Quotes about examination
page 6

“In early October of 1939, designated by the government as the year of "the duty to be healthy," Hitler authored a secret memo certifying that "Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr Brandt are hereby commissioned to allow certain specified doctors to grant a mercy death [Gnadentod] to patients judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination."”

Robert N. Proctor (1954) American historian

Source: Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, 1988, p. 177

Death, Secret

“"I'm no gaun to let naebody see the letter," sobbed the boy, "till I gie't to Mr. Lovel, for I am a faithfu' servant o' the office—if it werena for the powny."
"Very right, my little man," said Ochiltree, turning the reluctant pony's head towards Monkbarns; "but we'll guide him atween us." …
[They met Lovel on the way, ] and Davie, who insisted upon a literal execution of his commission by going on to Monkbarns, was with difficulty prevailed upon to surrender the packet to its proper owner, although he met him a mile nearer than the place he had been directed to. "But my minnie said, I maun be sure to get twenty shillings and five shillings for the postage, and ten shillings and sixpence for the express—there's the paper."
"Let me see—let me see," said Oldbuck, putting on his spectacles, and examining the crumpled copy of regulations to which Davie appealed. "Express, per man and horse, one day, not to exceed ten shillings and sixpence. One day? why, it's not an hour—Man and horse? why, 'tis a monkey on a starved cat!"”

Walter Scott book The Antiquary

Vol. I, Ch.15.
The Antiquary (1816), On the postal service

Way, Boy, Cats, Horse

“Mark Chmiel's Elie Wiesel and the Politics of Moral Leadership is a case study illustrating the politics of holocaust memory through examining the life of its prime architect, Elie Wiesel, who has made a successful and profitable personal career of the holocaust.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness"

Life, Study, Memory, Success

“He [Marcus Aurelius Antoninus] advises us to examine well all the impressions on our minds and to form a right judgment of them, to make just conclusions, and to inquire into the meanings of words, and so far to apply Dialectic, but he has no attempt at any exposition of Dialectic, and his philosophy is in substance purely moral and practical. …an examination implies a use of Dialectic, which Antoninus accordingly employed as a means towards establishing his Physical, Theological, and Ethical principles.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

The Philosophy of Antoninus

“Let us examine the language here. Evidently God is addressing this code to a patriarchy that will in turn disseminate it among the less powerful, namely wives and servants. And how long before these servants are downgraded further still…into slaves, even? Ten whole commandments, and not one word against slavery, not to mention bigotry, misogyny, or war.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

"Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant" p. 130 (originally published in What Might Have Been? Volume 1: Alternate Empires, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg)
Short fiction, Bible Stories for Adults (1996)

God, War

“I do not mind if my cottage is rather small
So long as there's room enough for bed and mat.
Often and often the neighbours come to see me
And with brave words discuss the things of old.
Rare writings we read together and praise:
Doubtful meanings we examine together and settle.”

Tao Yuanming (365–427) Chinese poet

"Moving house" (translation by A. Waley)

Reading

“He who would win high spiritual degrees, must pass endless tests and examinations. But most are anxious only to bribe the examiner.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Karma

“Our point isn’t to make an examination of popular film but to illustrate that the yearning for a heroic adventure lies just beneath the surface of our consciousness; film, television, literature, sports, and travel are in a sense vicarious adventures.”

Alan Hirsch (1959) South African missionary

Source: The Faith of Leap (2011), p. 110

Travel, Literature, Sense, Sport

“My own feeling was that witnessing the explosion of an atomic bomb, and having to examine all the dead animals, had a profound effect on my father.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

p 12
Achieving The Impossible (2010)

Feeling, Animals, Dead

“Good afternoon. I would like to take the next few moments to address the two investigations that the Justice Department has been conducting in Ferguson, Missouri, these last several months. The matter that we are here to discuss is significant not only because of the conclusions the Department of Justice is announcing today, but also because of the broader conversations and the initiatives that those conversations have inspired across the country on the local and national level. Those initiatives have included extensive and vital efforts to examine the causes of misunderstanding and mistrust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve; to support and strengthen our public safety institutions as a whole; and to rebuild confidence wherever it has eroded.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Justice, Law, Confidence, Communication

“It is almost useless to warn against this multiplicity of subjects which now distract boys and perplex teachers. The experiment of teaching a little of all things must be tried: it is demanded by opinion, founded on small or no reflection, it is required by competition for prizes, distinctions, and places; and it is encouraged by examinations and the questions proposed, which direct in a manner the course of education.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

Education, Boy, Question, Teachers

“A smart daughter ought not to examine her future husband too closely. She ought to consider it a pleasure to find one agreeable to her father.”

Alain-René Lesage (1668–1747) French writer

La Tontine (1709)

Pleasure, Future, Daughters

“In examining any dictatorship, there are two good tests. Firstly, what is the relation between the rulers and the proletariat or common people? Are the rulers members of the proletariat, as they would have you believe? Do they even identify their interests with those of ordinary citizens? The truth seems to be that, no matter where you find them, the so-called proletarian dictatorships are actually controlled by a small elite who ordinarily lose little sleep in worrying about the rights of the common man. Secondly, have the proletariat any effective say in what the rulers do? In the proletarian dictatorships I am familiar with, ordinary people enjoy little or no control over their Government or over their own lives and futures.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 162
Publications, Mission for my Country (1961)

People, Truth, Sleep, Future

“A perfect method for awakening is to examine the results of our daily actions. If they are harmful, we know we need more consciousness.”

