Quotes about figure
page 8

“What need is there of long journeying on the land or voyaging on the seas to seek and search for virtue, whose roots have been set by their Maker ever so near us, as the wise legislator of the Jews also says, “in thy mouth, in thy heart and in thy hand,” thereby indicating in a figure, words, thoughts and actions? All these, indeed, need the cultivator’s skill. Those who prefer idleness to labor, not only prevent the growths but also wither and destroy the roots. But those who consider inaction mischievous and are willing to labor, do as the husbandman does with fine young shoots. By constant care they rear the virtues into stems rising up to heaven, saplings ever blooming and immortal, bearing and never ceasing to bear the fruits of happiness, or as some hold, not so much bearing as being in themselves that happiness. These Moses often calls by the compound name of wholefruits. In the case of growths which spring from the earth, neither are the trees the fruit nor the fruit the trees, but in the soul’s plantation the saplings of wisdom, of justice, of temperance, have their whole being transformed completely into fruits.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

68-71.
Every Good Man is Free

Wisdom, Happiness, Justice, Soul

“At least the state figure should have a head.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

In response to Hillary Clinton's comment that Putin has 'no soul'. http://ria.ru/politics/20080507/106744531.html 2006- 2010

“Beyond the discrepant local sympathies of these careers – with their splay of temporary identities: Conservative, Zionist, Nazi, Old Whig – they reflected a common theoretical calling. […] In Schmitt’s own writing, the obscure figure assumes various – typically oblique – historical guises, as political or juridical restrainer in different epochs. But the Stygian cap fits the collective effort of this cluster of thinkers. For these were indeed constructions designed to hold something back. What they all in the end sought to restrain was the risks of democracy – seen and feared through the prisms of their theories of law, as the abyss of its absence: to misterion tes anomias, the mystery of lawlessness.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Source: Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 1. "The Intransigent Right, Michael Oakeshott, Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt, Friedrich von Hayek" (1992), p. 26

Fear, Law, Democracy, Effort

“I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

Way, Democracy

“the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story”

James Barr (1924–2006) British bible scholar

World

“I think that's why I gravitated toward slightly broader… ummm, more conceptual kinds of movies, Underworld and Van Helsing. That was as much as I could actually give. But you're actually more of an animated figure. It does go against the grain, as an actor.”

Kate Beckinsale (1973) English actress

On the effect the arrival of her daughter had on her acting work. Allure magazine, March 2008.

Thinking, Animals

“It was so gnarly, dude, and I'd been on his show a couple times, so I basically figured we were homies. I yelled over to him, and I was like, 'Yo, Reg, what up?' And then get this: He called me the Red Onion! Dude, it was so epic. It was totally rad.”

Shaun White (1986) American snowboarder and skateboarder

Saslow, Eli (2006). "For Fun, White Is on Board" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901248.html Washington Post (accessed July 17, 2006). On sitting next to Regis Philbin at a Knicks game.

Time

“An immensely tall, angular figure … His gown hung round him in long folds like the wings of a bat, and his wig was perched slightly askew over a lantern jawed face with a blue chin, soulful spaniel-brown eyes and a turned-down mouth like a slit. But for his garb, you would have said that he was a dyspeptic undertaker in a town where nobody ever died.”

Gerald Durrell (1925–1995) naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter

Rosie Is My Relative (1968)

Soul

“I hear sometimes of the necessity for creating an "international mind." I am afraid that my heart is too stubbornly local for me to follow that high thought… I am an impenitent patriot; like Gilbert's heroic figure, "I remain an Englishman." I do not want daily to become more and more like my neighbour, nor would it gratify my self-esteem if he became daily more like me.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Peace Society (31 October 1935), quoted in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 332.
1935

Heart

“Ambedkar is my Father in Economics. He is true celebrated champion of the underprivileged. He deserves more than what he has achieved today. However he was highly controversial figure in his home country, though it was not the reality. His contribution in the field of economics is marvelous and will be remembered forever..!”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

Amartya Sen, "Dr. BR Ambedkar: As an Economist." International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention 2.3 (2013): 24-27.
2010s

Home, Reality, Country

“.. But it doesn't frighten me, because I studied in France, thank God, and I know of no artist in history who was not 'literary' when it came down to it. Not a single one. And even if they don't appear to be, I know of none and you at least don't recall them, because there is nothing to recall... Sometime or other I'd like to see a << pure >> artist, but I didn't even find one in France. Obviously the trouble is that one approaches painting from the other side, so that the word << sujet >> conceals the point of the thing. Yet even the most beautiful and << emptiest >> sujet (an apple, a grape or any << non-figurative painting >>) doesn't help if there are no foundations, either innate or acquired through hard work... Why don't we say clearly: << That is freedom, and this is commitment to the subject >> and << to each tree its berries >>, but let it be a tree and not a donkey..”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Chagall's letter to A. N. Benois, 1918; as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 150
1910's

God, Beauty, History, Tree

“Anderson Cooper: Is Islam at war with the West?
Donald Trump: I think Islam hates us. There is something there, there is a tremendous hatred there, and we have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred of us.
Cooper: In Islam itself?
Trump: You're going to have to figure that out, but there is a tremendous hatred and we have to be very vigilant, we have to be very careful and we can't allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States and of people that are not Muslim.
Cooper: The question is is there a war between the West and radical Islam or is it between the West and Islam itself?
Trump: Well it's radical but it's very hard to define, it's very hard to separate because you don't know who's who.”

