“War is like love, it always finds a way.”
The Chaplain, in Scene 6, p. 76
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)
“War is like love, it always finds a way.”
The Chaplain, in Scene 6, p. 76
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)
Source: 1946 - 1963, Cahiers d'art', 1954, p. 14
“When God would make His name known to mankind, He could find no better word than "I AM."”
The Pursuit of God (1957)
"10 Questions With Climber and BASE Jumper Steph Davis" https://www.adventure-journal.com/2013/07/10-questions-with-climber-and-base-jumper-steph-davis/, Adventure Journal (July 22, 2013).
Source: The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, 1945, p. 42; Partly cited in Urwick & Brech (1949, 216)
Source: Full House (1996), p. 212
"Charley" Boarman's personal application sent along with his father's earlier letter
A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815 (1991)
Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Christ (1983) as quoted in "Does Reagan Expect a Nuclear Armageddon?" by Ronnie Dugger in Washington Post Outlook (8 April 1984)
a comment on Facebook (June 2012) http://www.facebook.com/julia.galef/posts/10100387951009862
Dealing with the backlash against intelligent design
2004-04-14
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.04.Backlash.htm
2011-10-23, also published in [William A. (ed.), Dembski, Darwin's nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the intelligent design movement, 2006, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill., 9780830828364, [BT1220.D28, 2006], 2005033144]
2000s
On the causes of unemployment (1951, pg.147-48) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=174849
“Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you will find the real tinsel underneath.”
As quoted in Jewish Wit (1962) by Theodor Reik, p. 104, also in Inquisition in Eden (1965) and Whatever It Is, I’m Against It (1984) by Nat Shapiro.
The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism (2014)
Philosophy and Real Politics (2008).
Philosophy and Real Politics (2008)
Remaking the world, The Speeches of Frank N.D. Buchman, Blandford Presss 1947, revised 1958, p. 150
Quotes on the war of ideas
Twilight.
Lyrics, From a Basement on the Hill (posthumous, 2004)
Interview by Mark Prindle, 2003 ( link http://www.markprindle.com/hall-i.htm)
Quotes from interviews
Source: Rodin : the man and his art, with leaves from his notebook, 1917, p. 99
Source: "Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science," 1890, p. 466 : On the need of text-books on higher mathematics
"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 320
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
via Boing Boing http://boingboing.net/2016/04/14/the-story-of-traceroute-about.html
Letter to Guy M. Bryan (1 January 1881)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
“If you want to know why Lisp doesn't win around you, find a mirror.”
Re: Java is really convenient. Re: Sun thinks about switching Java to S-expression syntax: Lava http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a6328749f51dfaee (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Lisp
In an interview (March 1960) with David Sylvester, edited for broadcasting by the BBC first published in 'Location', Spring 1963; as quoted in Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, p. 54
1960's
Genes and Sexuality: An Exchange (1995)
Thompson (1991) Fast Foreword, from The American Replacement of Nature.
Other
Statement at the Masiela Lusha board page http://www.masielalusha.com/board.php
Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 17
p, 125
Geometrical Lectures (1735)
“Sometimes the best way to find the truth is to create a fiction.”
From Interviews
Sahara Reporters http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/crimes-buhari-wole-soyinka
Letter to Dr. Bostock (June, 1798) as quoted by George Peacock, Life of Thomas Young (1855)
The Baggies made amends and striker Robert Earnshaw equalised with ten minutes to go. The Gunners as a result had failed to close the gap at the top of the league, which helped open a five-point gap with Chelsea by the end of November 2004.
The Pittsburgh Press (3 August 1986) "Gadhafi, the man the world loves to hate" by Marie Colvin (UPI)
Source: Mathematics as an Educational Task (1973), p. 363
An Essay on the Beautiful
Context: Perhaps, the good and the beautiful are the same, and must be investigated by one and the same process; and in like manner the base and the evil. And in the first rank we must place the beautiful, and consider it as the same with the good; from which immediately emanates intellect as beautiful. Next to this, we must consider the soul receiving its beauty from intellect, and every inferior beauty deriving its origin from the forming power of the soul, whether conversant in fair actions and offices, or sciences and arts. Lastly, bodies themselves participate of beauty from the soul, which, as something divine, and a portion of the beautiful itself, renders whatever it supervenes and subdues, beautiful as far as its natural capacity will admit.
