the conquest of Ajmer (Rajasthan) Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 213-216. Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

Richard A. Posner photo
Muhammad of Ghor photo

“Do we not hear voices, gentle and great, and some of them like the voices of departed friends,— do we not hear them saying to us, "Come up hither?"”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 310.

Paul R. Halmos photo
Włodzimierz Ptak photo
Manuel Castells photo
James Whitbread Lee Glaisher photo

“Quite distinct from the theoretical question of the manner in which mathematics will rescue itself from the perils to which it is exposed by its own prolific nature is the practical problem of finding means of rendering available for the student the results which have been already accumulated, and making it possible for the learner to obtain some idea of the present state of the various departments of mathematics…. The great mass of mathematical literature will be always contained in Journals and Transactions, but there is no reason why it should not be rendered far more useful and accessible than at present by means of treatises or higher text-books. The whole science suffers from want of avenues of approach, and many beautiful branches of mathematics are regarded as difficult and technical merely because they are not easily accessible…. I feel very strongly that any introduction to a new subject written by a competent person confers a real benefit on the whole science. The number of excellent text-books of an elementary kind that are published in this country makes it all the more to be regretted that we have so few that are intended for the advanced student. As an example of the higher kind of text-book, the want of which is so badly felt in many subjects, I may mention the second part of Prof. Chrystal’s “Algebra” published last year, which in a small compass gives a great mass of valuable and fundamental knowledge that has hitherto been beyond the reach of an ordinary student, though in reality lying so close at hand. I may add that in any treatise or higher text-book it is always desirable that references to the original memoirs should be given, and, if possible, short historic notices also. I am sure that no subject loses more than mathematics by any attempt to dissociate it from its history.”

James Whitbread Lee Glaisher (1848–1928) English mathematician and astronomer

Source: "Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science," 1890, p. 466 : On the need of text-books on higher mathematics

William Morris photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo
Yasunari Kawabata photo

“The Zen disciple sits for long hours silent and motionless, with his eyes closed. Presently he enters a state of impassivity, free from all ideas and all thoughts. He departs from the self and enters the realm of nothingness. This is not the nothingness or the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with everything, transcending bounds, limitless.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)
Context: The Zen disciple sits for long hours silent and motionless, with his eyes closed. Presently he enters a state of impassivity, free from all ideas and all thoughts. He departs from the self and enters the realm of nothingness. This is not the nothingness or the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with everything, transcending bounds, limitless. There are of course masters of Zen, and the disciple is brought toward enlightenment by exchanging questions and answers with his master, and he studies the scriptures. The disciple must, however, always be lord of his own thoughts, and must attain enlightenment through his own efforts. And the emphasis is less upon reason and argument than upon intuition, immediate feeling. Enlightenment comes not from teaching but through the eye awakened inwardly. Truth is in "the discarding of words", it lies "outside words". And so we have the extreme of "silence like thunder", in the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra.

Plotinus photo
Marco Girolamo Vida photo

“Be sure, from nature never to depart;
To copy nature is the task of art.”

Praeterea haud lateat te nil conarier artem, Naturam nisi ut assimulet, propiusque sequatur. Hanc unam vates sibi proposuere magistram: Quicquid agunt, hujus semper vestigia servant.

Marco Girolamo Vida (1485–1566) Italian bishop

Book II, line 455
De Arte Poetica (1527)
Context: Be sure, from nature never to depart;
To copy nature is the task of art.
The noblest poets own her sovereign sway,
And ever follow where she leads the way.

Plotinus photo
Charles Lyell photo

“The first who endeavored to draw a clear line of demarcation between these distinct departments, was Hutton, who declared that geology was in no ways concerned with 'questions as to the origin of things.”

Chpt.1, p. 4
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1
Context: It was long ere the distinct nature and legitimate objects of geology were fully recognized, and it was at first confounded with many other branches of inquiry, just as the limits of history, poetry, and mythology were ill-defined in the infancy of civilization. Werner appears to have regarded geology as little other than a subordinate department of mineralogy and Desmarest included it under the head of Physical Geography.... The first who endeavored to draw a clear line of demarcation between these distinct departments, was Hutton, who declared that geology was in no ways concerned with 'questions as to the origin of things.

William Morris photo

“Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Love is Enough (1872), Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me
Context: Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me,
There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving
Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
— Pass by me and harken, and waken me not!

