Quotes about follower
page 35

“We have the following of the majority of a class, the vanguard of the revolution, the vanguard of the people, which is capable of carrying the masses with it.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 22–27.
Collected Works

People

“The following pages contain the result of my labours. They have been composed under circumstances particularly unfavourable to literary pursuits; and such as those only can duly appreciate, who are aware of the numerous and anxious duties, which a country practitioner is called upon to perform.”

Gideon Mantell (1790–1852) British scientist and obstetrician

The Fossils of the South Downs; or Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex (1822)

Country

“Our gathering here today is in testimony of supreme obligation to those who have given most to make and preserve the Nation. They established it upon the dual system of State government and Federal Government, each supreme in its own sphere. But they left to the States the main powers and functions of determining the form and course of society. We have demonstrated in the time of war that under the Constitution we possess an indestructible Union. We must not fail to demonstrate in the time of peace that we are likewise determined to possess and maintain indestructible States. This policy can be greatly advanced by individual observance of the law. It can be strongly supplemented by a vigorous enforcement of the law. The war which established Memorial Day had for its main purpose the enforcement of the Constitution. The peace which followed that war rests upon the universal observance of the Constitution. This Union can only be preserved, the States can only be maintained, under a reign of national, local, and moral law, under the Constitution established by Washington, under the peace provided by Lincoln.”

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

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

War, Peace, Law, Universe

“An important newspaper baron…explains that the cause of poverty throughout the world is indolence. Ten per cent of Americans would not be on food stamps if they simply worked harder…. If only they had followed his father's advice, they'd have "stuck it to the bastards" and become really rich. This image of hundreds and hundreds of millions of millionaires sticking it to each other, there no longer being any other category of citizen to stick it to, is so all-inclusive that there is no need for others to concern themselves with this word.”

John Ralston Saul The Doubter's Companion

"Indolence"
The Doubter's Companion (1994)

World, Food

“I have spent now more than a quarter of a century of my life in public affairs, and as I grow older I become more and more pessimistic. I started-if the House will forgive me this personal note - my career in public affairs in a small colliery town in South Wales. When I was quite a young boy my father took me down the street and showed me one or two portly and complacent looking gentlemen standing at the shop doors, and, pointing to one, he said, "Very important man. That's Councillor Jackson. He's a very important man in this town." I said, "What's the Council?" "Oh, that's the place that governs the affairs of this town," said my father. "Very important place indeed, and they are very powerful men." When I got older I said to myself, "The place to get to is the council. That's where the power is." So I worked very hard, and, in association with my fellows, when I was about 20 years of age, I got on to the council. I discovered when I got there that the power had been there, but it had just gone. So I made some inquiries, being an earnest student of social affairs, and I learned that the power had slipped down to the county council. That was as where it was, and where it had gone to. So I worked very hard again, and I got there-and it had gone from there too. Then I found out that it had come up here. So I followed it, and sure enough I found that it had been here, but I just saw its coat tails round the corner.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Hansard, House of Commons 5th series, vol 395, columns 1616-1617.
Speech in the House of Commons, 15 December 1943.
1940s

Life, Men, Age, Boy

“As mineralogy constitutes a part of chemistry, it is clear that this arrangement [of minerals] must derive its principles from chemistry. The most perfect mode of arrangement would certainly be to allow bodies to follow each other according to the order of their electro-chemical properties, from the most electro-negative, oxygen, to the most electro-positive, potassium; and to place every compound body according to its most electro-positive ingredient.”

Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779–1848) Swedish chemist

Jöns Jacob Berzelius, An Attempt to Establish a Pure Scientific System of Mineralogy (1814), trans. J. Black, 48.

Parting, Perfection

“To prove that, until this very day, life has never been shown to man as a product of the forces that govern matter, it could be useful the spiritual doctrine which has been very neglected elsewhere, but always finds at least a glorious refuge in your groups. Perhaps you know that in this difficult question concerning the origin of the infinitesimal, I will have brought experimental rigor that has grown weary of contradiction. Referring to the merit, however, we have inherited severe rules of the method from the great experimenters: Galileo, Pascal, Newton and their followers for two centuries.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Discours de réception de Louis Pasteur (1882)

Life, Question

“Followers of another political party tell us that we will strengthen ourselves by ignoring our history, our traditions, our mythologies, our culture and vision, and by following the American way.”

B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer

Forms, Eulogies, Images and Symbols, p. 157
Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (2007)

Way, History

“From whom are we to hide the visibility of our discipleship? Certainly not from other men, for we are told to let them see our light. No. We are to hide it from ourselves. Our task is simply to keep on following, looking only to our Leader who goes on before, taking no notice of ourselves or of what we are doing.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), The Hidden Righteousness, p. 158.

Men, Light

“Let him [who would be an architect] be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter I, Sec. 3

Education, Music, History, Understanding

“The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens; but it is equally true that a good revenue system is the life of an organized government. I meet you at a time when the nation has voluntarily burdened itself with a debt unprecedented in our annals. Vast as is its amount, it fades away into nothing when compared with the countless blessings that will be conferred upon our country and upon man by the preservation of the nation's life. Now, on the first occasion of the meeting of Congress since the return of peace, it is of the utmost importance to inaugurate a just policy, which shall at once be put in motion, and which shall commend itself to those who come after us for its continuance. We must aim at nothing less than the complete effacement of the financial evils that necessarily followed a state of civil war.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

Quote, First State of the Union Address (1865)

Life, War, Peace, Intelligence

“Wallace's emotions on discovering such marvels must surely be echoed by all of us who follow him. This is what he wrote:
"I thought of the long ages of the past during which the successive generations of these things of beauty had run their course. Year by year being born and living and dying amid these dark gloomy woods with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness, to all appearances such a wanton waste of beauty. It seems sad that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man, many of them have no relation to him, their happiness and enjoyment's, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone."”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Closing lines, quoting from The Malay Archipelago (1869) by Alfred Russel Wallace.
Attenborough in Paradise (1996)