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer

The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power

Perfection

“The historical significance of the Proclamation is not so much that it enacted the emancipation of people of African descent; on the contrary, it was a military strategy. But if we examine the meaning of this historical moment we might better be able to grasp the failures as well as the successes of emancipation. I have thought that perhaps we were not asked to reflect on the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation because we might realize that we were never really emancipated. But anyway, at least we may be able to understand the dialectics of emancipation; because we still live the popular myth that Lincoln freed the slaves and that this continues to be perpetuated in popular culture, even by the film Lincoln. Lincoln did not free the slaves. We also live with the myth that the mid-twentieth century Civil Rights Movement freed the. Civil rights, of course, constitute an essential element of the freedom that was demanded at that time, but it was not the whole story.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)

People, Failure, Understanding, Freedom

“The great forces of history were real, after a fashion. But when you examined them closely, those great forces always came down to the dreams and hungers and judgments of individuals. The choices they made were real. They mattered.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

"Atlantis," from Keeper of Dreams (2008).

Hunger, Dreams, History, Fashion

“At the religious discussion meetings held by Akbar, 'at which every one… might say or ask what he liked,' the emperor examined people about the creation of the Quran, elicited their belief, or otherwise, in revelation, and raised doubts in them regarding all things connected with the Prophet and the imams. He distinctly denied the existence of Jins, of angels, and of all other beings of the invisible world, as well as the miracles of the Prophet.”

Akbar (1542–1605) 3rd Mughal Emperor

Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh by Abdul Qadir Badaoni, vol. II, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

People, World, Angels

“Normal science, the puzzle-solving activity we have just examined, is a highly cumulative enterprise, eminently successful in its aim, the steady extension of the scope and precision of scientific knowledge. In all these respects it fits with great precision the most usual image of scientific work. Yet one standard product of the scientific enterprise is missing. Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none.”

Thomas Kuhn book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Source: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), VI. Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries, p. 52

Knowledge, Science, Success

“My good Mama, I am always the same.... always the same happy life, always fresh for seeing, vigorous for running, and diligent for one end... The Mont Blanc is our alarm clock in the morning, our vis-a-vis are the folk on the other side of the lake of Geneva, (8 leagues). I could not say that we get along badly, though we do dispense with the ceremony of saluting each other and saying bon jour when we look out at the window, for we don't meddle in our neighbors' affairs. Our sight carries fifty leagues about us, and we are equally everywhere, although only occupying the space of our two feet. I am delighted with having received my stretchers in order to commence my view of the Alps. I burn with the desire of fulfilling the difficult task of giving upon canvas an idea of the immensity which surrounds me in order to distribute its benefits to those less fortunate than myself... I ask without scruple, because it seems to me that I have something to give. I have so much confidence in myself, mon Dieu, when I examine myself.”

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

Quote of Th. Rousseau, in a letter to his mother, late Summer 1834, from the Alps, Switzerland; as cited in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye by Charles Sprague Smith, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, pp. 152-53
1830 - 1850

Life, Confidence, Idea, Happiness

“Examining the world in order to find consolation is very much like looking carefully over the pages of a great book in order to find our own name. … Whether we find what we want or not, our preoccupation has hindered us from a true knowledge of the contents.”

George Eliot book Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Part 1
Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879)

Books, World, Knowledge

“Why not make an end of it all?" he asked himself. "Why this obstinate resistance to the fate that is crushing me? It is all very well my forming what are apparently the most reasonable forms of conduct, my life is a succession of griefs and bitter feelings. This month is no better than the last; this year is no better than last year. Why this obstinate determination to go on living? Can I be wanting in firmness? What is death?" he asked himself, opening his case of pistols and examining them. "A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.”

Stendhal book Armance

Pourquoi ne pas en finir? se dit-il enfin; pourquoi cette obstination à lutter contre le destin qui m'accable? J'ai beau faire les plans de conduite les plus raisonnables en apparence, ma vie n'est qu'une suite de malheurs et de sensations amères. Ce mois-ci ne vaut pas mieux que le mois passé; cette année-ci ne vaut pas mieux que l'autre année; d'où vient cette obstination à vivre? Manquerais-je de fermeté? Qu'est-ce que la mort? se dit-il en ouvrant la caisse de ses pistolets et les considérant. Bien peu de chose en vérité; il faut être fou pour s'en passer.
Source: Armance (1827), Ch. 2

Life, Death, Fate, Fools

“A physical man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know [them], because they are examined spiritually. However, the spiritual man examines indeed all things, but he himself is not examined by any man.”

Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to the Corinthians

1 Corinthians 2:14,15 http://www.watchtower.org/e/bible/1co/chapter_002.htm First Epistle to the Corinthians

God

“It is the great duty of every Court of justice to administer justice as well as they can between the litigating parties; another, and not less material, duty is to satisfy those parties that the whole case has been examined and considered.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Booth v. Hodgson (1795), 6 T. R. 408.

Justice

“The Elements has been considered as offering models of scrupulously rigorous demonstrations. It is certainly true that in point of rigour it compares favourably with its modern rivals; but when examined in the light of strict mathematical logic, it has been pronounced by C. S. Peirce to be "riddled with fallacies." The results are correct only because the writer's experience keeps him on his guard.”

Florian Cajori book A History of Mathematics

Source: A History of Mathematics (1893), p. 37. Reported in Moritz (1914)

Mathematics, Light

“All the doctors that have examined you state that you appear to have no friends or family relationships and you are incapable of any sort of empathy. In short…you’re perfect for this job.”

John Twelve Hawks book Spark

Spark (2014)

Family, Appearance, Perfection

“The suggestion that words are symbols for things, actions, qualities, relationships, et cetera, is naive, a gross simplification. Words are slippery customers. The full meaning of a word does not appear until it is placed in its context, and the context may serve an extremely subtle function -- as with puns, or double entendre. And even then the "meaning" will depend upon the listener, upon the speaker, upon their entire experience of language, upon their knowledge of one another, and upon the whole situation. Words do not "mean things" in a one-to-one relation like a code. Words, too, are empirical signs, not copies or models of anything; truly, onomatopoeia and gestures frequently seem to possess resemblance, but this resemblance does not bear too close examination. A cockerel may seem to say cook-a-doodle-do to an Englishman, but a German thinks it says kikeriki, and a Japanese kokke-kekko. Each can paint only with the phonetic sound of his own language.”