Let us, therefore, re-ascend to the good itself, which every soul desires; and in which it can alone find perfect repose. For if anyone shall become acquainted with this source of beauty he will then know what I say, and after what manner he is beautiful. Indeed, whatever is desirable is a kind of good, since to this desire tends. But they alone pursue true good, who rise to intelligible beauty, and so far only tend to good itself; as far as they lay aside the deformed vestments of matter, with which they become connected in their descent. Just as those who penetrate into the holy retreats of sacred mysteries, are first purified and then divest themselves of their garments, until someone by such a process, having dismissed everything foreign from the God, by himself alone, beholds the solitary principle of the universe, sincere, simple and pure, from which all things depend, and to whose transcendent perfections the eyes of all intelligent natures are directed, as the proper cause of being, life and intelligence. With what ardent love, with what strong desire will he who enjoys this transporting vision be inflamed while vehemently affecting to become one with this supreme beauty! For this it is ordained, that he who does not yet perceive him, yet desires him as good, but he who enjoys the vision is enraptured with his beauty, and is equally filled with admiration and delight. Hence, such a one is agitated with a salutary astonishment; is affected with the highest and truest love; derides vehement affections and inferior loves, and despises the beauty which he once approved. Such, too, is the condition of those who, on perceiving the forms of gods or daemons, no longer esteem the fairest of corporeal forms. What, then, must be the condition of that being, who beholds the beautiful itself?
Source: Law and Authority (1886), I
Context: Men who long for freedom begin the attempt to obtain it by entreating their masters to be kind enough to protect them by modifying the laws which these masters themselves have created!
But times and tempers are changed. Rebels are everywhere to be found who no longer wish to obey the law without knowing whence it comes, what are its uses, and whither arises the obligation to submit to it, and the reverence with which it is encompassed. The rebels of our day are criticizing the very foundations of society which have hitherto been held sacred, and first and foremost amongst them that fetish, law.
The critics analyze the sources of law, and find there either a god, product of the terrors of the savage, and stupid, paltry, and malicious as the priests who vouch for its supernatural origin, or else, bloodshed, conquest by fire and sword. They study the characteristics of law, and instead of perpetual growth corresponding to that of the human race, they find its distinctive trait to be immobility, a tendency to crystallize what should be modified and developed day by day.
1780s, Letter to Peter Carr (1787)
Context: Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love.
O interview (2003)
Context: The whole society is obsessed.... I'm not complaining — I'm just saying, "Don't be too impressed with me. Don't try to dress like me or wear your hair like mine. Find your own style. Don't spend your savings trying to be someone else. You're not more important, smarter, or prettier because you wear a designer dress." I only wear the expensive clothes because I get them free and I'm too lazy to go out and look for my own. I, a rich girl from Mexico, came here with designer clothes. And one day when I was starving in an apartment in Los Angeles, I looked at my Chanel blouses and said, "If only I could pay the rent with one of these." … In those days, the rag I used to dry my dishes was more useful. Now many who start in this business come to me for advice and ask, "How do I get started?" And I have to say, "I honestly have no idea." I think it's a bunch of accidents that happen to you and somehow you survive them and take advantage of them and something magical happens — and you have an agent.
Source: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999, p. 7
The World's Religions (1991)
Context: The religions begin by assuring us that if we could see the full picture we would find it more integrated than we would normally suppose. Life gives us no view of the whole. [... ] It is as if life were a great tapestry, which we face from its wrong side. This gives it the appearance of a maze of knots and threads, which for the most part appear chaotic.
From a purely human standpoint the wisdom traditions are the species' most prolonged and serious attempts to infer from the maze on this side of the tapestry the pattern which, on its right side, gives meaning to the whole. As the beauty and harmony of the design derive from the way its parts are related, the design confers on these parts a significance that we, seeing only scraps of the design, do not normally perceive.
