Quotes about foundation
page 8

G. E. M. Anscombe photo
James A. Garfield photo
Helmut Schmidt photo
Mortimer J. Adler photo

“On the side of physics, there were a few key figures in Oxford who realized, in all probability unlike the majority of their colleagues in the physics department, that physics without interpretation is only part of the story, and that theories like quantum mechanics need careful foundational reflection.”

Harvey Brown (philosopher) (1950) Philosopher of physics

Physics and Philiosophy in Oxford: a prosperous example of interdisciplinarity, in [Innovation and interdisciplinarity in the university, EDIPUCRS, 2007, 8-574-30677-0, 304 http://books.google.com/books?id=-OGr007TQ0AC&printsec=frontcover#PPA304,M1]

Charles Babbage photo
Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law.”

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

1950s, Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock (1957)

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Ellen G. White photo
Thomas Guthrie photo
John le Carré photo
Mario Vargas Llosa photo
Emma Goldman photo
Joseph Priestley photo
Ryszard Kapuściński photo
Akihito photo
Clement Attlee photo
Kristi Noem photo
Joseph Brotherton photo

“The Eating and Drinking Reformation is at the foundation of all the good that would be produced in society.”

Joseph Brotherton (1783–1857) British politician

Quoted in Strength and Diet https://books.google.it/books?id=uexsAAAAMAAJ by Francis Albert Rollo Russell (London: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1905), p. 2.

Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Milton Friedman photo

“The broader and more influential organisations of businessmen have acted to undermine the basic foundation of the free market system they purport to represent and defend.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Lecture "The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community" (1983); cited in Filters Against Folly (1985) by Garrett Hardin

Bill Gates photo

“The worst programs are the ones where the programmers doing the original work don't lay a solid foundation, and then they're not involved in the program in the future.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Source: Interview from Programmers at Work (1986)

Mitt Romney photo

“I believe the family is the foundation of America -- and that we must fight to protect and strengthen it. I believe in the sanctity of human life. I believe that people and their elected representatives should make our laws, not unelected judges.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Press Conference: Announcing Candidacy for Presidency, 2007-02-13 http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/13/romney.announce/index.html
2007 campaign for Republican nomination for United States President

Sun Myung Moon photo

“My dream is to organize a Christian political party including the Protestant denominations, Catholics and all the religious sects. Then, the communist power will be helpless before ours. We are going to do this because the communists are coming to the political scene. Before the pulpit, all the ministers of the established churches must give their sermon on how to smash or absorb communism — but they are not doing that. We are going to do this. Unless we lay the foundation for this, we cannot carry it out. In the Medieval Ages, they had to separate from the cities — statesmanship from the religious field — because people were corrupted at that time. But when it comes to our age, we must have an automatic theocracy to rule the world. So, we cannot separate the political field from the religious. Democracy was born because people ruled the world, like the Pope does. Then, we come to the conclusion that God has to rule the world, and God loving people have to rule the world — and that is logical. We have to purge the corrupted politicians, and the sons of God must rule the world. The separation between religion and politics is what Satan likes most.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Master Speaks: The Significance of the Training Session (1973-05-17 http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon73/SM730517.htm)
Note that the phrase "automatic theocracy" is seen within the church as a translation error. Mrs. Won Pok Choi, while translating the extemporaneous speech, compressed several minutes of Rev. Moon's exposition about the process by which the world would become transformed into the kingdom of heaven into this two-word phrase. Critics used to use this quote to "prove" their claim that Rev. Moon was dictatorial and anti-democratic, but Andrew Wilson had the recorded speech re-translated and exposed the discrepancy. Here is the word-for-word re-translation:[citation needed]
: What? Separate religion from politics? Why separate religion from politics? Why separate politics from religion? Can you separate God from politics? God is active in the realization of all human affairs. Therefore, when the democracies produce a succession of many uncorrupted politicians, it will become heaven on earth. Don't you agree that this is the way it should be?

James Clerk Maxwell photo

“He that would enjoy life and act with freedom must have the work of the day continually before his eyes. Not yesterday's work, lest he fall into despair; nor to-morrow's, lest he become a visionary—not that which ends with the day, which is a worldly work; nor yet that only which remains to eternity, for by it he cannot shape his actions.
Happy is the man who can recognise in the work of to-day a connected portion of the work of life and an embodiment of the work of Eternity. The foundations of his confidence are unchangeable, for he has been made a partaker of Infinity. He strenuously works out his daily enterprises because the present is given him for a possession.
Thus ought Man to be an impersonation of the divine process of nature, and to show forth the union of the infinite with the finite, not slighting his temporal existence, remembering that in it only is individual action possible; nor yet shutting out from his view that which is eternal, knowing that Time is a mystery which man cannot endure to contemplate until eternal Truth enlighten it.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Paper communicated to Frederic Farrar (1854) Æt. 23, as quoted in Lewis Campbell, William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell: With Selections from His Correspondence and Occasional Writings (1884) pp. 144-145, https://books.google.com/books?id=B7gEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA144 and in Richard Glazebrook, James Clerk Maxwell and Modern Physics (1896) pp. 39-40. https://books.google.com/books?id=hbcEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA39

Frederick Winslow Taylor photo

“Scientific management… has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employe, and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants high wages and the employer what he wants a low labor cost for his manufactures.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Principles of Scientific Management, 1911, p. 10; As cited in: Frank B. Gilbreth (1912). Primer of scientific management https://archive.org/stream/primerofscientif00gilbrich#page/1/mode/1up, p. 12.