Colin Cherry (1914–1979) British scientist

Source: On Human Communication (1957), What Is It That We Communicate?, p. 10-11

Knowledge, Thinking, Appearance, Painting

“There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones.”

Desmond Morris book The Naked Ape

Introduction; Republished in: " The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris https://books.google.nl/books?id=a0oEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA95," LIFE, Vol. 63, Nr. 25 (22 Dec. 1967), p. 95 The Naked Ape (1967)

Motivation, Time, Success

“Now it is the practice of astronomers to assume that brightness falls off inversely with the square of the "distance" of an object—as it would do in Euclidean space, if there were no absorption… We must therefore examine the relation between this astronomer's "distance" d… and the distance r which appears as an element of the geometry.”

Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

Appearance

“Here as elsewhere human reason in its pure use, so long as it was not critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways before it succeeded in finding the one true way.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Die menschliche Vernunft hat hier, wie allerwärts in ihrem reinen Gebrauche, so lange es ihr an Kritik fehlt, vorher alle mögliche unrechte Wege versucht, ehe es ihr gelingt, den einzigen wahren zu treffen.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Way

“But it is a fallacy, if one is examining the methods by which security can be attained, to start upon the assumption, as so many hon. Members do, that we get security by an increase of air armaments or an increase of any other form of armaments.”

Stafford Cripps (1889–1952) British politician

Hansard, House of Commons, 5th Series, vol. 292, col. 2425.
Speech in the House of Commons opposing the National Government's decision to expand the Royal Air Force, 30 July, 1934.

“Contemporary philosophy illustrates Hegel’s dictum that philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought, for in our age philosophy yields to the objectifying technical impulse and loses its ancient task of pursuing the Socratic ideal of the wisdom of the examined life.”

Donald Phillip Verene (1937) philosopher

Source: Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997), p. 191

Life, Wisdom, Age, Time

“The Justice Department's conclusion that Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 does not prohibit discrimination based on actual or perceived capacity to transmit AIDS to others has been assailed as legally or medically flawed, mean-spirited, and antagonistic toward the gay community. The criticisms are misplaced. The Department's sober examination of the Rehabilitation Act reveals a commendable dedication to the rule of law and the belief that Congress, not bureaucrats, should be the foremost architect of national public policy. … The gay community and other political minorities, as the foremost beneficiaries of the rule of law, should applaud, not condemn, the Department's opinion. By refusing to usurp policy making power from Congress, the Justice Department acted in the highest tradition of executive restraint.”

Bruce Fein (1947) American lawyer

AIDS in the workplace; the administration's impeccable logic http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/13/business/aids-in-the-workplace-the-administration-s-impeccable-logic.html, The New York Times (July 13, 1986)

Justice, Law, Communication

“Publisher: But the good news is…. the U. S. state department called on Egypt to stop it…and the intellectual community of Egypt helped to prevent its broadcast. And recently the Russian government appointed a group of independent experts who examined and certified that the “protocols of Zion” is a fraud!
Graphic novelist: At last, at last!
Publisher: So, we can finally say that this is the end of the “Protocols of Zion,” eh?
Finally, finally!!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.126

Communication, Fraud, Help

“In any proposed external communication from God, the channels of human faculty are never to be got rid of; so, if they do not in their own native quality constitute divine vouchers, they must operate as barriers to any communication with God. Of God, who is essentially supersensible, there can be no such thing as a presentation directly to our senses; and all belief that sensible facts mean his real presence must rest at last on inferential judgments of our reason, while these will be nothing but self-continuing circles, worthless for evidence, unless our reason is granted to have in itself the real revelation of what accords with the Divine mind. An absolutely direct utterance of God in the external world, evident strictly in itself, is thus upon close examination unintelligible and unthinkable. Yet this is what is implied in a consistent doctrine of Authority.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Right Relation of Reason to Religion, p.240-1

God, World, Communication, Sense

“Within the past ten years there have appeared with increasing frequency books, articles, conferences, and monograms dealing with system engineering, system analysis, system design, the systems approach, the design of systems, system theory, and problems of systems engineering. The number of publications and the stature of their authors does not allow the dismissal of the subject as a passing fad. The breadth of engineering activity involved in even a cursory examination of recent publications is of interest… It is therefore obvious that whatever Systems Engineering may or may not be, it is non-sectarian and encompasses activities that are of concern in all phases of engineering. On the other hand undergraduate college offerings akin to Systems Engineering are rather limited and even graduate programs are not extensive.”

Allen B. Rosenstein (1920–2018) American systems engineers

Source: Systems engineering and Modern Engineering Design (1965), p. 1.

Books, Problem, Appearance, Past

“An examination of the characteristics required by the employees and heads of undertakings of every kind leads to the same conclusions as the foregoing study, which was confined largely to industrial concerns. In the home and in affairs of State, the need for administrative ability is proportional to the importance of the undertaking. Like every other undertaking, the home requires administration, that is to say planning, organization, command, coordination and control. Nothing but a theory of administration, which can be taught and then discussed by everybody, can put an end to the general uncertainty as to proper methods, which exists in the isolation of our households. There is therefore a universal need for a knowledge of administration.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: Industrial and General Administration, 1916, p. 80; as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 7

Home, Knowledge, Study, Universe

“If you, the citizen, deliberately vote for someone who won't give you healthcare over someone who will, you need to have your head examined. Except you can't afford to have your head examined.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Real Time with Bill Maher Source: "On the poor and the rich" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKe7XNTWTUc&feature=PlayList&p=159B6F88FE3D7D74&playnext_from=PL&index=44

“My main problem was, naturally, religion: from it I moved later on to the principles of ethics. First to be examined was my positive religion [ie. Judaism]. It collapsed. So I wanted to base myself on naturaly religion: but my agony was so great, that this [foundation] also collapsed before my eyes. Nothing, nothing remained. I was the most miserable person in the world. I became an atheist.”

