Quotes about fitness
page 10

“The slow, the never ending approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and testing hypotheses, accepting those at which at the time seem to fit the facts and rejecting the others.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 5, The Magical Control of the Weather.

Truth, Time

“Somehow, suddenly, a musical idea occurs to you; either a whole phrase, or three notes, or a series of chords, something that seems pregnant with possibilities for development. Once you have the kinds of ideas that fascinate you, you're no longer in a position to decide the nature of the animal. It's going to take its essence from the musical ideas that occur to you…. Some musical ideas are too short, they don't seem long enough to carry you through ten minutes of music, so you have to start searching about for other ideas; contrasting ones that seem to fit with the original ones.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Aaron Copland: the Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, ISBN 0805049096.

Music, Search, Idea, Nature

“A Christian is a believer in Jesus. He believes that if he only throws his own lost and sinful soul on the Redeemer, there is in His sacrifice sufficient merit to cancel all his guilt, and in His heart sufficient love to undertake the keeping of his soul for all eternity. He believes that Jesus is a Saviour. He believes that His heart is set on His people's holiness, and that it is only by making them new creatures, pure-minded, kind-hearted, unselfish, devout, that He can fit them for a home and a life like His own, that He can fit them for the occupations and enjoyments of heaven. And believing all this he prays and labors after holiness.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 103.

Love, Life, People, Home

“A scene like Peter's denial fits into no antique genre. It is too serious for comedy, too contemporary and everyday for tragedy, politically too insignificant for history—and the form which was given it is one of such immediacy that its like does not exist in the literature of antiquity.”

Erich Auerbach Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

Source: Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946), p. 45

History, Literature

“Howard University is but one of the many institutions which have grown up in this country, dedicated to this purpose of preserving one of the races of men and fitting it for its largest usefulness. Here is a people adapted, as most people are not, to life in the tropics. They are capable of redeeming vast luxuriant areas of unexampled productivity, and of reclaiming them for the sustenance of mankind and the increasing security of the human community. It is a great destiny, to which we may now look forward with confidence that it will be fully realized.”

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

1920s, The Progress of a People (1924)

Life, Men, People, Confidence

“Control every single moment of a slaves life, every minute of their day; it would tell them where to go, what to wear, where to sleep, when to work, when to eat, what to eat, when to speak, when to be silent. This is probably the biggest form of government that human beings have ever invented in the whole of history. I vigorously support Abraham Lincoln’s federal takeover of the southern states, and his highly commendable commitment to human rights. Lincoln viewed secession as an attempt to expand slavery. The Confederacy was based on the glorification of inequality and tyranny. The southern leaders clearly spelled out their views. Their motivation was not to be left alone, it was to enshrine slavery. CSA President Jefferson Davis said all black people are 'not fit to govern themselves', and they should be treated in a manner similar to 'lunatics, criminals and children.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Joshua Felipe, as quoted in "The Libertarian Attack on Abraham Lincoln" https://diplomatdc.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/the-libertarian-attack-on-abraham-lincoln-by-gregory-hilton/ (5 June 2010), by Gregory Hilton, The DC World Affairs Blog, WordPress

Life, Children, People, History

“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (1973)

Pain, Way, Wolf, Past

“Jesus knows that we had rather labor than suffer; and that we would rather labor. and suffer, too, than be laid aside. No man is fit to rise up and labor, until he is made willing to lie still and suffer as long as his Master pleases.”

Edward Payson (1783–1827) American religious leader

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 51.

Lie, Suffering

“As much as people pretend 'I fit in, I understand, I get the rules,' there are always times spent away from that where you go, 'I thought I knew. It seemed so clear to me, and then…' That sense of loneliness, or the sense of not fitting in or being out of depth, is probably the most common denominator.”

David Fincher (1962) American film director

The Curious Case of David Fincher (2007)

People, Understanding, Sense, Time

“I believe that what we get out of our bodies is a direct result of what we put in. I (mostly) follow a plant-based diet of whole foods that helps my body stay in balance and limits additional inflammation. I try to surround myself with positive people, and I work to minimize distractions whenever possible. My lifestyle has helped me stay physically and mentally fit.”

Tom Brady (1977) American football quarterback

"Sunday Paper Exclusive: Tom Brady on the Mind of a Champion" http://mariashriver.com/tom-brady-on-the-mind-of-a-champion/, MariaShriver.com (2017).

People, Food, Help

“And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated with a spirit, or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi, were for a time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whoose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Third Part, Chapter 36, p. 226 (See also: Glossolalia)
Leviathan (1651)

Men, Sense, Time, Madness

“Fitness is defined differently by everyone, but for me, the most important thing is being healthy. As tennis players, what we do is not the healthiest thing. We almost abuse our bodies.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

In Zee News: I quit singles to prolong my career, says Sania http://zeenews.india.com/sports/tennis/i-quit-singles-to-prolong-my-career-says-sania_757389.html, 2 March 2013

“Goethe, as lately quoted by Matthew Arnold, said those who have science and art have religion; and added, let those who have not science and art have the popular faith; let them have this escape, because the others are closed to them. Without any hold upon the ideal, or any insight into the beauty and fitness of things, the people turn from the tedium and the grossness and prosiness of daily life, to look for the divine, the sacred, the saving, in the wonderful, the miraculous, and in that which baffles reason. The disciples of Jesus thought of the kingdom of heaven as some external condition of splendor and pomp and power which was to be ushered in by hosts of trumpeting angels, and the Son of man in great glory, riding upon the clouds, and not for one moment as the still small voice within them. To find the divine and the helpful in the mean and familiar, to find religion without the aid of any supernatural machinery, to see the spiritual, the eternal life in and through the life that now is--in short, to see the rude, prosy earth as a star in the heavens, like the rest, is indeed the lesson of all others the hardest to learn.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Source: The Light of Day (1900), Ch. IV: Natural Versus Supernatural