Luther H. Gulick photo
Brigham Young photo

“It has been observed here this morning that we are called fanatics. Bless me! That is nothing. Who has not been called a fanatic who has discovered anything new in philosophy or science? We have all read of Galileo the astronomer who, contrary to the system of astronomy that had been received for ages before his day, taught that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of our planetary system? For this the learned astronomer was called "fanatic," and subjected to persecution and imprisonment of the most rigorous character. So it has been with others who have discovered and explained new truths in science and philosophy which have been in opposition to long-established theories; and the opposition they have encountered has endured until the truth of their discoveries has been demonstrated by time. The term "fanatic" is not applied to professors of religion only…I will tell you who the real fanatics are: they are they who adopt false principles and ideas as facts, and try to establish a superstructure upon a false foundation. They are the fanatics; and however ardent and zealous they may be, they may reason or argue on false premises till doomsday, and the result will be false. If our religion is of this character we want to know it; we would like to find a philosopher who can prove it to us. We are called ignorant; so we are: but what of it? Are not all ignorant? I rather think so. Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon? When we view its face we may see what is termed "the man in the moon," and what some philosophers declare are the shadows of mountains. But these sayings are very vague, and amount to nothing; and when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the most ignorant of their fellows. So it is with regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain. It was made to give light to those who dwell upon it, and to other planets; and so will this earth when it is celestialized. Every planet in its first rude, organic state receives not the glory of God upon it, but is opaque; but when celestialized, every planet that God brings into existence is a body of light, but not till then. Christ is the light of this planet. God gives light to our eyes.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses, 13:271 (July 24, 1870)
1870s

Aga Khan III photo

“There is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism to which every sincere and believing Mahomedan belongs--that is, the theory of the spiritual brotherhood and unity of the children of the Prophet. It is a deep, perennial element in that Perso-Arabian culture, that great family of civilisation to which we gave the name Islamic in the first chapter. It connotes charity and goodwill towards fellow-believers everywhere…It means an abiding interest in the literature of Islam, in her beautiful arts, in her lovely architecture, in her entrancing poetry. It also means a true reformation -- a return to the early and pure simplicity of the faith, to its preaching by persuasion and argument, to the manifestation of a spiritual power in individual lives, to beneficent activity for mankind. This natural and worthy spiritual movement makes not only the Master and His teaching but also His children of all climes an object of affection to the Turk or the Afghan, to the Indian or the Egyptian. A famine or a desolating fire in the Moslem quarters of Kashgar or Sarajevo would immediately draw the sympathy and material assistance of the Mahomedan of Delhi or Cairo. The real spiritual and cultural unity of Islam must ever grow, for to the follower of the Prophet it is the foundation of the life of the soul.”

Aga Khan III (1877–1957) 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community

p. 156; a variant of this begins "This is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism…", but is otherwise identical.
/ India in Transition (1918)

Géza Révész photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Michael Halliday photo

“The human sciences have to assume at least an equal responsibility in establishing the foundations of knowledge.”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Michael Halliday (1987) cited in: Margaret Laing, Keith Williamson (1994) Speaking in Our Tongues. p. 99.
1970s and later

Friedrich Hayek photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

““Rumors that the sun is out at Santa Ynez are without foundation,” the radio said.”

December “NOT IN OUR STARS“
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

“A Man like him (Tan Zuoren) is the back bone of our nation, is our nation's salt and calcium, is the foundation stone of the rebuilding of nation's morals; the beginning of the rebuilding of the society. To jail such a person, is to jail the nation's conscience.”

Cui Weiping (1956) Chinese film critic

自发而美好的思想感情 ——为谭作人先生呼吁 (11 April 2009) http://www.cuiweiping.net/blogs/cuiweiping/archives/133594.aspx

Charlotte Brontë photo
Marcus Aurelius photo

“The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything!”

IX, 36
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo

“The foundation of liberty is the idea of growth.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter VI, The Heart Of Liberalism, p. 66.

