Quotes about doe
page 37

“When history moves — really moves — it does so in great convulsive jolts.”

David McNally (1953) Canadian political scientist

Source: Another World Is Possible : Globalization and Anti-capitalism (2002), Chapter 1, This Is What Democracy Looks Like, p. 13

History

“It is only the advent of an automated model storage facility or repository that brings any of this into the realm of feasibility and makes architecture a reality. It does not mean to suggest that all of these ideas will be immediately available in any particular repository product. It only means that they come into the realm of feasibility as repository technology becomes a reality.”

John Zachman (1934) American computer scientist

Source: Extending and Formalizing the Framework for Information Systems Architecture, 1992, p. 615

Idea, Reality

“Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Fe que no duda es fe muerta.
La Agonía del Cristianismo (The Agony of Christianity) (1931)

Faith, Dead

“From the very beginning of hostilities, came into conflict the two ideas which for fifty months were to struggle for the dominion of the world - the idea of sovereign force, which accepts neither control nor check, and the idea of justice, which depends on the sword only to prevent or repress the abuse of strength…the war gradually attained the fullness of its first significance, and became, in the fullest sense of the term, a crusade of humanity for Right; and if anything can console us in part at least, for the losses we have suffered, it is assuredly the thought that our victory is also the victory of Right. This victory is complete, for the enemy only asked for the armistice to escape from an irretrievable military disaster…And in the light of those truths you intend to accomplish your mission. You will, therefore, seek nothing but justice, "justice that has no favourites," justice in territorial problems, justice in financial problems, justice in economic problems. But justice is not inert, it does not submit to injustice. What it demands first, when it has been violated, are restitution and reparation for the peoples and individuals who have been despoiled or maltreated. In formulating this lawful claim, it obeys neither hatred nor an instinctive or thoughtless desire for reprisals. It pursues a twofold object - to render to each his due, and not to encourage crime through leaving it unpunished.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Welcoming Address http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/parispeaceconf_poincare.htm at the Paris Peace Conference (18 January 1919).

Hostility, War, People, Truth

“I am very smart. But not as strong-hearted as all the workers on earth for he toils endlessly and does it all to feed his family while I do it merely for solving an impossible puzzle.”

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

Letter to his cousin Richard Einstein (October 1947)
1940s

Family, Strong, Heart

“The beginning of wisdom for a programmer is to recognize the difference between getting his program to work and getting it right. A program which does not work is undoubtedly wrong; but a program which does work is not necessarily right. It may still be wrong because it is hard to understand; or because it is hard to maintain as the problem requirements change; or because its structure is different from the structure of the problem; or because we cannot be sure that it does indeed work.”

Michael A. Jackson (1936) British computer scientist

As cited in: Allen Kent, ‎James G. Williams (1995), Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology: Volume 32. p. 187
Principles of program design, 1975

Wisdom, Understanding, Problem, Change

“Number one is "Do you have curiosity?" Number two is "Does it translate to imagination?" But number three is "Did it translate to action?" That’s the difference between someone with an idea and someone who is an entrepreneur.”

Steve Blank (1953) American businessman

Interview with Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/ideacast/2017/08/when-startups-scrapped-the-business-plan.html.3 August 2017

Imagination, Idea

“The path of skullduggery is made easier with a coating of morality, which is aptly applied to an established custom, by the lawyer and the professor of economics. And so, the business of taking what does not belong to you has been well obfuscated by a ‘philosophy’ of taxation’.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov (1980), p. 268

Business

“Theories
Are the things and neither idealism
nor religions, nor histories
nor slogans.
The complexity of things themselves, that's what
theories are... The thing exists without showing itself,
entirely, it
does nor appear, theory is the
thing.”

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

CF 63; p. 111
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

Religion, History, Appearance

“Does not all the world know that when in autumn the Bismarcks of the world, or they who are bigger than Bismarcks, meet at this or that delicious haunt of salubrity, the affairs of the world are then settled in little conclaves, with grater ease, rapidity, and certainty than in large parliaments or the dull chambers of public offices?”

Anthony Trollope book The Prime Minister

Source: The Prime Minister (1876), Ch. 20

World, Autumn

“Language may not determine the way we think, but it does influence the way we perceive and remember, and it affects the ease with which we perform mental tasks.”

David Crystal (1941) British linguist and writer

Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 1987, p. 15

Way, Thinking

““Murder, I’m afraid, if someone does not intervene.”
He laughed. “Oh, you women are so melodramatic. Do no expect me to catch you when you faint.”
“I would rather hit the ground. Good day, sir.””

Mary Robinette Kowal (1969) American writer and puppeteer

Source: Shades of Milk and Honey (2010), Chapter 24 (p. 268)

Women

“Leibniz’s theory on the subject as substantia ideans in the sense of a causative agent of decision and acts stands much closer to a materialist interpretation of history than does a philosophy which reduces the thinking subject to the role of subsuming protocol sentences under general propositions and deducing other sentences from them.”

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) German philosopher and sociologist

Source: "The Latest Attack on Metaphysics" (1937), p. 149.

History, Thinking, Decision, Sense

“Each man does seek his own interest, but, unfortunately, not according to the dictates of reason.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter II, The First Image, p. 23

“Scholarship, far from leading inexorably to a profession, may in fact preclude it. For it does not permit you to abandon it.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Der Beruf folgt so wenig aus der Wissenschaft, dass sie ihn sogar ausschließen kann. Denn die Wissenschaft duldet ihrem Wesen nach keine Lösung von sich.
The Life of Students (1915)

“It does not make such a difference whether you are simply mute or employ no art for speaking. For it is not feasible that you can express what you think as it should be understood unless you acquire and strengthen the ability to speak by art.”

Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) German reformer

Source: Praise of Eloquence (1523), p. 61

Art, Thinking

“I think it's perfectly OK to exploit the moon. Largely for two reasons: there's no life there, and it is close enough and rich enough in resources to be economically useful to Earth. In the final analysis, everything we do in space, if it does not help the people of Earth, all the people, it's not going to happen.”

Ben Bova (1932) American science fiction and science writer

As quoted in "Men on Mars, Women on Venus" by Jay McDonald at Bookpage (June 1999)

Life, People, Thinking, Help

“But it is rather true that the people, in so far as this term signifies a special part of the citizens, does not know what it wants.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Elements of the Philosophy of Right

So ist vielmehr der Fall, daß das Volk, insosern mit diesem Worte ein besonderer Theil der Mitglieder eines Staats bezeichnet ist, den Theil ausdrückt, der nicht weiß was er will.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ePATAAAAQAAJ&q=%22So+ist+vielmehr+der+Fall+da%C3%9F+das+Volk+insosern+mit+diesem+Worte+ein+besonderer+Theil+der+Mitglieder+eines+Staats+bezeichnet+ist+den+Theil+ausdr%C3%BCckt+der+nicht+wei%C3%9F+was+er+will%22&pg=PA393#v=onepage
Sect. 301
Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820/1821)

People, Parting

“… the principle of the limiting character of the velocity of light. This statement… is not an arbitrary assumption but a physical law based on experience. In making this statement, physics does not commit the fallacy of regarding absence of knowledge as evidence for knowledge to the contrary. It is not absence of knowledge of faster signals, but positive experience which has taught us that the velocity of light cannot be exceeded. For all physical processes the velocity of light has the property of an infinite velocity. In order to accelerate a body to the velocity of light, an infinite amount of energy would be required, and it is therefore physically impossible for any object to obtain this speed. This result was confirmed by measurements performed on electrons. The kinetic energy of a mass point grows more rapidly than the square of its velocity, and would become infinite for the speed of light.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Law, Knowledge, Light, Speed

“One of the first things I did when I came on, I said, “I do not want this Kong to be a quadruped. I want him to stand upright, I want a throwback to the 1933 film where he is a biped, because he is a monster. He’s not just a big silverback gorilla, he’s a movie monster.” So I wanted to stand him upright, I wanted to make him tall, and part of that is because I wanted him to feel like this fusion between a god, a man, and a beast. I wanted to make him big enough that, if any of us stood at this table and we looked up at this thing, towered over us, how big does that thing have to be for the first thing that your brain says is, “That’s a god. I’m looking at a god.””

Jordan Vogt-Roberts (1984) American film director

Interview: Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts on Resurrecting an Icon for KONG: SKULL ISLAND http://dailydead.com/interview-director-jordan-vogt-roberts-on-resurrecting-an-icon-for-kong-skull-island/ (March 9, 2017)

God, Feeling, Parting

“The truth is that the past exists no more than the future, even though it feels as though it does.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Source: 2010s, Why Marx Was Right (2011), Chapter 4, p. 70

Truth, Feeling, Past, Future

“If we are to ban CFC production completely, as I believe that we should, we must also accept that considerable support must be given to other countries which wish to continue to produce refrigerators and similar products. The technology to produce those goods without CFCs must be transferred to China, India and other countries which need it. If that does not happen, we cannot lecture those countries about producing CFCs while we hold that technology to ourselves and use it as an economic lever against poorer countries and poorer people throughout the world. The economic imbalance between countries is at the root of the world's problems…If we are to sort out the problems of poverty and of the environment, we require a real restructuring of the world's economy. That will not be achieved by imposing a model of market forces on the poorest people in the poorest countries but by paying those people for the products that they produce, not hoarding technological advances for ourselves but sharing and spreading them around the world, and not persuading and pushing countries to revert to monoculture production, which is dangerous and damaging to the environment.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/jun/26/aid-and-the-environment in the House of Commons (26 June 1990). 1990s

People, World, Support, Problem

“Life as we live it is obviously very brutal, and makes us insensitive, dull, heavy, stupid, and so we may hope through ideas, through ideational mentation, to bring about a certain quality of sensitivity.… But even when we are sharpened and quickened intellectually by argument, by discussion, by reading, this does not actually bring about that quality of sensitivity. And you know all those people who are erudite, who read, who theorize, who can discuss brilliantly, are extraordinarily dull people. So I think sensitivity, which destroys mediocrity, is very important to understand. Because most of us are becoming, I am afraid, more mediocre. We are not using that word in any derogative sense at all, but merely observing the fact of mediocrity in the sense of being average, fairly well educated, earning a livelihood and perhaps capable of clever discussion; but this leaves us still bourgeois, mediocre, not only in our attitudes but in our activities.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Part V, Ch. 3 : 3rd Public Talk Madras 14th January 1968 "The Sacred" http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/awakening-of-intelligence/1968-01-14-jiddu-krishnamurti-awakening-of-intelligence-the-sacred 1970s, The Awakening of Intelligence (1973)

Life, People, Stupidity, Education

“Quick quiz: What does 'unoccupied' or 'liberated' Palestinian land look like? Answer: Like Gaza.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Make Jerusalem Safe Again" http://www.unz.com/imercer/make-jerusalem-safe-again/ The Unz Review, January 25, 2017 2010s, 2017

“Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too.”