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“My engagements will not permit me to be present, and I believe if there I could not add anything material to the information existing on the subject. I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Letter regarding war monuments https://www.google.com/search?q=%22to+commit+to+oblivion+the+feelings+it+engendere%22&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1#tbm=bks&q=%22to+commit+to+oblivion+the+feelings+it+engendered%22 (1869), as quoted in Personal reminiscences, anecdotes, and letters of gen. Robert E. Lee https://books.google.com/books?id=VikOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA234 (1874), by John William Jones, p. 234. Also quoted in "Renounce the battle flag: Don't whitewash history" http://www.newsleader.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/07/01/renounce-battle-flag-whitewash-history/29574721/ (26 June 2015), by Petula Dvorak, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. This quote is also given as: "I think it wisest not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered." https://books.google.com/books?id=x7OOraQWi5wC&pg=PA299&dq=%22i+think+it+wiser+moreover%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAGoVChMIxZSVnqTyxgIVw9SACh39bQbx#v=onepage&q=%22i%20think%20it%20wiser%20moreover%22&f=false 1860s

War, Feeling, Thinking

“The members of the Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Herbert Feigl, Fritz Waismann, Kurt Godel, Otto Neurath and others) are working out a ‘Logical Empiricism’. Following Ernst Mach and Poincaré, but above all Russell and Wittgenstein, all the sciences are treated uniformly. Carnap’s Logischer Aufbau der Welt (1928) shows in which direction future systematic work will move. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) clarified, among other things, the position of logic and mathematics; besides the statements that make additions to what is meaningful, there are the ‘tautologies’ that show us which transformations are possible within language. By its syntax the language of science excludes anything that is meaningless from the very beginning.”

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

Source: 1930s, "Physicalism" (1931), p. 52

Mathematics, Science, Future

“The making of decisions, as everyone knows from personal experience, is a burdensome task. Offsetting the exhilaration that may result from correct and successful decision and the relief that follows the termination of a struggle to determine issues is the depression that comes from failure, or error of decision, and the frustration which ensues from uncertainty.”

Chester Barnard book The Functions of the Executive

Source: The Functions of the Executive (1938), p. 189

Error, Failure, Decision, Success

“I have always thought that one of the signs of natural leaders of men (and women) was their readiness to take the necessary pains to keep their followers with them.”

Judy LaMarsh (1924–1980) Canadian politician, writer, broadcaster and barrister.

Source: Memoirs Of A Bird In A Gilded Cage (1969), CHAPTER 5, The Canada Pension Plan, p. 92

Women, Men, Pain, Nature

“Followers of Jesus in our day will, by their compassionate concern for the victims of greed and blindness, be stimulated to search more diligently for means of increased persuasiveness of wrongdoers, on the one hand, and for ethical means of restraint, on the other. They will be prepared also to rely exclusively upon means which are consistent with the worthy ends sought, and to take consequences of following Jesus' way of life.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

The Personality of Jesus (1932)

Life, Way, Search

“Although there is no study which presents so simple a beginning as that of geometry, there is none in which difficulties grow more rapidly as we proceed, and what may appear at first rather paradoxical, the more acute the student the more serious will the impediments in the way of his progress appear. This necessarily follows in a science which consists of reasoning from the very commencement, for it is evident that every student will feel a claim to have his objections answered, not by authority, but by argument, and that the intelligent student will perceive more readily than another the force of an objection and the obscurity arising from an unexplained difficulty, as the greater is the ordinary light the more will occasional darkness be felt. To remove some of these difficulties is the principal object of this Treatise.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Source: On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1831), Ch. I.

Way, Feeling, Intelligence, Study

“The World Wide Web was precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management.”

Ted Nelson (1937) American information technologist, philosopher, and sociologist; coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia"

Ted Nelson's Home Page http://xanadu.com.au/ted/XU/XuPageKeio.html (November 17, 1998)

World, Quotes

“My beloved brothers and sisters. On the globe, several incidents have occurred that make it necessary for us to speak about them, and guide the Muslims in their regard… It's important for us to know that as Muslims, we don't understand what part of Islam these people [terrorists] are following. In fact, we don't even understand what Islam they are following, because Islam is a totally different religion from what these people are practicing… As frustrated as we might be because of what might be happening on Muslim lands, it does not give us the right to go out and hurt people who are not at all involved… If you have a problem with someone, you may report them to the authorities. And then it will handled by the courts. You will either get justice at the courts or sometimes maybe the courts may find someone that you believe is guilty, innocent. In that case, you leave it for the day of judgment, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will be judge. But you do not take it into your own hands, to say now because the court has found this person innocent, and according to me the person is guilty, "Let me harm them, let me kill them, let me hurt them, let me rob from them". That is absolutely incorrect and it is un-Islamic… Two wrongs do not make a right, remember this… If someone has murdered someone else, Subhan Allah, it does not give us the right to murder a third party altogether. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us, and may Allah grant us guidance and ease. It's important we understand this. The world is bleeding today, and people are blaming the Muslims! Because from amongst us, some are being brainwashed. Brainwashed by what? They do not understand verses of the Quran. They don't understand the Asbab al-Nuzul, or reasons of the revelation of the verses of the Quran. They don't understand how to extract rules and regulations from verses of the Quran. They read something, someone shows them something and next thing they are prepared to give up their lives. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us an understanding. We should be giving up our lives striving to earn the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through obedience, through Salah. Look at Muhammad sallā llāhu 'alay-hi wa-sallam when he went to Ta'if, look at his example. They beat him up personally, physically, he was bleeding and the angels came to him to say "If you want, we can crush these people between the mountains". What did he say? He said "I am sent as a mercy. We don't want that to happen. If they don't accept, perhaps their children will accept."”

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

Patience, Sabr... And we think that the non-Muslims are our enemies – the minute we think that, automatically we will not be able to call them towards Islam. And they will get the wrong image of Islam. My brothers and sisters, Islam, it means peace, it stands for peace, it promotes peace, it teaches peace, and everything that you will achieve is peace. In this world peace, in the next peace, in your grave peace, with your children peace, in your environment peace. That is Islam. Anything that destroys that in any way is not Islam. Remember this. "Islam Condemns Terrorism - Powerful Reminder - Mufti Ismail Menk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6O2anxz7CM, YouTube (2015) Lectures

Children, People, Pleasure, World

“For all my good intentions, there are days when things go wrong or I fall into old habits. When things are not going well, when I'm grumpy or mad, I'll realize that I've not been paying attention to my soul and I've not been following my best routine.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