Life, People, Faith, Religion

“…The subjects we study at school can be divided roughly into two groups—the sciences and the arts. The sciences include mathematics, geography, chemistry, physics, and so on. Among the arts are drawing, painting, modelling, needlework, drama, music, literature. The purpose of education is to fit us for life in a civilised community, and it seems to follow from the subjects we study that the two most important things in civilised life are Art and Science.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, English Literature: A Survey for Students (1958, revised 1974)

Life, Education, School, Art

“I have directed the Commissary and Quartermaster-General of this department to lay in provisions and provender, upon the back road to Philadelphia, for twenty thousand men for three months. The principal magazine will be at Aquackanock. I shall fortify it as soon as possible, and secure that post and the pass at the bridge, which is now repaired and fit for an army to pass over, with the baggage and artillery.”

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

Letter to George Washington (24 October 1776)

Men

“The prime minister, because of his unreasoned drive to get his own way, his obstinacy, impetuous and emotional reactions, has imposed strains upon the Liberal Party, the government and the public service. I do not believe he is fit to hold the great office of prime minister, and I cannot serve in his government.”

Malcolm Fraser (1930–2015) Australian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia

Fraser resigning from cabinet on 8 March 1971 and denouncing John Gorton's leadership http://australianpolitics.com/1971/03/09/malcolm-frasers-resignation-speech.html

Way

“I'm reading George Borrow's Lavengro… and, of course, it fits perfectly into the pattern of my current reading! - Fallada and Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives Tale, i. e. my constant musings on the nineteenth century. I was amazed to learn from Bennett's book that in Papa's childhood you could watch an execution, which was a public entertainment, a real show, with high prices paid for windows with a good view, and the local hotels doing a roaring trade.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

Books, Learning, Reading, Childhood

“In strategic thinking, one first seeks a clear understanding of the particular character of each element of a situation and then makes the fullest possible use of human brainpower to restructure the elements in the most advantageous way. Phenomena and events in the real word do not always fit a linear model. Hence the most reliable means of dissecting a situation into its constituent parts and reassembling then in the desired pattern is not a step-by-step methodology such as systems analysis. Rather, it is that ultimate nonlinear thinking tool, the human brain. True strategic thinking thus contrasts sharply with the conventional mechanical systems approach based on linear thinking. But it also contrasts with the approach that stakes everything on intuition, reaching conclusions without any real breakdown or analysis… No matter how difficult or unprecedented the problem, a breakthrough to the best possible solution can come only from a combination of rational analysis, based on the real nature of things, and imaginative reintegration of all the different items into a new pattern, using nonlinear brainpower. This is always the most effective approach to devising strategies for dealing successfully with challenges and opportunities, in the market arena as on the battlefield.”

Kenichi Ohmae (1943) Japanese academic

Source: The Mind Of The Strategist, 1982, p. 304

Way, Imagination, Understanding, Nature

“If Nixon is not forced to turn over tapes of his conversations with the ring of men who were conversing on their violations of the law, then liberty will soon be dead in this nation. If Nixon gets away with that, then Nixon makes the law as he goes along — not the Congress nor the courts. The old Court you and I served so long will not be worthy of its traditions if Nixon can twist, turn and fashion the law as he sees fit.”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

Speaking to William O. Douglas on the afternoon of the day he died (9 July 1974) as quoted in The Court Years, 1939-1975 : The Autobiography of William O. Douglas (1980), p. 514
1970s

Men, Law, Fashion, Dead

“All kinds of music are not suited to praise God and to be heard in the sanctuary; all methods of philosophy are not fit for discoursing worthily of God, His power, the principles of His operations, and His mysteries.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (23)
Les Caractères (1688)

God, Music

“Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

Wisdom

“Sean Hannity: For what possible reason would he possibly want to destroy America's economy and place in the world. Where is that coming from?
Herman Cain: Where I'm coming from is if you weaken the United States militarily, economically, and culturally, then America is gonna suffer from the same problems that all of— a lot of the other countries suffer from, and that opens the door to some dramatic change in how we run this country.
Sean Hannity: Would that fit into black liberation theology, social, Marxism, redistribution, G. D. America, America's chickens have come home to roost—?
Herman Cain: It fits into what I would call anti-American, anti-Constitutional, anti-Declaration of Independence. That's what it fits into.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Hannity
Television
2010-04-14
Fox News, quoted in * Herman Cain calls Obama's policies "anti-American, anti-Constitutional, anti-Declaration of Independence"
Media Matters for America
2010-04-14
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201004140078
2011-10-08
regarding President Obama

World, Home, Problem, Thinking

“Hillary Clinton is a clear and present danger to the Constitution, the rule of law, and international peace and security. Her eagerness for war, i. e., legalized murder, to create an image of adolescent toughness makes her a worse fit for the Presidency than would Lady Macbeth.”

