Quotes about general (7423 quotes, page 7)

“During his illness, Lenin repeatedly addressed letters and proposals to the leading bodies and congresses of the party. It must be definitely stated that all these letters and suggestions were invariably delivered to their destination and they were all brought to the knowledge of the delegates to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses, and have invariably exercised their influence on the decisions of the party. If all of these letters have not been published, it is because their author did not intend them to be published. Comrade Lenin has not left any “Testament”; the character of his relations to the party, and the character of the party itself, preclude the possibility of such a “Testament.” The bourgeois and Menshevik press generally understand under the designation of “Testament” one of Comrade Lenin’s letters (which is so much altered as to be almost unrecognizable) in which he gives the party some organizational advice. The Thirteenth Party Congress devoted the greatest attention to this and to the other letters, and drew the appropriate conclusions. All talk with regard to a concealed or mutilated “Testament” is nothing but a despicable lie, directed against the real will of Comrade Lenin and against the interests of the party created by him.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/07/lenin.htm,Letter on Max Eastman's Book, July 1, 1925

Lie , Exercises , Understanding , Knowledge

“It's only us… / Generation of upset people / Without Saints or Heroes… / It's only us…”

Vasco Rossi (1980) Italian singer-songwriter

from Siamo solo noi, 1981
Siamo solo noi (1981)

People

“As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family. By being engaged in various religious practices, women will not be misled into adultery. According to Chanakya Pandit, women are generally not very intelligent and therefore not trustworthy. So the different family traditions of religious activities should always engage them, and thus their chastity and devotion will give birth to a good population eligible for participating in the varnasrama system. On the failure of such varnasrama-dharma, naturally the women become free to act and mix with men, and thus adultery is indulged in at the risk of unwanted population. Irresponsible men also provoke adultery in society, and thus unwanted children flood the human race at the risk of war and pestilence.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972. Chapter 1, verse 40, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/1/40
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Women , Men , War , Children

“[Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife] is for me a secretly deep history of a generation of middle-class American males, my own, which was taught by parents and athletic coaches and scoutmasters and military chaplains and quack doctors and so on to be deeply ashamed of masturbation and wet dreams.
And the hidden plea in the book is one which first appeared in my eyes when I was fourteen, say, and which has not vanished entirely to this day. It is part of the mystery of me. The plea is addressed by old-fashioned males forever full of jism to any pretty human female, on the street, in a magazine, in a movie — anywhere. The plea is this: "Please, pretty lady, don't make me play with my private parts again."”

Kurt Vonnegut book Palm Sunday

"The Sexual Revolution" (ndg)
Palm Sunday (1981)

Books , Dreams , History , Fashion

“Aristides de Sousa Mendes saved my life. He enabled me to have a family that includes professionals whose lives are very much dedicated to helping humankind. In that way the value of his sacrifices has increased exponentially in succeeding generations.”

Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885–1954) Portuguese diplomat

Sonja Jarvik, quoted in The Independent, Sunday 17 October 2010
About

Life , Family , Way , Help

“We generalize from one situation to another not because we cannot tell the difference between the two situations but because we judge that they are likely to belong to a set of situations having the same consequence.”

Roger Shepard (1929) American psychologist

Source: "Toward a universal law of generalization for psychological science," 1987, p. 1322

“I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Science

“When you return to your homes rise up to the height of a generation of men worthy of a free Government, and we will carry out the great work we have commenced. I return to you my sincere thanks, soldiers, for the honor you have done me this afternoon.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speeches to Ohio Regiments (1864), Speech to the One Hundred Sixty-fourth Ohio Regiment

Men , Home , Sincerity

“The truth is, being an American is hard. Being part of a democratic government is hard. Being a citizen is hard. It is a challenge. It’s supposed to be. There’s no respite from our ideals. All of us are called to live up to our expectations for ourselves -- not just when it’s convenient, but when it’s inconvenient. When it’s tough. When we’re afraid. The tension throughout our history between welcoming or rejecting the stranger, it’s about more than just immigration. It’s about the meaning of America, what kind of country do we want to be. It’s about the capacity of each generation to honor the creed as old as our founding: “E Pluribus Unum” -- that out of many, we are one.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Naturalization Ceremony speech (December 2015)

Truth , History , Parting , Country

“If the Republicans, who think slavery is wrong, get possession of the general government, we may not root out the evil at once, but may at least prevent its extension. If I find a venomous snake lying on the open praire, I seize the first stick and kill him at once. But if that snake is in bed with my children, I must be more cautious. I shall, in striking the snake, also strike the children, or arouse the reptile to bite the children. Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the children. But if the question is whether to kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with other children, I think we'd kill it!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide!
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide! That is just the case! The new Territories are the newly made bed to which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem as if there could be much hesitation what our policy should be!

Children , Lying , Question , Thinking

“I am in a very black mood and profoundly disgusted with painting. It really is a continual torture! Don't expect to see anything new, the little I did manage to do has been destroyed, scraped off, or torn up. You've no idea what appalling weather we've had continuously these two past months. When you're trying to convey the weather, the atmosphere and the general mood, it's enough to make you mad with rage.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote from Monet's letter to art-critic and his friend Gustave Geffroy, Giverny 1890; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 56
1890 - 1900

Idea , Mood , Rage , Past

“Men have their virtues and their vices, their heroisms and their perversities; men are neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but possess and practice all that there is of good and bad here below. Such is the general rule. Temperament, education, the accidents of life, are modifying factors. Outside of this, everything is ordered arrangement, everything is chance. Such has been my rule of expectation and it has usually brought me success.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Life , Men , Education , Chance