Robert A. Heinlein Job: A Comedy of Justice

Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984)

Wisdom, Law

“I'm sure nobody wants to know this, but my husband does all the cleaning - rather too much cleaning. It is too clean, the house!”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

Evening Standard, Mon 31 Oct 2011, p16

Housing

“I want to offer a little ode to the importance of studying history. We’ve seen the assertion of “alternative facts” – meaning, essentially, a denial of actual facts. We’ve see the proliferation of “fake news,” along with the suggestion that it’s impossible to differentiate between “real” and “fake” news. Studying history responsibly does some handy things. It compels you to confront and consider ugly realities as part of a bigger picture. Studying history compels you to investigate, evaluate, compare, and analyze evidence to help you piece together ACTUAL facts. And in teaching people to evaluate evidence in search of facts, it trains them to logically analyze and interpret news for themselves. [F]or those insisting that the humanities has no value, we are getting daily examples of how the study of history offers practical tools for understanding not only the past, but the present.”

Joanne B. Freeman (1962) US historian and tenured professor of History and American Studies at Yale University

Twitter (6 Mar 2017) https://twitter.com/jbf1755/status/838897292132421632

People, History, Search, Understanding

“When recalling historical experience, the testimony of ancient times, the proofs of the present reality, and the things that we are experiencing today, we begin to truly understand God's words: "They are the enemies; so beware of them. The curse of Allah be on them!" Ibn Taymiyyah was right in his description of these people when they repudiated the people of Islam. He said: This is why they cooperated with the infidels and the Tartars… They were the main cause of the invasion of Muslim countries by Genghis Khan… Some of them cooperated with the Tartars and Franks (European Crusaders)… some of them (Shiites) backed the Christians….. They (Shiites) harbor more evil and rancor against Muslims, big and small, devout and non-devout, than anyone else…. They enjoy repudiating and cursing Muslim leaders, especially the orthodox caliphs and the ulema (clerics). To them, anyone who does not believe in the infallible Imam (Al-Mahdi) is a nonbeliever in God and the prophet… whenever Christians and infidels triumphed over, it was a day of jubilation… This is the end of what Shaykh-al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said about them. It is as if he is living among us today, an eyewitness of what is taking place, and saying… They always support infidels, including Jews and Christians. They help them in killing Muslims.”

Abu Musab Zarqawi (1966–2006) Jordanian jihadist

Zarqawi Letter February 2004 Coalition Provisional Authority English translation of terrorist Musab al Zarqawi letter obtained by United States Government in Iraq https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm, (April 6, 2004)

God, People, Understanding, Support

“Because I've been just drilled by TV hosts over the past week, "How dare you say that, uh, you know, it's not the law of the land?"" Because that's their phrase, "it’s the law of the land". Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren't fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Michael Medved Show, , quoted in

People, Law, Decision, Past

“All religions look wacky to an unbeliever, even to one who does not, like the celebrity atheists, consider religion a menace. Islam, in its present frustrated state, is doing more harm than most, but that's historically contingent.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Source: We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism (2009)

Religion

“It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event you are not even a failure. You're just not there.”

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

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. 81

People, Communication, Failure

“Older staffers don’t even bother coming in on weekends. Where is the sleep-crazed, Pepsi-fuelled one-point-oh tech environment that can only be created by having no green vegetables, no sex and no life?
Cowboy said, “I miss the greed of the 1990s bubble.”
John Doe said, “I miss the possibility of unearned wealth.”
Bree said, “I miss the possibility of doing something Apple, something one-point-oh.”
Evil Mark said, “I miss people having Hot Wheels tracks set up in their cubicles.”
Gord-O walked into the pod. “You can’t miss the nineties, because you weren’t there. They were great. Too bad you screwed-up twits missed out on the party.””

Douglas Coupland book JPod

JPod (2006)

Life, People, Sex, Sleep

“With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 367

Wisdom, Happiness

“I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

Source: Paris Review interview (1972), p. 266

Thinking

“I want to say something to the National Union of Students. When you choose to ally yourselves with an organisation like CAGE, which called Jihadi John a “beautiful young man” and told people to “support the jihad” in Iraq and Afghanistan, it really does, in my opinion, shame your organisation and your noble history of campaigning for justice.”

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

2010s, 2015, Speech on extremism (20 July 2015)

People, Justice, Beauty, History

“The Declaration of Independence was a source of inspiration to believe in ideals that transformed us from Jews to Israelis. … I am asking today with deep sorrow: Can we, despite all our achievements, ignore the intolerable gap between what the Declaration of Independence promised and what was fulfilled, the gap between the idea and the realities of Israel? Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence? Is there any sense in the independence of one at the expense of the fundamental rights of the other? Can the Jewish people whose history is a record of continued suffering and relentless persecution, allow themselves to be indifferent to the rights and suffering of a neighboring people? Can the State of Israel allow itself an unrealistic dream of an ideological end to the conflict instead of pursuing a pragmatic, humanitarian one based on social justice. I believe that despite all the objective and subjective difficulties, the future of Israel and its position in the family of enlightened nations will depend on our ability to realize the promise of the founding fathers as they canonized it in the Declaration of Independence. I have always believed that there is no military solution to the Jewish Arab conflict, neither from a moral nor a strategic one and since a solution is therefore inevitable I ask myself, why wait?”