Bruce Fein (1947) American lawyer

Bruce Fein, Hillary Clinton: Unfit for the Presidency, Huffington Post, October 16, 2015 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-fein/hillary-clinton-unfit-for_b_8313372.html

War, Peace, Law

“If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 2, p. 8
Leviathan (1651)

Men, People, Fear, Dreams

“We are testing popular government's capacity for self-defense. We are resolved to liberate the soul of American life and prove ourselves an American people in fact, spirit, and purpose, and consecrate ourselves anew and everlastingly to human freedom and humanity's justice. Realizing our new relationship with the world, we want to make it fit to live in, and with might and fright and wrathfulness and barbarity crushed by the conscience of a real civilization. Ours is a small concern about the kind of government any people may choose, but we do mean to outlaw the nation which violates the sacred compacts of international relationships. The decision is to be final.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

1910s, The Republic Must Awaken (1917)

Life, People, World, Justice

“Dear Reichsführer, among 10's of millions of Jews in Europe, there are, I figure, at least 2-3 millions of men and women who are fit enough to work. Considering the extraordinary difficulties the labor problem presents us with, I hold the view that those 2-3 millions should be specially selected and preserved. This can however only be done if at the same time they are rendered incapable to propagate. About a year ago I reported to you that agents of mine have completed the experiments necessary for this purpose. I would like to recall these facts once more. Sterilization, as normally performed on persons with hereditary diseases is here out of the question, because it takes too long and is too expensive. Castration by X-ray however is not only relatively cheap, but can also be performed on many thousands in the shortest time. I think that at this time it is already irrelevant whether the people in question become aware of having been castrated after some weeks or months, once they feel the effects. Should you, Reichsführer, decide to choose this way in the interest of the preservation of labor, then Reichsleiter Bouhler would be prepared to place all physicians and other personnel needed for this work at your disposal. Likewise he requested me to inform you that then I would have to order the apparatus so urgently needed with the greatest speed. Heil Hitler! Yours, Viktor Brack.”

Viktor Brack (1904–1948) SS officer

Letter written to Heinrich Himmler (23 June 1942).

Women, Men, People, Disease

“It is my burning desire to help Christians get back to a simple faith in God’s Word. Satan’s method has always been to instill [sic] doubt in God’s Word. The first sentence that came from Satan that is recorded for us in the Bible is: “Yea, hath God said?” He started by questioning God’s Word in the garden of Eden. It worked there so he has used it ever since. In the twentieth century the major attack Satan has launched has been against the first eleven chapters of Genesis. He knows that the entire Bible stands or falls on the validity of these chapters. I believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired, perfect Word of God. I believe that the Bible needs to be read and believed as it stands. Christians are often guilty of neglecting or twisting the Bible to fit their lifestyle or their preconceived ideas.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

God, Faith, Idea, Question

“All these riches, then, of her theology the Church has acquired, one might almost say, like the British Empire, in a fit of absence of mind. She was so busy scrapping with the heretics that she wasn't conscious of saying anything she hadn't always said; and yet, when she had time to sit down and look about her, she found it took ten minutes to sing the Credo instead of three.”

Ronald Knox (1888–1957) English priest and theologian

The Hidden Stream (1952). London: Burns Oates, p. 142.
Knox alludes to John Robert Seeley's much-quoted statement in The Expansion of England (1883) that "we seem, as it were, to have conquered half the world in a fit of absence of mind".

Business, Singing, Time

“Language, intelligence, and humor, along with art, generosity, and musical ability, are often described as human equivalents of the peacock’s tail. However, peacocks afford a poor analogy for the role of courtship displays in humans. Other animal models offer a better fit. In a number of nonhuman species — species as diverse as sea dragons and grebes — males and females engage in a mutual courtship “dance,” in which the two partners mirror one another’s movements. In Clark’s grebes and Western grebes, for instance, the pair bond ritual culminates in the famous courtship rush: The male and female swim side by side along the top of the water, with their wings back and their heads and necks in a stereotyped posture. If we want a nonhuman analogue for the role of creative intelligence or humor in human courtship, we should think not of ornamented peacocks displaying while drab females evaluate them. We should think instead of grebes engaged in their mating rush or sea dragons engaged in their synchronized mirror dance. Once we have one of these alternative images fixed in our minds, we can then add the proviso that there is a slight skew such that, in the early stages of courtship, men tend to display more vigorously and women tend to be choosier. However, this should be seen as a qualification to the primary message that intelligence, humor, and other forms of sexual display are part of the mutual courtship process in our species.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013), p. 160

Women, Men, Art, Music

“To me a heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on 9 different floors and one house would be fitted up with special copies of the Dial printed on soft tissue and kept in the toilets on every floor and in the other house we would use the American Mercury and the New Republic.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Love, Children, Beauty, Fish

“Our culture is like a garment that does not fit us, or in any case no longer fits us. This culture is like a dead language that no longer has anything in common with the language of the street. It is increasingly alien to our lives.”

Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants

Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 94

Dead

“Old people at the supermarket make you wonder about all those middle-aged people you see jogging the streets to preserve their vascular systems for another fifty years.
And about all the people of all ages all over the country who are eating less, drinking less, smoking less, driving safer and in general looking for a death-proof safety suit to get them over the peak years and down into the valley of old age fit to enjoy the fruits of their abstention and labor.
Will anybody care when they get there?
Will they be able to afford an orange?”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"The Aged, Shopping" (p.96)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Death, People, Age, Drink

“Game theory brings to the chaos–theory table the idea that generally, societies are not designed, and that most situations don’t come with a rulebook. Instead, people have their own plans and designs on how things should fit together. They want to determine how the game is played, and they see societal designers as myopic busybodies who would imprison them with their theories.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 372

People, Game, Idea

“Tis in the power of Poetry to insinuate into the inmost Recesses of the Mind, to touch any Spring that moves the Heart, to agitate the Soul with any sort of Affection, and transform it into any Shape or Posture it thinks fit.”