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

9 March CNN interview, as quoted in "US Election 2016: Donald Trump tells CNN TV interviewer 'Islam hates us'" http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-election-2016-donald-trump-tells-cnn-tv-interviewer-islam-hates-us-1548760 by Harriet Sinclair, International Business Times (10 March 2016) 2010s, 2016, March

Hate, War, People, Question

“We mortals sometimes cut a pitiable figure in our attempts at display. We may be sure of our own merits, yet fatally ignorant of the point of view from which we are regarded by our neighbour. Our fine patterns in tattooing may be far from throwing him into a swoon of admiration, though we turn ourselves all round to show them.”

George Eliot book Felix Holt, the Radical

Source: Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Chapter 11 (at page 117)

Tattoo

“I make [figures] in which I try to give an impression of the whole.”

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France

“The disciples surrounded with cheap marvels and wonders the lonely figure of that serene Soul, simple and austere in his yellow robes, walking with bared feet and bowed head towards Benares.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

His views on why the role of Buddhism diminished in India
Eminent Indians (1947)

Soul

“So we started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while WE believed in ourselves, nobody else did. We were young and had never done this before and we almost didn't get off the ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a really big mistake. I had thought about asking my church's pension fund to invest, but I didn't. I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors' money, but I didn't want to go to hell too. Shows what I know. Another of my partners got the Episcopal Church pension fund to invest. Today there are a lot of happy retired priests who should thank him. That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples – where I'm pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we'd ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana. Today Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers in the United States.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-08-31
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160357612/transcript-mitt-romneys-acceptance-speech
Transcript: Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech
NPR
[2012-08-30, gopconvention2012, Mitt Romney: Introduction (video), YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_cGyPwt5UI]
2012

Money, Happiness, People, Hell

“Forensic procedure is an art form, nothing less. No, I'll go further: it's higher, more refined, than any art form. Why? Because it's real. Take just one aspect of it—say the diagrams: with all their outlines, arrows and shaded blocks they look like abstract paintings, avant-garde ones from the last century—dances of shapes and flows as delicate and skilful as the markings on butterflies' wings. But they're not abstract at all. They're records of atrocities. Each line, each figure, every angle—the ink itself vibrates with an almost intolerable violence, darkly screaming from the silence of white paper: something has happened here, someone has died.”

Tom McCarthy (writer) book Déjà vu

Source: Remainder (2005), Ch. 11.

Art, Silence, Dance, Painting

“Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits that under analysis some of them won't stand up either.”

Evan Esar (1899–1995) American writer

Esar's Comic Dictionary

Lie

“Between 1980 and 2000 the number of patents registered in Israel was 7652 compared with 367 for all the Arab countries combined. In 2008 alone Israeli inventors applied to register 9591 new patents. The equivalent figure for Iran was 50 and for all majority Muslim countries in the world with 5657.”

Niall Ferguson book Civilization: The West and the Rest

Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011)

World, Country

“The doctrine of Right and Wrong, is perpetually disputed, both by Pen and the Sword: Whereas the doctrine of Lines, and Figures, is not so; because men care not, in that subject what be truth, as a thing that crosses no mans ambition, profit, or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, That the three Angles of a Triangle, should be equall to two Angles of a Square; that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of Geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 11, p. 80-81
Leviathan (1651)

Men, Truth, Books

“What is found in biology is mechanisms, mechanisms built with chemical components and that are often modified by other, later, mechanisms added to the earlier ones. While Occam's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research. While DNA could be claimed to be both simple and elegant, it must be remembered that DNA almost certainly originated fairly close to the origin of life when things were necessarily simple or they would not have got going.
Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now. To figure out exactly what happened in evolution is even more difficult. Thus evolutionary achievements can be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much. It is all too easy to make mistaken inferences unless the process involved is already very well understood.”

Francis Crick (1916–2004) British molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

What Mad Pursuit (1988)

Life, Study, Science, Parting

“In the '80s, when I came in, the ground rules were made clear to me. 'Build this business from scratch, without taking anyone from Reliance.' That forced you to be very disciplined. I looked around and figured out in three months that this industry runs on heroes.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on how Reliance was built

Business

“There were, indeed, several 'Christs,' several people whose preaching and exploits merged to form the composite figure historically known as Christ. There are all kinds of contradictions in the Bible, and in Christ's own attitudes as depicted, because there were more Christs than one.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 208

People, Christ

“Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles. And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but vehicula scientiæ.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

The Advancement of Learning (1605)

God, World, Law, Nature

“Howbeit, Paul succeeded in stealing the image of Christ crucified for the figure-head of his Salvationist vessel, with its Adam posing as the natural man, its doctrine of original sin, and its damnation avoidable only by faith in the sacrifice of the cross. In fact, no sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface, Paul
1910s, Androcles and the Lion (1913)

Faith, Nature, Christ

“We did freak out the honkies. We were feared throughout the Dakotas. I could never figure out why this should have been so. We were always the victims. We never maimed or killed. It was we who died or got crippled.”