Moses Hess (1812–1875) German philosopher

Hess' Diary p. 40

World, Religion, Nature, Problem

“The Process Chart is a device for visualizing a process as a means of improving it. Every detail of a process is more or less affected by every other detail; therefore the entire process must be presented in such form that it can be visualized all at once before any changes are made in any of its subdivisions. In any subdivision of the process under examination, any changes made without due consideration of all the decisions and all the motions that precede and follow that subdivision will often be found unsuited to the ultimate plan of operation.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Process charts (1921), p. 3.

Decision, Change

“Hamm: Look at the ocean!(Clov gets down, takes a few steps towards window left, goes back for ladder, carries it over and sets it down under window left, gets up on it, turns the telescope on the without, looks at length. He starts, lowers the telescope, examines it, turns it again on the without.)Clov: Never seen anything like that!Hamm (anxious): What? A sail? A fin? Smoke?Clov (looking): The light is sunk. Hamm (relieved): Pah! We all knew that. Clov (looking): There was a bit left. Hamm: The base. Clov (looking): Yes. Hamm: And now? Clov (looking): All gone. Hamm: No gulls? Clov (looking): Gulls! Hamm: And the horizon? Nothing on the horizon? Clov (lowering the telescope, turning towards Hamm, exasperated): What in God's name could there be on the horizon? (Pause.) Hamm: The waves, how are the waves? Clov: The waves? (He turns the telescope on the waves.) Lead. Hamm: And the sun? Clov (looking): Zero. Hamm: But it should be sinking. Look again. Clov (looking): Damn the sun. Hamm: Is it night already then? Clov (looking): No. Hamm: Then what is it? Clov (looking): Gray. (Lowering the telescope, turning towards Hamm, louder.) Gray! (Pause. Still louder.) GRRAY! (Pause. He gets down, approaches Hamm from behind, whispers in his ear.) Hamm (starting): Gray! Did I hear you say gray? Clov: Light black. From pole to pole.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

An explanation of the universe outside the room of Endgame
Endgame (1957)

God, Light, Sun, Night

“My Drawings expressed my despair, hate and disillusionment, I drew drunkards; puking men; men with clenched fists cursing at the moon … I drew a man, face filled with fright, washing blood from his hands … I drew lonely little men fleeing madly through empty streets. I drew a cross-section of tenement house: through one window could be seen a man attacking his wife; through another, two people making love; from a third hung a suicide with body covered by swarming flies. I drew soldiers without noses; war cripples with crustacean-like steel arms; two medical soldiers putting a violent infantryman into a strait-jacket made of a horse blanket … I drew a skeleton dressed as a recruit being examined for military duty. I also wrote poetry.”

George Grosz (1893–1959) German artist

as cited by Otto Friedrich in Before the Deluge, Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987, p. 37 - ISBN 0-88064-054-5

Love, Men, Hate, War

“What I have given in the second book on the nature and properties of curved lines, and the method of examining them, is, it seems to me, as far beyond the treatment in the ordinary geometry, as the rhetoric of Cicero is beyond the a, b, c of children.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Letter to Marin Mersenne (1637) as quoted by D. E. Smith & M. L. Latham Tr. The Geometry of René Descartes (1925)

Children, Books, Nature

“Cultural anthropologists have gathered exactly the data required to examine this hypothesis for human societies—and their findings are conveniently arranged in R. B. Textor's A Cross Cultural Summary.”

James W. Prescott (1930) American psychologist

"Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (1975)

“According to mainstream non-religious sources, a fool is one who too readily accepts improbable assertions from questionable sources on insufficient evidence. So it is no wonder that the Bible and the Qur’an both use the opposite definition, so that the wise are called foolish and only fools are wise. By definition, one would have to be a fool to be fooled by either book. As for “putting things right”, the only way to do that is to identify unsupported assertions and examine what the facts really indicate, and that always goes against faith.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

Books, Faith, Fools, Way

“I was born on 23 November 1890 in a village in the province of Smolensk. Grew up in Smolensk, in the home of my grandfather, a cap-maker. Completed secondary school there. At the age of 15 I started earning money by giving drawing lessons. Passed the entrance examination of the art academy in Leningrad but, being a Jew, was not admitted due to the restricted percentage.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

1926 - 1941, Autobiography of the artist' (1941)

Money, Age, School, Art

“The concept of action research arises in the behavioural sciences and is obviously applicable to an examination of human activity systems carried out through the process of attempting to solve problems. This core is the idea that the researcher does not remain an observer outside the subject of investigation but becomes a participant in the relevant human group. The researcher becomes a participant in the action, and the process of change itself becomes the subject of research. In action research the roles of researcher and subject are obviously not fixed: the roles of the subject and the practitioner are sometimes switched: the subjects become researchers… and researchers become men of action.”

Peter Checkland (1930) British management scientist

Source: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, 1981, p. 152 as cited in: R.L. McCown (2001) "Learning to bridge the gap between science-based decision support and the practice of farming". In: Aust. J. Agric. Res., Vol 52, p. 560-561

Men, Idea, Problem, Science

“In the course of my inquiries, I met with the work upon the Trinity, by Dr. Samuel Clarke. This I carefully examined, and although very far from being satisfied, I ceased from further inquiry. This change arose probably from my having acquired the much more valuable work of the same author, on the Being and Attributes of God. This I studied, and felt that its doctrine was much more intelligible and satisfactory than that of the former work. I may now state, as the result of a long life spent in studying the works of the Creator, that I am satisfied they afford far more satisfactory and more convincing proofs of the existence of a supreme Being than any evidence transmitted through human testimony can possibly supply.”

Charles Babbage Passages from the life of a philosopher

"Passages from the life of a philosopher", The Athanasian Creed , p. 403
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

Life, God, Intelligence, Study

“I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. I'm beyond horrified to hear his story. I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been 30 years ago. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years. This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life. I know that there are stories about me and that some have been fueled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy. As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior.”

