Quotes about few (4560 quotes, page 33)

“Baladitya understands that in addition to being foreign territory the past is, as history, a hall of mirrors that reflect the needs of souls observing from the present. Absolute fact serves the hungers of only a few disconnected people. Symbol and faith serve the rest.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 12, “Glittering Stone: Steadfast Guardian” (p. 401)

Hunger , People , Faith , Soul

“The anti‐Semite understands nothing about modern society. He would be incapable of conceiving of a constructive plan; his action cannot reach the level of the methodical; it remains on the ground of passion. To a long‐term enterprise he prefers an explosion of rage analogous to the running amuck of the Malays. His intellectual activity is confined to interpretation; he seeks in historical events the signs of the presence of an evil power. Out of this spring those childish and elaborate fabrications which give him his resemblance to the extreme paranoiacs. In addition, anti‐Semitism channels evolutionary drives toward the destruction of certain men, not of institutions. An anti‐Semitic mob will consider it has done enough when it has massacred some Jews and burned a few synagogues. It represents, therefore, a safety valve for the owning classes, who encourage it and thus substitute for a dangerous hate against their regime a beneficent hate against particular people. Above all this naive dualism is eminently reassuring to he anti‐Semite himself. If all he has to do is to remove Evil, that means that the Good is already given. He has no need to seek it in anguish, to invent it, to scrutinize it patiently when he has found it, to prove it in action, to verify it by its consequences, or, finally, to shoulder he responsibilities of the moral choice be has made. It is not by chance that the great outbursts of anti‐Semitic rage conceal a basic optimism. The anti‐Semite as cast his lot for Evil so as not to have to cast his lot for Good. The more one is absorbed in fighting Evil, he less one is tempted to place the Good in question. One does not need to talk about it, yet it is always understood in the discourse of the anti‐Semite and it remains understood in his thought. When he has fulfilled his mission as holy destroyer, the Lost Paradise will reconstitute itself. For the moment so many tasks confront the anti‐Semite that he does not have time to think about it. He is in the breach, fighting, and each of his outbursts of rage is a pretext to avoid the anguished search for the Good.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Anti-Semite and Jew

Pages 31-32
Anti-Semite and Jew (1945)

Men , Hate , People , Search

“We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe—without swords, without guns, without conquest—will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Speech (10 April 2006), quoted in New York Sun (6 September 2009) "Terrorists Promise More Attacks Like 9/11" by Steven Stalinsky
Speeches

Victory

“he seldom or never spoke except actually to convey an idea. Measured by quantity of words, he was a talker of fully average copiousness; by extent of meaning communicated, he was the most copious I have listened to. How in few sentences he would sketch you off an entire biography, an entire object or transaction, keen, clear, rugged, genuine, completely rounded In! His words came direct from the heart by the inspiration of the moment.”

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

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Communication , Idea , Heart

“There really wasn’t much in a man’s life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly.”

Poul Anderson book The Star Fox

Section 3 “Admiralty”, Chapter IX (p. 200)
The Star Fox (1965)

Life

“Repentance, tolerance, forgiveness and sharing to name a few, are some divinely empowered words and processes without which it is difficult to see, how we could be here today as an active member of the international community.”

Josefa Vosanibola Fijian politician

Speech to the House of Representatives, 12 August 2005

Communication , Forgiveness

“It is cowardise and lack of hartes and corage that kepeth the Frenchmen from rysyng, and not povertye; which corage no Frenche man hath like to the English man. It hath ben often seen in Englond that iij or iv thefes, for povertie, hath set upon vij or viij true men, at robbyd them al. But it had not been seen in Fraunce, that vij or viij thefes have ben hardy to robbe iij or iv true men. Wherefor it is right seid that few Frenchmen be hanged for robbery, for that they have no hertys to do so terryble an acte. There be therefor mo men hangyd in Eglnd, in a yere, for robberye and manslaughter, than ther be hangid in Fraunce for such cause of crime in vij yers.”

John Fortescue (1394–1476) Chief Justice of the King's Bench of England

History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill at p.377 vol I

Men

“We are deeply unified in our support of basic principles: our belief in stability in our financial structure, in our determination we must have fiscal responsibility, in our determination not to establish and operate a paternalistic sort of government where a man's initiative is almost taken away from him by force. Only in the last few weeks, I have been reading quite an article on the experiment of almost complete paternalism in a friendly European country. This country has a tremendous record for socialistic operation, following a socialistic philosophy, and the record shows that their rate of suicide has gone up almost unbelievably and I think they were almost the lowest nation in the world for that. Now, they have more than twice our rate. Drunkenness has gone up. Lack of ambition is discernible on all sides.. Therefore, with that kind of example, let's always remember Lincoln's admonition. Let's do in the federal Government only those things that people themselves cannot do at all, or cannot so well do in their individual capacities. Now, my friends, I know that these words have been repeated to you time and time again until you're tired of them. But I ask you only this, to contemplate them and remember this--Lincoln added another sentence to that statement. He said that in all those things where the individual can solve his own problems the Government ought not to interfere, for all are domestic affairs and this comprehends the things that the individual is normally concerned with, because foreign affairs does belong to the President by the Constitution--and they are things that really require constant governmental action.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

July 27, 1960 Remarks at the Republican National Committee Breakfast, Morrison Hotel, Chicago, Illinois http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=11891#ixzz1fU73Watz
1960s

People , World , Support , Problem

“I have only [written the Water Margin] to fill up my spare time, and give pleasure to myself; […] I have written it so that the uneducated can read it as well as the educated […]. Alas! Life is so short that I shall not even know what the reader thinks about it, but still I shall be satisfied if a few of my friends will read it and be interested. Also I do not know what I may think of it in my future life after death, because then I may not able to even read it. So why think anything further about it?”