"Pay Attention" in Handbook for the Soul (1995) edited by Benjamin Shield

Soul, Madness

“The existence of this new Republic was inaugurated by striking the fetters from the slaves in Porto Rico. This beneficent measure was followed by the release of several thousand persons illegally held as slaves in Cuba. Next, the Captain-General of that colony was deprived of the power to set aside the orders of his superiors at Madrid, which had pertained to the office since 1825. The sequestered estates of American citizens, which had been the cause of long and fruitless correspondence, were ordered to be restored to their owners. All these liberal steps were taken in the face of a violent opposition directed by the reactionary slave-holders of Havana, who are vainly striving to stay the march of ideas which has terminated slavery in Christendom, Cuba only excepted. Unhappily, however, this baneful influence has thus far succeeded in defeating the efforts of all liberal-minded men in Spain to abolish slavery in Cuba, and in preventing the promised reform in that island. The struggle for political supremacy continues there.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Fifth State of the Union Address (1873)

Men, Idea, Effort, Personality

“During the reign of Sultan Sikandar, Mir Sayyid Muhammad, son of Mir Sayyid Hamadani came here, and removed the rust of ignorance and infidelity and the evils, by his preaching and guidance. He wrote an epistle for Sultan Sikandar on tasawwuf Sultan Sikandar became his follower. He prohibited all types of frugal games. Nobody dared commit acts which were prohibited by the Shariat The Sultan was constantly busy in annihilating the infidels and destroyed most of the temples.”

Sikandar Butshikan

Tarikh-Kashmir, edited and translated into English by Razia Bano, Delhi, 1991, p. 55.

Game, Business, Evil

“Although Fox's private character was deformed by indulgence in vicious pleasures, it was in the eyes of his contemporaries largely redeemed by the sweetness of his disposition, the buoyancy of his spirits, and the unselfishness of his conduct. As a politician he had liberal sentiments, and hated oppression and religious intolerance. He constantly opposed the influence of the crown, and, although he committed many mistakes, and had in George III an opponent of considerable knowledge of kingcraft and immense resources, the struggle between him and the king, as far as the two men were concerned, was after all a drawn game…the coalition of 1783 shows that he failed to appreciate the importance of political principles and was ignorant of political science…Although his speeches are full of common sense, he made serious mistakes on some critical occasions, such as were the struggle of 1783–4, and the dispute about the regency in 1788. The line that he took with reference to the war with France, his idea that the Treason and Sedition bills were destructive of the constitution, and his opinion in 1801 that the House of Commons would soon cease to be of any weight, are instances of his want of political insight. The violence of his language constantly stood in his way; in the earlier period of his career it gave him a character for levity; later on it made his coalition with North appear especially reprehensible, and in his latter years afforded fair cause for the bitterness of his opponents. The circumstances of his private life helped to weaken his position in public estimation. He twice brought his followers to the brink of ruin and utterly broke up the whig party. He constantly shocked the feelings of his countrymen, and ‘failed signally during a long public life in winning the confidence of the nation’ (LECKY, Hist. iii. 465 sq). With the exception of the Libel Bill of 1792, the credit of which must be shared with others, he left comparatively little mark on the history of national progress. Great as his talents were in debate, he was deficient in statesmanship and in some of the qualities most essential to a good party leader.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

William Hunt, 'Fox, Charles James (1749–1806)', Dictionary of National Biography (1889).
About

Life, Men, Hate, War

“Middle America believes the establishment is not looking out for the nation but for retention of its power. And in attacking Trump it is not upholding some objective moral standard but seeking to destroy a leader who represents a grave threat to that power. Trump’s followers see an American Spring as crucial, and they are not going to let past boorish behavior cause them to abandon the last best chance to preserve the country they grew up in.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

What Hath Trump Wrought?" http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2016/11/08/what-hath-trump-wrought-n2242718 (November 8, 2016), Townhall 2010s

Behavior, Spring, Chance, Past

“The 2008 financial meltdown is the result of under-regulated markets built on an ideology of free market capitalism and unlimited economic growth. The fundamental problem is that the underlying assumptions of this ideology are not consistent with what we now know about the real state of the world. The financial world is, in essence, a set of markers for goods, services, and risks in the real world and when those markers are allowed to deviate too far from reality, “adjustments” must ultimately follow and crisis and panic can ensue. To solve this and future financial crisis requires that we reconnect the markers with reality. What are our real assets and how valuable are they? To do this requires both a new vision of what the economy is and what it is for, proper and comprehensive accounting of real assets, and new institutions that use the market in its proper role of servant rather than master.”

Robert Costanza (1950) American economist

Source: Toward a New Sustainable Economy, 2008, p. 40

World, Problem, Reality, Future

“The document normally kicks off with a lengthy description of current industry conditions and the competitive situation. Next is a discussion of how to increase market share, capture new segments, or cut costs, followed by an outline of numerous goals and initiatives. A full budget is almost invariably attached, as are lavish graphs and a surfeit of spreadsheets. The process usually culminates in the preparation of a large document culled from a mishmash of data provided by people from various parts of the organization who often have conflicting agendas… Executives are paralyzed by the muddle. Few employees deep down in the company even know what the strategy is.”

W. Chan Kim book Blue Ocean Strategy

Description of how an average strategic plan is being created. Kim further explains, that "... a closer look reveals that most plans don’t contain a strategy at all but rather a smorgasbord of tactics that individually make sense but collectively don’t add up to a unified, clear direction that sets a company apart—let alone makes the competition irrelevant. [p. 84]"
Source: Blue Ocean Strategy, 2005, p. 83-84 (2016 extended edition) As cited in: Paul R. Niven (2010). Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step. p. 99

People, Parting

“Following von Neumann and Morgenstern [7, p. 30], we distinguish between games with complete information, to be sometimes briefly called C-games in this paper, and games with incomplete information, to be called I-games. The latter differ from the former in the fact that some or all of the players lack full information about the "rules" of the game, or equivalently about its normal form (or about its extensive form). For example, they may lack full information about other players' or even their own payoff functions, about the physical facilities and strategies available to other players or even to themselves, about the amount of information the other players have about various aspects of the game situation, etc.
In our own view it has been a major analytical deficiency of existing game theory that it has been almost completely restricted to C-games, in spite of the fact that in many real-life economic, political, military, and other social situations the participants often lack full information about some important aspects of the "game" they are playing.”