Kevin Spacey (1959) American actor, director and producer

official statement on Twitter https://twitter.com/kevinspacey?lang=en regarding Anthony Rapp's allegations of sexual assault, October 29, 2017

Love, Life, Women, Men

“This pioneer work, written for both the professional economist and the businessman, has become a classic in its field. It is a detailed examination of the structure of the large business corporation in relation to its actual economic functioning. Because Gordon views the corporation not as an external institution but as organized human activity, his emphasis is on the personal and volitional elements in leadership, or how businessmen actually shape their practices. His analysis is based on a formidable mass of case material and statistical data”

Robert Aaron Gordon (1908–1978) American economist

Abstract
Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (1945)

Business, Personality

“The claims of an Armenian Genocide are not based on historical facts. If the history of the period is examined it becomes evident that in fact no such genocide took place.”

Cenk Uygur (1970) Turkish-American online news show host

"Column: Historical Fact or Falsehood?", The Daily Pennsylvanian (20 November 1991) http://www.webcitation.org/68YqvmgSY; but see: "Rescinding Daily Pennsylvanian Article" https://tytnetwork.com/2016/04/22/rescinding-daily-pennsylvanian-article/ by Cenk Uygur (22 April 2016).

History

“Let us imagine that an absolutely unbiased investigator on another planet, perhaps on Mars, is examining human behavior on earth, with the aid of a telescope whose magnification is too small to enable him to discern individuals and follow their separate behavior, but large enough for him to observe occurrences such as migrations of peoples, wars, and similar great historical events. He would never gain the impression that human behavior was dictated by intelligence, still less by responsible morality.”

Konrad Lorenz book On Aggression

Source: On Aggression (1963), Ch. XIII : Ecce Homo!

War, People, Behavior, Imagination

“By a ‘spontaneous disturbance’ we shall mean any change in the underlying conditions, the cause of which we are prepared to take for granted and do not wish to examine, but the effect of which on the domestic and external position of our two countries we wish to examine. By a ‘policy’ change we shall mean a change which the State or some public authority brings about as a result of a definite decision of State policy in order to achieve some given end of general economic policy and in particular to offset some of the effects of a ‘spontaneous disturbance’. Finally, by an ‘induced’ change is meant a change in some quantity which occurs on purely commercial principles because of the repercussions of some previous ‘spontaneous’ or ‘policy’ change.”

James Meade (1907–1995) British economist

Source: The balance of payments, 1951, p. 43; As cited in: Metaxas, Phillip Edmund, and Ernst Juerg Weber. Australia's contribution to international trade theory: The dependent economy model. (2013), p. 18

Decision, Change, Country

“He had doubts about the utility of examination on subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 10

Sense

“I was right in the middle of examinations when they called me up into the Tactical Department Office. Colonel Russel "Red" Reeder told me what had occurred. He went on to explain that my father had suffered a broken neck and was paralyzed. He also said that they were in communication and would keep me informed. I wwent back to my room and wrote a cable which I went on December 10, 1945. It said: All of us here are praying for your speedy recovery and return home. I know you can do it. Your affectionate son. George.”

George S. Patton IV (1923–2004) U.S. Army general

Source: The Fighting Pattons (1997) by Brian M. Sobel, p. 52

Home, Communication, Suffering

“Well, of course, Gwenda dear, you can always do that when you’ve exhausted every other line of approach, but I always think myself it’s better to examine the simplest and most commonplace explanations first.”

Agatha Christie book Sleeping Murder

Sleeping Murder (1976)

Thinking

“It must be said that today, at the end of its semantic evolution, the word 'terrorist' is an intrinsically propagandistic term. It has no neutral readability. It dispenses with all reasoned examination of political situations, of their causes and consequences.”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

From Philosophy and the 'war against terrorism in Infinite Thought: truth and the return of philosophy. London: Continuum, 2003. ISBN 0826467245.

“The study of Constitutional History is essentially a tracing of causes and consequences; the examination of a distinct growth from a well-defined germ to full maturity: a growth, the particular shaping and direction of which are due to a diversity of causes, but whose life and developing power lies deep in the very nature of the people. It is not then the collection of a multitude of facts and views, but the piecing of the links of a perfect chain.”

William Stubbs (1825–1901) English historian and clergyman

Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History (1870; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913) p. xv.

Life, People, History, Nature

“When devotion to men with an urge for new social organization replaces devotion to men with theological illumination and a way of life pleasing to God, then the actions of the innovator and his formulations are often gauged by their significance for human happiness. Behaviour is examined through the happiness it produces, which is an empirical matter; transcendence is overcome.”

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist

Source: 1930s, "Empirical Sociology" (1931), p. 327-328

Life, Men, God, Way

“We have, for the first time in history, easy access to all of the world's great religions. Examine the many great traditions — from Christianity to Buddhism, Islam to Taoism, Paganism to Neoplatonism — and you are struck by two items: there are an enormous number of differences between them, and a handful of striking similarities.
When you find a few essential items that all, or virtually all, of the world's great religions agree on, you have probably found something incredibly important about the human condition, at least as important as, say, a few things that physicists can manage to agree on”

Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker

which nowadays, by the way, ain't all that impressive
An Integral Spirituality

World, Religion, Way, History

“Even using self determination we should establish a rule to help us gain validity. It is true that it is us who examine our conscience, but a prolonged education in the perception of values makes our conscience a better tool for decision. It is also very important to think of our action as being valid for all, as if everyone in our place should act this way.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

Education, Way, Thinking, Decision

“An examination of history proves that in Christian Russia as in Christian England the husband could release himself from the marriage bond by killing his wife, over whom under Christian law he had power of life and death. Her children, as to-day in Christian England and America, are not under her control; she is to bear children but not to educate them, for as under Catholic and Protestant Christianity, women are looked upon as a lower order of beings, of an unclean nature.”