Shi Nai'an (1296–1372) Chinese writer

Variant translation by Pearl S. Buck: "Alas, I was born to die! How can I know what those who come after me and read my book will think of it? I cannot even know what I myself, born into another incarnation, will think of it. I do not even know if I myself afterwards can even read this book. Why therefore should I care?" (All Men are Brothers, 1933; p. xiii)
Preface to Water Margin

Life , Death , Pleasure , Education

“Above all things I entreat you to preserve your faith in Christ. It is my wealth in poverty, my joy in sorrow, my peace amid tumult. For all the evil I have committed, my gracious pardon; and for every effort, my exceeding great reward. I have found it to be so. I can smile with pity at the infidel whose vanity makes him dream that I should barter such a blessing for the few subtleties from the school of the cold-blooded sophists.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 235, and various other sources beginning no earlier than 1880; actually an elaboration and modification of a quote by D.W. Clark, The Mount of Blessing (1854), p. 56: "It shall be my wealth in poverty, my joy in sorrow, and its promised rewards shall cheer me in all trials, and sustain me in all sufferings".
Misattributed

School , Peace , Faith , Smile

“I was so glad to get my first boots that for a few days I didn't take them off. I wore them to school, to visit people, and simply to walk on the street.”

Alan Dzagoev (1990) Russian association football player

2008, http://www.sports.ru/football/5845060.html

People , School

“Because of the effects of sin, mistakes have added up in the genes of humans so that today, deformities could result from close relatives marrying. Adam and Eve's children would have had relatively few mistakes in the genes compared to today. So, provided it was one man for one woman for life - there would not have been a problem at all for Cain to marry his sister!”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

Life , Children , Problem , Sister

“I’d like to start by telling you about my wife Melinda’s Aunt Myra. We see her a few times a year. Aunt Myra worked for many years taking reservations for Delta Airlines. She lived in New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina, and then she moved to Dallas, Melinda’s hometown. She loves to see our kids. When we all get together, she’ll sit down on the floor and play games with them. Aunt Myra also has polio. She’s in braces, and she has been ever since she was a little girl.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Regarding Bill And Melinda Gates' Polio Efforts (2009)

Love , Girl , Game , Time

“We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers […] I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy" […] Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the — for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Rev. King was paraphrasing the Book of Proverbs 31:8-10 when referring to "speak out for the voiceless" and the rights of people who need justice.
1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)

Death , God , Hope , Home

“If a Martian were asked to pick the most efficient and humane economic systems on earth, it would certainly not choose the countries which rely most on markets. The United States is a stagnant economy in which real wages have been constant for more than a decade and the real income of the bottom 40 percent of the population declined. It is an inhumane society in which 11.5 percent of the population, some 32 million people, including 20 percent of all children, live in absolute poverty. It is the oldest democracy on earth but also one with the lowest voting rates among democracies and the highest per capita prison population in the world. The fastest developing countries in the world today are among those where the state pursues active industrial and trade policies; the few countries in the world in which almost no one is poor today are those in which the state has been engaged in massive social welfare and labor market policies.”

Adam Przeworski (1940) Polish-American academic

Source: Journal of Democracy. Vol. 3, Nr. 3 (1992), p. 46

Children , People , World , Democracy

“Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development.”

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

1967, cited in Lee Kuan Yew: race, culture and genes, Michael Barr in Journal of Contemporary Asia (01/1999)
1960s

Women

“One of life's few really reliable pleasures: to have a family you love, and to leave them for a week.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Love , Life , Pleasure , Family

“It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently, and an overloaded curriculum is useless. The object of instruction is not to produce technicians, but good active minds.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

Indifference

“We are the envy of Europe and in a few years time we are going to be one of the top countries in the world.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

19th Dec. 2005
As President, 2005

World , Time , Envy , Country

“Try to keep them, poet,
those erotic visions of yours,
however few of them there are that can be stilled.
Put them, half-hidden, in your lines.”

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet

When They Come Alive http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=114&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

“There is not one who speaks of us in our presence as he does in our absence," wrote Pascal. "All affection is based on this mutual deception, and few friendships would survive if we knew what our friends were saying of us behind our backs.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Friendship

“In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there has been too much of) with ideas (of which there are too few. I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Fresh Air Fiend (2000)

World , Way , Idea

“The selecting of men is one of the important functions in business and yet one that has not received much scientific attention. I feel sure that the time is ripe for action for two reasons. The psychologists have during the past few years made distinct advance in Mental Tests. My proposal is this: You get from your Class A members data as to their methods of selecting men. Any statements as to actual experience and as to principles or methods will be very valuable. I would make a study of these data and would have some of the men from our School of Commerce go over them with me. We would try to criticize them constructively. Perhaps we could make some suggestions that would be worth while. We would try to indicate the good points used and thus be of assistance to all members of the organization.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: Influencing men in business, 1911, p. 398 ; cited in: Edmund C. Lynch. "Walter Dill Scott: Pioneer Industrial Psychologist," The Business History Review, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Summer, 1968), pp. 149-170

Men , School , Feeling , Business

“I became aware of Louise Bourgeois in my first or second year at Brighton Art College. One of my teachers, Stuart Morgan, curated a small retrospective of her work at the Serpentine, and both he and another teacher, Edward Allington, saw something in her, and me, and thought I should be aware of her. I thought the work was wonderful. It was her very early pieces, The Blind Leading the Blind, the wooden pieces and some of the later bronze works. Biographically, I don't really think she has influenced me, but I think there are similarities in our work. We have both used the home as a kind of kick-off point, as the space that starts the thoughts of a body of work. I eventually got to meet Louise in New York, soon after I made House. She asked to see me because she had seen a picture of House in the New York Times while she was ironing it one morning, so she said. She was wonderful and slightly kind of nutty; very interested and eccentric. She drew the whole time; it was very much a salon with me there as her audience, watching her. I remember her remarking that I was shorter than she was. I don't know if this was true but she was commenting on the physicality of making such big work and us being relatively small women. When you meet her you don't know what's true, because she makes things up. She has spun her web and drawn people in, and eaten a few people along the way.”

Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) American and French sculptor

Rachel Whiteread, " Kisses for Spiderwoman http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/oct/14/art2," The Guardian, 14 Oct. 2007:

Women , People , Art , Way

“I was arguing with Father Sebastian the other day,” she said thoughtfully. “I quoted the thing about giving all you have to the poor. He said that was all very well but you had to come to terms with the Scriptures and realize there had to be teachers and leaders for the people’s own good. It seemed an awful get-out to me, and I couldn’t help saying so. I told him if the Church would sell half her altar plate she could by shoes for everybody in the country, and a lot else besides; and that if the Pope would make a start in Rome I’d see about getting rid of a few job lots of furniture down in Corfe. I’m afraid he didn’t take very kindly to it. I know it was wrong of me but he annoys me sometimes; he’s so pious, and it seems to mean so very little. He’d walk miles in the snow to pray for a sick child, he’s a very good man; but if there was more money about to start with, maybe the child wouldn’t have been taken ill. It all seems so unnecessary….”