John Harsanyi (1920–2000) hungarian economist

Source: "Games with Incomplete Information Played by “Bayesian” Players," 1967, p. 163: Lead paragraph's

Life, Game

“Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël book Corinne

Bk. 14, ch. 1
Corinne (1807)

“Curiously, it is hard not to be a little optimistic about the future for Zimbabwe (as nobody at all calls it yet, except in political speeches). The fear is not that there will be mass slaughter of the whites, followed by their flight to South Africa and the collapse of the economy, but that the need to retain white confidence may mean that the blacks are badly disappointed.”

Simon Hoggart (1946–2014) English journalist and broadcaster

Hoggart's Guardian column 9 Feb 1980 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1980/feb/09/zimbabwe.simonhoggart

Fear, Disappointment, Confidence, Future

““Abjuring love? Real people don’t do that. Now you’re the one who sounds like someone on a stage. That’s not the real world. Real people follow their hearts, wherever it takes them. Real people refuse to be put into a little tiny box. You can say you love me or you don’t love me, it doesn’t matter; I know you have foresworn nothing except an existence you found intolerable.”
She really did smile this time. “Now you’re making me sound like a heroine. Be honest, Lucius. For all that you go on about the real world with its real people, you don’t really want to live in it, either.””

Ellen Kushner book The Privilege of the Sword

Part III, Chapter VIII (p. 299)
The Privilege of the Sword (2006)

Love, People, World, Smile

“What we see in both software development and military operations is a tendency for the pendulum to swing back and forth between extremes. Yet in most cases, we need a balance between armor and discipline and between mobility and agility. Actually, though, I would say that the leaders in both the agile and plan-driven camps occupy various places in the responsible middle. It’s only the over-enthusiastic followers who overinterpret “discipline” and “agility” to unhealthy degrees.”

Barry Boehm (1935) American software engineer

Tom DeMarco and Barry Boehm. " The agile methods fray http://cf.agilealliance.org/articles/system/article/file/872/file.pdf." Computer 35.6 (2002): 90-92.

“Energy projected into any kind of construction, psychic or physical, cannot be recalled, but must follow the laws of the particular form into which it has been for the moment molded.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 92, Page 36
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 3

Law

“The evolutionary urge drives man to seek for intenser forms of fulfillment, since his basic urge is for more life, more consciousness, and this contentment has an air of stagnation that the healthy mind rejects. (This recognition lies at the centre of my own 'outsider theory': that there are human beings to whom comfort means nothing, but whose happiness consists in following an obscure inner-drive, an 'appetite for reality'.)”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Tree By Tolkien (1974), p. 32

Life, Reality, Happiness

“English: "Follow me, I won't let you down."”

Carlos Menem (1930) Argentine politician who was President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999

"Síganme, no los voy a defraudar."
1989 campaign slogan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZSsHbk5JLk.

“The people of Iran are very talented people. They're heirs to one of the world's great civilizations. But in 1979, they were hijacked by religious zealots; religious zealots who imposed on them immediately a dark and brutal dictatorship. That year, the zealots drafted a constitution, a new one for Iran. It directed the revolutionary guards not only to protect Iran's borders, but also to fulfill the ideological mission of jihad. The regime's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, exhorted his followers to "export the revolution throughout the world." I'm standing here in Washington, D. C. and the difference is so stark. America's founding document promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Iran's founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. And as states are collapsing across the Middle East, Iran is charging into the void to do just that.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

2010s, 2015, Address to the United States Congress (March 2015)

Life, Death, People, World

“It is the trajectory of a thrown stone. It follows the hump of a humped-back whale from nose to tail. It's bounded like a smooth, sheep-cropped, grassy hill. It is a graph-line through a grey, blue, and then a grey again, sky.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Flying Out of This World

“We believe that Darwinism is the real Orthodox Church, because Darwinism asks you to believe in things unseen that are incredibly unlikely. Darwinism asks us to believe that out of pure random chance, we got a cell that is as complicated as a Boeing 777. Darwinism asks us to believe that one day there was nothing but mud and ooze, and the next day there was life, and very soon after there was intelligent life. Darwinism asks us to believe that you can destroy genetic material through random mutation and natural selection and yet end up with more genetic material. We don't really ask you to believe anything that difficult; it is sort of innate in mankind to believe that there is a God, a heavenly Father and we're asking you to just follow the consequences of that and see if possibly there could be some scientific validity to that.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed, Assist Ministries News Story: EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed, 10 April 2008, 2008-04-18 http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2008/s08040068.htm,

Life, God, Intelligence, Nature

“The cornerstone of Jewish supremacist thought is the commitment to establishing a Jewish state, where Jews (whether as a 'chosen people', as Europeans with a mission civilisatrice, or as a historically persecuted group who must be liberated at whatever cost) would have rights qua Jews over non-Jews, and all the accoutrements that follow from such a racially supremacist system.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

People

“In men of genius, sterile years precede productive years, these again to be followed by sterility, the barren periods being marked by psychological self-depreciation, by the feeling that they are less than other men; times in which the remembrance of the creative periods is a torment, and when they envy those who go about undisturbed by such penalties. Just as his moments of ecstasy are more poignant, so are the periods of depression of a man of genius more intense than those of other men.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

Denn gerade die starke Periodizität des Genies bringt es mit sich, daß bei ihm immer erst auf sterile Jahre die fruchtbaren und auf sehr produktive Zeiten immer wieder sehr unfruchtbare folgen—Zeiten, in denen er von sich nichts hält, ja von sich psychologisch (nicht logisch) weniger hält als von jedem anderen Menschen: quält ihn doch die Erinnerung an die Schaffensperiode, und vor allem—wie frei sieht er sie, die von solchen Erinnerungen nicht Belästigten, herumgehen! Wie seine Ekstasen gewaltiger sind als die der anderen, so sind auch seine Depressionen fürchterlicher.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 107.

Men, Penalty, Feeling, Time

“Consequently, it became necessary for the rulers of Islam (the Caliphs) to follow the policy of Iranian Emperors in order to ensure the greatness of True Word, the supremacy of the Muslim religion… overthrow of the enemies of the Faith… and maintenance of their own authority.”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Fatawa-i-Jahandari, p.39. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
Fatawa-i-Jahandari

Faith, Religion

“The eye of the yeoman and peasant sought in vain the tall form of old Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, as, wrapped in his laced cloak, and with beard and whiskers duly composed, he moved slowly through the aisles, followed be the faithful mastiff, or bloodhound, which in old time had saved his master by his fidelity, and which regularly followed him to church. Bevis indeed, fell under the proverb which avers, ‘He is a good dog, which goes to church’; for, bating an occasional temptation to warble along with the accord, he behaved himself as decorously as any of the congregation, and returned much edified, perhaps, as most of them.”