Mary Crow Dog book Lakota Woman

Source: Lakota Woman (1990), p. 80

Fear

“In my view—and that of most contemporary economists, I believe—Schumpeter’s most original and most lastingly significant book was Theory of Economic Development, which appeared in 1911 (and was translated into English in 1934). It was at the University of Czernowitz, not far from the beginning of his career as an economist, that he worked out his conception of the entrepreneur, the maker of “new combinations,” as the driving force and characteristic figure of the fits-and-starts evolution of the capitalist economy. He was explicit that, while technological innovation was in the long run the most important function of the entrepreneur, organizational innovation in governance, finance, and management was comparable in significance.”

Robert Solow (1924) American economist

"Heavy Thinker" (2007)

Books, Universe, Appearance

“In the field of non-Euclidean geometry, Riemann… began by calling attention to a distinction that seems obvious once it is pointed out: the distinction between an unbounded straight line and an infinite line. The distinction between unboundedness and infiniteness is readily illustrated. A circle is an unbounded figure in that it never comes to an end, and yet it is of finite length. On the other hand, the usual Euclidean concept of a straight line is also unbounded in that it never reaches an end but is of infinite length.
…he proposed to replace the infiniteness of the Euclidean straight line by the condition that it is merely unbounded. He also proposed to adopt a new parallel axiom… In brief, there are no parallel lines. This … had been tried… in conjunction with the infiniteness of the straight line and had led to contradictions. However… Riemann found that he could construct another consistent non-Euclidean geometry.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 454

“It was dangerous to have a sadist in the barracks, especially one who justified his excesses by religiously invoking the sacrosanct authority of the plebe system. The system contained its own high quotient of natural cruelty, and there was a very thin line between devotion to duty, that is, being serious about the plebe system, which was an exemplary virtue in the barracks, and genuine sadism, which was not. But I had noticed that in the actual hierarchy of values at the Institute, the sadist like Snipes rated higher than someone who took no interest in the freshmen and entertained no belief in the system at all. In the Law of the Corps it was better to carry your beliefs to an extreme than to be faithless. For the majority of the Corps, the only sin of the sadist was that he believed in the system too passionately and applied his belief with an overabundant zeal. Because of this, the barracks at all times provided a safe regency for the sadist and almost all of them earned rank. My sin was harder to figure. I did not participate at all in the rituals of the plebe system. Cruelty was easier to forgive than apostasy.”

Pat Conroy The Lords of Discipline

Source: The Lords of Discipline (1980), p. 96

Law, Forgiveness, Nature, Passion

“A [figure] interests me when I can bring architecture out of it.”

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France

as quoted in ’A sculpture of interior Solitude’, by Angelo Carnafa, Associated University Presse, 1999, p. 167

“After our country had been established, enlarged from sea to sea, and was dedicated to popular government, the next great task was to demonstrate the permanency of our Union and to extend the principle of freedom to all inhabitants of our land. The master of this supreme accomplishment was Abraham Lincoln. Above all other national figures, he holds the love of his fellow countrymen. The work which Washington and Jefferson began, he extended to its logical conclusions.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)

Love, Freedom, Sea, Country

“In this background, it would be an unremitting task both in volume and repetition to give all anecdotes, facts and figures of enslavement and concubinage of captive women in the central and provincial kingdoms and independent Muslim states found mentioned in the chronicles. This would only lead to repetition resulting in the book becoming bulky.”

K. S. Lal (1920–2002) Indian historian

Source: Muslim Slave System in Medieval India (1994), Chapter 12

Women, Books

“All right lad this is what we want with you. Your mission is this: to go out into the world and pull down all those election posters. Let’s get all those ugly faces off our streets and out of our elective offices. We are not going to vote any more, no matter how often they come around with their sound trucks and statesmanlike gestures. Pull down the sound trucks. Pull down the outstretched arms. To hell with the whole business. Voting has turned out to be a damned impertinence. They never do what we want them to do anyhow. And when they do what we want them to do, they don’t do it well. To hell with them. We are going to save up all our votes for the next twenty years and spend them all at one time. Maybe by that day there will be some Rabelaisian figure worth spending them on. …”

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

Source: Snow White (1967), p. 146.

World, Hell, Business, Time

“When Shaw is read in the light of the existentialist thinkers, a new philosophical position arises from his works as a whole, a position of he himself was probably unconscious. It is this: that although the ultimate reality may be irrational, yet man's relation to it is not. Existentialism means the recognition that life is a tiny corner of casual order in a universe of chaos. All men are aware of that chaos; but some insulate themselves from it and refuse to face it. These are the Insiders, and they make up the overwhelming majority of the human race. The Outsider is the man who has faced chaos. If he is an abstract philosopher — like Hegel — he will try to demonstrate that chaos is not really chaos, but that underlying it is an order of which we are unaware. If he is an existentialist, he acknowledges that chaos is chaos, a denial of life — or rather, of the conditions under which life are possible. If there is nothing but life and chaos, then life is permanently helpless — as Sartre and Camus think it is. But if a rational relation can somehow exist between them, ultimate pessimism is avoided, as it must be avoided if the Outsider is to live at all. It is this contribution which makes Shaw the key figure of existentialist thought.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Religion and the Rebel (1957), p. 289