Keith Roberts book Pavane

Sixth measure “Corfe Gate” (p. 223)
Pavane (1968)

Money , People , Shoe , Quotes

“When this book was first conceived (more than 25 years ago) few mathematicians outside the Soviet Union recognized probability as a legitimate branch of mathematics.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Preface to the Third Edition, p. vii.
An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition)

Books , Mathematics

“Now, as discord is allowable, and even necessarily opposed to concord, why may not noise, or a seeming jargon, be opposed to fixed sounds and harmonical proportion? Some of the discords in modern music, unknown till this century, are what the ear can but just bear, but have a very good effect as to contrast. The severe laws of preparing and resolving discord, may be too much adhered to for great effect; I am convinced that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it.”

Charles Burney (1726–1814) English music historian

The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771) pp. 152-3

Law , Music , Strong

“Methinks God has punish'd the Avaritious as he often punishes sinners, in their own way, in the ver sin itself: the thrist of gain was their crime, that thrist continued became their punishment and ruin. As for the few who have the good fortune to remain with half of what they imagined they had (among whom is your humble servantl, I would have them sensible of their felicity, and convinced of the truth of old Hesiod's maxim, who, after half his estate was swallowed by the Directors of those days, resolv'd, that half to be more than the whole.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

In his letter to Atterbury Bishop of Rochester. Sept. 23. 1720.

God , Truth , Way , Imagination

“So there is no need to amend the Constitution, or to alter the historical understanding of what the Second Amendment meant. No new reasoning or tortured rereading is needed to reconcile the Constitution with common sense. All that is necessary for sanity to rule again, on the question of guns, is to restore the amendment to its commonly understood meaning as it was articulated by this wise Republican judge a scant few years ago. And all you need for that is one saner and, in the true sense, conservative Supreme Court vote. One Presidential election could make that happen.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control Amendment, The New Yorker (2015)

Understanding , Question , Sense

“I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever produced, and such has been its progress in the minds of the many, that this truth gradually gains ground. This government has for its object public strength and individual security. It is said with us to be unattainable. All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention, v. 1, p. 299. (June 19, 1787)
Debates of the Federal Convention (1787)

God , People , Truth , World

“The Army which I joined in 1922 was drab and unexhilarating after West Point. Most of our citizens assumed that World War I had ended all wars and hence regarded a standing army as useful as "a chimney in summer," to use an old English phrase. Promotion was strictly by seniority, and a large bloc of contemporary officrs taken into the Regular Army at the end of the war constituted a discouraging "hump" in the promotion list just ahead of my contemporaries and me. As a result it took me thirteen years to become a captain, and such distinguished officers as Generals Gruenther, McAuliffe, Palmer, and Wedemeyer, who graduated a few years before me, took seventeen years. Under such conditions of stagnation, many of the most promising officers resigned and sought their fortune in civil life. But for some unaccountable reason a remarkable number stayed in the service to become the military leaders of World War II.”

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

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 29

Life , War , World , Summer

“I've been & am absurdly over-estimated. There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary, & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself.”

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935) British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat

Letter in T.E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters (1989) edited By Malcolm Brown, as quoted in "The Hero Our Century Deserved" by Paul Gray in TIME magazine (15 May 1989) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,957680,00.html

People , Truth

“I count my time working for Dortch Oldham as one of the most important formative experiences of my life… There is nothing that tests your commitment to a goal like getting a few doors closed in your face. Mr. Oldham taught legions of young people to communicate quickly, clearly and with passion, a lesson that has served me well in my life since then.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

2009-02-27
Dortch Oldham dies at 89
E. Thomas
Wood
Nashville Post
http://nashvillepost.com/news/2009/2/27/dortch_oldham_dies_at_89
2009

Life , People , Communication , Passion

“I have been to [gallery] Hagen, saw two Matisses, which enchanted me. A large collection of Japanese masks. Sublime! 'Neue [Künstler] Vereinigung' were hung in a bad light.... Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Bechteleff and Erbslöh have immense artistic sensibility. But the means of expression are to big for what they have to say. The sound of their voice is so good, so fine, that what is being said get lost. Consequently a human element is missing. They concentrate, too much, I think, on form. There is much to be learnt from their efforts. But early things by Kandinsky, and a few by Jawlensky too, seem a little empty to me. And Jawlensky's heads looked at me a little bit too much with colors. With blue and green. I hope you understand what I mean.”

August Macke (1887–1914) German painter of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter

in a letter to Franz Marc, 26 December 1910; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 137

Hope , Color , Understanding , Thinking

“If two equally qualified persons apply for a job at a workplace with few immigrants, the one called Mohammed should get the job.”

Mona Sahlin (1957) Swedish politician

Mona Sahlin in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, October 22, 2000.

Personality

“I like my women in a few wisps of drapery: then I can hope for a chance to remove the wisps. If they start out with nothing I tend to get depressed because either they have just stripped off for someone else or, in my line of work, they are usually dead.”

Lindsey Davis book The Silver Pigs

The Silver Pigs

Women , Hope , Chance , Dead

“Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Vol. 1, Ch. 3 "Of the Constitution of the Roman Empire, in the Age of the Antonines" http://www.ccel.org/ccel/gibbon/decline/files/volume1/chap3.htm
This has often been paraphrased: History is indeed little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

History , Parting

“He [somebody at Carnegie Mellon University] had betrayed us. But he didn't just do it to us. Chances are he did it to you too. [Pointing at member of audience. ] And I think, mostly likely, he did it to you too. [Pointing at another member of audience. ][Laughter] And he probably did it to you as well. [Pointing to third member of audience. ] He probably did it to most of the people here in this room — except a few, maybe, who weren't born yet in 1980. Because he had promised to refuse to cooperate with just about the entire population of the Planet Earth. He had signed a non-disclosure agreement.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

2000s, Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation (2001)

People , Thinking , Laughter , Universe

“For some time now it has been clear that intermedia art is trending toward that point at which all the phenomena of life on earth will constitute the artist’s palette. It is the purpose of this chapter to illuminate the direction of that trend and to cite a few pertinent examples. As with all other Paleocybernetic phenomena, the direction is simultaneously toward inner and outer space, the microcosm and the macrocosm. On the one hand, intermedia environments turn the participant inward upon himself, providing a matrix for psychic exploration, perceptual, censorial, and intellectual awareness; on the other hand technology has advanced to the point at which the whole earth itself becomes the “content” of aesthetic activity. The term “light show” must now be expanded virtually to include the aurora borealis, since hemispherical lumia displays are possible in the creation of artificial plasma clouds in space (see color plates), the launching of rockets to generate atmospherical events, or urban environmental generators such as Nicholas Schoffer’s monumental Cybernetic Light Tower, which transforms the skies of Paris into panoramic fantasias of color.”