“How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Pain , Pleasure

“It is true that there are men who, on the approach of severe pain, hear the very opposite call of command, and never appear more proud, more martial, or more happy than when the storm is brewing; indeed, pain itself provides them with their supreme moments! These are the heroic men, the great pain-bringers of mankind: those few and rare ones who need just the same apology as pain generally — and verily, it should not be denied them. They are forces of the greatest importance for preserving and advancing the species, be it only because they are opposed to smug ease, and do not conceal their disgust at this kind of happiness.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 318
The Gay Science (1882)

Men , Pain , Appearance , Happiness

“I learnt to see philosophical systems in the context of the social milieu which produced them. I therefore learnt to look for social contention in philosophical systems. It is of course possible to see the history of philosophy in diverse ways, each way of seeing it being in fact an illumination of the type of problem dealt with in this branch of human thought. It is possible, for instance, to look upon philosophy as a series of abstract systems. When philosophy is so seen, even moral philosophers, with regrettable coyness, say that their preoccupation has nothing to do with life. They say that their concern is not to name moral principles or to improve anybody's character, but narrowly to elucidate the meaning of terms used in ethical discourse, and to determine the status of moral principles and ru1es, as regards the obligation which they impose upon us. When philosophy is regarded in the light of a series of abstract systems, it can be said to concern itself with two fundamental questions: first, the question 'what there is'; second, the question how 'what there is' may be explained. The answer to the first question has a number of aspects. It lays down a minimum number of general under which every item in the world can and must be brought. It does this without naming the items themselves, without furnishing us with an inventory, a roll-call of the items, the objects in the world. It specifies, not particu1ar objects, but the basic types of object. The answer further implies a certain reductionism; for in naming only a few basic types as exhausting all objects in the world, it brings object directly under one of the basic types.”

Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) Pan Africanist and First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

Source: Consciencism (1964), Philosophy In Retrospect, pp. 5-6.

Life , World , Way , History

“"There's a transformation to some degree in the Prophetic Tradition, where there is a spirit that rises above the law, but this transformation really takes place in the New Testament. The Old Testament is prohibition, and the New Testament is, 'here's the good things you do once you're more than merely prohibiting yourself from impulsive sin. There's a positive good to be accomplished, not just a negative to be avoided. You have to look around you within your direct sphere of influence, and you fix the things that announce themselves to be in direct need of repair. And those are often small things. They can start with things as simple as: your room. Put it in order. It's not important that you put your room in order necessarily, what is important is that you learn to distinguish between chaos and order, and that you learn to be able to act in a manner that produces order. In most households there's a hundred things that could be done to make it less hideous and horrible. So practicing that is both a useful form of meditation, but it's also a divine act.""Women are attracted to men's ability to generate, to be productive, and to share. These qualities transcend wealth, which can disappear."”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Women , Men , Law , Learning

“Do you treat this moment as if it were an obstacle to be overcome? Do you feel you have a future moment to get to that is more important?
Almost everyone lives like this most of the time. Since the future never arrives, except as the present, it is a dysfunctional way to live. It generates a constant undercurrent of unease, tension, and discontent. It does not honor life, which is Now and never not Now.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Stillness Speaks (2003)

Life , Way , Feeling , Time

“In 1848, during his term in Congress, he advocated General Taylor's nomination for the presidency, in opposition to all others, and also took an active part for his election after his nomination…”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

p, 125
1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)

Parting

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Epigraph
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

Death , Men , War , Books

“This I think is sufficiently evident, that children generally hate to be idle. All the care then is, that their busy humour should be constantly employ'd in something of use to them; which, if you will attain, you must make what you would have them do a recreation to them, and not a business.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 129
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Hate , Children , Business , Thinking

“According to [the general equilibrium approach to monetary theory], the principal way in which financial policies and events affect aggregate demand is by changing the valuations of physical assets relative to their replacement costs.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

Source: "A general equilibrium approach to monetary theory" (1969), p. 29 As cited in: William Pool. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2, (1976), p. 292

Way , Change

“Though I remained insensitive to the subtleties and delicate gradations of colour.... my eyes at least did not deceive me when I drew back and looked at the subject in its broad lines, and this was the starting-point of new compositions... Slowly I tried my strength in innumerable rough sketches which convinced me... I could see as clearly as ever when it came to vivid colours isolated in a mass of dark tones. How was I to put this to use? My intentions gradually became clearer... I said to myself, as I made my sketches, that a series of general impressions, captured at the times of day when I had the best chance of seeing correctly, would not be without interest. I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of the themes to settle themselves in my brain little by little, of their own accord; and the day when I felt I held enough cards to be able to try my luck with a real hope of success, I determined to pass to action, and did so.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

remark by Monet – between 1900 and 1920 – on his 'Water lilies' paintings; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 132
1900 - 1920

Hope , Idea , Chance , Time

“I remember some artists who said this world isn't worth anything, that it is a pigsty, that we are going nowhere, that God is dead, and all those things. Bad literature is this. To expose your navel, to tell how you drank your morning coffee amid general disgust, with everything around you rotting. While the world is dying, I drink my coffee. Or I perform my little sex acts. This is old-fashioned. One must cross this neurotic curtain.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

God , World , Sex , Coffee

“The Satanist believes in complete gratification of his ego. Satanism, in fact, is the only religion which advocates the intensification or encouragement of the ego. Only if a person's own ego is sufficiently fulfilled, can he afford to be kind and complimentary to others, without robbing himself of his self-respect. We generally think of a braggart as a person with a large ego; in reality, his bragging results from a need to satisfy his impoverished ego.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Religion , Thinking , Reality , Personality