Richard Blackmore (1654–1729) English poet and physician

Preface to Prince Arthur (1695)

Soul, Spring, Thinking, Heart

“[On being "genial, soft-spoken and unflappable" despite having "hard arguments"]: As far as my being friendly to most of my opponents, it comes from the fact that none of this is personal. I don't take any of this personal. I don't take any criticism of my ideas personal, and as far as I'm concerned, everything I believe is on the table and fit to be challenged. There's nothing I'm holding back, there's nothing that I'm holding sacred, such that if you were to doubt it, I would take your doubt personal, or I would see it as something that would diminish me personally.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "PRIVATE: THE DAVID GREGORY SHOW #5" (13 may 2016) http://www.earwolf.com/episode/sam-harris/ <br class="br">2010s

Idea, Personality

“This is a message to all those out there who think that you need animal products to be fit and strong. Almost two years after becoming vegan I am stronger than ever before and I am still improving day by day. Don't listen to those self proclaimed nutrition gurus and the supplement-industry trying to tell you that you need meat, eggs and dairy to get enough protein. There are plenty plant-based protein-sources and your body is going to thank you for stopping to feed it with dead-food. Go vegan and feel the power!”

Patrik Baboumian (1979) German strength-athlete

Message attached to his YouTube video “555kg yoke-carry for 10m in the middle of Berlin” (1 September 2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vUQISAuFiI.

Food, Feeling, Thinking, Strong

“Punk: I'm not gonna have you sit here and belittle me. Say I've lost sight? I've lost sight of things, John? The reason I say I'm gonna take that and walk out is because I don't fit a certain mold. Because I am the underdog, and that's exactly what you've lost sight of. Earlier in this ring, you mentioned great wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero and you said they used to look at you and say that the kid couldn't hang. And now you stand here and look at me as the kid that can't hang. John, I was hanging off of your gangster car, WrestleMania 22, as it rolled down in Chicago, Illinois, and I stood there in a suit looking as ridiculous as [points to Vince McMahon] that man looks right now in his suit, holding a phony Tommy gun, and I said to myself someday, I'm not gonna be standing out there watching you in the ring; I was gonna be in the ring watching you go down to CM Punk. And now here we are in your hometown of Boston. And now next week, we'll be back there in my hometown—Chicago, Illinois. And this… this is the part where I talk 'em into the building. See, you are the one that's lost sight, and I apologize for raising my voice because I'm not that guy. But when you stand here and tell me that I've lost sight, when you, the 10-time Champion who stands for hustle, loyalty and respect; who, from Boston, Massachusetts, lives and breathes these red colors, the same colors as your beloved Red Sox, who also portray themselves as the underdog, I'm sure just like the Bruins portray themselves as the underdog. Just like the Patriots think they're the underdog! Hey, how about those Celtics? Are they the underdogs too? Here's what you've lost sight of, John, and I'm really happy that your father and your wife are sitting in the front row so they can hear it!
John Cena: That's the last time I'm gonna tell you, man, ease up.
Punk: What you've lost sight of is what you are, and what you are is what you hate. You're the 10-time WWE Champion! You're the man! You, like the Red Sox, like Boston, are no longer the underdog! You're a dynasty. You are what you hate. You have become the New York Yankees! [John immediately punches Punk, who scoots out of the ring, grabs the contract, and goes up the ramp. Points respectively to Vince and John] You're Steinbrenner, and you might as well be Jeter! Mr. 3000, I'm the underdog! [John's music plays for fourteen seconds] Turn it off! Turn the music off because I have something to say, and I'm positive that everybody here wants to hear it, and everybody sitting at home has their DVRs fired up because they wanna hear it! I'm glad you just punched me in the face, John. I'm glad it went down this way because it hit me like a bolt of lightning—exactly why I no longer wanna be here, why I wanna leave. It's because I'm tired of this. I'm tired of you. I'm just tired. So ladies and gentlemen of the WWE Universe, Vince, John, Sunday night, say goodbye to the WWE Title, say goodbye to John Cena, and say goodbye to CM Punk! [Rips up the contract] I'll go be the best in the world somewhere else.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

July 11, 2011
WWE Raw

Hate, Happiness, World, Music

“I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a constitutional country, is to give on the question now brought before it; whether the principles on which the foreign policy of Her Majesty's government has been conducted, and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves bound to afford protection to our fellow subjects abroad, are proper and fitting guides for those who are charged with the government of England; and whether, as the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (25 June 1850).
1850s

Feeling, Confidence, Question, Thinking

“Francis Bacon, in his New Atlantis, could charge his elite scientists in Salomon’s House with practicing self-censorship to avoid publicizing dangerous knowledge. Here is how the Father of Salomon’s House describes their practice: “We have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not: and take all a oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: though some of those we do reveal sometime to the State, and some not.” Bacon, the first prophet of the new relation between science and society and of the “conquest of nature for the relief of man’s estate,” knew better than we that knowledge is dangerous, that publication is a public and politically relevant act, and that self-censorship on the part of scientists is necessary and desirable. The passage is also remarkable for its wonderful ambiguity regarding whether scientists or the State has ultimate authority over dangerous knowledge”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

Forbidding Science: Some Beginning Reflections (2006)

Secret, Nature, Knowledge, Thinking

“In human history it seems that the idea of using a pictograph in the new function of representing sound may have occurred only three times: once in Mesopotamia, perhaps by the Sumerians, once in China, apparently by the Chinese themselves, and once in Central America, by the Mayas. (Conceivably it was invented only once, but there is no evidence that the Chinese or the Mayas acquired the idea from elsewhere.) The idea that was independently conceived by these three peoples was taken over, as were at times even the symbols themselves, though often in a highly modified form, by others who made adaptations to fit a host of totally different languages. One of the major adaptations, generally attributed to the Greeks, was the narrowing of sound representation from syllabic representation to phonemic representation (Gelb 1963; Trager 1974), after an earlier stage of mixed pictographic and syllabic writing (Chadwick 1967).”