Gene Youngblood book Expanded Cinema

Source: Expanded Cinema, 1970, p. 348; The Artist as Ecologist http://www.screeningthepast.com/2011/11/the-artist-as-ecologist/

Life , Art , Color , Light

“If a mathematician wishes to disparage the work of one of his colleagues, say, A, the most effective method he finds for doing this is to ask where the results can be applied. The hard pressed man, with his back against the wall, finally unearths the researches of another mathematician B as the locus of the application of his own results. If next B is plagued with a similar question, he will refer to another mathematician C. After a few steps of this kind we find ourselves referred back to the researches of A, and in this way the chain closes.”

Alfred Tarski (1901–1983) Polish-American logician

Source: The Semantic Conception of Truth (1952), p. 41.

Way , Question

“Considering how few, and how simple the Principles are, upon which the whole Art of Perspective depends, and withal how useful, nay how absolutely necessary this Art is to all forts of Designing; I have often wonder'd, that it has still been left in so low a degree of Perfection, as it is found to be, in the Books that have been hitherto wrote upon it.”

Brook Taylor (1685–1731) English mathematician

New Principles of Linear Perspective (1715, 1749)

Books , Art , Dependency , Perfection

“Music is one of the very few things left in this world, which has an amazing power of healing. I really hope that these songs will set your imagination free, enrich your emotions and help your heart and mind feel happier.”

Edyta Górniak (1972) Polish singer

Invisible (cd), 2002

World , Hope , Music , Feeling

“The elite of the universal religions have always substituted belief in the Infinite for the experience of it. We all need God — but only in small and measured doses. Who can look upon the burning bush and not be destroyed in its flames? Who can bear the heaven and hell of each moment blazing in time? Who can shine like a star? And so, for all but a few of the manswarm, the rare ones who are truly human, it is better to glimpse such a miracle through a dark glass or to grasp it through words only.”

David Zindell (1952) American writer

Source: War in Heaven (1998), p. 476

God , Religion , Star , Hell

“Another way of emphasizing this diversity is to argue that if one cannot forecast (predict), one does not have a theory, and that forecasting is the weakest link in the chain of the management sciences at present. Indeed, if one cannot predict one cannot measure, and if one cannot measure, then there is no "theory."
This argument will seem entirely too strong to some. We do "forecast" in terms of probability distributions, and we do make measurements in terms of "costs." Of course, the management scientist has done all sorts of things with the concept of cost which few cost accountants would condone. But in the laboratory and outside it in industrial studies, one sees the emergence of a cost concept which eventually should revolutionize the measurements in managerial policy-making.
Theory and fact are just two sides of the same coin, but the two sides of a coin are different, and this difference will continue to characterize the development of management science.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

quote in: Fremont A. Shull (ed.), Selected readings in management https://archive.org/stream/selectedreadings00shul#page/n13/mode/2up, , 1957. p. 8
1940s - 1950s, "Management Science — Fact or Theory?" 1956

Way , Study , Strong , Science

“Through instrumental music, I’m allowed to come up with musical ideas that allow the listener to create their own impression of my song. If you add lyrics about a girl in the song, the listener doesn’t have a choice of what the song is about, it’s told to them. My musical writings allow me to express anything. It’s easier for me to tell a story of something I’ve encountered this way then to verbalize it. And my feelings are explored more in my compositions compared to what I could ever say in a few sentences.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

[Janus, Cicily, Radinsky, Ned, http://newfaceofjazz.com/?page_id=594, New Faces of Jazz: Bradley Joseph, (newfaceofjazz.com), 2010-08-01]

Music , Way , Feeling , Girl

“And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world.”

Samuel Daniel book Musophilus

Musophilus (1599), Stanza 97, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

World

“During the last few decades the business world has brought about a complete revolution in the methods of manufacturing, distributing and selling goods. That the revolution is beneficial and important no businessman will deny. But however important'these things? are, the business man realizes that his most pressing problem is methods of influencing and handling men rather than things:
The young man looking forward to a career sees that the man who has unusual ability in handling men is sure to attain the position of superintendent or manager; but that the man who has great cunning in handling material things is not thereby assured of a position above that of a skilled mechanic.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: Influencing men in business, 1911, p. 9; Chapter 1 Introduction, lead paragraph

Men , World , Business , Problem

“Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 216
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Truth

“The rare few, who, early in life, have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American-born, British-based artist

Dedication
1870 - 1903, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies' (1890)

Life , Friendship

“Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed. Over 45 million since Roe v. Wade in 1973.” "If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security. Still, we watch as 3,700 babies are killed every single day in America. It is unbelievable that a nation under God would allow this.”

Zell Miller (1932–2018) Politician and United States Marine Corps officer

Zell Miller: Abortion Killed Over 45 Million http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/12/230024.shtml?s=ic

God , Children , Truth , Baby

“"Come on, then, Giac," said Suzy. "Last one to the top is a rotten sorceror."
She started off at a run, but paused after a few steps when Giac didn't immediately follow. He was looking puzzled.
"Come on!"
"But I already am a rotten sorceror," he said.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Lord Sunday (2010), p. 181.