Walter Scott book Woodstock

Woodstock (1826), Ch.1.

Faith, Dogs, Time

“It comes down to this. There are certain forms of conduct which at any given place and epoch are commonly accepted under the combined influence of reason, practice and tradition, as moral or immoral. … Law accepts as the pattern of its justice the morality of the community whose conduct it assumes to regulate. In saying this, we are not to blind ourselves to the truth that uncertainty is far from banished. Morality is not merely different in different communities. Its level is not the same for all the component groups within the same community. A choice must still be made between one group standard and another. We have still to face the problem, at which one of these levels does the social pressure become strong enough to convert the moral norm into a jural one? All that we can say is that the line will be higher than the lowest level of moral principle and practice, and lower than the highest. The law will not hold the crowd to the morality of saints and seers. It will follow, or strive to follow, the principle and practice of the men and women of the community whom the social mind would rank as intelligent and virtuous.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Other writings, The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)

Women, Men, Truth, Justice

“Pity for poverty, enthusiasm for equality and freedom, recognition of social injustice and a desire to remove it, is not socialism. Condemnation of wealth and respect for poverty, such as we find in Christianity and other religions, is not socialism. The communism of early times, as it was before the existence of private property, and as it has at all times and among all peoples been the elusive dream of some enthusiasts, is not socialism. The forcible equalization advocated by the followers of Baboeuf, the so-called equalitarians, is not socialism. In all these appearances there is lacking the real foundation of capitalist society with its class antagonisms. Modern socialism is the child of capitalist society and its class antagonisms. Without these it could not be. Socialism and ethics are two separate things. This fact must be kept in mind. Whoever conceives of socialism in the sense of a sentimental philanthropic striving after human equality, with no idea of the existence of capitalist society, is no socialist in the sense of the class struggle, without which modern socialism is unthinkable. Whoever has come to a full consciousness of the nature of capitalist society and the foundation of modern socialism, knows also that a socialist movement that leaves the basis of the class struggle may be anything else, but it is not socialism.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

People, Religion, Dreams, Communication

“Condemn me if you choose — I do that myself, — but condemn me, and not the path which I am following, and which I point out to those who ask me where, in my opinion, the path is.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

"Letter to N.N.," quoted by Havelock Ellis in "The New Spirit" http://books.google.com/books?id=xCp6OIGcojMC& (1892) p. 226

“We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

As quoted in Pocket Patriot : Quotes from American Heroes (2005) edited by Kelly Nickell, p. 157

People, Way

“Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

Children, Motivation, Study

“Ordinarily, every body in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes place of the whole creation. The man must be so much, that he must make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design; — and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients. A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man … and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.”

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

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

Age, History, Reality, Time

“I will say to you and to the colored race that men who bore arms and followed the flag of the Confederacy are, with very few exceptions, your friends. I have an opportunity of saying what I have always felt - that I am your friend, for my interests are your interests, and your interests are my interests. We were born on the same soil, breathe the same air, and live in the same land. Why, then, can we not live as brothers? I will say that when the war broke out I felt it my duty to stand by my people. When the time came I did the best I could, and I don't believe I flickered. I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe that I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to bring about peace. It has always been my motto to elevate every man- to depress none.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)

Men, War, People, Peace

“With society and its public, there is no longer any other language than that of bombs, barricades, and all that follows.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Quoted in Le Monde (Paris, Sept. 11, 1970)
Quoted in Renee Weingarten's Writers and Revolution, ch. 15 (1974).

“Nothing is so beautiful as the first few minutes alone with someone who might love one and someone whom one might love. There is nothing so quiet as those minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet expectancy. It is for the sake of those few minutes that one loves, not the many that follow. Never again, they knew, would anything so beautiful happen to them. They would be more joyous perhaps; more ardent too, and immeasurably content with their own bodies, and each other's. But never again would it be so beautiful.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 190

Love, Beauty

“A man must comport himself as a man. He must fight always preferably and soundly with the odds in his favor but on necessity against any sort of odds and with no thought of the outcome. He should follow his tribal laws and customs insofar as he can and accept the tribal discipline when he cannot. But it is never a reproach that he has kept a child's heart, a child's honesty and a child's freshness and nobility.”

Ernest Hemingway book True at First Light

Source: True at First Light (1999), Ch. 1

Law, Heart, Fight

“The vast majority of lameness in the domestic horse world cannot be understood properly or completely without considering the effects of abuse. Although many might argue to the contrary, most lameness among horses is really more an issue of ignorance, violence, and complicity than is of veterinary medicine; veterinar scools, clinics, and slaughterhouses are simply the processing stations that have to deal with it. What is not an issue here are injuries that stem from unfortunate accidents, where the horse enthusiasts made an honest miscalculation or innocently followed the bad advice of someome they trusted. What is of concern is abuse that results from neglect and bad intent.”

Jaime Jackson (1947) Horse hoof care professional

The Natural Horse (1997)

World, Horse

“Since the 1960s, particle theory had been split into two groups: those following the atomism of the quark theory and those who had followed the anti-atomism of that had led from the bootstrap program to the string theory. What happened in 1984 was that it was realised that string theory could combine and satisfy the aspirations of both approaches to fundamental physics. Thus, the community of gauge theorists, driven by the failure of the proton decay experiments to search for new ideas that could unify physics, all of a sudden encountered their old friends, the string theorists, in the middle of what might be called a desert of disappointed expectations.”

Lee Smolin book The Life of the Cosmos

The Life of the Cosmos (1997)

Disappointment, Search, Communication, Idea

“If people differ in an absolutely general way in their estimations of epistemic relevance, and if we follow the holism of meaning and individuate intentional states by way of the totality of their epistemic bonds, the consequence will be that two people (or, for that matter, two temporal sections of the same person) will never be in the same intentional state. Therefore, two people can never be subsumed under the same intentional generalizations. And, therefore, intentional generalization can never be successful. And, therefore again, there is no hope for an intentional psychology.”

Jerry Fodor (1935–2017) American philosopher

Fodor & E. Lepore (1992) Holism: A Shopper's Guide, Blackwell.