John DeFrancis book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy

The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (1984, p. 139) http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/ideographic_myth.html <br class="br">The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (1984)

People, History, Idea, Time

“You get pictures in pre-season. You get pictures of fitness, you get pictures of attitude, you get pictures of mentality, you get pictures of systems and the way players play and you also get pictures of whether people can step up to the plate in the Premier League. I was getting all those pictures in the first half”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

28-Jul-2008 Hull City OWS
The pre-season friendly against Crewe provided a huge boost to Phil's picture collection.

People, Way, Season

“It is problematic to imagine yourself in the shoes of a criminal and conclude, “Well, I wouldn’t have done that”—because if you weren’t exposed to in utero cocaine, lead poisoning, or physical abuse, and he was, then you don’t fit in his shoes. Even if you would like to imagine what it’s like to be him, you won’t be very good at it.”

David Eagleman (1971) neuroscientist and author

Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain

Shoe, Imagination

“You can’t look at Hollywood and blame it, you have to make up your own mind whether you want to be fit, or super skinny. You can’t blame other people. It’s your own choice and if you have children, it is up to the parent to educate your children so they are healthy and they don’t go into a direction of anorexia or obesity. It is up to you as a parent, it is hard to feed children right. I deal with it on a daily basis; it is much harder to make sure they eat right.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Discussing the pressure to be thin. Quoted by Hollie McKay for Fox News, 30 September 2009 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,557721,00.html.

Children, People, Education, Parent

“I hear stories from the chamber,
How Christ was born into a manger,
And like some ragged stranger died up on the cross,
And might I say it seems to fitting in its way,
He was a carpenter by trade,
Or at least that's what I'm told.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), The Mercy Seat

Way, Christ

“So what are we saying?
Our Eden's a failure.
A made-up story to fit the picture-perfect world.
The one with "I do"s and "I love you."
And "we are made for each other."”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Is forever over now?
U Want Me 2, written by Sarah McLachlan and Pierre Marchand
Song lyrics, Closer: The Best of Sarah McLachlan (2008)

Love, World, Failure, Perfection

“No criticism can be brought against a branch of technical science from outside; no thought fitted out with the knowledge of a period and setting its course by definite historical aims could have anything to say to the specialist. Such thought and the critical, dialectical element it communicates to the process of cognition, thereby maintaining conscious connection between that process and historical life, do not exist for empiricism; nor do the associated categories, such as the distinction between essence and appearance, identity in change, and rationality of ends, indeed, the concept of man, of personality, even of society and class taken in the sense that presupposes specific viewpoints and directions of interest.”

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) German philosopher and sociologist

Source: "The Latest Attack on Metaphysics" (1937), p. 145.

Life, Communication, Knowledge, Sense

“The first few days I felt trapped in a constant twilight of vertigo, like in the dream where you're suddenly falling… only I was constantly falling. In moments of fitful sleep I was aware of the dim possibility that I would wake up, truly wake up, and this would not have happened.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 80
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Dreams, Sleep

“You ask a thing ill-suited to my years, to yours both offensive and disgusting. For how can it become me, who am near forty, to write of love, or you, that are in your fifties, to read of it That is a subject which delights young minds, and demands a tender heart. Old men are as fitted to tales of love as young men are to tales of prudence. Nor is there anything uglier than old age pursuing love, but lacking strength. Certainly you will sometimes find old men in love,—loved again, never; matrons and girls alike despise old age. No man’s love will hold a woman, but his whom she has seen in the flower of his youth. And if you hear aught to the contrary, there’s a lie behind it. Indeed I know, to write of love does not beseem me, who have already passed the noonday of life and am carried on towards evening; but it dishonours you who ask no less than me who write.”

Pope Pius II book The Tale of Two Lovers

Source: The Tale of Two Lovers, 1444, p. xvii, preface (in 1933 edition)

Love, Life, Men, Lie

“I know this is the question period, but there’s a quote here which is just so relevant. I hope I can — I hope I can read it. It’s from an article by, uh, Yossi Klein Halevi on Pesach Jews versus Purim Jews. So he talks about these — there’s these two threads, these two strands among — among — among Jews in — actually, there’s more in Israel. But it’s here, too. So he — I just love this, and it fits so well with — with — with The Righteous Mind. He says, uh, Jewish history speaks to our generation in the voice of two Biblical commands to remember.”

Jonathan Haidt (1963) American psychologist

"The Psychology Behind Morality" (12 June 2014) http://www.onbeing.org/program/jonathan-haidt-the-psychology-behind-morality/transcript/6347#main_content

Love, Hope, Quotes, History

“Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense
Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.”