“I am essentially a recluse who will have very little to do with people wherever he may be. I think that most people only make me nervous—that only by accident, and in extremely small quantities, would I ever be likely to come across people who wouldn't. It makes no difference how well they mean or how cordial they are—they simply get on my nerves unless they chance to represent a peculiarly similar combination of tastes, experiences, and heritages; as, for instance, Belknap chances to do... Therefore it may be taken as axiomatic that the people of a place matter absolutely nothing to me except as components of the general landscape and scenery. Let me have normal American faces in the streets to give the aspect of home and a white man's country, and I ask no more of featherless bipeds. My life lies not among people but among scenes—my local affections are not personal, but topographical and architectural. No one in Providence—family aside—has any especial bond of interest with me, but for that matter no one in Cambridge or anywhere else has, either. The question is that of which roofs and chimneys and doorways and trees and street vistas I love the best; which hills and woods, which roads and meadows, which farmhouses and views of distant white steeples in green valleys. I am always an outsider—to all scenes and all people—but outsiders have their sentimental preferences in visual environment. I will be dogmatic only to the extent of saying that it is New England I must have—in some form or other. Providence is part of me—I am Providence—but as I review the new impressions which have impinged upon me since birth, I think the greatest single emotion—and the most permanent one as concerns consequences to my inner life and imagination—I have ever experienced was my first sight of Marblehead in the golden glamour of late afternoon under the snow on December 17, 1922. That thrill has lasted as nothing else has—a visible climax and symbol of the lifelong mysterious tie which binds my soul to ancient things and ancient places.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Lillian D. Clark (29 March 1926), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 186
Non-Fiction, Letters

Love , Life , People , Family

“Hate begets hate, violence engenders violence, hypocrisy is answered by hypocrisy, war generates war, and love creates love.”

Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968) American sociologist

Source: The Ways and Power of Love (1954), p. xi

Love , Hate , War

“Now answer me this. Do you think that the same holds of horses? Do people in general improve them, whereas one particular person corrupts them or makes them worse? Or is it wholly the opposite: one particular person - or the very few who are horse trainers - is able to improve them, whereas the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make use of them, make them worse? Isn't that true, Meletus, both of horses and of all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. Indeed, our young people are surely in a very happy situation if only one person corrupts them, whereas all the rest benefit them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

25b
Plato, Apology

People , Thinking , Animals , Horse

“His Armies, weakened by defeat and defeat, dispirited by misfortune, had unlearned - under beaten generals - that warlike impetuosity which as it is the consequence, so it is the guarentee of success.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

History of the Thirty Years War - Volume II
Attitude of the Imperial/League army after the protestant victory at Brietenfeld.
The Thirty Years War

Success

“Much has been said about Yugoslavia and its people, but many Americans may be under a wrong impression for political enemies and agitators have spread the idea that its inhabitants belong to different nations animated by mutual hate and held together against their will, by a tyrannical power. The fact is that all Yugoslavs — Serbians, Slavonians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Dalmations, Montenagrins, Croatians and Slovenes — are of the same race, speak the same language and have common national ideals and traditions.
At the termination of the World War, Alexander brought about a political union creating a powerful and resourceful State. This was hailed with joy by all the Slavs of the Balkans, but it took time before the people found themselves in the new conditions.
I was born in Croatia. The Croatians and Slovenes were never in a position to fight for their independence. It was the Serbians who fought the battles for freedom and the price of liberty was paid in Serbian blood. All true Croatians and Slovenes remember that gratefully. They also know that the Serbians have an unequaled aptitude and experience in warfare and are best qualified to direct the forces of the country in a crisis.
Ever since united Yugoslavia came into being through Alexander's efforts, political enemies have done all they could to disrupt it by sowing seeds of discord and disseminating malicious reports. … The death of the King has shaken the country to its very foundations, but the enemies who say that it means the disruption of Yugoslavia will hope in vain, for the noble blood of the great man has only served to cement its parts more firmly and strengthen the national structure. Alexander will live long in the memory of his people, a heroic figure of imposing stature, both the Washington and Lincoln of the Yugoslavs; like Washington an able and intrepid general who freed his country from oppression; like Lincoln a wise and patriotic leader who suffered martyrdom.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Tribute to King Alexander, to the editor of The New York Times (19 October 1934), also at Heroes of Serbia http://www.heroesofserbia.com/2012/10/tribute-to-king-alexander-by-nikola.html

Death , Hate , War , People

“Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random”

Donald Ervin Knuth book The Art of Computer Programming

Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)

“We have but very indifferent men in general. Great part of those who ship for seamen know very little of the matter.”

Benedict Arnold (1741–1801) Continental and later British Army general during the American Revolutionary War

Letter to General Gates (7 September 1776), in Battle of Valcour on Lake Champlain, October 11th, 1776 by Peter Sailly Palmer(1876) p. 5

Men , Parting , Indifference

“The general of the sea has need of only one science, that of navigation. The one on land has need of all, or of a talent which is the equivalent of all, that will enable him to profit by all experience, and all knowledge. A general of the sea has nothing to divine. He knows where his enemy is, he knows his strength. A general on land never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy well, and never knows positively where he is.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Knowledge , Science , Sea