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

Statement at the Knesset upon receiving the Wolf Prize, May 9, 2004, transcript online https://electronicintifada.net/content/daniel-barenboims-statement-knesset-upon-receiving-wolf-prize-may-9-2004/5080 (16 May 2004) at The Electronic Intifada.

People, Family, Justice, Dreams

“A treasure does not always contribute to the political security of its possessors. It rather invites attack, and very seldom is faithfully applied to the purpose for which it was destined.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter IX, p. 487

“It is not a new opinion that the Golden Bough was the mistletoe. True, Virgil does not identify but only compares it with the mistletoe. But this may be only a poetical device to cast a mystic glamour over the humble plant.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 68, The Golden Bough.

“The new Republican party. Accountability last. If ever. That is the Republican party. Now I am confident we progressives, we liberals, can change this, but it's gonna take a lot of work and we can hustle it along faster: you know the universe does tilt towards justice eventually, but we can make it tilt faster if we continue to work together in Democratic circles, liberal circles, progressive circles, libertarian circles, and true conservative circles to try and change the type of people we elect and the type of news media we have and the type of pundits we allow to pollute our airwaves. Myself included. I shouldn't be a pundit. I don't know why I am, but they asked me to, and once your name is in the rolodex, you're in. So sometimes I go on -yeah I stink. I'm a stinky pundit! …well, compared to the pundits they have I'm fantastic! But in the real world, I stink, and should not be a pundit.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

Majority Report, April 21, 2005 broadcast
Majority Report

People, World, Justice, Confidence

“The eulogy of the non-lover in the speech of Lysias … stresses the fact that the non-lover … does not commit extreme acts under the influence of passions. Since he acts from calculation, he never has occasion for remorse. … The non-lover demonstrates his superiority through prudence and objectivity. … We must now observe how these points of superiority correspond to those of “semantically purified” speech, … the kind of speech approaching pure notation in the respect that it communicates abstract intelligence without impulsion. It is a simple instrumentality, showing no affection for the object of its symbolizing and incapable of inducing bias in the hearer. In its ideal conception, it would have less power to move than 2 + 2 = 4, since it is generally admitted that mathematical equations may have the beauty of elegance, and hence are not above suspicion where beauty is suspect. But this neuter language will be an unqualified medium of transmission of meanings from mind to mind, and by virtue of it minds can remain in an unprejudiced relationship to the world and also to other minds. … Instead of passion, it offers the serviceability of objectivity … It distrusts any departure from the literal and prosaic.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” pp. 6-7.
The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)

World, Beauty, Intelligence, Communication

“So why has that officer, like his colleagues, locked up so many young men of color? Why does he have that life-shaping experience? Is it because he is a racist? Why are so many black men in jail? Is it because cops, prosecutors, judges, and juries are racist? Because they are turning a blind eye to white robbers and drug dealers? The answer is a fourth hard truth, I don't think so. If it were so, that would be easier to address. We would just need to change the way we hire, train, and measure law enforcement and that would substantially fix it. We would then go get those white criminals we have been ignoring. But the truth is significantly harder than that.”

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

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Life, Men, Truth, Law

“Allen: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?
Woman: Yes, it is.
Allen: What does it say to you?
Woman: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos.
Allen: What are you doing Saturday night?
Woman: Committing suicide.
Allen: What about Friday night?”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Play It Again, Sam (1972).

Love, Suicide, Universe, Night

“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.”

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

Letter to California student E. Holzapfel (March 1951) Einstein Archive 59-1013, p. 57
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

Science

“For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty, I should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under that. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were distinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a man's "intellectual nature," and of his "moral nature," as if these again were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all. But words ought not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but names; that man's spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a man, what is this but another side of the one vital Force whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiognomical of him. You may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings; his courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is one; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.”

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

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

Way, Error, Imagination, Courage

“What does not change / is the will to change”

Charles Olson (1910–1970) American writer

Part I, 1
The Kingfishers (1950)

Change, Graduation

“But bounty and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost always does.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter III, Part V, p. 987.

“The sky is the 'source of light' in nature, and governs every thing. Even our common observations on the weather of every day, are suggested by them, but it does not occur to us. Their difficulty in painting both as to composition and execution is very great, because, with all their brilliancy and consequence, they ought not to come forward, or be hardly thought about in a picture… I know very well what I am about, and that my skies have not been neglected, though they have often failed in execution, no doubt, from an over-anxiety about them, which will alone destroy that easy appearance which nature always has in all her movements.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to Rev. John Fisher (23 October 1821), as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 229 and also in Richard Friedenthal, Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock (Thames and Hudson, London, 1963), p. 42
1820s

Nature, Light, Appearance, Painting

“The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain "—that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain"—that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 364

Fear, Nature, Thinking, Forgetting

“There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples (Völkerruinen), the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual fragments of peoples (Völkerabfälle) always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

The Magyar Struggle http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849).