John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther

Pt. I, line 868.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

Sense

“I am not a reformer. I think there is entirely too much attempt at reforming in the world and that we pay too much attention to reformers. We have two kinds of reformers. Both are nuisances. The man who calls himself a reformer wants to smash things. He is the sort of man who would tear up a whole shirt because the collar button did not fit the buttonhole. It would never occur to him to enlarge the buttonhole. This sort of reformer never under any circumstances knows what he is doing. Experience and reform do not go together. A reformer cannot keep his zeal at white heat in the presence of a fact. He must discard all facts.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 2

World, Thinking, Tear

“There is also, for instance, a direct symbolic strength in the words 'Say it with flowers', which makes that poem one of the cornerstones of Danish lyricism. It has stood out like a boot of an exceptionally fine fit..”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

1940 - 1948, Intimate Banalities' (1941)

Flowers

“And when the devil hath seen that they have set so little by him, after certain essays, made in such times as he thought most fitting, he hath given that temptation quite over. And this he doth not only because the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked, but also lest, with much tempting the man to the sin to which he could not in conclusion bring him, he should much increase his merit.”

Thomas More (1478–1535) English Renaissance humanist

Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1553), Book Two, Section XVI

Time

“No man is fit to be a Senator… unless he is willing to surrender his political life for great principle.”

Henry Fountain Ashurst (1874–1962) United States Senator from Arizona

"Ashurst, Defeated, Reviews Service". New York Times (September 12, 1940), p. 18.

Life

“Hans had courage to burn. If he had been willing to knuckle under to the Nazis he would have stayed at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. But Hans was a scientist. He wouldn’t trim his notion of truth to fit political gangsters.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Rocket Ship Galileo

Source: Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), Chapter 4, “The Blood of Pioneers”, p. 34

Truth, Courage

“O, for a voice of power to arouse the human spirit from its death in life of animality, to quicken it with a fit consciousness of its own nature, to lift it to an adequate comprehension of the purposes for which the sublime thoughts of God, of duty, of disinterested love, of heaven are opened within!”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 317

Love, Life, Death, God

“There were many times that I felt like a fish out of water, times that I really said to myself, 'do I even fit in.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

Quoted in How PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi gave up cricket for baseball!, 25 March 2012, 18 December 2013, Economic Times http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-25/news/31852241_1_ceo-indra-nooyi-bat-and-ball-sport-david-novak,

Fish, Water, Time

“If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that's where it is.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

“Tony Fernández, who has worn hero's laurels throughout the postseason, including earlier in this seventh game of the World Series—now, cruel as it may seem, perhaps being fitted for goat horns.”

Bob Costas (1952) American sportscaster

Calling a miscue by Cleveland Indians second baseman Tony Fernández in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, ultimately won by the Florida Marlins.

World, Game

“It is a delicate & difficult art fitting rhythm to an idea…communicating momentary phases in a poet's mind.”

T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) English Imagist poet and critic

Speculations (Essays, 1924)

Art, Communication, Idea

“In the instant that you love someone,
In the second that the hammer hits,
Reality runs up your spine,
And the pieces finally fit.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

The One
Song lyrics, The One (1992)

Love, Reality

“I once believed that if organizations had a better fit between their technology and their structure, they would be more efficient and thus more profitable.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, "Three Types of Effectiveness Studies," 1977, p. 97

“This is just my personal take, but to me the definition of survival horror is a game where fear and the sense of exhilaration coincide. So some of the games out there don’t exactly fit my definition. But I don’t have any rights to the definition of the genre so people can call them survival horror if they feel it fits. Basically, I understand that the spectrum of what survival horror is to the general public is pretty wide.”

Shinji Mikami (1965) Japanese video game designer

An Interview With Shinji Mikami, The Father Of Survival Horror http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/09/10/an-interview-with-shinji-mikami-the-father-of-survival-horror.aspx (September 10, 2014)

People, Fear, Feeling, Game

“All kinds of separate, fragmented portions of the jigsaw puzzle are of little avail, unless they are fitted together in the best possible way, to form an image of the future depicting a number of main areas of development.”

Fred Polak (1907–1985) Dutch futurologist

Source: Prognostics, 1971, p. 261

Way, Future

“The Squares [his former band] never really fit in. We weren't rock enough. We weren't alternative enough. We weren't new wave enough and we weren't punk enough. Maybe we just weren't the right people for the band.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

As quoted in "Shred on Arrival" in Guitar World (November 1993).

People

“… happiness is not for this world — a conviction that cannot be too soon acquired : it will destroy a thousand vain expectations, dissipate the most perplexing of our illusions — the early knowledge that life is but a trial, whose triumph is hereafter, and this earth a place appointed for that sorrow and patient endurance which is gradually fitting us for a better and a happier state.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Life, Happiness, World, Knowledge

“Whether the queen caused the period, or the period creates the queen, she fitted her time perfectly.”

Florence Becker Lennon

Florence Becker Lennon, The Life of Lewis Carroll (1962); page 27.
About Queen Victoria

Time

“If the world is an aggregate of relatively independent regions, then any assumption of universal laws is false and a demand for universal norms tyrannical: only brute force (or seductive deception) can then bend the different moralities so that they fit the prescriptions of a single ethical system. And indeed, the idea of universal laws of nature and society arose in connection with a life-and-death battle: the battle that gave Zeus the power over the Titans and all other gods and thus turned his laws into the laws of the universe.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Farewell to Reason

pg 99, italics are feyerabends
Farewell to Reason (1987)

Life, Death, God, World

“How do you take over the world? I've tried everything. Doomsday devices of every kind, nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological, gadgets that fit in a shoe box and that were visible from space. I've tried mass mind control; I've stolen the gold reserves in Fort Knox, only to lose them again. I've traveled backward in time to change history, forward in time to escape it; I've stopped time altogether to live in a world of statues. I've commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasion. Interdimensional alien invasion. Alien god invasion. Even a corporate takeover, Impossible Industries, LLC. Each time it ended the same way. I've been to jail twelve times.”

