Quotes about energy
page 7

Al Gore photo
Keir Hardie photo
Mark Tobey photo
Henry Van Dyke photo

“No amount of energy will take the place of thought.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The Good Old Way
Joy and Power http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10395/10395-h/10395-h.htm (1903)

Sigmund Freud photo

“Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Anxiety and Instinctual Life (Lecture 32)
1930s, "New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis" https://books.google.com/books/about/New_Introductory_Lectures_on_Psycho_anal.html?id=hIqaep1qKRYC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false (1933)

R. H. Tawney photo
Joe the Plumber photo
Wassily Kandinsky photo

“Well, we will indeed see how things develop and what will become of our art! In any case, artists should remain apolitical and only think of their work and dedicate all their energies to this work.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

to Werner Drewes, 10 April 1933; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016 https://www.zpk.org/en/exhibitions/review_0/2015/klee-kandinsky-969.html
both were closely connected with the Bauhaus, closed by the Nazi-regime in 1933
1930 - 1944

Ezra Pound photo
Ali Khamenei photo
George W. Bush photo
Alicia Witt photo

“I don't feel special … I was just full of energy and loved to learn.”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

On her extraordinarily high I.Q., as quoted in "Genius at Work" in People magazine, Vol. 43 No. 9 (6 March 1995) http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20105221,00.html

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Ragnar Frisch photo

“Deep in the human nature there is an almost irresistible tendency to concentrate physical and mental energy on attempts at solving problems that seem to be unsolvable.”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Source: 1970s and later, From Utopian Theory to Practical Applications, 1970, p. 10

Barbara W. Tuchman photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Noam Chomsky photo
James Hamilton photo

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. In its doctrinal largeness let it inhabit your convictions, and in its Divine lovingness let it be infused into your spirit, and let its lifesome energy inspire your character.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 90.

Thomas Jefferson photo
Jay Samit photo

“Your energy is a valuable resource, distribute it wisely.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p. 42

William Henry Bragg photo

“On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we use the wave theory; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays we think in streams of flying energy quanta or corpuscles.”

William Henry Bragg (1862–1942) British scientist

in Electrons & Ether Waves : being the twenty-third Robert Boyle lecture, on 11th May 1921, Oxford University Press, 1921, p. 11.

Samuel Smiles photo
Harriet Beecher Stowe photo
James Braid photo

“…have the power of directing or concentrating nervous energy, raising or depressing it in a remarkable degree, at will, locally or generally. That in this state, we have the power of exciting or depressing the force and frequency of the heart's action, and the state of circulation, or generally, in a surprising degree.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

When he hypnotized a patient, in Neurypnology; or, The rationale of nervous sleep, considered in relation ... http://books.google.co.in/books?id=DMgDAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover.p.151.

Leo Tolstoy photo

“I longed for activity, instead of an even flow of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to renounce self for the sake of my love. I was conscious of a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life. I had bouts of depression, which I tried to hide, as something to be ashamed of…My mind, even my senses were occupied, but there was another feeling – the feeling of youth and a craving for activity – which found no scope in our quiet life…So time went by, the snow piled higher and higher round the house, and there we remained together, always and for ever alone and just the same in each other’s eyes; while somewhere far away amidst glitter and noise multitudes of people thrilled, suffered and rejoiced, without one thought of us and our existence which was ebbing away. Worst of all, I felt that every day that passed riveted another link to the chain of habit which was binding our life into a fixed shape, that our emotions, ceasing to be spontaneous, were being subordinated to the even, passionless flow of time… ‘It’s all very well … ‘ I thought, ‘it’s all very well to do good and lead upright lives, as he says, but we’ll have plenty of time for that later, and there are other things for which the time is now or never.’ I wanted, not what I had got, but a life of challenge; I wanted feeling to guide us in life, and not life to guide us in feeling.”

Family Happiness (1859)

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto photo
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery photo

“The nation which is satisfied is lost. The nation which is not progressive is retrograding. "Rest and be thankful" is a motto which spells decay. The new world seems to possess more of this quality in its crude state, at any rate, than the old. In individuals it sometimes seems to be carried to excess. I do not by this mean the revolutions which periodically ravage the Southern and Central American Republics. I think more of the restless enterprise of the United States, with the devouring anxiety to improve existing machinery and existing methods, and the apparent impossibility of accumulating any fortune, however gigantic, which shall satisfy or be sufficient to allow of leisure and repose. There the disdain of finality, the anxiety for improving on the best seems almost a disease; but in Great Britain we can afford to catch the complaint, at any rate in a mitigated form, and give in exchange some of our own self-complacency, for complacency is a fatal gift. "What was good enough for my father is good enough for me" is a treasured English axiom which, if strictly carried out, would have kept us to wooden ploughs and water clocks. In these days we need to be inoculated with some of the nervous energy of the Americans.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Address as President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute (15 October, 1901).
'Lord Rosebery On National Culture', The Times (16 October, 1901), p. 4.