Life, Men, Thinking, Reality

“Ansara was sprinting up the tunnel, increasing the gap, but Moore was beginning to slow as he heard the thundering boots of men coming down the staircase behind them. He stopped, spun around, and dropped onto his belly as, lit by the flickering light from the tunnel entrance, a figure rushed forward, arm extended. For just a heartbeat Moore glimpsed his assailant's face: the cartel truck's driver.
Propped up on his elbows now, Moore fired once into the figure's chest, the round booting him sideways into the panels before he fell onto his back.
From behind him came two more men, the rest of the weapons-transfer crew, their Belgian-made cop-killer pistols flashing, the shots booming through the tunnel as one 5.7x28-millimeter round struck the pipe near Moore's elbow.”

Tom Clancy book Against All Enemies

With Peter Telep, Against All Enemies (2011), chapter 34
2010s

Men, Light

“It took me years to figure out that you don't fall into a tub of butter, you jump for it.”

Claudette Colbert (1903–1996) French-American actress

Unknown

“Until the end of the fascist era and of the war [World War 2. ], I continued to hark back to the sober realism [in his human figure sculptures, then] of the artists of the Etruscan funerary figures, or the sculptors of some Roman portraits, especially the earlier ones. My own way of reacting against the imperialist pathos of official Fascist art continued, until 1944, to consist in identifying my art very consciously with my private life, so that I never allowed myself any form of expression that might seem too blatantly public.”

Marino Marini (1901–1980) Italian sculptor

Source: Interview with Edouard Roditi' (1958), p. 87

Life, War, World, Art

“Place (or put) a spider on top of a mountain, it will only try to catch flies; alas, they are many those who, in the figurative meaning, have spider's eyes.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 52.

Mountain

“A good night for the fireplace to be
crackling with flames - or so he figured,
Crumpling the papers he could only see
As testimonials to long plateaus of emptiness.”

Weldon Kees (1914–1955) American artist

The Heat in the Room (Jarkko Laine: Amerikan Cowboy. Helsinki: Otava, 1981. ISBN 951-1-06597-1

Night

“I don't think that you're born with gut [instinct], a gut matures and gets better and better over time, the struggle that most people have is learning to listen to it. Figuring out how to access it in some way. What I found is that even thought I'm an engineer and an analytical person at heart the most important decisions I've made had nothing to do with any of that. They were always based on intuition. The Apple one [choosing to leave Compaq to take the job at Apple in 1998] is a prime example of that. I remember forming my list of pluses and minuses and I could not get the chart to work out the way I wanted it to. Because I wanted something to say this says I should go to Apple. But it would not. Nothing financially would do that, I talked to people I trusted, that knew me, and they said: 'This is not what you should do'. It wasn't so easy. People said, you're just crazy, you're working for the top PC company in the world, how could you even think of doing it, you've lost your mind. And yet that voice said, 'Go West young man, Go West.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

And some times you just have to go for it. macworld.co.uk http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/apples-tim-cook-following-instinct-finding-best-people-treating-people-fairly-3451130/

People, World, Way, Thinking

“As far as vocal preparation goes, it’s really an interesting thing for such a fragile instrument and using it properly is like walking a tightrope. I have learned not to do extensive warm-ups. It’s really more of a cerebral mind-body connection Zen hippy thing, just knowing your body and figuring out if I do that then I will be able to speak tomorrow.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

On singing. Southern Courier, February 2010 http://southern-courier.whereilive.com.au/lifestyle/story/body-on-the-line/

Learning

“Think of late paintings where Christ is the central figure... Remember the large mosaics of Rome. Reconcile the employment of large-scale decorative means and the direct emotions of nature.”

Maurice Denis (1870–1943) French painter

Quote, March 1895, from Denis' Journal; as cited on Wikipedia: Maurice Denis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Denis - reference [23] 1890 - 1920

Nature, Thinking, Christ, Painting

“Nine-tenths of our crimes an' calamities are made possible by th' automobile. It has unleashed all th' pent-up criminal tendencies o' th' ages. It's th' central figure in murders, hold-ups, burglaries, accidents, elopements, failures an' abscondments. It has well nigh jimmed th' American home…. No girl is missin' that wuzn' last seen steppin' in a strange automobile…. An' ther hain't a day rolls by that somebuddy hain't sellin' ther sewin' machine, or ther home, or somethin' t' pay on an automobile…. Maybe th' jails an' workhouses are empty, but that's not because th' world is gittin' better. It's because all th' criminals escape in automobiles.”

Kin Hubbard (1868–1930) cartoonist

Writing as his character, "th' Hon. Ex.-Editur Cale Fluhart." as quoted in The American Humorist : Conscience of the Twentieth Century (1964) by Norris W. Yeats, p. 107.

Age, World, Home, Girl

“Very few Americans—indeed very few Western leaders who, from time to time, use the word “war” and promise to “win” it—seem to recognize that a global war is being waged against us. Even the few who follow the actual combat tend to see the events separately: there’s fighting in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Sinai, terrorists are at work all over the place, and we try to figure out what to do in each case.”