“Essentially, we are still the same people as those in the period of the Reformation - and how should it be otherwise? But we no longer allow ourselves certain means to gain victory for our opinion: this distinguishes us from that age and proves that we belong to a higher culture. These days, if a man still attacks and crushes opinions with suspicions and outbursts of rage, in the manner of men during the Reformation, he clearly betrays that he would have burnt his opponents, had he lived in other times, and that he would have taken recourse to all the means of the Inquisition, had he lived as an opponent of the Reformation. In its time, the Inquisition was reasonable, for it meant nothing other than the general martial law which had to be proclaimed over the whole domain of the church, and which, like every state of martial law, justified the use of the extremest means, namely under the assumption (which we no longer share with those people) that one possessed truth in the church and had to preserve it at any cost, with any sacrifice, for the salvation of mankind. But now we will no longer concede so easily that anyone has the truth; the rigorous methods of inquiry have spread sufficient distrust and caution, so that we experience every man who represents opinions violently in word and deed as any enemy of our present culture, or at least as a backward person. And in fact, the fervor about having the truth counts very little today in relation to that other fervor, more gentle and silent, to be sure, for seeking the truth, a search that does not tire of learning afresh and testing anew.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Wir sind im Wesentlichen noch dieselben Menschen, wie die des Zeitalters der Reformation: wie sollte es auch anders sein? Aber dass wir uns einige Mittel nicht mehr erlauben, um mit ihnen unsrer Meinung zum Siege zu verhelfen, das hebt uns gegen jene Zeit ab und beweist, dass wir einer höhern Cultur angehören. Wer jetzt noch, in der Art der Reformations-Menschen, Meinungen mit Verdächtigungen, mit Wuthausbrüchen bekämpft und niederwirft, verräth deutlich, dass er seine Gegner verbrannt haben würde, falls er in anderen Zeiten gelebt hätte, und dass er zu allen Mitteln der Inquisition seine Zuflucht genommen haben würde, wenn er als Gegner der Reformation gelebt hätte. Diese Inquisition war damals vernünftig, denn sie bedeutete nichts Anderes, als den allgemeinen Belagerungszustand, welcher über den ganzen Bereich der Kirche verhängt werden musste, und der, wie jeder Belagerungszustand, zu den äussersten Mitteln berechtigte, unter der Voraussetzung nämlich (welche wir jetzt nicht mehr mit jenen Menschen theilen), dass man die Wahrheit, in der Kirche, habe, und um jeden Preis mit jedem Opfer zum Heile der Menschheit bewahren müsse. Jetzt aber giebt man Niemandem so leicht mehr zu, dass er die Wahrheit habe: die strengen Methoden der Forschung haben genug Misstrauen und Vorsicht verbreitet, so dass Jeder, welcher gewaltthätig in Wort und Werk Meinungen vertritt, als ein Feind unserer jetzigen Cultur, mindestens als ein zurückgebliebener empfunden wird. In der That: das Pathos, dass man die Wahrheit habe, gilt jetzt sehr wenig im Verhältniss zu jenem freilich milderen und klanglosen Pathos des Wahrheit-Suchens, welches nicht müde wird, umzulernen und neu zu prüfen.
Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 633
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

Men , People , Truth , Age

“If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Handicapped People and Science" http://books.google.com/books?id=9LVFAAAAYAAJ&q=%22handicapped+people+and+science%22#search_anchor by Stephen Hawking, Science Digest 92, No. 9 (September 1984): 92 (details of citation from here http://www.enotes.com/stephen-hawking-criticism/hawking-stephen/further-reading).

Children , People , World , Way

“A general must be a charlatan.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“The document they produced was eventually signed, but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Women , Men , War , People

“An adversary is more hurt by desertion than by slaughter. (General Maxims)”
aduersarium amplius frangunt transfugae quam perempti.

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus book De re militari

De Re Militari (also Epitoma Rei Militaris), Book III, "Dispositions for Action"

Hurt

“Markets are not perfect, which is true even for rationally regulated markets. Nevertheless, over the last thousand years every attempt to organize sizeable societies without important dependence on markets has generated its own failure …”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

New millennium, An Enjoyable Life Puzzling Over Modern Finance Theory, 2009

Failure , Dependency , Perfection

“In general, fakirs, like scribes and potters, are sitting down, when he’s standing up, a fakir is just like an other man, and sitting down, he’ll be smaller than the others”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 60 (Vintage 2003)

“The important Keynesian insight is that a high propensity to save will not generate high national saving unless it goes into investment, into accumulation of real capital. The "paradox of thrift" makes this point in an extreme way. In certain circumstances, when there is no demand for investment around, the economy can be no better off, or even worse off, if a thrifty public cuts consumption.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Reflections on Japanese Political Economy" (1999)

Way

“True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of all existing institutions she raises her glorious head, as the new foundress of the world.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Wahrhafte Anarchie ist das Zeugungselement der Religion. Aus der Vernichtung alles Positiven hebt sie ihr glorreiches Haupt als neue Weltstifterin empor...
English translation as quoted in The Dublin Review Vol. III (July-October 1837); The original German is quoted http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/leaffourger.html from the Fourth Leaflet http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/leaffoureng.html of the White Rose (1942)
Variant translation: True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of every positive element she lifts her gloriously radiant countenance as the founder of a new world.

World , Religion

“[L]et us assign the figures that have come into being in our theory to fire and earth and water and air. To earth let us give the cubical form; for earth is least mobile of the four and most plastic of bodies: and that substance must possess this nature in the highest degree which has its bases most stable. Now of the triangles which we assumed as our starting-point that with equal sides is more stable than that with unequal; and of the surfaces composed of the two triangles the equilateral quadrangle necessarily is more stable than the equilateral triangle… Now among all these that which has the fewest bases must naturally in all respects be the most cutting and keen of all, and also the most nimble, seeing it is composed of the smallest number of similar parts… Let it be determined then… that the solid body which has taken the form of the pyramid [tetrahedron] is the element and seed of fire; and the second in order of generation let [octahedron] us say to be that of air, and the third [icosahedron] that of water. Now all these bodies we must conceive as being so small that each single body in the several kinds cannot for its smallness be seen by us at all; but when many are heaped together, their united mass is seen…”

Plato book Timaeus

Section 55e–56c, Tr. R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato (1888) pp. 199-201. https://books.google.com/books?id=q2YMAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA199
Timaeus

Nature , Water , Parting

“Prior to any generalization about literature, literary texts have to be read, and the possibility of reading can never be taken for granted. It is an act of understanding that can never be observed, nor in any way prescribed or verified.”