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) American abolitionist, writer

Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), pp. 380-381

Life, Death, Women, Marriage

“There are cases where examinations are admitted, namely, before the coroner, and before magistrates in cases of felony. That appears to me to go rather in support of the general rule than in destruction of it. Every exception that can be accounted for is so much a confirmation of the rule that it has become a maxim, Exceptio probat regulam.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

The King v. Inhabitants of Eriswell (1790), 3 T. R. 722.

Support, Appearance

“Having made an utter failure of my life, I found myself one day, in the midst of my poverty and wretchedness, thinking about the female companions of my youth. As I went over them one by one, examining and comparing them in my mind's eye, it suddenly came over me that those slips of girls – which is all they were then – were in every way, both morally and intellectually, superior to the 'grave and mustachioed signior' I am now supposed to have become. The realization brought with it an overpowering sense of shame and remorse, and for a while I was plunged in the deepest despair. There and then I resolved to make a record of all the recollections of those days I could muster – those golden days when I dressed in silk and ate delicately, when we still nestled in the protecting shadow of the Ancestors and Heaven still smiled on us. I resolved to tell the world how, in defiance of all my family's attempts to bring me up properly and all the warnings and advice of my friends, I had brought myself to this present wretched state, in which, having frittered away half a lifetime, I find myself without a single skill with which I could earn a decent living. I resolved that, however unsightly my own shortcomings might be, I must not, for the sake of keeping them hid, allow those wonderful girls to pass into oblivion without a memorial.”

Cao Xueqin (1724–1763) Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty

Cao Xueqin, as quoted in the introduction attributed to his younger brother (Cao Tangcun) to the first chapter of Dream of the Red Chamber, present in the jiaxu (1754) version (the earliest-known manuscript copy of the novel), translated by David Hawkes in The Story of the Stone: The Golden Days (Penguin, 1973), pp. 20–21

Life, Youth, World, Family

“I have examined myself carefully. I could never bid chaos welcome, blow up bridges, and do away with ideas. I am not an anarchist.”

Hugo Ball (1886–1927) German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists

Ball's dairy on Dada, in Flucht aus der Zeit / Flight out of Time, 'Introduction'; University of California Press (1996)
1916

Idea

“With an effort Ewing turned his gaze away from the far end of the bar. Slowly he spread out his hands on the table and examined them. Then he looked up at Wayne. His left eyelid had begun to quiver slightly like a leaf in a gentle breeze as he put the question, but the expression of his face remained unchanged. "Who's the new customer?"”

Robin Maugham (1916–1981) British novelist, playwright and travel writer

Ewing asked indolently.
Explicit
The Wrong People (1971)

Question, Effort

“Surely by now I should know
I can control
My highs and my lows
By questioning all that I do,
Examining every move,
Trying to get back to the rudiments.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)

Question

“The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food. Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter III, "Liberty", p. 315.

Food, Search

“Questions that pertain to the foundations of mathematics, although treated by many in recent times, still lack a satisfactory solution. Ambiguity of language is philosophy's main source of problems. That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use.”
Quaestiones, quae ad mathematicae fundamenta pertinent, etsi hisce temporibus a multis tractatae, satisfacienti solutione et adhuc carent. Hic difficultas maxime en sermonis ambiguitate oritur. Quare summi interest verba ipsa, quibus utimur attente perpendere.

Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) Italian mathematician

Arithmetices principia, nova methodo exposita [The Principles of Arithmetic, presented by a new method] (1889)

Mathematics, Question, Problem, Time

“I want to examine that dangerous thing that’s common to Judaism and Christianity as well: the process of non-thinking called "faith."”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Part 1, 00:00:55
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

Faith, Thinking, Parting

“We have to ensure that it is structured organically, so that it functions like a person functions internally, like the organs function... First in the examination of the matter. Secondly in that one develops a concept of.... a social order that have never existed before. That simply means: to realize freedom, democracy and socialism – free democratic socialism.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972

Democracy, Freedom, Personality

“Conventional politicians almost never think their philosophy through and set it down for everyone to examine. In most cases, they don't dare. Republicans would soon discover that they're actually socialists. Democrats would discover that they're actually fascists.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

(with Rylla Cathryn Smith) What Libertarians Believe, "Introduction: The Zero Aggression Principle".

Thinking

“[T]he only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Life, Effort

“People were holding fragments of food. Inconsiderable fragments that in the ordinary way a housewife would throw away or give to the cat. Others were examining these fragments of food. Every now and then an exchange took place. Often what was bought was at once consumed. There is not 5 per cent of the population [here] whose standard of life is equal to, or nearly equal to, that of the unemployed in England on the lowest scale of relief.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Manchester Guardian

Life, People, Food, Way

“I saw that the writers on vegetarianism had examined the question very minutely, attacking it in its religious, scientific, practical and medical aspects. Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man's supremacy over the lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man.”

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

Part I, Chapter 17, Experiments in Dietetics
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)

Question, Animals

“Dialectic generally means "of the nature of the dialogue," which is a conversation between two persons. Nowadays it means logical argumentation. It involves a technique of cross-examination, by which truth is arrived at.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29

Truth, Nature, Personality

“If you want to get an idea of a friend's temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ordinary day? Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Indeed the normal is often irrelevant.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. xxix

Life, Health, Disease, Idea

“Avan was as religious as the next young dragon with his way to make in the world—which is to say that he held many traditional beliefs which he had never paused to examine, attended church because it would have seemed strange not to, rarely paid much attention when he was there, and found piety out of the pulpit thoroughly misplaced.”

Jo Walton book Tooth and Claw

Source: Tooth and Claw (2003), Chapter 2, section 7 (p. 28)

World, Way

“Mill, in speaking of Hume's celebrated principle, "that nothing is credible which is contradictory to experience, or at variance with the laws of nature," calls it a very plain and harmless proposition, being, in effect, nothing more than that whatever is contradictory to a complete induction is incredible. Admit the existence of a Deity, and the possibility of a miracle is the natural consequence. No doubt our examination of the evidence which sustains an unusual phenomenon should be most carefully conducted; but we must not measure the credibility or incredibility of an event by the narrow sphere of our own experience, nor forget that there is a Divine energy which overrides what we familiarly call the laws of nature.”