Michael T. Flynn (1958) 25th United States National Security Advisor

Introduction
The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies (2016)

War, Time, Fight

“The period between 9/11 and [the invasion of] Iraq was not a good time for America. There wasn't a robust discussion of what we were doing. If we stop trying to figure out the other side, we've given up. The person on the other side is not evil. They just have a different perspective. The smartest people understand the enemy's point of view, because they understand what's driving them.”

Chris Matthews (1945) American news anchor

quote from Edmonton Sun, 21 November 2005 http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2005/11/21/1316384-sun.html

People, Understanding, Evil, Time

“And I go to my room and stretch out my arms to the West—that it is far away [from here], that I will someday return. Outside those painful sensations—it is horrible to be before these people and their lives. Service and family troubles -a hard beginning, pay raise, promotion - sweet dreams, scandal - daily bread, [This is a figurative reference to Our Lord's Prayer, "give us this day our daily bread.."] and their happiness reminds me sweetly, of those who buy "for the people," and whose food you wouldn't put in your mouth. I think of Munich and of my health. All that is here is suffering and this horror of beauty and this horrible life and this overbearing literature, and the complete superfluousness of art.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

1906 - 1911 Source: a letter to Alexej von Jawlensky, between December 1909 and Spring 1910; as quoted in 'Ambiguity of Home: Identity and Reminiscence in Marianne Werefkin's Return Home, c. 1909', Adrienne Kochman http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring06/52-spring06/spring06article/171-ambiguity-of-home-identity-and-reminiscence-in-marianne-werefkins-return-home-c-1909

Life, Pain, Happiness, People

“When I looked at the science of engineering and saw that it had disappeared after its ancient heritage, that its masters have perished, and that their memories are now forgotten, I worked my wits and thoughts in secrecy about philosophical shapes and figures, which could move the mind, with effort, from nothingness to being and from idleness to motion. And I arranged these shapes one by one in drawings and explained them.”

Al-Muradi

Al-Muradi, The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas, 11th century; Translated and cited at leonardo3.net/bookofsecrets/index http://www.leonardo3.net/bookofsecrets/index_eng.html, 2015

Effort, Memory, Science, Drawing

“I have long had a theory that the popularity of Christianity has always depended on its appeal to the sadism of its adherents. The exceptional should be crucified, saith Society; and somehow everyone suspects (in spite of all arguments to the contrary) that if there is a God, he may be exceptional in some way. So the figure of Christ crucified becomes the figure of the dangerous exceptional alien—suitably defeated. 'Only a suffering God can help', said Bonhoeffer, licking his lips.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

Advice to Clever Children (1981)

God, Way, Suffering, Help

“They said I was this William Shatner character, and I figured I had to be it, pompous, takes himself seriously, hardheaded. So I played it. But I didn’t see it. That character doesn’t seem like me to me. I know the real William Shatner.”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

"The Many Iterations of William Shatner" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05Shatner-t.html?_r=0 Pat Jordan, Sept. 3, New York Times, 2010

“.. Our life is a pilgrim's progress. I once saw a very beautiful picture: it was a landscape at evening. In the distance on the right-hand side a row of hills appeared blue in the evening mist. Above those hills the splendour of the sunset, the grey clouds with their linings of silver and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and its yellow leaves, for it was in autumn. Through the landscape a road leads to a high mountain far, far away, on the top of that mountain is a city wherein the setting sun casts a glory. On the road walks a pilgrim, staff in hand. He has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired. And now he meets a woman, or figure in black, that makes one think of St. Paul's word: As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing. That Angel of God has been placed there to encourage the pilgrims and to answer their questions and the pilgrim asks her: Does the road go uphill then all the way? And the answer is: "Yes to the very end."”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote of Vincent van Gogh, from his 'First Sunday Sermon' http://www.vggallery.com/misc/archives/sermon.htm: 'I Am a Stranger on the Earth..'; 29 October 1876 1870s

Life, God, Beauty, Angels

“You remain the more than natural figure. You
Become the soft-footed phantom, the irrationalDistortion, however fragrant, however dear.
That’s it: the more than rational distortion,
The fiction that results from feeling. Yes, that.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Give Pleasure

Feeling, Nature

“By involving all men in all men, by the electric extension of their own nervous systems, the new technology turns the figure of the primitive society into a universal ground that buries all previous figures.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 25

Men, Universe

“Back in those days, when I heard a mod that was better than mine I went back to the drawing board and tried to figure out how this sound was made and how the idea was thought up. I still think this way.”