“It cannot be said that at the time these inscriptions were set up at ANhilwãD Pãtan, Prabhas Patan, Khambat, Junagadh and other places, the Hindus of Gujarat had had no taste of what Islam had in store for them, their women, their children, their cities, their temples, their idols, their priests, and their properties. The invasion of Ulugh Khãn that was to subjugate Gujarat to a long spell of Muslim rule, was the eighth in a series which started within a few years after the Prophet’s death at Medina in AD 632. Five Islamic invasions had been mounted on Gujarat before Siddharãja JayasiMha ascended the throne of that kingdom in AD 1094 - first in AD 636 on Broach by sea; second in AD 732-35 by land; third and fourth in AD 756 and 776 by sea; and fifth by Mahmûd of Ghazni in AD 1026. Two others had materialised by the time the Muslim ship-owner set up his inscription in AD 1264 on a mosque at Prabhas Patan. The sixth invasion was by Muhammad Ghûrî in AD 1178, and the seventh was by Qutbu’d-Dîn Aibak in AD 1197. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence is that either the Hindus of Gujarat had a very short memory or that they did not understand at all the inspiration at the back of these invasions. The temple of Somnath which stood, after the invasion of Mahmûd of Ghazni in AD 1026, as a grim reminder of the character of Islam, had also failed to teach them any worthwhile lesson. Nor did they visualize that the Muslim settlements in their midst could play a role other than that of carrying on trade and commerce.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Death , Women , Children , Understanding

“If we and the rest of the backboned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if they were to disappear, the land's ecosystems would collapse. The soil would lose its fertility. Many of the plants would no longer be pollinated. Lots of animals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals would have nothing to eat. And our fields and pastures would be covered with dung and carrion. These small creatures are within a few inches of our feet, wherever we go on land – but often, they're disregarded. We would do very well to remember them.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Closing lines
Life in the Undergrowth (2005)

World , Bird , Animals

“It is ironic that the accumulation of arms is one of the few expanding industries in a period of economic depression and gloom.”

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (1920) 5th Secretary-General of the United Nations

UN Secretary-General, as quoted in Watching the World, Awake! magazine (22 October 1982).

“In contrast to 50 years ago, few licensed humanists today embrace any view of the humanities that could in fact justify making them the centerpiece of a college curriculum.”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

Looking for an Honest Man (2009)

“Physics and philosophy are at most a few thousand years old, but probably have lives of thousands of millions of years stretching away in front of them. They are only just beginning to get under way…”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Way

“We have the illusion of freedom only because so few ever try to exercise it. Try it sometime. Try to save your home from the highway crowd, or to work a trade without the approval of the goons, or to open a little business without a permit, or to grow a crop without a quota, or to educate your child the way you want to, or to not have a child. We all have the freedom of a balloon floating in a pin factory.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

As quoted in “From Far Right to Far Left,” Tames Boyd, The New York Times Magazine (Sunday) (Dec. 6, 1970) p. 305

Education , Way , Exercises , Home

“Very few men advocate government control over themselves. But they constantly believe that others must be controlled by some outside force.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Rampart Institute, p. 432
The Fundamental of Liberty (1988)

Men

“The archbishop's support for this law [the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill 2006, see above] violates numerous Anglican Communion documents that call for a "listening process" involving gay Christians and their leaders. But his contempt for international agreements also extends to Articles 18-20 of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which articulates the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, association and assembly. Surprisingly, few voices -- Anglican or otherwise -- have been raised in opposition to the archbishop. When I compare this silence with the cacophony that followed the Episcopal Church's decision to consecrate the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, a gay man who lives openly with his partner, as the bishop of New Hampshire, I am compelled to ask whether the global Christian community has lost not only its backbone but its moral bearings.”

Peter Akinola (1944) Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria

John Chane, Bishop of Washington
Criticism

Marriage , Religion , Law , Sex

“The war won’t end,” Aviger said. “It’ll just die away…I don’t think the Culture will give in like everybody thinks it will. I think they’ll keep fighting because they believe in it. The Idirans won’t give in, either; they’ll keep fighting to the last, and they and the Culture will just keep going at each other all the time, all over the galaxy eventually, and their weapons and bombs and rays and things will just keep getting better and better, and in the end the whole galaxy will become a battleground until they’ve blown up all the stars and planets and Orbitals and everything else big enough to stand on, and then they’ll destroy all of each other’s big ships and then the little ships, too, until everybody’ll be living in single units blowing each other up with weapons that could destroy a planet…and that’s how it’ll end; probably they’ll invent guns or drones that are even smaller, and there’ll only be a few smaller and smaller machines fighting over whatever’s left of the galaxy, and there’ll be nobody left to know how it all started in the first place.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Consider Phlebas (1987), Chapter 11 “The Command System: Stations” (pp. 380-381).

War , Star , Thinking , Time

“From society's standpoint, modern science and technology appears Janus-faced : It has given us wealth in one sense, and poverty in another; it has harnessed nature to man's basic needs in ways and to extents undreamed - of only a few decades ago, but it has fostered a continuingly lowered "quality of life."”

Richard F. Ericson (1919–1993) American academic

Source: Organizational cybernetics and human values (1969), p. 7

Life , Way , Nature , Sense

“I judge him by the results I see in Watts at our public housing developments where the Community Safety Partnership has positively changed the culture of relations between the community and the police department. Over the last few years, Watts and the LAPD have each undergone a remarkable transformation for which I credit Chief Beck.”

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

Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, quoted in: [December 5, 2014, http://www.laweekly.com/informer/2014/08/12/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-gets-another-5-years, Dennis Romero, August 12, 2014, LA Weekly, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck Gets Another 5 Years]
About

Communication , Change , Housing , Partnership

“The evening is indescribable. And on the top of everything else a full moon came up. Louis urged me to paint it. I said: it will be an exercise at best. Naturally I am not up to this kind of nature. Still, I know a bit more than I did before. I know the disparity between my inadequate resources and nature. This is an internal affair to keep me busy for the next few years. It doesn't trouble me one bit. No use hurrying when you want so much. The evening is deep inside me forever. Many a blond, northern moon rise, like a muted reflection, will softly remind me, and remind me again and again. It will be my bride, my alter ego. An incentive to find myself. I myself am the moon-rise of the South.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Diary entry, (Tunisia, April 1914), # 926-k, in: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918, transl. Pierre B. Schneider, R.Y. Zachary and Max Knight; Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1964
1911 - 1914, Diary-notes from Tunisia' (1914)

Exercises , Business , Nature , Painting

“A few family friends complimented my appearance, and that made me feel a bit better about myself. It is so peculiar how a simple smile or a compliment can completely change how I feel about the world for a few moments.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 19, Compliments

World , Family , Smile , Feeling

“Many families could not and should not have been expected to abandon hope that their sons, husbands, and brothers who had disappeared in the jungles of Vietnam might yet be returned to them. And many good people, who shared their hope and had come to their assistance, were motivated by the most admirable of intentions, to keep faith with Americans who had done all that duty asked of them. But these good intentions and understandable emotions also drew the attention of people with less honorable purposes. There came to exist in America, and elsewhere in the years that followed the Vietnam War, a small cottage industry made up of swindlers, dime-store Rambos, and just plain old conspiracy nuts who preyed on the emotions of the families and on the attention of ofﬁcials who were dedicated to the search for our missing. They had helped convince many of the families and a few members of Congress that the US. government had knowingly abandoned American servicemen in Vietnam and that ﬁve successive presidential administrations had covered up the crime. It was among the most damaging and most hurtful of all the lies about the Vietnam War that I ever encountered.”