“One day you'll find a love, and then we can talk on equal terms.”
ibid
Drenai series, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf
Context: One day you'll find a love, and then we can talk on equal terms. I do not mean that to sound patronizing. You are bright and intelligent. You have courage and wit. But sometimes, it is like trying to describe colors to a blind man. Love, as I hope you will find, has great power. Even death cannot destroy it. And I still love her.
“We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is an illusion.”
Pages 66 http://books.google.com/books?id=LGLuAAAAMAAJ&q=%22We+seek+to+find+peace+of+mind+in+the+word+the%22&pg=PA66#v=onepage – 67 http://books.google.com/books?id=LGLuAAAAMAAJ&q=%22formula+the+ritual+The+hope+is+an+illusion%22&pg=PA67#v=onepage
Other writings, The Growth of the Law (1924)
Context: Magic words and incantations are as fatal to our science as they are to any other. Methods, when classified and separated, acquire their true bearing and perspective as a means to an end, not as ends in themselves. We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is an illusion.
Source: The Story of My Life (1903), Ch. 21
Context: Ruth is so loyal and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn. Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night of a dark and cruel age. Love like Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in all the world.
"Information Management: A Proposal" https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html (March 1989), the original proprosal for the software project at CERN that became the World Wide Web.
Context: We should work toward a universal linked information system, in which generality and portability are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities. The aim would be to allow a place to be found for any information or reference which one felt was important, and a way of finding it afterwards. The result should be sufficiently attractive to use that it the information contained would grow past a critical threshold, so that the usefulness the scheme would in turn encourage its increased use. The passing of this threshold accelerated by allowing large existing databases to be linked together and with new ones.
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Context: There is no Heav'en, there is no Hell; these be the dreams of baby minds,
Tools of the wily Fetisheer, to 'fright the fools his cunning blinds.
Learn from the mighty Spi'rits of old to set thy foot on Heav'en and Hell;
In Life to find thy hell and heav'en as thou abuse or use it well.
“It's so rare to find a movie that doesn't take sides.”
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/house-of-sand-and-fog-2003 of House of Sand and Fog (26 December 2003)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: It's so rare to find a movie that doesn't take sides. Conflict is said to be the basis of popular fiction, and yet here is a film that seizes us with its first scene and never lets go, and we feel sympathy all the way through for everyone in it. To be sure, they sometimes do bad things, but the movie understands them and their flaws. Like great fiction, House of Sand and Fog sees into the hearts of its characters, and loves and pities them. … "House of Sand and Fog" relates not a plot with its contrived ups and downs but a story. A plot is about things that happen. A story is about people who behave.
To admire a story you must be willing to listen to the people and observe them, and at the end of House of Sand and Fog, we have seen good people with good intentions who have their lives destroyed because they had the bad luck to come across a weak person with shabby desires.
Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961)
Context: I believed from the beginning of remembered experience that I was somebody with an incalculable potential for enlargement, somebody who both knew and could find out, upon whom demands could be made with the expectation of having them fulfilled.
I felt at the same time, and pretty much constantly, that I was nothing in relation to Enormity, the Unknown, and the Unknowable. I was too vulnerable, too lacking in power, a thing of subtle reality, liable to be blown away without a moment's warning, a migrant with no meaning, no guide, no counsel, an entity in continuous transition, a growing thing whose stages of growth always went unnoticed, a fluid and flawed thing. Thus, there could be no extreme vanity in my recognition of myself, if in fact there could be any at all. I did frequently rejoice in the recognition, but I may have gotten that from some of the Protestant hymns I had heard, and knew, and had sung, such as Joy to the World. The simple fact was that if the song wasn't about me, I couldn't see how it could possibly be about anybody else, including the one I knew it was supposed to be about, and good luck to him, too.
Inaugural address (1889)
Context: Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the great mining and manufacturing enterprises which have recently been established in the South may yet find that the free ballot of the workingman, without distinction of race, is needed for their defense as well as for his own? I do not doubt that if those men in the South who now accept the tariff views of Clay and the constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real convictions they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and cooperation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only in establishing correct principles in our national administration, but in preserving for their local communities the benefits of social order and economical and honest government. At least until the good offices of kindness and education have been fairly tried the contrary conclusion can not be plausibly urged.