Jesper Kyd (1972) musician

Amiga Music Preservation interview, 2006

Way, Idea, Thinking, Drawing

“Dr. King was a powerful figure of destiny, of courage, of sacrifice, and of vision. Few people in the long history of this nation can rival his accomplishment, his reason, or his selfless dedication to the cause of peace and social justice.
Today we honor a wise teacher, an inspiring leader, and a true visionary, but to truly honor Dr. King we must do more than say words of praise.
We must learn his lessons and put his views into practice, so that we may truly be free at last.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

Lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1990)

People, Peace, Justice, History

“I'm confused about who the news belongs to. I always have it in my head that if your name's in the news, then the news should be paying you. Because it's your news and they're taking it and selling it as their product. But then they always say that they're helping you, and that's true too, but still, if people didn't give the news their news, and if everybody kept their news to themselves, the news wouldn't have any news. So I guess you should pay each other. But I haven't figured it out fully yet.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 5: Fame

People, Help

“{{Smallcaps|i suspect that the emotional complex known as love is a several-sided figure. the achievement of it requires several necessary conditions. first: mutual attraction, physical and mental. we have already discussed this: you like her looks, she likes yours. you like her personality, she likes yours.
Second,}} HARLIE continued, {{Smallcaps|mutual rapport. you understand her, she understands you. physical rapport included. (part of this is mutual tolerance; the rapport guarantees that.)
third: mutual need, both intellectual and emotional. it is not always enough to want each other. the need must also be there. She must complement you and vice versa. this is one of the most important facets of the love relationship. if the need element is lacking, when the want wears thin, then there is no reason for the relationship to continue. but if the want wanes and the need is still strong, then the latter will reinforce the former.}}”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 31 (p. 186; HARLIE)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

Love, Understanding, Strong, Parting

“Suddenly, I wondered what the hell was going on. Ramón had been the smartest and most capable guy in our whole grade in “thinking” and “figuring” out things, and he’d been considered dumb, too. And now Gus, he was also the smartest guy of all of us during recess and he just said that he’d been flunked before. This didn’t make any damn—I mean, blessed—sense to me at all! The smartest kids I knew were all considered stupid.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Stupidity, Guy, Hell, Thinking

“Although I am not averse to wasting a few hours playing computer games, I have never tried my hand at Doom. Judging by sales figures and testimonials, playing the game has to be an infinitely preferable experience to watching this pathetic excuse for a movie.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=928 of Doom (2005). One-star reviews

Game

“Drinking’s funny. When I look back on it, all of our important decisions have been figured out when we were drinking. Even when we talked about having to cut back on drinking, we’d be sitting at the kitchen table or out at the picnic table with a six-pack or whiskey.”

Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)

Drink, Decision

“At that second exhibition I had to peer into them and look through the grayed color and wonder what it would be like not gray and then wonder what the forms would be like not crabbed by the figures and trees.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd (1974), as quoted in: Joseph J. Rishel et al. (2009) Cézanne and beyond. p. 94: Talking about the work of Cezanne.
1970s

Color, Tree

“Figure out where you're going before you go there: he was told that a long time ago.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Time

“Depersonalization is a concept difficult to delineate. It can be regarded as a symptom or as a loosely associated group of symptoms that occurs in psychiatric patients. It can be induced experimentally and also occurs spontaneously in normal subjects. A major obstacle to clearer definition of this concept lies in the fact that it refers to exceedingly private events in the individual's experience. These prove very difficult to describe by a language geared to the description of public (consensually validated) events or private events, such as pain, that occur usually in clearly defined social settings. When it comes to describing and conveying something as ineffable as depersonalization or derealization, the subject resorts to metaphors, "as if" expressions, and figures of speech. The result is semantic confusion. Different authors mean different things when they use the term depersonalization.
The concept of depersonalization merges by imperceptible degrees with the concept derealization, the concept of altered body image and self, deja vu, jamais vu, altered time and space perception and so on - the whole gamut of phenomenological description of the experiences of mental patients. Therefore, it is rather difficult to evaluate and to review objectively the psychiatric literature on the phenomena of depersonalization.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Depersonalization, (1970), p. 171

Pain, Literature, Time

“Can anyone alter fate? All of us combined…or one great figure…or someone strategically placed, who happens to be in the right spot. Chance. Accident. And our lives, our world, hanging on it.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

Fate, World, Chance

“If it hurt me to have to give up a painting I figured it had to hurt them to write the check. That's how I came up with the price for my work.”

Keariene Muizz (1977) American artist

Associated Press (2008); from an interview conducted by John Rogers.

Hurt, Painting

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

Wisdom, People, Books, Age

“These thirty years, and more, that I've spent among exotic, barbaric, indomitable gods and goddesses, nourished on myths, obsessed by symbols, nursed and bewitched by so many images which have come down to me from those submerged worlds, today seem to me to be the stages of a long initiation. Each one of these divine figures, each of these myths or symbols, is connected to a danger that was confronted and overcome. How many times I was almost lost, gone astray in this labyrinth where I risked being killed… These were not only bits of knowledge acquired slowly and leisurely in books, but so many encounters, confrontations, and temptations. I realize perfectly well now all the dangers I skirted during this long quest, and, in the first place, the risk of forgetting that I had a goal… that I wanted to reach a "center."”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Journal entry (10 November 1959) published in No Souvenirs (1977) , 74-5. Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989).

God, Books, World, Knowledge

“Voltaire remarked that it is possible to kill a flock of sheep by witchcraft if you give them plenty of arsenic at the same time. The sheep, in this figure, may well stand for the complacent apologists of capitalism; Marx's penetrating insight and bitter hatred of oppression supply the arsenic, while the labour theory of value provides the incantations.”