Paul De Man (1919–1983) literary theorist

Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, Oxford University Press. 1971 p. 107.

Way , Literature , Understanding , Reading

“That is the fourth course, which in future I trust the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) will not forget. The right hon. Gentleman tells us to go back to precedents; with him a great measure is always founded on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to the tea-kettle. His precedents are generally tea-kettle precedents.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/apr/11/maynooth-college in the House of Commons (11 April 1845).
1840s

Future , Tea , Forgetting

“But this letter is long, Sir, and it is time to conclude it.
I accuse Lt. Col. du Paty de Clam of being the diabolical creator of this miscarriage of justice — unwittingly, I would like to believe — and of defending this sorry deed, over the last three years, by all manner of ludricrous and evil machinations.
I accuse General Mercier of complicity, at least by mental weakness, in one of the greatest inequities of the century.
I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands absolute proof of Dreyfus’s innocence and covering it up, and making himself guilty of this crime against mankind and justice, as a political expedient and a way for the compromised General Staff to save face.
I accuse Gen. de Boisdeffre and Gen. Gonse of complicity in the same crime, the former, no doubt, out of religious prejudice, the latter perhaps out of that esprit de corps that has transformed the War Office into an unassailable holy ark.
I accuse Gen. de Pellieux and Major Ravary of conducting a villainous enquiry, by which I mean a monstrously biased one, as attested by the latter in a report that is an imperishable monument to naïve impudence.
I accuse the three handwriting experts, Messrs. Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting reports that were deceitful and fraudulent, unless a medical examination finds them to be suffering from a condition that impairs their eyesight and judgement.
I accuse the War Office of using the press, particularly L’Eclair and L’Echo de Paris, to conduct an abominable campaign to mislead the general public and cover up their own wrongdoing.
Finally, I accuse the first court martial of violating the law by convicting the accused on the basis of a document that was kept secret, and I accuse the second court martial of covering up this illegality, on orders, thus committing the judicial crime of knowingly acquitting a guilty man.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

War , Secret , Justice , Law

“We may do different jobs and wear different uniforms, and hold different views than the person beside us. But as Americans, we all share the same proud title — we are citizens. It’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter of our American story.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Fifth State of the Union Address (February 2013)

Way , Idea , Future , Personality

“It is just so with personal liberty. The unlimited freedom which the individual property-owner has enjoyed has been of use to this country in many ways, and we can continue our prosperous economic career only by retaining an economic organization which will offer to the men of the stamp of the great captains of industry the opportunity and inducement to earn distinction. Nevertheless, we as Americans must now face the fact that this great freedom which the individual property-owner has enjoyed in the past has produced evils which were’ inevitable from its unrestrained exercise. It is this very freedom - this absence of State ‘and National restraint - that has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. Any feeling of special hatred toward these men is as absurd as any feeling of special regard. Some of them have gained their power by cheating and swindling, just as some very small business men cheat and swindle; but, as a whole, big men are no better and no worse than their small competitors, from a moral standpoint. Where they do wrong it is even more important to punish them than to punish as small man who does wrong, because their position makes it especially wicked for them to yield to temptation; but the prime need is to change the conditions which enable them to accumulate a power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise, and to make this change not only, without vindictiveness, without doing injustice to individuals, but also in a cautious and temperate spirit, testing our theories by actual practice, so that our legislation may represent the minimum of restrictions upon the individual initiative of the exceptional man which is compatible with obtaining the maximum of welfare for the average man.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Men , Way , Feeling , Exercises

“Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned, not so much in their own, as in their mutual fields. The peril of a clash is aggravated by a more or less predominant sense of combativeness, posed by every human being. To resist this inherent fighting tendency the best way is to dispel ignorance of the doings of others by a systematic spread of general knowledge. With this object in view, it is most important to aid exchange of thought and intercourse.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

Way , Knowledge , Sense , Fight

“One must be born to any superior world — to make it plainer, one must be bred for it. One has a right to philosophy (taking the word in its greatest sense) only by virtue of one's breeding; one's ancestors, one's "blood," decides this, too. Many generations must have worked on the origin of a philosopher; each one of his virtues must have been separately earned, cared for, passed on, and embodied.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Beyond Good and Evil, translated by Marianne Cowan [Henry Regnery Company, 1955, p. 139]; Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 1988, p. 130]

World , Sense

“As the Bajauris were rebels and at enmity with the people of Islam, and as, by reason of the heathenish and hostile customs prevailing in their midst, the very name of Islam was rooted out from their tribe, they were put to general massacre and their wives and children were made captive. At a guess more than 3000 men went to their death; as the fight did not reach to the eastern side of the fort, a few got away there. The fort taken, we entered and inspected it. On the walls, in houses, streets and alleys, the dead lay, in what numbers! Comers and goers to and fro were passing over the bodies… With mind easy about the important affairs of the Bajaur fort, we marched, on Tuesday the 9th of Muharram, one kuroh (2m) down the dale of Bajaur and ordered that a tower of heads should be set up on the rising ground. On Wednesday the 10th of Muharram, we rode out to visit the Bajaur fort. There was a wine-party in Khawaja Kalan's house, several goat-skins of wine having been brought.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 370-71.