Interviewed on Les Hixon's show "In The Spirit" on WBAI New York (November 1972)
1950s, Atoms for Peace (1953)
Context: Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the "Great Destroyers" but the whole book of history reveals mankind's never-ending quest for peace, and mankind's God-given capacity to build. It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreement, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom, and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life. So my country's purpose is to help us move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men every where, can move forward toward peace and happiness and well being.
On Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
Bono: The Rolling Stone Interview (2017)
Context: These last two albums mix up the personal and the political so that you don't know which one you're talking to. That's a kind of magic trick, and realizing that of course all the problems that we find in the exterior world are just manifestations of what we, you know, what we hold inside of us, in our interior worlds. The biggest fucker, the biggest asshole, the biggest, the most sexist we can be, the most selfish, mean, cunning, all those characters you are going to see them in the mirror. And that is where the job of transformation has to start first. Is that not what experience tells us?
Blessings (1998)
Context: When I listen to love, I am listening to my true nature. When I express love, I am expressing my true nature. All of us love. All of us do it more and more perfectly. The past has brought us both ashes and diamonds. In the present we find the flowers of what we've planted and the seeds of what we are becoming. I plant the seeds of love in my heart. I plant the seeds of love in the hearts of others.
Athenäumsfragmente 414
Variant translations:
People who are eccentric enough to be quite seriously virtuous understand each other everywhere, discover each other easily, and form a silent opposition to the ruling immorality that happens to pass for morality.
Philosophical Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991) § 414
Athenäum (1798 - 1800)
Context: If there is an invisible church, then it is of the great paradox, which is inseparable from morality, and which must be distinguished from the merely philosophical. People who are so eccentric that they are completely serious in being and becoming virtuous understand one another in everything, find one another easily, and form a silent opposition against the prevailing immorality that pretends to be morality. A certain mysticism of expression, which joined with romantic fantasy and grammatical understanding, can be something charming and good, often serves as a symbol of their beautiful secrets.
With No Apologies (1979)
Context: My faith in the future rests squarely on the belief that man, if he doesn't first destroy himself, will find new answers in the universe, new technologies, new disciplines, which will contribute to a vastly different and better world in the twenty-first century. Recalling what has happened in my short lifetime in the fields of communication and transportation and the life sciences, I marvel at the pessimists who tell us that we have reached the end of our productive capacity, who project a future of primarily dividing up what we now have and making do with less. To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom.
Source: Success! (1977), p. 145
Context: Your chances of success are directly proportional to the degree of pleasure you derive from what you do. If you are in a job you hate, face the fact squarely and get out. You may earn a good living, you may have a safe career, but you will never be a success. Find out what you enjoy doing, and your chances of succeeding will be dramatically better. We play the game every day, sometimes without even recognizing that we're doing it. We compete with other people, or other teams, or other companies, not only because it is essential to business survival, but because we frankly enjoy competition. It's fun to be in the game, and it's even more fun to win.
“A man must stand against evil wherever he finds it and he must use all his talents.”
Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 6
Context: Nothing in life is easy, Arvan. But it's what I'm trained for. To lead an army. To bring death and destruction on my enemies [... ] A man must stand against evil wherever he finds it and he must use all his talents.
“We find that the Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their camps and unwearied cultivation of the other arts of war.”
Nulla enim alia re uidemus populum Romanum orbem subegisse terrarum nisi armorum exercitio, disciplina castrorum usuque militiae.
De Re Militari (also Epitoma Rei Militaris), Book I, "The Selection and Training of New Levies"
Context: Victory in war does not depend entirely upon numbers or mere courage; only skill and discipline will insure it. We find that the Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their camps and unwearied cultivation of the other arts of war. Without these, what chance would the inconsiderable numbers of the Roman armies have had against the multitudes of the Gauls? Or with what success would their small size have been opposed to the prodigious stature of the Germans? The Spaniards surpassed us not only in numbers, but in physical strength. We were always inferior to the Africans in wealth and unequal to them in deception and stratagem. And the Greeks, indisputably, were far superior to us in skill in arts and all kinds of knowledge. (Book 1)
Experiment and Theory in Physics (1943), p. 44
Context: I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. We do not find signposts at crossroads, but our own scouts erect them, to help the rest.
“Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”
Source: "The Conduct of Inquiry", p. 28.
Context: In addition to the social pressures from the scientific community there is also at work a very human trait of individual scientist. I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled.
Source: Anarchy after Leftism (1997), Chapter 11: Anarchy after Leftism
Context: There is life after the left. And there is anarchy after anarchism. Post-leftist anarchists are striking off in many directions. Some may find the way — better yet, the ways — to a free future.
Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938), Ch. 1 "Anarchism: Its Aims and Purposes"
Context: Power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every manifestation of life into the straitjacket of its laws. Its intellectual form of expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force. And this unintelligence of its objectives sets its stamp on its supporters also and renders them stupid and brutal, even when they were originally endowed with the best of talents. One who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order at last becomes a machine himself and loses all human feeling.
It was from the understanding of this that modern Anarchism was born and now draws its moral force. Only freedom can inspire men to great things and bring about social and political transformations. The art of ruling men has never been the art of educating men and inspiring them to a new shaping of their lives. Dreary compulsion has at its command only lifeless drill, which smothers any vital initiative at its birth and can bring forth only subjects, not free men. Freedom is the very essence of life, the impelling force in all intellectual and social development, the creator of every new outlook for the future of mankind. The liberation of man from economic exploitation and from intellectual and political oppression, which finds its finest expression in the world-philosophy of Anarchism, is the first prerequisite for the evolution of a higher social culture and a new humanity.
Statement at the funeral of Aristotle Onassis, as quoted in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis : A Life (2000) by Donald Spoto.
Context: Aristotle Onassis rescued me at a moment when my life was engulfed with shadows. He brought me into a world where one could find both happiness and love. We lived through many beautiful experiences together which cannot be forgotten, and for which I will be eternally grateful.
Review of Magnolia (1999), in review for Great Movies (27 November 2008) http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-magnolia-1999
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Magnolia is a film of sadness and loss, of lifelong bitterness, of children harmed and adults destroying themselves. As the narrator tells us near the end, "We may be through with the past, but the past is never through with us." In this wreckage of lifetimes, there are two figures, a policeman and a nurse, who do what they can to offer help, hope and love. … The central theme is cruelty to children, and its lasting effect. This is closely linked to a loathing or fear of behaving as we are told, or think, that we should. … As an act of filmmaking, it draws us in and doesn't let go. It begins deceptively, with a little documentary about amazing coincidences (including the scuba diver scooped by a fire-fighting plane and dumped on a forest fire) … coincidences and strange events do happen, and they are as real as everything else. If you could stand back far enough, in fact, everything would be revealed as a coincidence. What we call "coincidences" are limited to the ones we happen to notice. … In one beautiful sequence, Anderson cuts between most of the major characters all simultaneously singing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNmKghTvj0E Aimee Mann's "It's Not Going to Stop." A directorial flourish? You know what? I think it's a coincidence. Unlike many other "hypertext movies" with interlinking plots, Magnolia seems to be using the device in a deeper, more philosophical way. Anderson sees these people joined at a level below any possible knowledge, down where fate and destiny lie. They have been joined by their actions and their choices.
And all leads to the remarkable, famous, sequence near the film's end when it rains frogs. Yes. Countless frogs, still alive, all over Los Angeles, falling from the sky. That this device has sometimes been joked about puzzles me. I find it a way to elevate the whole story into a larger realm of inexplicable but real behavior. We need something beyond the human to add another dimension. Frogs have rained from the sky eight times this century, but never mind the facts. Attend instead to Exodus 8:2, which is cited on a placard in the film: "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite your whole territory with frogs." Let who go? In this case, I believe, it refers not to people, but to fears, shames, sins.
Magnolia is one of those rare films that works in two entirely different ways. In one sense, it tells absorbing stories, filled with detail, told with precision and not a little humor. On another sense, it is a parable. The message of the parable, as with all good parables, is expressed not in words but in emotions. After we have felt the pain of these people, and felt the love of the policeman and the nurse, we have been taught something intangible, but necessary to know.
Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 182 (1943)
Judicial opinions
Revolution (2014)
Context: Diablo and I fashioned my beard together in my trailer, together, as cautiously as you’d sculpt a peace treaty between two nations that prefer war to peace. The reality was that my identity outside of filmmaking had become more important to me. I was doing hours of yoga and meditation each day, I was going through a divorce, and the result was a kind of hirsute intransigence. I looked like the cliché of a terrorist and I behaved like one. Except the beard wasn’t the symbol, it was the cause. I feel some guilt about my lack of enthusiasm for acting, like it’s a bit ungrateful. Like I’ve let my teenage self down. Mind you, he let himself down a fair bit, the dirty little pervert. The dreams of my adolescent self were entangled with silvery screens and limousines, and I still feel that I need to offer up superficial sacrifices to his misguided altar. The fact is, though, I find filmmaking a boring process and its ends dubious. This could, of course, be due to the quality of the stuff I’ve done so far, as opposed to an essential rejection of an art form. Maybe if I’d been “R. P. McMurphy” or “The Elephant Man” or “Brian,” I’d feel different. It just wasn’t what I thought it would be. It’s not just the entertainment industry that has seemed like a mirage on arrival. What about clubs and parties? When I’m there I think, “Is this it? Is this all there is? Is this what all the fuss is about?” This feeling of disillusionment perhaps climaxed around the time of my divorce and the making of this subsequent film.
On the music press
KSCA interview (1996)
Source: The Complex Vision (1920), Chapter I
Context: One of the curious psychological facts, in connection with the various ways in which various minds function, is the fact that when in these days we seek to visualize, in some pictorial manner, our ultimate view of life, the images which are called up are geometrical or chemical rather than anthropomorphic. It is probable that even the most rational and logical among us as soon as he begins to philosophize at all is compelled by the necessity of things to form in the mind some vague pictorial representation answering to his conception of the universe.
Most minds see the universe of their mental conception as something quite different from the actual stellar universe upon which we all gaze. Even the most purely rational minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form and shape and movement.
Speech to the Empire Rally of Youth at the Royal Albert Hall (18 May 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 166-167.
1937
Context: The torch I would hand to you, and ask you to pass from hand to hand along the pathways of the Empire, is a Christian truth rekindled anew in each ardent generation. Use men as ends and never merely as means; and live for the brotherhood of man, which implies the Fatherhood of God. The brotherhood of man to-day is often denied and derided and called foolishness, but it is, in fact, one of the foolish things of the world which God has chosen to confound the wise, and the world is confounded by it daily. We may evade it, we may deny it; but we shall find no rest for our souls, or will the world until we acknowledge it as the ultimate wisdom. That is the message I have tried to deliver as Prime Minister in a hundred speeches.
“And as you get older you may find that enabling-the-dreams-of-others thing is even more fun.”
The Last Lecture (2007)
Context: So what is today's talk about then? It's about my childhood dreams and how I've achieved them — I've been very fortunate that way; how I believe I've been able to enable the dreams of others, and to some degree, lessons learned: I'm a professor — there should be some lessons learned — and how you can use the stuff you hear today to enable your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older you may find that enabling-the-dreams-of-others thing is even more fun.
2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)
Context: His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and a social struggle to realize the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality. He seeks this Truth, not in isolation, self-centeredly, but with the people. He said, "I want to find God, and because I want to find God, I have to find God along with other people. I don't believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be running to the Himalayas to find God in some cave there. But since I believe that nobody can find God alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them with me. Alone I can't come to Him."
Rolling Stone (30 November 1989) https://books.google.com/books?id=4cl5c4T9LWkC&pg=PA347&lpg=PA347&dq=%22the+annoying+things+about+believing+in+free+will+and+individual+responsibility%22&source=bl&ots=87tHwdgxHT&sig=t-cX3HtpzKcKAd5GztMu4YkLLgM&hl=en&ei=Jl7OSvzgFpCMtgemntGEBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBwQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22the%20annoying%20things%20about%20believing%20in%20free%20will%20and%20individual%20responsibility%22&f=false
Context: One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
The Roving Critic (1923), p. 20
Context: Neither creator nor critic can make himself universal by barely taking thought about it. He is what he lives. The measure of the creator is the amount of life he puts Into his work. The measure of the critic is the amount of life he finds there.