People, History, Loss, Country

“Right after Andy died, we [Soundgarden] went to Europe, and it was horrible, because I couldn't talk about it, and there was no one who had loved him around. I wrote two songs, "Reach Down" and "Say Hello 2 Heaven". That was pretty much how I dealt with it. When we came back, I recorded them right away. They seemed different from what Soundgarden naturally does, and they seemed to fit together. They seemed like music he would like. I got the idea to release them as a single, and to get at least Stone and Jeff, or all of Love Bone, to play on it. I had the idea for a couple days, then, with an artist's lack of self-confidence, I decided it was a stupid idea. Somehow those guys heard the tape, and they were really, really excited. Stone and Jeff and our drummer, Matt, had been working on a demo for what ended up being Pearl Jam, so we had the idea that we would make an EP or a record, and maybe even do some of Andy's solo songs.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Temple of the Dog Era

Love, Stupidity, Music, Guy

“Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you it’s not true and that it’s blushing just as I am now, all over.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“True penitential confession is joined with reformation. He that does not forsake his sin, as well as confess it, forsakes the benefit of his confession. And indeed, there is no real confession of sin, where there is no real forsaking of sin. It is not enough for us to confess the sins we have committed, but we must resolve against committing again the sins we have committed.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Source: Works of Thomas Brooks, pp.413-4

“I prefer Buddhism because it gives three principles in combination, which no other religion does. Buddhism teaches prajna (understanding as against superstition and supernaturalism), karuna (love), and samara (equality). This is what man wants for a good and happy life. Neither god nor soul can save society.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

In an ""Why I like Buddhism and how it is useful to the world in its present circumstances" BBC (May 1956) http://www.ambedkar.org/Babasaheb/Why.htm

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“I think faith in each other is much harder than faith in God or faith in crystals. I very rarely have faith in God; I occasionally have little spasms of it, but they go away, if I think hard enough about it. I am incandescent with rage at the idea of horoscopes and of crystals and of the nonsense of 'New Age', or indeed even more pseudo-scientific things: self-help, and the whole culture of 'searching for answers', when for me, as someone brought up in the unashamed Western tradition of music and poetry and philosophy, all the answers are there in the work that has been done by humanity before us, in literature, in art, in science, in all the marvels that have created this moment now, instead of people looking away. The image to me... is gold does exist, and for 'gold' say 'truth', say 'the answer', say 'love', say 'justice', say anything: it does exist. But the only way in this world you can achieve gold is to be incredibly intelligent about geology, to learn what mankind has learnt, to learn where it might lie, and then break your fingers and blister your skin in digging for it, and then sweat and sweat in a forge, and smelt it. And you will have gold, but you will never have it by closing your eyes and wishing for it. No angel will lean out of the bar of heaven and drop down sheets of gold for you. And we live in a society in which people believe they will. But the real answer, that there is gold, and that all you have to do is try and understand the world enough to get down into the muck of it, and you will have it, you will have truth, you will have justice, you will have understanding, but not by wishing for it.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

From Radio 4's Bookclub http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f8l3b 2000s

Love, God, People, Truth

“Another John Doe and we all become the same yeah
Another John Doe and a another face to blame yeah”

Dhani Harrison (1978) English musician

Another John Doe
Lyrics, You Are Here (2008)

“The unhappy are egotistical, base, unjust, cruel, and even less capable of understanding one another than are idiots. Unhappiness does not unite people, but separates them…”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Несчастные эгоистичны, злы, несправедливы, жестоки и менее, чем глупцы, способны понимать друг друга. Не соединяет, а разъединяет людей несчастье...
Enemies

People, Understanding

“The man who employs either his labour or his stock in a grater variety of ways than his situation renders necessary, can never hurt his neighbour by underselling him. He may hurt himself, and he generally does so. Jack of all trades will never be rich, says the proverb. But the law ought always to trust people with the care of their own interest, as in their local situations they must generally be able to judge better of it than the legislator can do.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter V, Digression, p. 572.

People, Law, Way, Hurt

“A lot of my work has to do with not allowing my characters to have an ego in a way that the stomach doesn't have an ego when it's wanting to throw up. It just does it.”

Matthew Barney (1967) American artist

art:21 interview: "CREMASTER 3—on location at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY" http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/barney/clip1.html

Way

“Man does not live by bread alone, nor guns, paperwork, theses, naked practicalities.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Gibraltar Falls (p. 118)
Time Patrol

“I love the way Law and Order doesn’t always put their heroes on the side of good. And sometimes they win, sometimes they lose and sometimes for the wrong reasons. I also think it’s interesting that there is a series that has remained story-driven in its, what, sixtieth season, right? If not for them, I would argue that all shows eventually become soap operas about the lives of the characters. Law And Order does what it does and does it well. It may simply be that you’re mistaking consistency for blandness, how ’bout that, fella?”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

Response to interviewer declaring Law and Order "bland" in Ain't It Cool News interview (17 July 2003)

Love, Law, Way, Thinking

“Time does not live for them, they (girls) live in the absolute. A curious creature. But then all women are curious creatures, girls above all.”

Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French writer

A Virgin Heart (trans. 1922)

Women, Girl, Time

“Does Mary Poppins have an orgasm? Does she go to the bathroom? I assure you, she does.”

Julie Andrews (1935) British actress, singer, author, theatre director, and dancer

The New York Times (14 March 1982) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02EED7153BF937A25750C0A964948260&sec=&pagewanted=all

“All [knowledge] comes from experience, it is true, but experience is nothing if it does not form collections of similar facts. Now, to make collections is to count.”

Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (1787–1872) French physician

Letter to Jean Cruveilhier (1837), as quoted by William Coleman, Death is a Social Disease: Public Health and Political Economy in Early Industrial France (1982)

Knowledge

“Lovers to-day and for all time
Preserve the meaning of my rhyme:
Love is not kindly nor yet grim
But does to you as you to him.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Advice To Lovers"
Country Sentiment (1920)

Love, Lovers, Time

“Here's why I think there's something a little odd with George [Bush]. Because a lot of the times when he speaks, his words don't match his face. Something is askew. You can't talk about the war with a smile on your face. He does it constantly. If you're the President, you should go "We're going to talk about the war, I must have a frowny face." The only time you can smile when you're talking about the war in Iraq is when you go, "Well, two Iraqis walk into a bar, hahaha."”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

Red, White, and Screwed (2006)

War, Smile, Thinking, Time

“Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

Feeling

“I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

Saddam Hussein Farewell Letter http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16368242/ (MSNBC online) Statement in a farewell letter written to the Iraqi people, written Nov. 5, 2006, released Dec. 27, 2006.

Hate, Thinking, Personality

“I recently published a book about movies I hated, and people have been asking me which reviews are harder to write — those about great movies, or those about terrible ones. The answer is neither. The most unreviewable movies are those belonging to the spoof genre — movies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun and all the countless spin-offs and retreads of the same basic idea… the bottom line in reviewing a movie like this is, does it work? Is it funny? Yes, it is. Not funny with the shocking impact of Airplane! which had the advantage of breaking new ground. But also not a tired wheeze like some of the lesser and later Leslie Nielsen films. To get your money's worth, you need to be familiar with the various teenage horror franchises, and if you are, Scary Movie delivers the goods.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/scary-movie-2000 of Scary Movie (7 July 2000) Reviews, Three star reviews

Money, Hate, People, Books

“Then came those years in which I was forced to recognize the existence of a drive within me that had to make itself small and hide from the world of light. The slowly awakening sense of my own sexuality overcame me, as it does every person, like an enemy and terrorist, as something forbidden, tempting, and sinful. What my curiosity sought, what dreams, lust and fear created — the great secret of puberty — did not fit at all into my sheltered childhood. I behaved like everyone else. I led the double life of a child who is no longer a child. My conscious self lived within the familiar and sanctioned world; it denied the new world that dawned within me. Side by side with this I lived in a world of dreams, drives and desires of a chthonic nature, across which my conscious self desperately built its fragile bridges, for the childhood world within me was falling apart. Like most parents, mine were no help with the new problems of puberty, to which no reference was ever made. All they did was take endless trouble in supporting my hopeless attempts to deny reality and to continue dwelling in a childhood world that was becoming more and more unreal. I have no idea whether parents can be of help, and I do not blame mine. It was my own affair to come to terms with myself and to find my own way, and like most well-brought-up children, I managed it badly.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Source: Demian (1919), p. 135

Life, Children, Secret, World

“Put the car away; when life fails
What's the good of going to Wales?
Here am I, here are you:
But what does it mean? What are we going to do?”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

It's no use raising a shout (1929), first published in book form in Poems (1930)

Life, Cars

“If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me,
Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble to woo me?
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Courtship of Miles Standish

Pt. III, The Lover's Errand.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)

Wedding

“In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity — please observe, a plodding mediocrity — for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

As quoted in Nine Old Men (1936) by Drew Pearson and Robert Sharon Allen, p. 221
Other writings

Truth, Courage, Success, Joy

“At the Everyman Cinema there is a season of Satyajit Ray. He watches the Apu trilogy on successive nights in a state of rapt absorption. In Apu's bitter, trapped mother, his engaging, feckless father he recognizes, with a pang of guilt, his own parents. But it is the music above all that grips him, dizzyingly complex interplays between drums and stringed instruments, long arias on the flute whose scale or mode — he does not know enough about music theory to be sure which — catches at his heart, sending him into a mood of sensual melancholy that last long after the film has ended.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

Youth (2002)

Music, Mood, Parent, Success

“When we consider a human work, we believe we know where the "intelligence" which fashioned it comes from; but when a living being is concerned, no one knows or ever knew, neither Darwin nor Epicurus, neither Leibniz nor Aristotle, neither Einstein nor Parmenides. An act of faith is necessary to make us adopt one hypothesis rather than another. Science, which does not accept any credo, or in any case should not, acknowledges its ignorance, its inability to solve this problem which, we are certain, exists and has reality.”

Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985) French zoologist

Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation (1977)

Faith, Intelligence, Fashion, Problem

“The king is not responsible for the fate of each man's soul. Every man is responsible to God, but not the king, for this. Shakespeare, while displaying unflinchingly the defects of kingly rule, does not in the English histories have on his horizon any alternative to divine right monarchy. The American Founding's Lockean republican political theory provides an answer to the defects of Christian divine right monarchy, the answer that Lincoln inherited. This supplied as well the theoretical foundation for Lincoln's assault on slavery.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Aristotle and Locke in the American Founding (2001)

God, Fate, Soul, History

“Yes,” he said, “intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn’t matter. A cancer growing in someone’s body will go on growing in spite of denial. And a complex combination of genes that work together to make you intelligent as well as hierarchical will still handicap you whether you acknowledge it or not.”