William John Macquorn Rankine photo
Alex Salmond photo
William Thomson photo
James Martineau photo
David Lange photo
Buckminster Fuller photo

“The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy. Life is antientropic. It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out and endeavors to understand.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1970s, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), The Wellspring of Reality

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Otto Lilienthal photo

“All flight is based upon producing air pressure, all flight energy consists in overcoming air pressure.”

Otto Lilienthal (1848–1896) German aviation pioneer

Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (1889); English edition: Birdflight As The Basis of Aviation (1911).

Alexander Hamilton photo
John McCain photo

“I was concerned about a couple of steps that the Russian government took in the last several days. One was reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

In remarks to the press in Phoenix, 14 July 2008; http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-mccains-remarks-to-the-press-in-phoenix/ http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16196.html
2000s, 2008

Camille Paglia photo
James Jeans photo

“Science Fiction Gods; Do they take much of an interest in us? I doubt it. How much entertainment does an ant's nest provide you with?
'Adepticus Sir, that bunch of Ornithoids on Artoc 4 that you asked me to observe, well they've just trashed their planet.'
'Oh that is a pity Initiatus Jones. What was it this time, ecological screw up or nuclear winter?'
'Worse than that sir, i looks lke they were mucking around with vacuum energy without having first invented the Mobius sphere.'
'Ah yes, the old classic mistake, we loose a few like that.'
'Could we not have tipped them off about it Sir?'
'I'm afraid not Jones, stupidity must remain its own reward, it's regrettable but there you are. Did you salvage anything?'
'They composed some fairly good poetry a couple of centuries ago, and some rather fine cloud sculptures fairly recently, I've logged some records in the archives.'
'Splendid Jones, I'll peruse them this evening. What about those Apes on Sol 3, how are they getting on?'
'Quit a bit of warfare as usual Sir, mostly based on chemical explosives these days, but with the occasional use of plutonium. Many of them have developed a belief in a big bang theory, and they reckon that they have the maths to prove it.'
'Really? Smith in anthropology will probably find that hilarious, I'm sure she would appreciate the data. It was one of her old Stomping grounds you know?'
'No I didnt know that Sir'
'It was a long time ago Jones, and a bit of a fiasco actually, she gave them a piece of her mind about some of their barbaric behavior which then abruptly became worse. Ever since then they have been obsessed with the number plate on her craft, it read 'JHVH'. The department gave her a desk job after that.”

Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist

Source: The Apophenion (2008), p. 107-108

Ma Ying-jeou photo

“Renewable energy has its limitations and the government cannot put all its eggs in the same basket. We must develop different sources of energy, otherwise an energy crisis could result in a serious national security issue.”

Ma Ying-jeou (1950) Taiwanese politician, president of the Republic of China

Ma Ying-jeou (2013) cited in: " Ma reiterates commitment to use of ‘green’ power http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/05/26/2003563211" in The Taipei Times, 26 May 2013.
Statement made during a visit to Chang-Kong Wind Power Station in Changhua County, Taiwan, 25 May 2013.
Economic Issues

Ron Paul photo

“Liberty once again must become more important to us than the desire for security and material comfort. Personal safety and economic prosperity can only come as the consequence of liberty. They cannot be provided by an authoritarian government… The foundation for a police state has been put in place, and it's urgent we mobilize resistance before it's too late… Central planning is intellectually bankrupt – and it has bankrupted our country and undermined our moral principles. Respect for individual liberty and dignity is the only answer to government force, force that serves the politically and economically powerful. Our planners and rulers are not geniuses, but rather demagogues and would-be dictators -- always performing their tasks with a cover of humanitarian rhetoric… The collapse of the Soviet system came swiftly and dramatically, without a bloody conflict… It came as no surprise, however, to the devotees of freedom who have understood for decades that socialism was doomed to fail… And so too will the welfare/warfare state fail… A free society is based on the key principle that the government, the president, the Congress, the courts, and the bureaucrats are incapable of knowing what is best for each and every one of us… A government as a referee is proper, but a government that uses arbitrary force to direct every aspect of society threatens freedom… The time has come for a modern approach to achieving those values that all civilized societies seek. Only in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness… The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom loving individuals. When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is freedom that is the source of all creative energy. If I am to be your president, these are the goals I would seek. I reject the notion that we need a president to run our lives, plan the economy, or police the world… It is much more important to protect individual liberty and privacy than to make government even more secretive and powerful.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Video Address Announcing 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee, February 19, 2007 http://blog.4president.org/2008/2007/02/ron_paul_video_.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPlPT4bncq8
2000s, 2006-2009