We the People interview (1996)
Context: During the late sixties I had a chance to give a dozen addresses to people who were concerned with education and schooling. I asked myself, since when are people born needy? In need, for instance, of education? Since when do we have to learn the language we speak by being taught by somebody? I wanted to find out where the idea came from that all over the world people have to be assembled in specific groups of not less than fifteen, otherwise it's not a class, not more than forty, otherwise they are underprivileged, for yearly, not less than 800 hours, otherwise they don't get enough, not more than 1,100 hours, otherwise it's considered a prison, for four-year periods by somebody else who has undergone this for a longer time. How did it come about that such a crazy process like schooling would become necessary? Then I realized that it was something like engineering people, that our society doesn't only produce artifact things, but artifact people. And that it doesn't do that by the content of the curriculum, but by getting them through this ritual which makes them believe that learning happens as a result of being taught; that learning can be divided into separate tasks; that learning can be measured and pieces can be added one to the other; that learning provides value for the objects which then sell in the market.
And it's true. The more expensive the schooling of a person, the more money he will make in the course of his life. This in spite of the certainty, from a social science point of view, that there's absolutely no relationship between the curriculum content and what people actually do satisfactorily for themselves or society in life.
Freedom of expression online: Interplay of human rights and ICT (a Greens-EFa public hearing), the European Parliament, May 05 2011 [rtmpt://82.197.155.68:80/vod/20110505_feo_part2.f4v]
Context: I think if you look at the general public, if you can catch - I mean, yes, there's always risk to privacy. Because when you look at data going; you can't know "oh, that's a terrorist" and "that's not a terrorist", you probably have to look at more people to find who is a potential terrorist. But I think that you cannot belittle the need to use all possible means to avoid if only one terrorist attack.
“Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think.”
The Last Lecture (2008)
Black God's Kiss (1934)
Context: She half expected, despite her brave words, to come out upon the storied and familiar red-hot pave of hell, and this pleasant, starlit land surprised her and made her wary. The things that built the tunnel could not have been human. She had no right to expect men here. She was a little stunned by finding open sky so far underground, though she was intelligent enough to realize that however she had come, she was not underground now.
“Then evil cannot find its mark, it can breed no further evil, and is left barren.”
Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 141.
Context: The right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it. This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law. The Church is not to be a national community like the old Israel, but a community of believers without political or national ties. The old Israel had been both — the chosen people of God and a national community, and it was therefore his will that they should meet force with force. But with the Church it is different: it has abandoned political and national status, and therefore it must patiently endure aggression. Otherwise evil will be heaped upon evil. Only thus can fellowship be established and maintained.
At this point it becomes evident that when a Christian meets with injustice, he no longer clings to his rights and defends them at all costs. He is absolutely free from possessions and bound to Christ alone. Again, his witness to this exclusive adherence to Jesus creates the only workable basis for fellowship, and leaves the aggressor for him to deal with.
The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a stand-still because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. But when evil meets no opposition and encounters no obstacle but only patient endurance, its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match. Of course this can only happen when the last ounce of resistance is abandoned, and the renunciation of revenge is complete. Then evil cannot find its mark, it can breed no further evil, and is left barren.
Diary (3 January 1892)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to — no chance to reply to them.... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion.
Science and Immortality (1904)
Context: Though his philosophy finds nothing to support it, at least from the standpoint of Terence the scientific student should be ready to acknowledge the value of a belief in a hereafter as an asset in human life. In the presence of so many mysteries which have been unveiled, in the presence of so many yet unsolved, he cannot be dogmatic and deny the possibility of a future state; and however distressing such a negative attitude of mind to the Teresian, like Pyrrho, he will ask to be left, reserving his judgement, but still inquiring. He will recognize that amid the turbid ebb and flow of human misery, a belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come is the rock of safety to which many of the noblest of his fellows have clung; he will gratefully accept the incalculable comfort of such a belief to those sorrowing for precious friends hid in death's dateless night; he will acknowledge with gratitude and reverence the service to humanity of the great souls who have departed this life in a sure and certain hope but this is all. Whether across death's threshold we step from life to life, or whether we go whence we shall not return, even to the land of darkness, as darkness itself, he cannot tell.