Charles Babbage Passages from the life of a philosopher

"Passages from the life of a philosopher", Appendix, p. 488
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

Law, Nature, Forgetting

“It is to the influence of the opinion of those whom the multitude [the populous] judges best informed, and to whom it has been accustomed to give its confidence in regard to the most important matters of life, that the propagation of those errors is due, which in times of ignorance, have covered the face of the earth. Magic and astrology offer us two great examples. These errors… having for a basis only universal credence, have maintained themselves during a very long time; but at last the progress of science has destroyed them in the minds of enlightened men, whose opinion consequently has caused them to disappear… through the power of imitation and habit which had so generally spread them… This power, the richest resource of the moral world, establishes and conserves in a whole nation ideas entirely contrary to those… elsewhere… What indulgence ought we not then to have for opinions different from ours, when this difference often depends only upon the various points of view where circumstances have placed us! Let us enlighten those whom we judge insufficiently instructed; but first let us examine critically our own opinions, and weigh with impartiality, their respective probabilities.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace book Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

p, 125
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1902)

Life, Men, World, Error

“At a time when even the most impoverished and underdeveloped states in the third world enjoy full sovereignty, Ukraine has practically none. This great discrepancy is a historical puzzle, one that calls for an examination of the often overlooked and even more frequently misunderstood past of Ukraine and the Ukrainians.”

Orest Subtelny (1941–2016) Canadian-Ukrainian historian

Ukraine: A History (1988), p. 15.

World, Time, Past

“I had very happy high school years; I was not a very diligent student, but I had good achievements – I was a winner of biology and chemistry national competition, which gave me a lot of points when I decided to take the entrance examination for medicine, not being completely convinced of the medical profession, since there was never a doctor in my family.”

Marek Sanak (1958) Polish scientist

Kobos, Andrzej (2012). Po drogach uczonych. 5. Polska Akademia Umiejętności. pp. 317–335. ISBN 978-83-7676-127-5.

School, Family, Happiness

“Preflight planners wanted us to stay in TV range so that they could learn from our results how they could best plan for future missions. I candidly admit that I knowingly and deliberately left the planned working area out of TV coverage to examine and photograph the interior crater walls for possible bedrock exposure or other useful information.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Letter to Robert Krulwich (2010)

Learning, Future

“[W]hen we examine the acts of an individual, we shall find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice. In a sense, he is like a stew cooking on a stove; it has no choice but to cook. And it must cook because Providence has harnessed life with two chains: pleasure and pain (…) there is no difference here between man and animal. And if that is the case, there is no free choice whatsoever, but a pulling force, drawing them toward any bypassing pleasure and rejecting them from painful circumstances. And Providence leads them to every place it chooses by means of these two forces [i. e. pleasure and pain], without asking their opinion in the matter.”

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

Assorted Themes, On Freedom

Life, Pain, Pleasure, Sense

“The conventional sense of self is an illusion—and [] spirituality largely consists in realizing this, moment to moment. There are logical and scientific reasons to accept this claim, but recognizing it to be true is not a matter of understanding these reasons. Like many illusions, the sense of self disappears when closely examined, and this is done through the practice of meditation.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, Waking Up (2014), p. 82

Understanding, Sense

“In the department of physical optics, the phenomena of halos and parhelia have been explained, upon principles not entirely new, but long forgotten: the functions of the eye have been minutely examined, and the mode of its accommodation to the perception of objects at different distances ascertained: the various phenomena of coloured light have been copiously described, and accurately represented by coloured plates; and some new cases of the production of colours have been pointed out, and have been referred to the general law of double lights, by which a great variety of the experiments of former opticians have also been explained; and this law has been applied to the establishment of a theory of the nature of light, which satisfactorily removes almost every difficulty that has hitherto attended the subject.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Law, Nature, Light

“Apollonius then asked him [Iarchas] whether they knew themselves also, thinking that he, like the Greeks, would regard self-knowledge as a difficult matter. But the other, contrary to Apollonius' expectations, corrected him and said: "We know everything, just because we begin by knowing ourselves; for no one of us would be admitted to this philosophy unless he first knew himself." And Apollonius remembered what he had heard Phraotes say, and how he who would become a philosopher must examine himself before he undertakes the task; and he therefore acquiesced in this answer, for he was convinced of its truth in his own case also.”

Philostratus book Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Book 3, § 18.
Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Truth, Knowledge, Thinking

“Bohr's investigation had typified what had become a standard procedure in problems of theoretical physics. The first step was to discover the mathematical laws governing certain groups of phenomena; the second was to devise hypothetical models or pictures to interpret these laws in terms of motion or mechanism; the third was to examine in what way these models would behave in other respects, and this would lead to prediction of other phenomena-predictions which might or might not be confirmed when put to the test of experiment. For instance, Newton had explained the phenomena of gravitation in terms of a force of gravitation; a later age had seen the luminiferous ether introduced to explain the propagation of light and, subsequently, the general phenomena of electricity and magnetism; finally Bohr had introduced electronic jumps in an attempt to explain atomic spectra. In each case the models had fulfilled their primary purpose, but had failed to predict further phenomena with accuracy.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Age, Law, Way, Mathematics

“Let the Turks now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province that they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to those heaps and heaps of dead, the violated purity alike of matron and of maiden and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. There is not a criminal in a European jail, there is not a criminal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise and over-boil at the recital of that which has been done, which has too late been examined, but which remains unavenged, which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions which produced it and which may again spring up in another murderous harvest from the soil soaked and reeking with blood and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame. That such things should be done once is a damning disgrace to the portion of our race which did them; that the door should be left open to their ever so barely possible repetition would spread that shame over the world!”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

1870s

God, World, Law, Hope

“I do not think that a Judge would wish any statement which he may have made in the course of a case, merely obiter and casually, to be treated as necessarily being an authority on the subject in question; but when a Judge has thought it necessary for the purpose of a case to make a deliberate examination of the practice of his Court, and to state such practice, I do not think the authority of such statement can be got rid of merely by arguing that it was not really necessary for the actual decision of the case. I think that such a statement if cited as an authority is entitled to great weight, though of course not binding on us as a decision.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Ex parte Rev. James Bell Cox (1887), L. R. 20 Q. B. D. 19.