Joan Robinson book An Essay on Marxian Economics

Source: An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966), Chapter III, The Labour Theory Of Value, p. 22

Time

“Where do Goldman and Eaton and Trautmann and Zelliot and Gold figure in the canon of South Asian Studies? Judging from the country where they work in, the United States of America, not very high. Were they to enter a seminar room at the Association of Asian Studies meetings there would not be the buzz that would certainly accompany the entrance of diasporic scholars ten times as glamorous but not half as accomplished.”

Ramachandra Guha (1958) historian and writer from India

[Guha, Ramachandra, The Ones Who Stayed Behind, http://ramachandraguha.in/archives/the-ones-who-stayed-behind-economic-and-political-weekly.html, Economic and Political Weekly, 22nd March 2003]

Study, Time, Country

“It is some improvement that for married couples – or male-female couples in general – the fertility indicator expressing the nation’s demographic situation has risen from 1.2 to 1.44, and this is promising, but 1.44 is still very far from 2. In order to feel safe demographically, the average statistical ratio of children to Hungarian couples should be 2.1. In practice this is hard to implement, but this is the average figure we should have. Until we reach that point, Hungarians must be seen as an endangered species demographically; and the people – but the Government above all – should understand the imperative which is implicit in this.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Children, People, Feeling, Understanding

“There is no need for him to call on me. I am not about to be a party to anything having to do with the law that is going to destroy individual freedom and liberty in this country. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy our free enterprise system. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy neighborhood schools. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy the rights of private property. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys your right --and my right -- to choose my neighbors -- or to sell my house to whomever I choose. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys the labor seniority system. I am having nothing to do with this so-called civil rights bill. The liberal left-wingers have passed it. Now let them employ some pinknik social engineers in Washington, D. C., to figure out what to do with it.”

George Wallace (1919–1998) 45th Governor of Alabama

Speech http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/speech-by-george-c-wallace-the-civil-rights-movement-fraud-sham-and-hoax-1964-.php (4 July 1964) 1960s

School, Law, Freedom, Housing

“When first thy pencil did these beaties give
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live”

Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) American poet

To A young African painter from Poems on Various Subjects kindle ebook ASIN B0083ZJ7SU

“A historical figure gives up leaving an unpayable debt.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

2 June, 2014, after the announcement of the abdication of King Juan Carlos I. As President, 2014 Source: El Confidencial http://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2014-06-02/rajoy-renuncia-una-figura-historica-que-deja-una-impagable-deuda_139969/

“Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor and retrieves still older figures – it causes floods of antiques or nostalgic art forms and stimulates the search for museum pieces.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, The argument: causality in the electric world (1973)

Art, Search

“Keep your freedom, keep your immortality, but somewhere along the line I hope you figure out what you're living forever for. What noble purpose you mean to achieve. Because you're no good to anyone here, not even yourselves.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Treason (1988)

Hope, Freedom

“The Orient that appears in Orientalism, then, is a system of representations framed by a whole set of forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and later, Western empire. … The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear the figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe.”

Edward Said book Orientalism

Orientalism (1978)

World, Learning, Appearance

“I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else… to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from "All men have secrets and these are Morrissey’s", interview by Neil McCormick,Hot Press (4 May 1984)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Women, Fear, School, Feeling

“People keep on wanting fetish figures, and things like that are very popular. That's Pop art. There was an enormous resistance to Abstract Expressionism and there still is to that school, which is not dead at all. But Pop art came as a reaction to that because kids can't paint abstract expressionism unless they're under five year of age. Because it really is tremendously hard work and it's very challenging. But the point is, people love an immediately recognizable word – if you put a word in anything, they lie it... I am not interested in culture at all. Once a work of art has gotten into the culture, its dead as far as I'm concerned. I think there is a difference between art and culture. Or as the sage once said, 'Art is what we do; culture is what is done to us.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, pp. 22-23

Love, People, Lie, Age

“The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers - Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices. You're going to challenge. You're going to say, "Why not?". You're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here's the deal: These are your choices, they are no one else's. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, "How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all of the odds against you?" And Mao Zedong said, you know, "You fight your war, and I'll fight mine." And think about that for a second. You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don't have to follow other peoples choices and paths. Ok? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war, you lay out your own path, you figure out what's right for you. You don't let external definition define how good you are internally, you fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path.”

Anita Dunn (1958) American political strategist

Speech at the Washington National Cathedral for St. Andrews Episcopal High School's (of Bethesda Maryland) graduation on June 5, 2009. It was broadcast on the Glenn Beck Show, Oct 15, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi1zg2NOCn8 http://www.saes.org/academics/lower_school/newsletter.aspx?StartDate=6/2/2009

War, People, Thinking, Fight

“People are a bit blind. They don’t see life. Being a photographer I see life, every inch of it. I’m obsessed with nature and animals and the earth; I find concrete things that distract me. Most people are the opposite… they find life boring, squirrels or sparrows boring, whereas I find them fascinating. It has to do with the way we live. It probably started with religion which leads some people astray. To fight over whose god is better has nothing to do with love or spirituality. Perhaps it’s guilt. We are suppressed and spend our time trying to figure out who we are. The most shocking thing I’ve learned concerns abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, abuse to every living creature. There is a world of little Hitlers out there. Slaughterhouses, vivisection and experimenting on animals for no reason is sick. Luckily younger people are becoming more aware.”