Miguel de Unamuno photo

“Uncertainty, doubt, perpetual wrestling with the mystery of our final destiny, mental despair, and the lack of any solid and stable foundation, may be the basis of an ethic.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), XI : The Practical Problem

“In these days he promoted a bramin, by name Seeva Dew Bhut, to the office of prime minister, who embracing the Mahomedan faith, became such a persecutor of Hindoos that he induced Sikundur to issue orders proscribing the residence of any other than Mahomedans in Kashmeer; and he required that no man should wear the mark on his forehead, or any woman be permitted to burn with her husband’s corpse. Lastly, he insisted on all golden and silver images being broken and melted down, and the metal coined into money. Many of the bramins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mahomedans. After the emigration of the bramins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down; among which was one dedicated to Maha Dew, in the district of Punjhuzara, which they were unable to destroy, in consequence of its foundation being below the surface of the neighbouring water. But the temple dedicated to Jug Dew was levelled with the ground; and on digging into its foundation the earth emitted volumes of fire and smoke which the infidels declared to be the emblem of the wrath of the Deity; but Sikundur, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not desist till the building was entirely razed to the ground, and its foundations dug up….. “In another place in Kashmeer was a temple built by Raja Bulnat, the destruction of which was attended with a remarkable incident. After it had been levelled, and the people were employed in digging the foundation, a copper-plate was discovered, on which was the following inscription:- ‘Raja Bulnat, having built this temple, was desirous of ascertaining from his astrologers how long it would last, and was informed by them, that after eleven hundred years, a king named Sikundur would destroy it, as well as the other temples in Kashmeer’…Having broken all the images in Kashmeer, he acquired the title of the Iconoclast, ‘Destroyer of Idols’…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413)Kashmir
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

George Soros photo
Daniel Patrick Moynihan photo
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto photo
Maimónides photo
Moses Hess photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Piet Mondrian photo
R. H. Tawney photo

“The foundation of democracy is the sense of spiritual independence which nerves the individual to stand alone against the powers of this world.”

R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) English philosopher

Part IV, Ch. 4
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

Jesse Ventura photo
Rudolf Karl Bultmann photo
Raghuram G. Rajan photo

“On the retail side, I particularly want to emphasize the use of the unique ID, Aadhaar, in building individual credit histories. This will be the foundation of a revolution in retail credit.”

Raghuram G. Rajan (1963) Indian economist

On Aadhaar, as quoted in " Raghuram Rajan's first speech as RBI governor http://www.firstpost.com/business/read-full-text-raghuram-rajans-first-speech-as-rbi-governor-1084971.html", Firstpost (5 September 2013)

Michael Shermer photo

“… no such individual would find the Golden Rule surprising in any way because at its base lies the foundation of most human interactions and exchanges and it can be found in countless texts throughout recorded history and from around the world--a testimony to its universality.”

Michael Shermer (1954) American science writer

Speaking of one who has never heard of the Golden Rule, as mentioned in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding
[Shermer, Science of Good and Evil, 2004, 25]

David Graeber photo

“In fact, communism is the foundation of all human sociability. It is what makes society possible.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Five, "A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Moral Relations", p. 96

Enoch Powell photo
Derren Brown photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
George Boole photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo
Joseph Massad photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Michael Szenberg photo
Begum Aga Khan photo

“The development of a country has to start at the foundation of the society, the "family."”

Begum Aga Khan (1963) German philanthropist

International Business and Leadership Symposium address

Francis Wayland Parker photo

“Form and size constitute the foundation of all search for truth.”

Francis Wayland Parker (1837–1902) Union Army officer

Source: Talks on Pedagogics, (1894), p. 72. Reported in Moritz (1914, 292)

Michael Polanyi photo
Leon R. Kass photo

“I have discovered in the Hebrew Bible teachings of righteousness, humaneness, and human dignity—at the source of my parents' teachings of mentschlichkeit—undreamt of in my prior philosophizing. In the idea that human beings are equally God-like, equally created in the image of the divine, I have seen the core principle of a humanistic and democratic politics, respectful of each and every human being, and a necessary correction to the uninstructed human penchant for worshiping brute nature or venerating mighty or clever men. In the Sabbath injunction to desist regularly from work and the flux of getting and spending, I have discovered an invitation to each human being, no matter how lowly, to step outside of time, in imitatio Dei, to contemplate the beauty of the world and to feel gratitude for its—and our—existence. In the injunction to honor your father and your mother, I have seen the foundation of a dignified family life, for each of us the nursery of our humanization and the first vehicle of cultural transmission. I have satisfied myself that there is no conflict between the Bible, rightly read, and modern science, and that the account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis offers "not words of information but words of appreciation," as Abraham Joshua Heschel put it: "not a description of how the world came into being but a song about the glory of the world's having come into being"—the recognition of which glory, I would add, is ample proof of the text's claim that we human beings stand highest among the creatures. And thanks to my Biblical studies, I have been moved to new attitudes of gratitude, awe, and attention. For just as the world as created is a world summoned into existence under command, so to be a human being in that world—to be a mentsch—is to live in search of our ­summons. It is to recognize that we are here not by choice or on account of merit, but as an undeserved gift from powers not at our disposal. It is to feel the need to justify that gift, to make something out of our indebtedness for the opportunity of existence. It is to stand in the world not only in awe of its and our existence but under an obligation to answer a call to a worthy life, a life that does honor to the special powers and possibilities—the divine-likeness—with which our otherwise animal existence has been, no thanks to us, endowed.”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