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

Source: 2000s, 2002, Worth the Fighting For (2002), pp. 235 - 236

War , People , Family , Faith

“Passion is something which very few of us have really felt. What we may have felt is enthusiasm, which is being caught up in an emotional state over something. Our passion is for something: for music, for painting, for literature, for a country, for a woman or a man; it is always the effect of a cause. When you fall in love with someone, you are in a great state of emotion, which is the effect of that particular cause; and what I am talking about is passion without a cause. It is to be passionate about everything, not just about something, whereas most of us are passionate about a particular person or thing. I think one must see this distinction very clearly. In the state of passion without a cause, there is intensity free of all attachment; but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Vol. XIII, p. 251
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Love , Music , Literature , Thinking

“All his tunk-a-tunks, his hoo-goo-boos — those mannered, manufactured, individual, uninteresting little sound-inventions — how typical they are of the lecture-style of the English philosopher, who makes grunts or odd noises, uses homely illustrations, and quotes day in and day out from Alice, in order to give what he says some appearance of that raw reality it so plainly and essentially lacks. These “tootings at the wedding of the soul” are fun for the tooter, but get as dreary for the reader as do all the foreign words — a few of these are brilliant, a few more pleasant, and the rest a disaster: “one cannot help deploring his too extensive acquaintance with the foreign languages”, as Henry James said, of Walt Whitman, to Edith Wharton.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Reflections on Wallace Stevens”, p. 129
Poetry and the Age (1953)

Quotes , Home , Soul , Reality

“No matter what these terrorists do, I refuse to be terrorized. All this requires is just a few alterations in our day to day lives. For example, my first instinct when I receive an envelope full of white powder…is to snort it! I just won't do that this time!”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

Time

“When nobody in the world loves any other, naturally the strong will overpower the weak, the many will oppress the few, the wealthy will mock the poor, the honoured will disdain the humble, the cunning will deceive the simple. Therefore all the calamities, strifes, complaints, and hatred in the world have arisen out of want of mutual love. Therefore the benevolent disapproved of this want.”

Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period

Book 4; Universal Love II
Mozi

Love , World , Nature , Strong

“When the generation that has known war is still alive, it is well that they should be given chapter and verse with regard to some of the best-known cries, catchwords, and exhortations by which they were so greatly influenced. As a warning, therefore, this collection is made. It constitutes only the exposure of a few samples. To cover the whole ground would be impossible.”

Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist

Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction

War

“It is difficult to become familiar with animals without becoming fond of them, provided one doesn't wish to domineer them. I have never heard that love for animals has changed to hate, but many cases where the opposite happened. Many hunters, obliged to observe the animals while stalking them, in time grow increasingly reluctant to kill them, and finally wish to become wardens in the national parks, to help protect them. Very few vivisectors seem to be hampered by this natural evolution that leads to the love and respect of the animals through a deeper knowledge of them.”

Hans Ruesch (1913–2007) Swiss racing driver

Source: Slaughter of the Innocent (1978), p. 52

Love , Hate , Nature , Knowledge

“Many things are possible. Few things are certain.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Interview in Cybling (February 2001) http://www.cybling.com/artists/harrye.html

“Starting tomorrow, I'll be carefree and happy
Roaming the world, feeding my horse, chopping firewood
Starting tomorrow, I'll need nothing but rice and a few vegetables
In my house by the sea, warmed by the spring air”

Hai Zi (1964–1989) Chinese poet

《面朝大海，春暖花开》 ("Looking out to sea, warmed by the spring air"), trans. John Sexton http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2011-02/01/content_26146460.htm.

World , Spring , Horse , Housing

“I already see things backwards! You see, in printmaking everything comes out backwards so printing is an absolute natural for me. It is difficult for a lot of artists to do prints because they draw one way and can’t imagine it the other way. I always had trouble reading as a child. Every few minutes my mind would shift and I would pick out all the o's, than all the letter a's on a page.”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Source: 21st Century, Robert Rauschenberg, Works, Writings and Interviews, 2006, p. 28

Way , Imagination , Nature , Reading

“Do we really have to wander around apologizing for enjoying plot, just because James Wood and a few dozen other arch-aesthetes sniff at it? It's like being careful not to sing pop songs in the shower because some guy in the local alt-weekly is a music snob.”

Patrick Nielsen Hayden (1959) American science fiction editor, fanzine publisher, essayist, reviewer, anthologist, and teacher

"Oh No Lev Grossman No", in Making Light (30 August 2009)

Music , Guy , Singing

“Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call.
Wanted to sail upon your waters
Since I was three feet tall.
You've seen it all, you've seen it all.Watched the men who rode you,
Switch from sails to steam.
And in your belly you hold the treasure
That few have ever seen.
Most of them dreams,
Most of them dreams.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

A Pirate Looks at Forty
Song lyrics, A1A (1974)

Men , Dreams , Water

“An efficiency-regime cannot be run without a few heroes stuck about it to carry off the dullness — much as plums have to be put into bad pudding to make it palatable.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

What I Believe (1938)

“With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries…What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient.”