Moinuddin Chishti photo

“Although at that time there were very many temples of idols around the lake, when the Khwaja saw them, he said: ‘If God and His Prophet so will, it will not be long before I raze to the ground these idol temples.’“
It is said that among those temples there was one temple to reverence which the Raja and all the infidels used to come, and lands had been assigned to provide for its expenditure. When the Khwaja settled there, every day his servants bought a cow, brought it there and slaughtered it and ate it…“So when the infidels grew weak and saw that they had no power to resist such a perfect companion of God, they… went into their idol temples which were their places of worship. In them there was a dev, in front of whom they cried out and asked for help…“…The dev who was their leader, when he saw the perfect beauty of the Khwaja, trembled from head to foot like a willow tree. However much he tried to say ‘Ram, Ram’, it was ‘Rahim, Rahim’ that came from his tongue… The Khwaja… with his own hand gave a cup of water to a servant to take to the dev… He had no sooner drunk it than his heart was purified of darkness of unbelief, he ran forward and fell at the Heaven-treading feet of the Khwaja, and professed his belief…“The Khwaja said: ‘I also bestow on you the name of Shadi Dev [Joyful Deval]’…“…Then Shadi Dev… suggested to the Khwaja, that he should now set up a place in the city, where the populace might benefit from his holy arrival. The Khwaja accepted this suggestion, and ordered one of his special servants called Muhammad Yadgir to go into the city and set in good order a place for faqirs. Muhammad Yadgir carried out his orders, and when he had gone into the city, he liked well the place where the radiant tomb of the Khwaja now is, and which originally belonged to Shadi Dev, and he suggested that the Khwaja should favour it with his residence…“
…Mu‘in al-din had a second wife for the following reason: one night he saw the Holy Prophet in the flesh. The prophet said: ‘You are not truly of my religion if you depart in any way from my sunnat.’ It happened that the ruler of the Patli fort, Malik Khitab, attacked the unbelievers that night and captured the daughter of the Raja of that land. He presented her to Mu‘in al-din who accepted her and named her Bibi Umiya.”

Moinuddin Chishti (1142–1236) Sufi saint

About Shykh Mu‘in al-Din Chishti of Ajmer (d. AD 1236). Siyar al-Aqtab by Allah Diya Chishti (1647). Quoted in P.M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti of Ajmer, OUP, 1989 p. 74-87

Nicomachus photo

“This 'wisdom' he defined as the knowledge, or science, of the truth in real things, conceiving 'science' to be a steadfast and firm apprehension of the underlying substance. and 'real things' to be those which continue uniformly and the same in the universe and never depart even briefly from their existence; these real things would be things immaterial”

Nicomachus (60–120) Ancient Greek mathematician

Commentary (p.92): Nichomacus is an idealist. He states his position in a way that recalls Plato's distinction between "that which ever exists, having no becoming" and "that which is ever becoming, never existent,"... On the one hand there are "the real things... which exist forever changeless and in the same way in the cosmos, never departing from their existence even for a brief moment," and on the other "the original eternal matter and substance" which was entirely "subject to deviation and change."
Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)
Context: The ancients, who under the leadership of Pythagoras first made science systematic, defined philosophy as the love of wisdom... [Οἱ παλαιοὶ καὶ πρώτοι μεθοδεύσαντες ἐπιστήμην κατάρξαντος Πυθαγόρου ὡρίζοντο φιλοσοφίαν εἶναι φιλίαν σοφίας... ] This 'wisdom' he defined as the knowledge, or science, of the truth in real things, conceiving 'science' to be a steadfast and firm apprehension of the underlying substance. and 'real things' to be those which continue uniformly and the same in the universe and never depart even briefly from their existence; these real things would be things immaterial...<!--p.181

Saint Patrick photo

“I heard a voice saying to me: "You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home country." And again, a very short time later, there was a voice prophesying: "Behold, your ship is ready."”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

The Confession (c. 452?)
Context: I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.
And it was there of course that one night in my sleep I heard a voice saying to me: "You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home country." And again, a very short time later, there was a voice prophesying: "Behold, your ship is ready."' And it was not close by, but, as it happened, two hundred miles away, where I had never been nor knew any person. And shortly thereafter I turned about and fled from the man with whom I had been for six years, and I came, by the power of God who directed my route to advantage (and I was afraid o nothing), until I reached that ship.