People, Hope, Way, Success

“Mr. Douglas incessantly remembers to inform us in every speech he has made for a year past that, when the Constitution was formed, all the thirteen States but one recognized slavery by law; but he incessantly forgets to add that Pennsylvania in 1780 passed an act for the gradual abolition of slavery which freed everybody born in the State after its passage; that one day later Massachusetts decided that her Bill of Rights abolished slavery forever; that in 1784 Connecticut followed Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island at about the same time; that in 1792, soon after the Constitution was formed. New Hampshire, under her Bill of Rights, Vermont, by express assertion in her Constitution, New York in March, 1799, and New Jersey in 1804, gradually abolished slavery.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Law, Time, Past, Forgetting

“Europeans are unable to understand why a young Libyan came to Europe in the first place, and why apparently under no circumstances does he wish to return home. Specifically, Europeans — for a variety of 20th-century historical and cultural reasons — often are either ignorant of who they are or terrified about expressing their identities in any concrete and positive fashion. The result is that Europe cannot impose on a would-be newcomer any notion that consensual government is superior to the anarchy and theocracy of the Middle East, that having individual rights trumps being subjects of a dictator, that personal freedom is a better choice than statist tyranny, that protection of private property is a key to economic growth whereas law by fiat is not, and that independent judiciaries do not run like Sharia courts. It most certainly cannot ask of immigrants upon arrival that they either follow the laws of a society that originally made Europe attractive to them, or return home to live under a system that they apparently rejected. I omit for obvious reasons that few present-day Europeans believe that Christianity is much different from Islam, and apparently thus assume that terrorists might just as well be Christians.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, Europe at the Edge of the Abyss (2016)

Law, Home, Fashion, Understanding

“Abu Hurayra reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "A man follows the religion of his close friend, so each of you should be very careful about whom he takes as a close friend."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 367
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Religion

“This is the sort of advice and counsel you might find yourself delivering one day to a future President or Secretary of Defense. When you do, make sure it your best, most independent military opinion—neither constrained nor contaminated by personal politics. Part of the deal we made when we joined up was to willingly subordinate our individual interests to the greater good of protecting national interests. The military as an institution must remain a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway. We give our best advice beforehand. If it's followed, great. If it's not, we have only two choices. Obey the orders we have been given, carrying them out with the professionalism and loyalty they deserve or vote with our feet. That's it. We don't get to debate those orders after the fact. We don't get to say, "Well, it's not how I would have done it," or "If only they had listened to ME." Too late at that point … and too cowardly. Few things are more damaging to our democracy than a military officer who doesn't have the moral courage to stand up for what's right or the moral fiber to step aside when circumstances dictate.”

Michael Mullen (1946) U.S. Navy admiral and 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

USNA Commencement Address in Annapolis, MD (23 May 2008) http://www.jcs.mil/chairman/speeches/USNACommencementAddress2008.html

Democracy, Courage, Future, Parting

“As a brave man goes into fire or flood or pestilence to save a human life, so a generous mind follows after truth and love, and is not frightened from the pursuit by danger or toil or obloquy.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 227

Love, Life, Truth

“O man, no matter what you have studied or how much you have studied, do not follow the ways of your mind with conceit in your learning. Ask a man of wisdom who is on the path and follow his directions. If you do not meet a man of wisdom, lay your heart open and ask even a tree or a wall. The power of God within your heart called conscience will caution you and guide you. It will say, "Go," or "Don't go," "Right," or "Wrong." If your heart is open, your conscience will provide useful fruit which will benefit your journey through life.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Life, Wisdom, God, Way

“Some people, myself included, advocated foreign intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo while opposing our adventure in Iraq. Sam Moyn might find this inconsistent, but (on this occasion at least) it is the world that is inconsistent, not us. During the Balkan wars individuals’ rights were under ascertainable threat in real time. Outside intervention could make a difference, and it did. This was not the case in Iraq. We should always be suspicious of the invocation of universal “rights” as a cover for sectional interests. But it doesn’t follow from this that talk of rights is “really” always about something else. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. How, then, should we adjust our response? Well, there is a serviceable Keynesian answer to that: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?””

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

"Double-Entry Moral Bookkeeping", The Nation (April 25, 2007)

War, People, World, Universe

“The king, in his zeal to propagate the faith, now marched against the Hindoos of Nagrakote [Nagarkot Kangra], breaking down their idols and razing their temples. The fort, at that time denominated the Fort of Bheem, was closely invested by the Mahomedans, who had first laid waste the country around it with fire and sword.'…'In the year AH 402 (AD 1011), Mahmood resolved on the conquest of Tahnesur [Thanesar (Haryana)], in the kingdom of Hindoostan. It had reached the ears of the king that Tahnesur was held in the same veneration by idolaters, as Mecca by the faithful; that they had there set up a number of idols, the principal of which they called Jugsom, pretending that it had existed ever since the creation. Mahmood having reached Punjab, required, according to the subsisting treaty with Anundpal, that his army should not be molested on its march through his country…'The Raja's brother, with two thousand horse was also sent to meet the army, and to deliver the following message:- "My brother is the subject and tributary of the King, but he begs permission to acquaint his Majesty, that Tahnesur is the principal place of worship of the inhabitants of the country: that if it is required by the religion of Mahmood to subvert the religion of others, he has already acquitted himself of that duty, in the destruction of the temple of Nagrakote. But if he should be pleased to alter his resolution regarding Tahnesur, Anundpal promises that the amount of the revenues of that country shall be annually paid to Mahmood; that a sum shall also be paid to reimburse him for the expense of his expedition, besides which, on his own part he will present him with fifty elephants, and jewels to a considerable amount." Mahmood replied, "The religion of the faithful inculcates the following tenet: That in proportion as the tenets of the prophet are diffused, and his followers exert themselves in the subversion of idolatry, so shall be their reward in heaven; that, therefore, it behoved him, with the assistance of God, to root out the worship of idols from the face of all India. How then should he spare Tahnesur?"… This answer was communicated to the Raja of Dehly, who, resolving to oppose the invaders, sent messengers throughout Hindoostan to acquaint the other rajas that Mahmood, without provocation, was marching with a vast army to destroy Tahnesur, now under his immediate protection. He observed, that if a barrier was not expeditiously raised against this roaring torrent, the country of Hindoostan would be soon overwhelmed, and that it behoved them to unite their forces at Tahnesur, to avert the impending calamity….”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, pp. 27-37.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

God, Faith, Religion, Communication

“Inextricably intertwined in the question was slavery, and it only became the more so in the years that followed. Socially and culturally the North and South were not much different. They prayed to the same deity, spoke the same language, shared the same ancestry, sang the same songs. National triumphs and catastrophes were shared by both. For all the myths they would create to the contrary, the only significant and defining difference between them was slavery, where it existed and where it did not, for by 1804 it had virtually ceased to exist north of Maryland. Slavery demarked not just their labor and economic situations, but power itself in the new republic.”