Death , Men , Hostility , Children

“It lays down, as is generally known, that our speculations upon all subjects whatsoever, pass necessarily through three successive stages: a Theological stage, in which free play is given to spontaneous fictions admitting of no proof; the Metaphysical stage, characterized by the prevalence of personified abstractions or entities; lastly, the Positive stage, based upon an exact view of the real facts of the case.”

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) French philosopher

Source: A General View of Positivism (1848, 1856), p. 36

Success

“Children must be under authority, and are themselves aware that they must be, although they like to play a game of rebellion at times. The case of children is unique in the fact that those who have authority over them are sometimes fond of them. Where this is the case, the children do not resent the authority in general, even when they resist it on particular occasions. Education authorities, as opposed to teachers, have not this merit, and do in fact sacrifice the children to what they consider the good of the State by teaching them "patriotism," i. e., a willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 13: Freedom in Society

Children , Education , Game , Teachers

“Not to the extent of throwing up my hands and saying, "Well, it's all over." No. I think whichever generation and at whatever time, when the time comes, the generation that is there, I think will have to go on doing what they believe is right.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Answer to question about whether he's mused about Armageddon. Interview http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/120683c.htm for People magazine (12 June 1983)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Thinking , Time

“A very remarkable people the Zulus: they defeat our generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a great European dynasty.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Upon hearing of the death of Napoléon, Prince Imperial of the House of Bonaparte in Africa (1879); cited in James Anthony Froude, Lord Beaconsfield (1890), p. 213.

Fate , People

“The general, and at the same time dynamic, type of analysis still remains an unwritten chapter of economic theory, the claims of innumerable “model-builders” notwithstanding… The … theoretical approach, based on the combination of the complexities of a general interdependent system with the simplifying assumptions of static analysis, constitutes the background of this investigation.”

Wassily Leontief (1906–1999) Russian economist

Source: Structure of American economy, 1919-1929, 1941, p. 33, as cited in: Drejer, Ina. " The Role of Technological Linkages in a Leontief Scheme-From Static Structures to Endogenous Evolution of Technical Coefficients http://www.druid.dk/uploads/tx_picturedb/dw1999-340.pdf." Preparado para: DRUID Winter Conference, Holte (enero 1999). 1998.

Time

“My abandonment of former beliefs was, however, never complete. Some things remained with me, and still remain: I still think that truth depends upon a relation to fact, and that facts in general are nonhuman; I still think that man is cosmically unimportant, and that a Being, if there were one, who could view the universe impartially, without the bias of here and now, would hardly mention man, except perhaps in a footnote near the end of the volume; but I no longer have the wish to thrust out human elements from regions where they belong; I have no longer the feeling that intellect is superior to sense, and that only Plato's world of ideas gives access to the 'real' world. I used to think of sense, and of thought which is built on sense, as a prison from which we can be freed by thought which is emancipated from sense. I now have no such feelings. I think of sense, and of thoughts built on sense, as windows, not as prison bars. I think that we can, however imperfectly, mirror the world, like Leibniz's monads; and I think it is the duty of the philosopher to make himself as undistorting a mirror as he can. But it is also his duty to recognize such distortions as are inevitable from our very nature. Of these, the most fundamental is that we view the world from the point of view of the here and now, not with that large impartiality which theists attribute to the Deity. To achieve such impartiality is impossible for us, but we can travel a certain distance towards it. To show the road to this end is the supreme duty of the philosopher.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, My Philosophical Development (1959), p. 213

Truth , World , Travel , Feeling

“It is often in the audacity, in the steadfastness, of the general that the safety and the conservation of his men is found.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men

“My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2004, Democratic National Convention speech (July 2004)

Love , School , Faith , Imagination

“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

People , World , Peace , Law

“Everything that is hard to attain is easily assailed by the generality of men.”

Ptolemy (100–170) Greco-Egyptian writer and astronomer of Alexandria

Book I, sec. 1
Tetrabiblos

Men

“To those who inquire as to the purpose of mathematics, the usual answer will be that it facilitates the making of machines, the travelling from place to place, and the victory over foreign nations, whether in war or commerce. … The reasoning faculty itself is generally conceived, by those who urge its cultivation, as merely a means for the avoidance of pitfalls and a help in the discovery of rules for the guidance of practical life.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1900s, "The Study of Mathematics" (November 1907)

Life , War , Travel , Mathematics

“"How to test?" is a question that cannot be answered in general. "When to test?" however, does have a general answer: as early and as often as possible.”

Bjarne Stroustrup (1950) Danish computer scientist, creator of C++

Question

“We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men, not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us. I say, we think, most of us, that this Charter of Freedom applies to the slave as well as to ourselves, that the class of arguments put forward to batter down that idea, are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to undermine the very foundations of free society. We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.

Men , God , Thinking , Evil

“Today’s events are tomorrow’s history, yet events seen by the naked eye lack the depth and breadth of human struggles, triumphs and suffering. Writing history is writing the soul of the past… so that the present generation may learn from past mistakes, be inspired by their ancestor’s sacrifices, and take responsibility for the future.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

As quoted in Epifanio de los Santos by Fernando Bernardo. Silent storms: inspiring lives of 101 great Filipinos. Anvil Publishing, Inc.(2000). p. 37–38.
ULOL

Soul , History , Suffering , Learning

“When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.”