Austin Grossman book Soon I Will Be Invincible

Source: Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007), Ch. 5: Free at Last

God, World, Shoe, Way

“Rather, we heirs of Enlightenment think of enemies of liberal democracy like Nietzsche or Loyola as, to use Rawls’s word, “mad.” We do so because there is no way to see them as fellow citizens of our constitutional democracy, people whose life plans might, given ingenuity and good will, be fitted in with those of other citizens. They are crazy because the limits of sanity are set by what we can take seriously. This, in turn, is determined by our upbringing, our historical situation.”

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) American philosopher

"The priority of democracy to philosophy"

Life, People, Way, Democracy

“The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

"Freeman Dyson: Mathematician, Physicist, and Writer". Interview with Donald J. Albers, The College Mathematics Journal, vol 25, no. 1, (January 1994)

Mathematics, Problem

“Why is it after a century of socialist disasters, and an intellectual legacy that has been time and again exploded, the left-wing position remains, as it were, the default position to which thinking people gravitate when called upon for a comprehensive philosophy? Why are “right-wingers” marginalised in the educational system, denounced in the media and regarded by our political class as untouchable, fit only to clean up after the orgies of luxurious nonsense indulged in by their moral superiors?”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (2015)

People, Education, Thinking, Time

“It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VIII, 42
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

Pain

“I thought it was normal, that’s the thing. When you’re little you think everything is normal. If your mother had a pointed head and green ears you’d think it’s normal. Only when you grow up do you realise that not everybody is like that. Gradually you can even come to learn that the time you are living in is strange too, that it hasn’t always been like this. The more you feel uncomfortable and unconfident and want to find a way to be like everyone else and fit in, the more normality runs away from you because there isn’t any such thing. Or if there is, you have to find someone else who’ll agree with you what it is. Which I seem singularly unable to do.”

Jane Rogers book The Testament of Jessie Lamb

Source: The Testament of Jessie Lamb (2011), Chapter 1 (pp. 6-7)

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Learning

“It may be that the Greeks had it easy, with their light and their mountains and their plains and their islands waiting around for tourists. It was easy for them to believe that man fit in rather well. This fittingness may have given them the idea that we are seemlier than other evidence suggests. The heads of Rameses II at Abu Simbel and, for that matter, the skyscrapers of New York, have another idea of man. So do the artifacts of Albert Speer. It is depressing to wonder whether the Greeks just happened to be lucky, and the dream they left us is a lie about ourselves.”

John Leonard (1939–2008) American critic, writer, and commentator

"The Caryatid" (p. 208)
Private Lives in the Imperial City (1979)

Lie, Dreams, Mountain, Idea

“More and more as we come closer and closer in touch with nature and its teachings are we able to see the Divine and are therefore fitted to interpret correctly the various languages spoken by all forms of nature about us.”

George Washington Carver (1864–1943) botanist

How to Search for Truth, letter to Hubert W. Pelt (1930-02-24)

Nature

“Who is better fitted to run the railroads and the gas plants and the ferries than the men who make a business of lookin’ after the interests of the city? p. 54”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 13, On Municipal Ownership

Men, Business

“This comparison [of division accounts] will show the officers who conduct their business with the greatest economy, and will indicate, in a manner not to be mistaken, the relative ability and fitness of each for the position he occupies. It will be valuable in pointing out the particulars of excess in the cost of management of one division with another, by comparison of details; will direct attention to those matters in which sufficient economy is not practiced; and it is believed, will have the effect of exciting an honorable spirit of emulation to excel.”

Daniel McCallum (1815–1878) Canadian engineer and early organizational theorist

Source: Report of the Superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad to the Stockholders (1856), p. 57; As cited in Chandler (1977, p. 115-16)

Business

“Gentlemen, when I consider the objections put forward to the grant of self-government I can hardly keep my patience. What is it that they say? They say that we are not educated enough to get self-government. My answer is: whose fault is it? For the last 150 years you have been governing this country and yet you have not succeeded in educating the people of this country to such an extent that they may be fit for governing themselves.”

Chittaranjan Das (1870–1925) Indian politician and leader of the Swaraj Party

Speech delivered on 18th March 1918, at Rammurti’s pavilion at a meeting held to support the deputation to England. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.
1918

People, Education, Patience, Country

“You must never lose your sense of shame. If one is past all shame what is one fit for? One lives like a bird in moult, shedding good qualities like plumes all pointing down to Hell.”

Wolfram von Eschenbach book Parzival

Ir sult niemer iuch verschemn.
verschamter lîp, waz touc der mêr?
der wont in der mûze rêr,
dâ im werdekeit entrîset.
Bk. 3, st. 170, line 16; p. 95.
Parzival

Hell, Bird, Sense, Past

“There is but one solution of the problem, and it is to obliterate absolutely all color line. Open up to the Negro as to the white man, the political offices of the country, making but one test, that of mental and moral fitness. Throw down at once the barriers which close out the Negro merely on account of his color from hotel, theater, and railway carriage. Meet your Negro brother as your equal at banquets and in social gatherings. Give him, in one word, and in full meaning of the terms, equal rights and equal privileges, political, civil, and social. I know no color line, I will acknowledge none. The time is not distant when Americans and Christians will wonder that there ever was a race prejudice.”