William C. Davis (1946) American historian

Source: Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), p. 9

Question

“If we recognize, following the materialist theories, that only the physical nature exist, and that man contain ("renferme", Fr.) no higher essence, divine, which, by one side of his being, raise (promote or improve…) him above his animal nature, it would be a question ("il ne saurait être question", Fr.) neither of obligation, nor of moral responsability; then the supreme good would consist for him, indeed, to satisfy his appetites and his natural inclinations (fondness or partiality, -"penchant", Fr.), to look for the pleasure and flee from (scud, shun, avoid, -"fuir", Fr.) pain. In this case, there could be neither religion nor moral, since religion is precisely what raise man above vulgar (or common, - "vulgaire", Fr.) reality, and that moral is the very negation of selfishness.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 41.

Pain, Pleasure, Religion, Question

“The following pictures are those which to the author seem the strangest. Without doubt they have their origin in Michelangelo Rome series of the main section that was sung with the loudest and most penetrating voice of this entire opus.”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

'Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo' written text with brush in her painting: 'Only by touching can greatness be achieved' in image JHM no. 4685 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004685/part/character/theme/keyword/M004685: in 'Life? or Theater..', p. 567 Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

“As a people [Jews] still have faith in God, though in their blindness and pride of heart they have stumbled over the humility of God's appointed messenger for the world's salvation; so that, instead of receiving him, they crucified the Savior, the Lord of glory. And yet the apostles and prophets show us that even this flagrant crim, to which their pride and self-will drove them, was not one which could never be forgiven them. Because of it, they have been punished, and that severely. When they condemned the Just One and said, "His blood be upon and upon our children," they little expected the fearful recompense which followed.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 246.

God, Children, People, World

“The king was not marrying a princess; he was not giving in to the convention of arranged marriages between families of royal blood. No, he had fallen in love with a "little Iranian girl" and, as in fairy tails, he was going to follow his heart.”

Farah Pahlavi (1938) Empress of Iran

Page 91
Publications, An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah (2004)

Love, Marriage, Family, Girl

“No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto I, line 273
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

“Every apostle or disciple," Mrs. Clarke says, "as much as their running to follow they're savior-they're running just as hard to escape something else.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 8

“Wherever they went, William and his Norman lieutenants built castles. About 170 great vassals came to England with William. When the king rewarded his followers with grants of land, they also assumed the responsibility for its defense, so each built one or more castles. William and his men had several reasons for building castles. As hostile invaders they had to fortify their dwellings and camps in order to hold the territory and provide security for themselves. Their castles also secured borders and coastlines against other invaders and controlled the movement of people and goods at key transportation centers such as fords, bridges, and passes and along major roads.”

Marilyn Stokstad (1929–2016) art historian

Source: Medieval castles (2005), Ch. 1 : The Great Tower : Norman and Early Plantagenet Castles

Men, Hostility, People

“John C. Calhoun was the philosopher-king of the old south, the spiritual mentor of Stephens, Davis, and most of the political leaders of the Confederacy. Bradford and McClellan, following Willmoore Kendall, are obsessed with the utterly false notion that Lincoln was somehow responsible for the permissive egalitarianism of the contemporary welfare state. But equality as such was no less important to Calhoun than to Lincoln. It was just a different kind of equality.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, Defending the Cause of Human Freedom (1994)

Falseness

“Lately, I appeared in some foreign media channels, which resulted in more attacks against me, and the number of threats of murder or physical harm against me have increased due to the creation of ugly hashtags by instigators, for the purpose of inciting and mobilizing followers against me; this does not represent a tolerant society at all. In these interviews, I spoke about my experience and what I went through personally, and I always ended what I said with my optimism towards the future of the Kingdom and its youth, but - unfortunately - this part was usually omitted during the editing stages of said interviews. What the majority does not know is that, for the past 4 years, I have refused to appear in interviews with foreign media channels, because I knew of the threat that they pose to individuals and for fear of being used as a media tool wrongfully, as well as the tendency of some reporters to paint an ugly picture of Saudi Arabia by exploiting and cutting out parts of what is being said by its citizens - especially those who were part of the Kingdom's scholarship program - without any attempt to show the full picture in a fair and professional manner.”

Loujain al-Hathloul (1989) Saudi Arabian activist

A Clarification (March 24, 2016)

Youth, Fear, Optimism, Appearance

“Young Ireland, the Catholic Party and its newspaper organs in Dublin are trying to do all the mischief they can. They are praising the mutineers, and calling upon the Irish to follow their example. I think it will be advisable to call out and embody five thousand more Militia, making twenty thousand in all, and it would be best to bring over to England all the Irish regiments belonging to the Catholic counties, and to send English regiments to Ireland. Some of the Northern Irish regiments would be well left in Ireland. They are chiefly Protestants, and would be delighted to put down the Croppys if they should rise.”

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

Letter to Lord Panmure (28 September 1857), quoted in Sir George Douglas and Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay (eds.), The Panmure Papers (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908), p. 436.
1850s

Thinking

“Good painting is not produced by any unintelligent following of inspiration or temperament.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

The Artist Speaks (1951)

Painting

“It was not until Mr. Charles Booth published in 1891 the results of his exhaustive inquiries that the actual conditions of poverty in London became known. …about 30 per cent of the entire population of London were found to be unable to obtain the necessaries for a sound livelihood. …About ten years later Mr. B. S. Rountree incited by the work of Mr. Booth undertook a similar inquiry in his native town York. …His comments are as follows: "…we are faced by the startling probability that from 25 to 30 per cent of the town populations of the United Kingdom are living in poverty."”