Octavia E. Butler book Dawn

Part I “Womb” chapter 5 (p. 39)
Dawn (1987)

Intelligence

“The rule of law does not have to win, it does not have to lose, but it has to exist!”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

DIE ZEIT http://www.zeit.de/2007/36/Interview-Helmut-Schmidt?page=all, nr. 36/2007, 30. August 2007

Law

“The world should be assured that, although there may always be some who exploit any religion for their interests, Islam does not approve of terrorism in any form. Terrorism cannot be used to achieve any Islamic goal. No terrorist can be a Muslim, and no true Muslim can be a terrorist. Islam orders peace, and the Qur’an demands from each true Muslim that he or she be a symbol of peace and support the maintenance of basic human rights. If a ship is carrying nine criminals and one innocent person, Islam does not allow the ship to be sunk to punish the nine criminals, for doing so would violate the innocent person’s rights.”

Fethullah Gülen (1941) Turkish preacher, former imam, writer, and political figure

"Gülen’s Condemnation Message of Terrorism", 2001

World, Peace, Religion, Support

“Orwell's 1984 refers more directly to contemporary events than does Huxley's book: the narrative takes place in the near rather than the distant future and obviously sets its sights on Stalinism. When I traveled in the communist world before the fall of the Berlin Wall, I found that everyone I met who had read the book (clandestinely, of course) expressed immeasurable admiration for it and marveled that a man who had never set foot inside a communist country could not only describe the physical environment so well—the universal smell of cabbage, the grayness of the dilapidated buildings—but also its mental and moral atmosphere. It was almost as if the communist regimes had taken 1984 as a blueprint rather than as a warning.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

The Dystopian Imagination http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_4_oh_to_be.html (Autumn 2001). City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Books, World, Travel, Universe

“As regards Ramakrishna’s “practice of Islam and Christianity” of which the Mission makes so much, it finds no mention in the Gospel, the earliest and most authentic account of Ramakrishna’s thoughts and experiences in his own words. In this work we find that though Ramakrishna reminisces often about his experiences and God-filled states, there is hardly a word about his so-called practice of Islam and Christianity…. It also seems that the practice of Islam and Christianity made a less than deep impression on Ramakrishna, for subsequently he does not mention on his own initiative either Muhammad or the Koran, neither Jesus nor the Bible. Not even once! Nor did he draw from” his practice such excessive and indiscriminate conclusions as Mission monks now do.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Ramakrishna Mission. (1986). Ramakrishna Mission: In search of a new identity.

God, Drawing

“If the GOP’s “big tent” is destined to collapse, there’s no one better to be standing under it than Kemp. If the party does not collapse-and it elites continue to ignore the views of its grass roots-it will be too left-wing for any true freedom lover to support.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Jack Kemp, American Socialist" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, September 1996, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1996sep-00001,

Lovers, Support, Freedom, Grass

“Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each one of us individually.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Nobel lecture (1989)

Lie, Country

“This is the love that does all things; that brings to pass even the evils we suffer; so shaping them that they are but instruments of preparing the good which, as yet, has not arrived.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 270.

Love, Suffering, Evil

“The crow does not hide its prey, but calls for others to share it;
So wealth will be with those of a like disposition.”

Thiruvalluvar book Tirukkuṛaḷ

Verse LIII.7
Tirukkural

Wealth

“I believe that painting, in our meaning, is structures. Each application of paint to a surface is structure. This is, of course, self-evident, but a superstructure of meaning can occur. One can have various motives for doing it. And here that difficult motif comes in. I believe that a ruthless accumulation of structure reworkings leads to one meeting one's motif. One's life-motif, so to speak. That which one has and does not know that one has it. A sort of geology, as when, in a constant process, sedimentation and erosion makes the earth we live on like it is now, without any meaning in itself in a rational sense, but accepted as that upon which we live in this life..”

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) Danish artist

Source: 1965 - 1995, Bravura', Per Kirkeby, (1982), chapter 'Klee and the Vikings', p. 83

Life, Motivation, Sense, Painting

“The mazurka provided him with a repertoire of motifs, rhythms, and sonorities outside the main Italian, French, and German traditions of European music: he used it to create a series of works within this tradition which are absolutely personal—marginal works which challenge the center.
They are the most eccentric and original of Chopin's works. We shall never know exactly what and how much Chopin took directly from the popular folk tradition and how much he invented, but it does not matter: his originality is revealed as much in what he selected as in what he imagined. The folk dances gave him the possibility of exploring new harmonies, of exploiting the emotional effect of obsessive repetition, and of developing a new form of rubato.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 7 : Chopin: From the Miniature Genre to the Sublime Style

Music, Imagination, Dance, Personality

“em>The Phenomenon of Man stands square in the tradition of Naturphilosophie, a philosophical indoor pastime of German origin which does not seem even by accident (though there is a great deal of it) to have contributed anything of permanent value to the storehouse of human thought.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man", 1961

“I should like to shake Eric Coates but I won't. When I meet him he says, "I just love every note you have written." and I believe he does--but--as you say--well!”

Edward German (1862–1936) English musician and composer

German's exasperation with the perception of fellow composer Coates imitating his own style, in a letter to his sister Rachel (4 January, 1925)

Love

“Pub culture does not suit our country and hence we should try to control it. We should not sell our tourism on pub culture.”