John Ireland (bishop) (1838–1918) Catholic bishop

[McClarey, Donald R, Father John Ireland and the Fifth Minnesota, The American Catholic, 2012-08-23, https://the-american-catholic.com/2012/08/23/father-john-ireland-and-the-fifth-minnesota/, 2018-02-04] [Source for quote doesn't list primary source., February 2018]

Color, Problem, Distant, Time

“Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Letter to the Rev. John Johnson, (29 September1793).

Time

Rob Pike (1956) software engineer

Rob Pike (2004) in interview http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1153211&tid=189 at slashdot.com, Oct 18 2004

Beauty, Way, Nature, Problem

“…of course, keep-fit people are no good in bed…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

People

“Civilizations and social orders have not been geared to the fulfillment of human potential (even now, for all of our liberal thought), but to the suppression of abilities that did not fit in with the basic assumptions about the nature of the self. We inhibited any such evidence from conscious awareness, developing a kind of one-line official consciousness. Opposing data did not disappear, but formed powerful undercurrents that composed the unofficial knowledge of the race.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 275

Nature, Knowledge

“In my early 20s, I didn't know who I was or what I wanted. And if you're just getting to know yourself while you're in a serious relationship—well, it's almost like when you go through clothing phases where it's all Banana Republic all the time, and then it's something else. It's like you're trying on different personalities to see what fits, but there is that real you in there somewhere.”

Katherine Heigl (1978) American actress and film producer

InStyle magazine (2009)

Time, Personality, Clothes

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

Thomas Kuhn book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

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

Knowledge, Science, Success

“The art of a great writer is seen in the perfect fitness of his expressions. He knows how to blend vividness with vagueness, knows where images are needed, and where by their vivacity they would be obstacles to the rapid appreciation of his thought.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

Art, Perfection

“My whole intention in painting is to make a thing poetical; but not poetical in a literary sense. I want something that evokes mood, a background, a stage set for certain characters that are playing certain parts. When I paint I do not consider myself an abstractionist in the sense that I'm trying to create beautiful forms that fit together like a puzzle. The things in my painting are intended to strike something that is an emotional involvement – that has to do with the human personality and all the mysteries of life, not simply colors or abstract balances. To me, it's all reality.”

William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter

Quote from An interview with William Baziotes, eds. P. Franks and M. White, Perspective no. 2, Hunter College New York (1956-57), pp. 27, 29-30
1950s

Life, Beauty, Color, Mood

“Women, to be very attractive to all sorts of different people, must have great readiness of sympathy. Many have it naturally, and many work hard in acquiring a good imitation of it. In the first case it is against the nature of such persons to be monopolized for more than a very short time; in the second all their trouble would be thrown away if they allowed themselves to be monopolized. Once in their lives, indeed, they will be, and ought to be, and that monopoly lasts, or should last for ever; but instead of destroying in them that which was their great charm, it only deepens and widens it, and the sympathy which was before fitful, and, perhaps, wayward, flows on in a calm and healthy stream, blessing and cheering all who come within reach of its exhilarating and life-giving waters.”

Thomas Hughes book Tom Brown at Oxford

Source: Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), Ch. 27

Life, Women, People, Nature

“Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out."”

Tom Rath (1975) American author

Tom Rath & Donald O. Clifton (2004) How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life. p. 36

Children, Parent

“Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it.”

Kingsley Amis book Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim (1954)

Love, Personality

“Science focuses on the study of the natural world. It seeks to describe what exists. Focusing on problem finding, it studies and describes problems in its various domains. The humanities focus on understanding and discussing the human experience. In design, we focus on finding solutions and creating things and systems of value that do not yet exist.
The methods of science include controlled experiments, classification, pattern recognition, analysis, and deduction. In the humanities we apply analogy, metaphor, criticism, and (e)valuation. In design we devise alternatives, form patterns, synthesize, use conjecture, and model solutions. \
Science values objectivity, rationality, and neutrality. It has concern for the truth. The humanities value subjectivity, imagination, and commitment. They have a concern for justice. Design values practicality, ingenuity, creativity, and empathy. It has concerns for goodness of fit and for the impact of design on future generations.”

Béla H. Bánáthy (1919–2003) Hungarian linguist and systems scientist

Source: Designing Social Systems in a Changing World (1996), p. 34-35, as cited in Alexander Laszlo and Stanley Krippner (1992) " Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development http://archive.syntonyquest.org/elcTree/resourcesPDFs/SystemsTheory.pdf" In: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Ch. 3, pp. 47-74.

Truth, World, Justice, Imagination

“…next to the winning of the war the most vital matter was the building of peace on firm foundations. … The young generation of Germans had been deliberately perverted and trained in savagery. With German thoroughness the very malleable youth of Germany had been moulded into the shape of their leaders. It would be a long time before they could be civilized. It was madness to expect that suddenly S. S. men and Hitler Youth would turn into good, peaceful citizens and democrats. The German and Japanese nations had for years been directed to false aims and ideals. A great moral and mental revolution would be required before they would be fit to be trusted. Both these nations must be disarmed and deprived of the power to start new wars, and there must be an organization to ensure peace and with power to enforce it.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Caxton Hall, London (12 December 1944), quoted in The Times (13 December 1944), p. 2.
War Cabinet

Men, War, Youth, Peace

“Our civil laws will never be supple enough to fit the immense and changing variety of facts. Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Nos lois civiles ne seront jamais assez souples pour s'adapter à l'immense et fluide variété des faits. Elles changent moins vite que les moeurs; dangereuses quand elles retardent sur celles-ci, elles le sont davantage quand elles se mêlent de les précéder.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), p. 113

Law, Change, Time