Claude Bernard (1813–1878) French physiologist

Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865)

Support

“We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:
"In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them."”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

War , World , Peace , Future

“I would like to point out how this travesty was made possible, how it sprang out of the machinations of Major du Paty de Clam, how Generals Mercier, de Boisdeffre and Gonse became so ensnared in this falsehood that they would later feel compelled to impose it as holy and indisputable truth. Having set it all in motion merely by carelessness and lack of intelligence, they seem at worst to have given in to the religious bias of their milieu and the prejudices of their class. In the end, they allowed stupidity to prevail.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

Truth , Stupidity , Feeling , Intelligence

“Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan would not have been discovered, nor have risen into notice. … I have touched upon this matter in a small book which I wrote a generation ago and which I have not published as yet — Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. When Stormfield arrived in heaven he … was told that … a shoemaker … was the most prodigious military genius the planet had ever produced.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

The Autobiography of Mark Twain (1959 edition, edited by Charles Neider).

War , Books

“It is difficult to make a general judgement about genetic modification (GM), whether vegetable or animal, medical or agricultural, since these vary greatly among themselves and call for specific considerations. The risks involved are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application. Genetic mutations, in fact, have often been, and continue to be, caused by nature itself. Nor are mutations caused by human intervention a modern phenomenon. The domestication of animals, the crossbreeding of species and other older and universally accepted practices can be mentioned as examples. We need but recall that scientific developments in GM cereals began with the observation of natural bacteria which spontaneously modified plant genomes. In nature, however, this process is slow and cannot be compared to the fast pace induced by contemporary technological advances, even when the latter build upon several centuries of scientific progress.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

§ 133
2010s, 2015, Laudato si' : Care for Our Common Home

Nature , Universe , Animals

“One thing is clear. Every passing day will deepen the policy of the proletariat in power, and more and more define is class character. Side beside with that, the revolutionary ties between the proletariat and the nation will be broken, the class disintegration of the peasantry will assume political form, and the antagonism between the component sections will grow in proportion as the policy of the workers' government defines itself, ceasing to be a general-democractic and becoming a class policy.”

Leon Trotsky book Results and Prospects

Results and Prospects (1905)

“Young people in the audience today, young people like Laura, were born in a place and a time where there is less conflict, more prosperity and more freedom than any time in human history. But that’s not because man’s darkest impulses have vanished. Even here, in Europe, we’ve seen ethnic cleansing in the Balkans that shocked the conscience. The difficulties of integration and globalization, recently amplified by the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, strained the European project and stirred the rise of a politics that too often targets immigrants or gays or those who seem somehow different. While technology has opened up vast opportunities for trade and innovation and cultural understanding, it’s also allowed terrorists to kill on a horrifying scale. Around the world, sectarian warfare and ethnic conflicts continue to claim thousands of lives. And once again, we are confronted with the belief among some that bigger nations can bully smaller ones to get their way -- that recycled maxim that might somehow makes right. So I come here today to insist that we must never take for granted the progress that has been won here in Europe and advanced around the world, because the contest of ideas continues for your generation. And that’s what’s at stake in Ukraine today. Russia’s leadership is challenging truths that only a few weeks ago seemed self-evident -- that in the 21st century, the borders of Europe cannot be redrawn with force, that international law matters, that people and nations can make their own decisions about their future.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

People , Truth , World , Law

“Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. I noticed that young people — they're very busy with all these electronics. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone. But I am a big believer in technology and I'm a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity. And so I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Interview in Shanghai, as quoted in [http://learning.sohu.com/20091118/n268291186.shtml China Daily (17 November 2009)
2009, Town Hall meeting in Shanghai (November 2009)

People , World , Idea , Business

“I define speech as any communicative activity. [Can it be nonverbal? ] Yes. [Can it be nonverbal and also not written? ] Yes. [Can it encompass physical actions? ] Yes. Watt [Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Watt, 703 F.2d 586 (1983)] was a case in which what was at issue was sleeping as communicative activity. What I said was that for purposes of the heightened protections that are accorded, sleeping could not be speech. That is to say, I did not say that one could prohibit sleeping merely for the purpose of eliminating the communicative aspect of sleeping, if there is any... [and] I did not say that the Government could seek to prohibit that communication without running afoul of the heightened standards of the first amendment. If they passed a law that allows all other sleeping but only prohibits sleeping where it is intended to communicate, then it would be invalidated. But what I did say was, where you have a general law that just applies to an activity which in itself is normally not communicative, such as sleeping, spitting, whatever you like; clenching your fist, for example; such a law would not be subject to the heightened standards of the first amendment. That is to say, if there is ordinary justification for it, it is fine. It does not have to meet the high need, the no other available alternative requirements of the first amendment. Whereas, when you are dealing with communicative activity, naturally communicative activity—writing, speech, and so forth— any law, even if it is general, across the board, has to meet those higher standards.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, (8/5/1986), transcript https://web.archive.org/web/20060213232846/http://a255.g.akamaitech.net/7/255/2422/22sep20051120/www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh99-1064/31-110.pdf at pp. 51-52).
1980s

Law , Communication , Nature , Sleep

“With soul of flame and temper of steel we must act as our coolest judgment bids us. We must exercise the largest charity towards the wrong-doer that is compatible with relentless war against the wrong-doing. We must be just to others, generous to others, and yet we must realize that it is a shameful and a wicked thing not to withstand oppression with high heart and ready hand. With gentleness and tenderness there must go dauntless bravery and grim acceptance of labor and hardship and peril.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Foreword http://www.bartleby.com/55/100.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)

War , Exercises , Soul , Heart

“The principle is that what is Romanian we'll put in Bucovina: what is foreign, Ukrainian, etc. we'll put in camps and from there dispatch them to the Slavic countries. (…) Gentlemen, you shall consider the need for this people to profit - in this desaster - to be puriefied, to be homogeneous. We're without mercy. I don't think at man; I think at the general interests of the Romanian people, who dictate for us to no longer be lenient as we were until now which resulted in our country being filled with so many neighbours who did for us the worst evil.”