Question, Thinking, Decision

“One student told us that she knew birth control wasn’t covered, and she assumed that’s how Georgetown’s insurance handled all of women’s sexual healthcare, so when she was raped, she didn’t go to the doctor even to be examined or tested for sexually transmitted infections because she thought insurance wasn’t going to cover something like that, something that was related to a woman’s reproductive health.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

U.S. Congressional testimony (February 23, 2012)

Women, Health, Birth

“Much of what I have to say for my case may sound wonderful, because it runs counter to the popular prejudice, but the only witness required to prove the truth of my statements is the clear brain of my pupil, who has only to examine his own experience without preconceived notions, in order to find proofs on every hand.”

Joseph Dietzgen (1828–1888) german philosopher

Letter 2
Letters on Logic: Especially Democratic-Proletarian Logic (1906)

Truth

“Time study is the art of recording, analyzing, and synthesizing the time of the elements of any operation, usually a manual operation, but it has also been extended to mental and machinery operations.
It is one of the many remarkable inventions of Dr. Taylor while he was working at the Midvale Steel Works. It differs from the well-known process of timing the complete operation, as, for instance, the usual method for timing the athlete, in that the timing of time study is done on the elements of the process. Much ridiculous criticism has been put forward by well-meaning but uninformed persons, who claim that timing a worker down to a three hundredth of a minute is unkind, inhuman, and conducive to the worst form of slavery ever known.
On the contrary, obtaining precise information regarding the smallest elements into which an art or a trade can be subdivided, and examining them separately, is the method adopted hi all branches of scientific research.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Primer of scientific management, 1912, p. 7

Art, Study, Time, Personality

“It was said by a very learned Judge, Lord Macclesfield, towards the beginning of this century that the most effectual way of removing land marks would be by innovating on the rules of evidence; and so I say. I have been in this profession more than forty years, and have practised both in Courts of law and equity; and if it had fallen to my lot to form a system of jurisprudence, whether or not I should have thought it advisable to establish two different Courts with different jurisdictions, and governed by different rules, it is not necessary to say. But, influenced as I am by certain prejudices that have become inveterate with those who comply with the systems they found established, I find that in these Courts proceeding by different rules a certain combined system of jurisprudence has been framed most beneficial to the people of this country, and which I hope I may be indulged in supposing has never yet been equalled in any other country on earth. Our Courts of law only consider legal rights: our Courts of equity have other rules, by which they sometimes supersede those legal rules, and in so doing they act most beneficially for the subject. We all know that, if the Courts of law were to take into their consideration all the jurisdiction belonging to Courts of equity, many bad consequences would ensue. To mention only the single instance of legacies being left to women who may have married inadvertently: if a Court of law could entertain an action for a legacy, the husband would recover it, and the wife might be left destitute: but if it be necessary in such a case to go into equity, that Court will not suffer the husband alone to reap the fruits of the legacy given to the wife; for one of its rules is that he who asks equity must do equity, and in such a case they will compel the husband to make a provision for the wife before they will suffer him to get the money. I exemplify the propriety of keeping the jurisdictions and rules of the different Courts distinct by one out of a multitude of cases that might be adduced.... One of the rules of a Court of equity is that they cannot decree against the oath of the party himself on the evidence of one witness alone without other circumstances: but when the point is doubtful, they send it to be tried at law, directing that the answer of the party shall be read on the trial; so they may order that a party shall not set up a legal term on the trial, or that the plaintiff himself shall be examined; and when the issue comes from a Court of equity with any of these directions the Courts of law comply with the terms on which it is so directed to be tried. By these means the ends of justice are attained, without making any of the stubborn rules of law stoop to what is supposed to be the substantial justice of each particular case; and it is wiser so to act than to leave it to the Judges of the law to relax from those certain and established rules by which they are sworn to decide.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Bauerman v. Eadenius (1798), 7 T. R. 667.

Women, Money, People, Justice

“Examining the musical language of Prokofiev in a more detailed way, we must acknowledge that for him melody was always the most important element of music, one that determined the quality of the composition”

Boris Berman (1948) Russian/American musician

Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Prokofiev: His Life and the Evolution of His Musical Language

Music, Way

“Critics of visual arts and of music describe in words — that is to say, a system of signs other than those made by brushes on canvas or chisels into stone or notes of music — those characteristics of painting or sculpture or music which can be described or analysed. Visual artists and composers can disregard critics on the ground that the medium of verbal criticism bears so indirect a relation to the medium in which they make something. Poets are in a different situation. With the development of so-called scientific methods of criticism they are made ever conscious that criticism of poetry is in the same medium of work as the art which they practise. “Close analysis” is useful to critics and readers. But for the poet there is the danger of disintegration of poetry into paraphrase, examination of technique, influences, all analysed in the language of criticism.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Tradition-Bound Literature and Traditionless Painting"
The Struggle of the Modern (1963)

Art, Music, Painting

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

and may Allah bless you and grant you success in these examinations – but even in the Akhirah we ask Allah to bless you, to open your doors. To prepare for the Akhirah, it's not an easy task, but with the hope in the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala things will be made easy, and at the same time, with the constant preparation, without giving up hope – never ever giving up, never saying no, never just throwing the towel – by the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we will achieve, and we will achieve great heights. "Exams in Life - Never Give Up - Mufti Menk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4w4pak66V0, YouTube (2013) Lectures

Life, Death, People, World