Linda McCartney (1941–1998) American photographer

Interview with Linda McCartney http://oobujoobu.tumblr.com/post/10590341050/interview-with-linda-mccartney by Karen Fox, Diamond Hard Music Entertainment, 1989.

Love, Life, God, People

“You use things; the idea is, of course, to eliminate things [in making a picture]. And just as fifteen or eighteen years ago [when Guston made whole figurative series of children's pictures: 'all sort of props and so on'] I stretched out to get that, - put it in and took it out - to get that look in that's kid's eye and the way his mouth was open or wasn't - I mean a very particular kind of look - I'd do the same now. In other words, I can't find any freedom in abstract painting [but Guston did abstract painting in 1960 - till in 1967 he moved to figuration]. I'am just as stuck with locations, a few areas of colour in relation to some kind of totality that I want, as I was before. And so the problem of figuration is somehow irrelevant to me. I think some of the best painting done in New York today is figuration, but it's not recognised as such... Well I think of my pictures as a kind of figuration... I think every good painter here in New York really paints a self-portrait..”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1950 - 1960, Interview with David Sylvester, BBC (March 1960), pp. 92-93

Children, Way, Idea, Problem

“After listening to the debate on unemployment I can see a danger that Liberals lose to the Tories their claim to have new and sensible ideas and are left saying "Me too" to a Socialist conventional wisdom which is failing…The salient need of this country—to produce more and much more efficiently—hardly figured on the agenda.”

Jo Grimond (1913–1993) British soldier, politician and academic

The Sunday Times (19 September, 1976).

Wisdom, Idea, Country

“And the last point I would make about it is, the billionaires and millionaires that are going to be impacted by higher rates, they can afford to hire the best lawyers, lobbyists and accountants in America to figure out how not to pay those higher rates.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

The Atlantic Washington Ideas Forum, , quoted in * 2012-11-15
2013-02-16
Marco Rubio On Tax Hikes For The Rich: Why Bother?
Elise
Foley
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/marco-rubio-tax-hikes_n_2136829.html
2010s, 2012

“At the beginning of the season he told me he wanted more homers and more runs batted in. He even named the figures: 25 homers and 115 RBIs. I could have hit more homers before if I wanted to, but I never cared about hitting them. I think a.350 batting average does the same good for a team as 25 homers and 100 runs batted in. But of course, if Walker wants more homers, it's okay with me.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Voted Most Valuable In National League" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kRQhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GIwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7374%2C2380506&dq=beginning-sea-son-told-wanted by the Associated Press, in The Sarasota Journal (Wednesday, November 16, 1966), p. 20 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

Thinking, Season

“While Poe and the Symbolists were exploring the irrational in literature, Freud had begun to explore the resonant figure/ground double-plot of the conscious and unconscious.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 52

Literature

“In illustration of his entire preoccupation with his studies, we are told that he would forget all about his food and such necessities of life, and would be drawing geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, or, when anointing himself, in the oil on his body.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

p, 125
Achimedes (1920)

Life, Food, Study, Drawing

“Men are liars. We'll lie about lying if we have to. I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.”

Tim Allen (1953) American actor, voiceover artist and comedian

As quoted in Land Your Dream Job : High-Performance Techniques to Get Noticed, Get Hired, and Get Ahead (2007) by John Middleton, Ken Langdon, and Nikki Cartwright

Men, Lie, Lying

“We have a design [special characteristics of the detector] which is entirely based on a single magnet, a high field solenoid. The first thing one actually does in the design of the experiment is actually to figure out the magnetic field configuration for the measurement of muons. That then determines the rest of the design. The detector is built such that [see diagram] the first layer is within a tracker, which is all silicon.”

Tejinder Virdee (1952) British physicist

"Discovery machine; Interview with Dr. Jim Virdee," 2010

“In 2014, one of the key agendas of the BJP’s election campaign was highlighting the dismal management of the Indian economy, ironically under an ‘economist’ prime minister and a ‘know-it-all’ finance minister. We all knew that the economy was in the doldrums but since we were not in government, we naturally did not have the complete details of the state of the economy. But, what we saw when we formed the government left us shocked! The state of the economy was much worse than expected. Things were terrible. Even the budget figures were suspicious. When all of this came to light, we had two options – to be driven by Rajneeti (political considerations) or be guided by Rashtraneeti (putting the interests of India First)… Rajneeti, or playing politics on the state of the economy in 2014, would have been extremely simple as well as politically advantageous for us. We had just won a historic election, so obviously the frenzy was at a different level. The Congress Party and their allies were in big trouble. Even for the media, it would have made news for months on end. On the other hand, there was Rashtraneeti, where more than politics and one-upmanship, reform was needed. Needless to say, we preferred to think of ‘India First’ instead of putting politics first. We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy. The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I’ in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi, Swarajya Interviews Prime Minister Modi, Interview, R Jagannathan- Jul 02, 2018 https://swarajyamag.com/economy/swarajya-interviews-prime-minister-modi-the-state-of-indian-economy 2018

Disappointment, Nature, Thinking, Light