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

Lee Kuan Yew in speech entitled 'Democracy, Human Rights and the Realities', Tokyo, Nov 10, 1992 http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/lee-kuan-yews-place-in-history-is-guaranteed
1990s

Democracy , Freedom , Country

“The fifth and most important principle of our foreign policy is support of national independence—the right of each people to govern themselves—and to shape their own institutions. For a peaceful world order will be possible only when each country walks the way that it has chosen to walk for itself. We follow this principle by encouraging the end of colonial rule. We follow this principle, abroad as well as at home, by continued hostility to the rule of the many by the few—or the oppression of one race by another. We follow this principle by building bridges to Eastern Europe. And I will ask the Congress for authority to remove the special tariff restrictions which are a barrier to increasing trade between the East and the West. The insistent urge toward national independence is the strongest force of today's world in which we live. In Africa and Asia and Latin America it is shattering the designs of those who would subdue others to their ideas or their will. It is eroding the unity of what was once a Stalinist empire. In recent months a number of nations have east out those who would subject them to the ambitions of mainland China. History is on the side of freedom and is on the side of societies shaped from the genius of each people. History does not favor a single system or belief—unless force is used to make it so. That is why it has been necessary for us to defend this basic principle of our policy, to defend it in Berlin, in Korea, in Cuba—and tonight in Vietnam.”

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

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Hostility , People , World , Peace

“Women are most fascinating between the ages of 35 and 40 after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves. Since few women ever pass 40, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

Variant: Women are most fascinating between the ages of 35 and 40 after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves. Since few women ever pass 40, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely.
Source: Jill Kargman Arm Candy: A Novel http://books.google.co.in/books?id=EVg6b7fFXUEC&pg=PT99, Penguin, 13 May 2010, p. 99

Women , Age

“Dicko: Hayley, hair looks great by the way. Curls are good for you. I've got to say, look, I don't think you're a natural at this. You have to work really hard at everything you do and it's pleasing to see the way you're moving in the right direction. I think that was a really tough song to chose. Some of those timings in there, it was a bit like a maths exam at times for me trying to keep up. But I think it's a really good style for you. That type of song. That type of artist, George as well. The only problem I have with you, I've had it for the past few weeks, is I can see you concentrating and I can hear you thinking about what you're trying to do as you're doing it and I don't know. Sometimes I just think if you could switch all of that off and just let yourself go a bit I think you'd be a lot better for it. But that was very good.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 8

Way , Nature , Problem , Thinking

“A few important Muslim leaders regretted that Australian society, as they experienced it, defied their beliefs and preachings. In their eyes it was decadent and irreligious. And yet one century earlier, a host of Australian churchgoers would have agreed with the mainstream Muslim suspicion of alcohol, drugs, pornography, party-going, scantily clad women, blasphemous language, suicide, homosexuality and the Sabbath. It was the Christians who, in the following four generations, relaxed their views on these social questions. They became more tolerant at a time when sections of Islam were becoming less tolerant.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Rise of a New Australia (2016)

Women , Alcohol , Question , Suicide

“The sharpest peaks of the Ridge are the cluster of islets known as the Rocks of St. Paul, near the equator. The entire cluster of half a dozen islets is not more than a quarter of a mile across, and their rocky slopes drop off at so sheer an angle that water more than half a mile deep lies only a few feet off shore.”

Rachel Carson book The Sea Around Us

Chapter 5, Page 90 https://books.google.com/books?id=PvkDFTtW6f4C&&pg=PA90
The Sea Around Us (1951)

Water

“So in order to accommodate the Pioneers who would begin arriving in a few weeks, the Arkitects sent up Scouts. The qualifications for being a Scout seemed to be a shocking level of physical endurance, a complete disregard for mortal danger, and some knowledge of how to exist in a space suit.
All of them were Russian.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

"Scouts"
Seveneves (2015), Part One

Knowledge , Scouting

“I don’t know if I’m the right person to be doing jokes about religion; in the past few months, I’ve become religious, I’ve started to believe in god, creationism and intelligent design, and the reason that I now believe in god and creationism and intelligent design is because of Professor Richard Dawkins. Because when I look at something as complex and intricate and beautiful as Professor Richard Dawkins, I don’t think that just could’ve evolved by chance! Professor Richard Dawkins was put there by god to test us, like fossils. And facts.”

Stewart Lee (1968) English stand-up comedian, writer, director and musician

Series 1 Episode 6: "Religion"

God , Religion , Beauty , Intelligence

“On May 17, 1969, a show which was to become the seminal exhibition of video art in the U. S. opened at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York City. That exhibition, "TV as a Creative Medium," effectively pointed to the diverse potential of a new art form and social tool. Subsequently, the show became renowned for the inspiration it provided for many artists and future advocates of video. The artists represented in the show, a few of whom are still involved in the medium today, came from varied backgrounds-painting, filmmaking, nuclear physics, avant-garde music and performance, kinetic and light sculpture-and their approaches presented a primer of the directions which video would soon take. Theoretically, they variously saw video as viewer participation, a spiritual and meditative experience, a mirror, an electronic palette, a kinetic sculpture, or acultural machine to be deconstructed. Ripe with ideas and armed with a heady optimism about the future of communications, these artists used video as an information tool and as a means of gaining understanding and control of television, not solely as an art form. In "TV as a Creative Medium" alternative television was presented as a stepping stone to the promised communications utopia.”

Marita Sturken (1957) American academic

Marita Sturken. " TV as a Creative Medium: Howard Wise and Video Art http://www.vasulka.org/archive/4-30c/AfterImageMay84(1004).pdf," in: Afterimage, May 1984

Art , Music , Communication , Idea

“When a great politician dies, or any man who has filled a large space in the public mind, and made a noise in the world, the newspapers long ring with the event. But it is otherwise with the great thinker, the mathematician or the philosopher, who has laboured silently and in comparative seclusion, to extend the boundaries of human knowledge. When such a man is removed by death there are public journals, even among those professedly devoted to literature and science, which can dismiss the event with a few faint and cold remarks.* But time rectifies all that. It is found sooner or later that no reputation, however brilliant, is permanent or durable which does not rest on useful discoveries and real contributions to our knowledge.”

Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897) English journalist

R.H. Hutton, "Professor Boole," in: The British Quarterly Review http://books.google.com/books?id=pfMEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA165. (1866), p. 141

Death , World , Literature , Knowledge

“The modern world gives proof at every point that it is far easier to destroy institutions than to create them. Nevertheless, few people seem to understand this truth.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Rousseau & the origins of liberalism," https://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/rousseau-the-origins-of-liberalism-2988 The New Criterion (October 1998).