Looking for an Honest Man (2009)

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“While the Left controls the intellectual means of production—schools (primary, secondary, tertiary), media, foundations, think tanks, publishing prints—the 'Respectable Right' is hardly on the outs with the liberal smart set.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

" Trump Doesn't Need To Talk Like A Con-Servative http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/trump-doesnt-need-to-talk-like-a-conservative/," WND.com, March 17, 2016.
2010s, 2016

Samir Amin photo
A.E. Housman photo
Albert Jay Nock photo
Glenn Beck photo

“Well, they have the education system. They have the media. They have the capitalist system. What do you think the Tides Foundation was? They infiltrate and they saw under Ronald Reagan that capitalists were not for all of this nonsense, so they infiltrated. Now, they are using failing capitalism to destroy it.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
2010-07-13
00:11:14
Gertz
Matt
The CA cop shooter and Glenn Beck: Here's what we know
2010-07-23
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007230022
on the Tides Center
2010s, 2010

Giuseppe Peano photo

“Questions that pertain to the foundations of mathematics, although treated by many in recent times, still lack a satisfactory solution. Ambiguity of language is philosophy's main source of problems. That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use.”
Quaestiones, quae ad mathematicae fundamenta pertinent, etsi hisce temporibus a multis tractatae, satisfacienti solutione et adhuc carent. Hic difficultas maxime en sermonis ambiguitate oritur. Quare summi interest verba ipsa, quibus utimur attente perpendere.

Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) Italian mathematician

Arithmetices principia, nova methodo exposita [The Principles of Arithmetic, presented by a new method] (1889)

Joseph Joubert photo

“Abuse of words, foundation of ideology.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist
Kōki Hirota photo
Ha-Joon Chang photo

“The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge.”

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6, Harsh rules and developing countries, p. 142

Mohammed Alkobaisi photo

“Ethic is the core of humanity and the foundation of civilization.”

Mohammed Alkobaisi (1970) Iraqi Islamic scholar

Understanding Islam, "Morals and Ethics" http://vod.dmi.ae/media/96716/Ep_03_Morals_and_Ethics Dubai Media

Yuval Noah Harari photo
Alexander Maclaren photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Yeah. ‘Environment’ was very big for a while. Ecology Now stickers on the windshields of cars belonging to hairy young men—cars which dripped oil wherever they parked and took off in clouds of smoke thicker than your pipe can produce…Before long, the fashionable cause was something else, I forget what. Anyhow, that whole phase—the wave after wave of causes—passed away. People completely stopped caring…
I feel a moral certainty that a large part of the disaster grew from this particular country, the world’s most powerful, the vanguard country for things both good and ill…never really trying to meet the responsibilities of power.
We’ll make halfhearted attempts to stop some enemies in Asia, and because the attempts are halfhearted we’ll piss away human lives—on both sides—and treasure—to no purpose. Hoping to placate the implacable, we’ll estrange our last few friends. Men elected to national office will solemnly identify inflation with rising prices, which is like identifying red spots with the measles virus, and slap on wage and price controls, which is like papering the cracks in a house whose foundations are sliding away. So economic collapse brings international impotence…As for our foolish little attempts to balance what we drain from the environment against what we put back—well, I mentioned that car carrying the ecology sticker.
At first Americans will go on an orgy of guilt. Later they’ll feel inadequate. Finally they’ll turn apathetic. After all, they’ll be able to buy any anodyne, any pseudo-existence they want.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 5 (pp. 53-54)

Herbert A. Simon photo
William Whipple photo

“A recommendation is gone thither for raising some regiments of Blacks. This, I suppose will lay a foundation for the emancipation of those wretches in that country. I hope it will be the means of dispensing the blessings of Freedom to all the human race in America.”

William Whipple (1730–1785) American signatory of the Declaration of Independence

As quoted in "This Was a Man" http://www.whipple.org/william/thiswasaman.html, by Dorothy Mansfield Vaughan

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Jorge Majfud photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh photo

“An efficient telecommunications network is the foundation upon which an information society is built.”

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (1938) Jordanian businesspeople

March 21, 2004, at the Arab ICT Regulators Forum, Movenpick Dead Sea, Jordan.

Mary Parker Follett photo
Dana Gioia photo