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

Source: Poverty (1912), p. 17-19

“While our view of the world is filtered through our senses, evolution has, by and large, molded those senses to perceive the world accurately, for there’s a severe penalty to be paid for seeing things wrongly. That holds not only for the external environment, but also for the character of others. Without accurate perceptions, we couldn’t find food, avoid predators and other dangers, or form harmonious social groups. And following those perceptions is indeed the pursuit of “true beliefs”: beliefs based on evidence. Natural selection doesn’t mold true beliefs; it molds the sensory and neural apparatus that, in general, promotes the formation of true beliefs.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 182

World, Food, Penalty, Nature

“What’s odd about Friedman’s absolutism on the virtues of markets and the vices of government is that in his work as an economist’s economist he was actually a model of restraint. As I pointed out earlier, he made great contributions to economic theory by emphasizing the role of individual rationality—but unlike some of his colleagues, he knew where to stop. Why didn’t he exhibit the same restraint in his role as a public intellectual?
The answer, I suspect, is that he got caught up in an essentially political role. Milton Friedman the great economist could and did acknowledge ambiguity. But Milton Friedman the great champion of free markets was expected to preach the true faith, not give voice to doubts. And he ended up playing the role his followers expected. As a result, over time the refreshing iconoclasm of his early career hardened into a rigid defense of what had become the new orthodoxy.
In the long run, great men are remembered for their strengths, not their weaknesses, and Milton Friedman was a very great man indeed—a man of intellectual courage who was one of the most important economic thinkers of all time, and possibly the most brilliant communicator of economic ideas to the general public that ever lived. But there’s a good case for arguing that Friedmanism, in the end, went too far, both as a doctrine and in its practical applications. When Friedman was beginning his career as a public intellectual, the times were ripe for a counterreformation against Keynesianism and all that went with it. But what the world needs now, I’d argue, is a counter-counterreformation.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Who Was Milton Friedman?", The New York Review of Books (February 15, 2007)
The New York Review of Books articles

Men, World, Faith, Communication

“It is also a fact that people who are isolated and alienated in their neighborhoods as a result of the large number of neighbors who do not speak Norwegian, who do not follow the Norwegian customs, norms and way of life, could have psychosomatic disorders that can lead to both sickness leave and need for medical help.”

Carl I. Hagen (1944) Norwegian politician

Comment on the basis of the so-called immigrant account by MP Øystein Hedstrøm, election campaign in 1995, reproduced in the book Kong Carl (p. 267).

Life, People, Way, Help

“The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it. In stating this opinion, we define risk, using dictionary terms, as "the possibility of loss or injury."”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1993 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1993.html Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Feeling, Business, Thinking, Loss

“There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well.”

Frank Sinatra (1915–1998) American singer and film actor

Playboy interview (1963)

Men, God, Education, Peace

“Just because you are following God's plan and purpose, your life will not be perfect. In fact, that's when the battle gets more intense.”

Tim Storey (1960) motivational speaker

Comeback & Beyond: How to Turn Your Setback into Your Comeback (2010)

Life, God, Perfection

“Several years ago my dear wife went to the hospital. She left a note behind for the children: "Dear children, do not let Daddy touch the microwave"—followed by a comma, "or the stove, or the dishwasher, or the dryer."”

Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

I'm embarrassed to add any more to that list. Abundantly Blessed, Sunday Afternoon Session of the 178th Annual General Conference http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-851-38,00.html.

Children

“I hope that all of you will follow me.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Mumbled just before being hanged, according to Rafi Eitan, an Israeli intelligence officer who was standing behind Eichmann during the execution, as quoted in Mitch Ginsburg, "Eichmann's Final Barb" in The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/eichmanns-final-barb-i-hope-that-all-of-you-will-follow-me/, December 2, 2014.

Hope

“We follow two rules in the matter of optimization:
Rule 1: Don't do it.
Rule 2 (for experts only). Don't do it yet - that is, not until you have a perfectly clear and unoptimized solution.”

Michael A. Jackson (1936) British computer scientist

Principles of program design, 1975

Optimism

“[W]e shall be concerned with the general nature of pure mathematics, and how it is distinguished from other sciences. Here there are… two distinct categories of things of which an account must be given—the ideas or concepts of mathematics, and the propositions of mathematics. …the great majority of writers on the subject have concentrated their attention on the explanation of one or the other… and erroneously supposed that a satisfactory explanation of the other would immediately follow.”

Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930) British mathematician, philosopher

Footnote: In the future by 'mathematics' will always be meant 'pure mathematics'.
The Foundations of Mathematics (1925)

Mathematics, Idea, Nature, Science

“The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)

Bad luck

“After all, if there is no class stratification in a society, it follows that there is no state, because the state arose as an instrument to be used by a particular class to control the rest of society in its own interests.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 76.

“Some Hindus had erected a new idol-temple in the village of Kohana, and the idolaters used to assemble there and perform their idolatrous rites. These people were seized and brought before me. I ordered that the perverse conduct of the leaders of this wickedness should be publicly proclaimed, and that they should be put to death before the gate of the palace. I also ordered that the infidel books, the idols, and the vessels used in their worship, which had been taken with them, should all be publicly burnt. The others were restrained by threats and punishments, as a warning to all men, that no zimmi could follow such wicked practices in a Musulman country.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Gohana (Haryana) , Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. Elliot and Dowson. Vol. III, p. 381
Quotes from the Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi

Death, Men, People, Books

“For having a clear influence on methodologies for the creation of efficient and reliable software, and for helping to found the following important subfields of computer science: the theory of parsing, the semantics of programming languages, automatic program verification, automatic program synthesis, and analysis of algorithms.”

Robert Floyd (1936–2001) American computer scientist

1978 Turing Award Citation https://web.archive.org/web/20070708004814/http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=4173633&srt=all&aw=140&ao=AMTURING. About

Science, Help

“The boys attend the Institute. I saw where they keep the girls. They are not taught anything. They are merely fed, bathed, given exercise, raised so until puberty, at which time they are culled. The enemy does not want either rebellion or thought bred into his followers, so any who show signs of independence or unusual intelligence are culled.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 19 (p. 421)

Exercises, Girl, Intelligence, Boy

“[This set of inputs [can be defined] as 1) input which is always the same or is of many types, 2) input which occurs periodically (or very infrequently), and 3) input which does or does not seek to destroy the system. Their rationale for developing the classification was to aid in the definition of steps to be followed in order to find the] solution of the problem of a large-scale or complex system.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: System Engineering (1957), p. 302; As cited in: Thomas C. Ford (2008) Interoperability Measurement. p. 146