People , Truth , World , Understanding

“Galileo had provided the methodology for the analysis of motions on and near the earth and had applied it successfully. Copernicus and Kepler had previously obtained the laws of motion of the planets and their satellites. …But Galileo had succeeded in deriving numerous laws from a few physical principles and… the axioms and theorems of mathematics. …The Keplerian laws …were not logically related to each other. Each was an independent inference from observations. …They seemed to be suspended in the same vacuum in which the planets moved.
Galileo's laws had the additional advantage of supplying physical insight. The first law of motion and the law that the force of graviation gives… a downward acceleration of 32 ft/sec2… explain the vertrical rise and fall of bodies, motion on slopes, and projectile motion. Kepler's laws… had no physical basis. …Kepler tried to introduce the idea of a magnetic force which the sun exerted… But he failed to related the behavior of the planets to the precise laws of planetary motion. …
The new astronomical theory was completely isolated from the theory of motion on earth. …it bothered mathematicians and scientists who believed that all the phenomena of the universe were governed by one master plan instituted by the master planner—God.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematics and the Physical World (1959), pp. 224-225

God , Law , Behavior , Mathematics

“General Sullivan very imprudently issued something like a censure in general orders. Indeed, it was an absolute censure. It opened the mouths of the army in very clamorous strains. The General was obliged to explain it away in a few days. The fermentation seems to be now subsiding, and all things appear as if they would go smoothly on. The Marquis is going to Boston, also, to hasten the Count's return, and, if possible, to get the Erench troops to join the land forces here, which will more effectually interest the Count in the success of the expedition.”

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

Letter to George Washington (August 1778)

Appearance , Success

“If it be true that doctrines have naught to do with the spread of terrorism, why is it that among many million socialists there are almost no terrorists, while among a few thousand anarchists there are many terrorists?”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Violence and the Labor Movement (1914), p. 91

“A cemetery is an affront to the rational mind. One reason is its eerily wasted space, this tribute to the dead that inevitably degenerates into ancestor worship as, on birthdays and anniversaries, humans of every faith and no faith at all brave whatever weather may that day threaten, in order to stand before these rows of silent stone markers, praying, yes, and remembering, of course, but very often actually speaking to the deceased, an oddly pagan ritual in which we engage, this shared pretense that the rotted corpses in warped wooden boxes are able to hear and understand us if we stand before their graves.The other reason a cemetery appeals to the irrational side is its obtrusive, irresistible habit of sneaking past the civilized veneer with which we cover the primitive planks of our childhood fears. When we are children, we know that what our parents insist is merely a tree branch blowing in the wind is really the gnarled fingertip of some horrific creature of the night, waiting outside the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, to let us know that, as soon as our parents close the door and sentence us to the gloom which they insist builds character, he will lift the sash and dart inside and…And there childhood imagination usually runs out, unable to give shape to the precise fears that have kept us awake and that will, in a few months, be forgotten entirely. Until we next visit a cemetery, that is, when, suddenly, the possibility of some terrifying creature of the night seems remarkably real.”

Stephen L. Carter book The Emperor of Ocean Park

Source: The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 50, Again Old Town, I

Children , Fear , Faith , Imagination

“Few people can see God, and it seems an even bolder mind to see the Devil. Active evil is more incomprehensible than active good, and so it ought to be.”

Margery Allingham (1904–1966) English writer of detective fiction

The Oaken Heart

God , People , Evil

“Sangakkara: Being a good captain is about pulling your own weight in the side and making sure you perform. The better you perform, the easier captaincy becomes. It's a nice interesting balance about your own performance and also surrounding yourself with players of quality which makes captaincy the easiest job because you know you have match-winners in your side. You know people can execute whatever's asked of them. So decision-making becomes very easy. Take Ricky Ponting and the Aussie side that he had under him for a few years. Hard decisions were very rare because you just had to look at your team and knew exactly what they were capable of.”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

People , Decision

“Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

"Ode on Solitude", st. 1 (c. 1700).

Happiness

“An instance of callous and cold-blooded brutality is furnished by the incident that took place on December 20, 1949 in Kalshira under P. S. Mollarhat in the District of Khulna. … The police constable entered into the house and assaulted the wife of Joydev Brahma whose cry attracted her husband and a few companions who escaped from the house. They became desperate, re-entered the house, found 4 constables with one gun only. That perhaps might have encouraged the young men who struck a blow on an armed constable who died on the spot. … the assailants fled and the intelligent neighbours also fled away. But the bulk of the villagers remained in their houses as they were absolutely innocent and failed to realise the consequence of the happening. Subsequently, the S. P., the military and armed police began to beat mercilessly the innocents of the entire village, encouraged the neighbouring Muslims to take away their properties. A number of persons were killed and men and women were forcibly converted. House-hold deities were broken and places of worship desecrated and destroyed. Several women were raped by the police, military and local Muslims. Thus a veritable hell was let loose not only in the village of Kalshira which is 1-1/2 miles in length with a large population, but also in a number of neighbouring Namahsudra villages.”

Jogendra Nath Mandal (1904–1968) Pakistani politician

Excerpted from the resignation letter of J. N. Mandal, Minister for Law and Labour, Government of Pakistan, October 8, 1950. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal https://biblio.wiki/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal

Women , Men , Intelligence , Hell

“There are very few jokes about sociologists.”

Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) Austrian-born American sociologist

Source: Invitation to Sociology (1963), p. 11

“… The fame of Gibbon is highest among writers; those especially who have studied for years particular periods included in his theme (and how many those are; for in the East and West he has set his mark on all that is great for ten centuries!) acutely feel and admiringly observe how difficult it would be to say so much, and leave so little untouched; to compress so many telling points; to present in so few words so apt and embracing a narrative of the whole.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

[ART. I—Edward Gibbon, National Review, 2, January 1856, 1–42, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081643169;view=1up;seq=43] (quote p. 31)
Edward Gibbon (1856)

Feeling , Study

“Die Hard represents the class of modern action pictures and the standard by which they must be judged. Few films falling into the "mindless entertainment" genre have as much going for them as this movie. Not only is it a thrill-a-minute ride, but it has one of the best film villains in recent memory, a hero everyone can relate to, dialogue that crackles with wit, and a lot of very impressive pyrotechnics.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/d/die_hard.html of Die Hard (1988).
Four star reviews

Memory

“There are few things more important in the business of the state, than that the results of inquiry and research should be realised by those who have had the conduct of it.”

Henry Taylor (1800–1886) English playwright and poet

Source: The Statesman (1836), Ch. 25. p. 198

Business

Quotes about few page 33

Quotes about few
page 33