Adolphe Quetelet photo
Northrop Frye photo

“What’s transcendental in Blake is not the statically geometrical, but the sense of arrested energy: the wriggling vines & snakes, flames & the like…It’s an expression of the belief that every object is an event.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The "Third Book" Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972 (2002), p. 14

Jill Vogel photo
Muhammad Yunus photo
John Harvey Kellogg photo
Roger Ebert photo
Yehudi Menuhin photo

“Since taking this job things have happened. I've been spending my free time studying the Word. Each night the Lord seemed to get hold of me a little more. Night before last I was reading in Nehemiah. I finished the book, and read it through again. Here was a man who left everything as far as position was concerned to go do a job nobody else could handle. And because he went the whole remnant back in Jerusalem got right with the Lord. Obstacles and hindrances fell away and a great work was done. Jim, I couldn't get away from it. The Lord was dealing with me. On the way home yesterday morning I took a long walk and came to a decision which I know is of the Lord. In all honesty before the Lord I say that no one or nothing beyond Himself and the Word has any bearing upon what I've decided to do. I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown. Jim, I'm taking the Lord at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove His Word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with out life hereafter. But if there is something to it, then everything else the Lord says must hold true likewise. Pray for me, Jim.”

Ed McCully (1927–1956) American Christian missionary
Edward O. Wilson photo
Philippe Kahn photo

“I am surprised at all the people in the high-tech industry focused on "making money"… If that's all they want to do, they should have a $100 printing press in their basements and they will truly "make money." Instead, if we focus all that energy on innovation, we'll change the world for the best.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

Commencement speech for UCSC students 1996 | UCSC Press Release http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/archive/95-96/06-96/061196-Graduation_ceremoni.html.

Buckminster Fuller photo
Julius Hare photo
Richard Henry Lee photo

“The military forces of a free country may be considered under three general descriptions — 1. The militia. 2. the navy — and 3. the regular troops — and the whole ought ever to be, and understood to be, in strict subordination to the civil authority; and that regular troops, and select corps, ought not to be kept up without evident necessity. Stipulations in the constitution to this effect, are perhaps, too general to be of much service, except merely to impress on the minds of the people and soldiery, that the military ought ever to be subject to the civil authority, &c. But particular attention, and many more definite stipulations, are highly necessary to render the military safe, and yet useful in a free government; and in a federal republic, where the people meet in distinct assemblies, many stipulations are necessary to keep a part from transgressing, which would be unnecessary checks against the whole met in one legislature, in one entire government. — A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves, and render regular troops in a great measure unnecessary. The powers to form and arm the militia, to appoint their officers, and to command their services, are very important; nor ought they in a confederated republic to be lodged, solely, in any one member of the government. First, the constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms; and that all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenceless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments in the community to be avoided. I am persuaded, I need not multiply words to convince you of the value and solidity of this principle, as it respects general liberty, and the duration of a free and mild government: having this principle well fixed by the constitution, then the federal head may prescribe a general uniform plan, on which the respective states shall form and train the militia, appoint their officers and solely manage them, except when called into the service of the union, and when called into that service, they may be commanded and governed by the union. This arrangement combines energy and safety in it; it places the sword in the hands of the solid interest of the community, and not in the hands of men destitute of property, of principle, or of attachment to the society and government, who often form the select corps of peace or ordinary establishments: by it, the militia are the people, immediately under the management of the state governments, but on a uniform federal plan, and called into the service, command, and government of the union, when necessary for the common defence and general tranquility. But, say gentlemen, the general militia are for the most part employed at home in their private concerns, cannot well be called out, or be depended upon; that we must have a select militia; that is, as I understand it, particular corps or bodies of young men, and of men who have but little to do at home, particularly armed and disciplined in some measure, at the public expence, and always ready to take the field. These corps, not much unlike regular troops, will ever produce an inattention to the general militia; and the consequence has ever been, and always must be, that the substantial men, having families and property, will generally be without arms, without knowing the use of them, and defenceless; whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it. As a farther check, it may be proper to add, that the militia of any state shall not remain in the service of the union, beyond a given period, without the express consent of the state legislature.”

Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) American statesman

Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 169 (1788)

Camille Paglia photo
Bill Pearl photo
Auguste Rodin photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Jane Roberts photo
Delia Ephron photo
James Jeans photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Mohammad-Javad Larijani photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Francis Parkman photo
Shankar Dayal Sharma photo

“The Rigveda stated that the earth was a …globe suspended freely in space. The Vedic texts disclosed that the Sun held the earth and heavenly bodies in its orbit. The Shatapatha Brahmana, a treatise of untold antiquity, recognized and explained the fact that the earth was spherical.. Aryabhata explained the daily rising and setting of planets and stars in terms of the earth’s constant revolutionary motion. The Surya Siddhantha said that the earth, owing to its gravitational force draw all things to itself. In physics, the thinker Kanada, explained light and heat as different aspects of the same element, thus anticipating Clarke Maxwell's Electro-magnetic Theory, which unified different forms of radiant energy. Sankaracharya, in his Advaita thought expanded the concept of unity of matter and energy. Vacaspati recognized light as composed of minute particles emitted by substances, anticipating Newton’s Corpuscular Theory of Light and the later discovery of the Photon. In Botany, Sankara Mishra and Kanada have discussed the circulation of sap in the Plant and the Santiparva of Mahabharata has clearly stated that the plants develop on the strength of nutrients made through interaction of sunlight and materials obtained from the air and ground. Bhaskarcharya's concept of Differential Calculus preceded Newton by many centuries. His study of time identified Truti: The 3400th part of a second as the unit of time.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

He has rightly brought out the rationality and application of Sanskrit literature in diverse fields
Source: Aruna Goel Good Governance and Ancient Sanskrit Literature http://books.google.co.in/books?id=El_VADF13pUC&pg=PA16, Deep and Deep Publications, 1 January 2003, p. 16-17

David Crystal photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Ervin László photo
Antoni Tàpies photo
George Eliot photo
Buckminster Fuller photo
Viktor Schauberger photo
Northrop Frye photo

“There is a curious law of art…that even the attempt to reproduce the act of seeing, when carried out with sufficient energy, tends to lose its realism and take on the unnatural glittering intensity of hallucination.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

“Design as a Principle in the Arts”, The Critical Path and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975, p. 232
"Quotes"

Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“The battle raged with great fury: victory was long doubtful, till two Indian princes, Brahman Dew and Dabishleem, with other reinforcements, joined their countrymen during the action, and inspired them with fresh courage. Mahmood at this moment perceiving his troops to waver, leaped from his horse, and, prostrating himself before God implored his assistance' At the same time he cheered his troops with such energy, that, ashamed to abandon their king, with whom they had so often fought and bled, they, with one accord, gave a loud shout and rushed forwards. In this charge the Moslems broke through the enemy's line, and laid 5,000 Hindus dead at their feet' On approaching the temple, he saw a superb edifice built of hewn stone. Its lofty roof was supported by fifty-six pillars curiously carved and set with precious stones. In the centre of the hall was Somnat, a stone idol five yards in height, two of which were sunk in the ground. The King, approaching the image, raised his mace and struck off its nose. He ordered two pieces of the idol to be broken off and sent to Ghizny, that one might be thrown at the threshold of the public mosque, and the other at the court door of his own palace. These identical fragments are to this day (now 600 years ago) to be seen at Ghizny. Two more fragments were reserved to be sent to Mecca and Medina. It is a well authenticated fact, that when Mahmood was thus employed in destroying this idol, a crowd of Brahmins petitioned his attendants and offered a quantity of gold if the King would desist from further mutilation. His officers endeavoured to persuade him to accept of the money; for they said that breaking one idol would not do away with idolatry altogether; that, therefore, it could serve no purpose to destroy the image entirely; but that such a sum of money given in charity among true believers would be a meritorious act. The King acknowledged that there might be reason in what they said, but replied, that if he should consent to such a measure, his name would be handed down to posterity as 'Mahmood the idol-seller', whereas he was desirous of being known as 'Mahmood the destroyer': he therefore directed the troops to proceed in their work'…'The Caliph of Bagdad, being informed of the expedition of the King of Ghizny, wrote him a congratulatory letter, in which he styled him 'The Guardian of the State, and of the Faith'; to his son, the Prince Ameer Musaood, he gave the title of 'The Lustre of Empire, and the Ornament of Religion'; and to his second son, the Ameer Yoosoof, the appellation of 'The Strength of the Arm of Fortune, and Establisher of Empires.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

He at the same time assured Mahmood, that to whomsoever he should bequeath the throne at his death, he himself would confirm and support the same.'
Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 38-49 (Alternative translation: "but the champion of Islam replied with disdain that he did not want his name to go down to posterity as Mahmud the idol-seller (but farosh) instead of Mahmud the breaker-of-idols (but shikan)." in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3)
Sack of Somnath (1025 CE)

W. Brian Arthur photo
Emma Goldman photo
Cecil Rhodes photo
Hermann Ebbinghaus photo
Happy Rhodes photo

“If you stare into a flame
You'll get an eye full of energy
If you write your nightscapades
You'll get a dawn full of promises”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

"Many Worlds Are Born Tonight" - Live performance at The Tin Angel (24 July 1999) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGdnjC48aJg
Many Worlds Are Born Tonight (1998)

Camille Paglia photo

“[T]here’s a lot to be said for celibacy, for the concentration of your mental and physical energy.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), p. 291

Gerhard Richter photo