Shripad Yasso Naik (1952) Indian politician

On pub culture in Goa, as quoted in " Pub culture needs to be controlled: Tourism minister http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RfmbkAe4cjK98SuqoAshSM/Pub-culture-needs-to-be-controlled-Tourism-minister.html", Live Mint (13 July 2014)

Country

“You mention the circle and I agree with your definition.... why does the circle fascinates me? It is (1) the most modern form, but asserts itself unconditionally, (2) a precise but inexhaustible variable, (3) simultaneously stable and unstable, (4) simultaneously loud and soft, (5) a single tension that caries countless tensions within it. The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form, and in balance. Of the three primary forms (triangle, square, circle), it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote from Kandinsky's letter to Will Grohmann, c. 1926; as cited in Kandinsky, Frank Whitford, Paul Hamlyn Ltd, London 1967, p. 36
1920 - 1930

“The counterpart of such devotion to the commands of Jesus Christ is a thoroughgoing opposition to the institutions of culture. To Tolstoy these seem to be founded on a complex foundation of errors, including the acceptance of the inevitability of evil in man's present life, the belief that life is governed by external laws so that men cannot attain blessedness by their own efforts, the fear of death, the identification of true life with personal existence, and, above all, the practice of and belief in violence. Even less than Tertullian does he think that human corruption is resident in human nature; the evil with which men contend is in their culture only.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: Christ and Culture (1951), p. 60

Life, Death, Men, Fear

“In unambiguous terms, fundamentalist Islam has announced again and again that it despises the values, culture, and traditions of America. The American Left does too. Consistent with the Arabic proverb that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the American Left has formed an alliance with fundamentalist Islam to transform this country into something far removed from its Judeo-Christian origins and ideals. The mistake the Left is making is that its so-called progressive goals have nothing in common with the medieval tenants of fundamentalist Islam. Militant Muslims have no respect for American progressives, any more than they respect the very existence of Israel. Fundamentalist Islam is using the American Left to advance its own agenda.”

Chuck Hustmyre (1963) American journalist

2000s, 2009, The Left's love affair with Islam (2009)

Country

“(…) the supreme state (…) is entirely one and indivisible, a single solid block of reality. The only way of knowing it is to be it. The mind cannot reach it. To perceive it does not need the senses; to know it, does not need the mind.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Reality
Source: "I am That." P.36.

Way, Reality, Sense

“The medieval peasant prior to the 13th century does not compare himself to the feudal lord, nor does the artisan compare himself to the knight. … From the king down to the hangman and the prostitute, everyone is “noble” in the sense that he considers himself as irreplaceable. In the “system of free competition,” on the other hand, the notions on life’s tasks and their value are not fundamental, they are but secondary derivations of the desire of all to surpass all the others. No “place” is more than a transitory point in this universal chase.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 56

Life, Sense, Universe

“We are so accustomed to hear arithmetic spoken of as one of the three fundamental ingredients in all schemes of instruction, that it seems like inquiring too curiously to ask why this should be. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic—these three are assumed to be of co-ordinate rank. Are they indeed co-ordinate, and if so on what grounds?
In this modern “trivium” the art of reading is put first. Well, there is no doubt as to its right to the foremost place. For reading is the instrument of all our acquisition. It is indispensable. There is not an hour in our lives in which it does not make a great difference to us whether we can read or not. And the art of Writing, too; that is the instrument of all communication, and it becomes, in one form or other, useful to us every day. But Counting—doing sums,—how often in life does this accomplishment come into exercise? Beyond the simplest additions, and the power to check the items of a bill, the arithmetical knowledge required of any well-informed person in private life is very limited. For all practical purposes, whatever I may have learned at school of fractions, or proportion, or decimals, is, unless I happen to be in business, far less available to me in life than a knowledge, say, of history of my own country, or the elementary truths of physics. The truth is, that regarded as practical arts, reading, writing, and arithmetic have no right to be classed together as co-ordinate elements of education; for the last of these is considerably less useful to the average man or woman not only than the other two, but than 267 many others that might be named. But reading, writing, and such mathematical or logical exercise as may be gained in connection with the manifestation of numbers, have a right to constitute the primary elements of instruction. And I believe that arithmetic, if it deserves the high place that it conventionally holds in our educational system, deserves it mainly on the ground that it is to be treated as a logical exercise. It is the only branch of mathematics which has found its way into primary and early education; other departments of pure science being reserved for what is called higher or university instruction. But all the arguments in favor of teaching algebra and trigonometry to advanced students, apply equally to the teaching of the principles or theory of arithmetic to schoolboys. It is calculated to do for them exactly the same kind of service, to educate one side of their minds, to bring into play one set of faculties which cannot be so severely or properly exercised in any other department of learning. In short, relatively to the needs of a beginner, Arithmetic, as a science, is just as valuable—it is certainly quite as intelligible—as the higher mathematics to a university student.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Source: Lectures on Teaching, (1906), pp. 267-268.

Life, Truth, Education, School

“Paul Krugman is a very smart and very annoying person. Over the past few years he's been hammering away at political and economic advocates for austerity policies with unmitigated glee and derision. He does so with a brio and condescension that some people can find off-putting -- but that doesn't mean that he's wrong. … Look, I think Paul Krugman has a few policy blind spots. His method of argumentation alienates as many people as it attracts. But he's not wrong when he's talking about austerity. In his response, Michael Kinsley has managed to embody the conventional wisdom in Washington -- and in doing so, embody every policy caricature of Paul Krugman's worldview.”

Daniel Drezner (1968) American journalist

The worst piece of conventional wisdom you will read this year http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/16/the_worst_piece_of_conventional_wisdom_you_will_read_this_year (MAY 16, 2013)

Wisdom, People, Thinking, Past