Ion Antonescu (1882–1946) prime minister and conducător of Romania during World War II

People , Thinking , Evil , Country

“In all these papers we see a love of honest work, an aversion to shams, a caution in the enunciation of conclusions, a distrust of rash generalizations and speculations based on uncertain premises. He was never anxious to add one more guess on doubtful matters in the hope of hitting the truth, or what might pass as such for a time, but was always ready to take infinite pains in the most careful testing of every theory. With these qualities was united a modesty which forbade the pushing of his own claims and desired no reputation except the unsought tribute of competent judges.”

Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) physicist

From Gibbs's obituary for Hubert Anson Newton (1897), in the Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/hubert-newton.pdf.

Love , Pain , Truth , Hope

“I belong to a generation - assuming that this generation includes others besides me - that lost its faith in the gods of the old religions as well as in the gods of modern nonreligions. I reject Jehova as I reject humanity.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Education Of the Stoic

Ibid., p. 14
The Education of the Stoic

God , Faith , Religion

“[The career a young man should choose should be] one that is most consonant with our dignity, one that is based on ideas of whose truth we are wholly convinced, one that offers us largest scope in working for humanity and approaching that general goal towards which each profession offers only one of the means: the goal of perfection … If he works only for himself he can become a famous scholar, a great sage, an excellent imaginative writer [Dichter], but never a perfected, a truly great man.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

in Karl Marx and World Literature (1976) by S. S. Prawer, p. 2.
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

Truth , Imagination , Idea , Perfection

“When two overlords, jewel-set with glittering General Staffs, proclaim at the same time on either side of their throbbing mobilized frontiers, "We will save our country!" there is one immensity deceived and two victimized. There are two deceived immensities!
There is nothing else. That these cries can be uttered together in the face of heaven, in the face of truth, proves at a stroke the monstrosity of the laws which rule us, and the madness of the gods.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi

God , Truth , Law , Time

“Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them in and by the National Constitution; but among these surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but at most such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the Government itself had never been known as a governmental — as a merely administrative power. This relative matter of national power and State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality. Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole — to the General Government — while whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State. This is all there is of original principle about it. Whether the National Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has applied the principle with exact accuracy is not to be questioned. We are all bound by that defining without question.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

World , Confidence , Question , Time

“Ever since the war he's had a low opinion of people and of nations, they're selfish, all of them, without the imagination to see the injustices they're perpetrating. The idealism of his youth, a belief in the moral mission of mankind and the enlightened spirit of the white race that he took from the lectures of John Stuart Mill and his followers, was buried once and for all in the bloody mire of Ypres and the chalk quarry at Soissons where his son met his death. Politics disgusts him, the cool conviviality of the club and the showy self-congratulation of the public banquet repel him; since the death of his son he's avoided making new acquaintances. His own generation's sour unwillingness to recognize the truth and its inability to adapt to the postwar era anger him, as does the younger generation's smart-alecky thoughtlessness. But with this girl he's regained belief, a vague devout gratitude for the mere existence of youth; in her presence he sees that one generation's painfully acquired mistrust of life is fortunately neither understood nor credited by the next, and that each new wave of youth is a new beginning.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

Life , Death , War , People

“I generally had to give in.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Statement on his relations with the Empress Josephine (19 May 1816), quoted in The Story of Civilization (1935) by Will Durant and Ariel Durant, p. 234

“In the course of thousands of years of mechanical development, the mechanistic concept, from generation to generation, has anchored itself deeply in man's biological system. In so doing, it actually has altered human functioning in the sense of the machine-like. In the process of killing his genital function, man has become biologically rigid. He has armored himself against that which is natural and spontaneous within him, he has lost contact with the biological function of self-regulation and is filled with a strong fear of that which is alive and free.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Section 2 : The Biological Miscalculation in the Human Struggle for Freedom
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

Fear , Nature , Sense , Strong

“And now German generals find it hard to explain away their retreat.”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

Quoted in "These are the Russians" - Page 131 - by Richard Edward Lauterbach - 1945

“A general is not easily overcome who can form a true judgment of his own and the enemy's forces. Valour is superior to numbers. The nature of the ground is often of more consequence than courage. (General Maxims)”
Amplius iuuat uirtus quam multitudo.

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus book De re militari

De Re Militari (also Epitoma Rei Militaris), Book III, "Dispositions for Action"

Courage , Nature

“I propose now closing up by requesting you play a certain piece of music or a tune. I thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I ever heard… I had heard our adversaries over the way had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it… I presented the question to the Attorney-General, and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize… I ask the Band to give us a good turn upon it.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

At the end of the Civil War, asking that a military band play "Dixie" (10 April 1865) as quoted in Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy (1962) by Hans Nathan. Variant account: "I have always thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it... I now request the band to favor me with its performance".
1860s

Law , Music , Way , Question

“A philosophical frame of mind. Generally we strive to acquire one emotional stance, one viewpoint for all life situations and events: we usually call that being of a philosophical frame of mind. But rather than making oneself uniform, we may find greater value for the enrichment of knowledge by listening to the soft voice of different life situations; each brings its own views with it. Thus we acknowledge and share the life and nature of many by not treating ourselves like rigid, invariable, single individuals.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 618
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

Life , Nature , Knowledge

“Your right arm is useful in the battle; but when it comes to thinking you need my guidance. You have force without intelligence; while mine is the care for to-morrow. You are a good fighter; but is I who help Atrides select the time of fighting. Your value is in your body only; mine, in mind. And, as much as he who directs the ship surpasses him who only rows it, as much as the general exceeds the common soldier, so much greater am I than you. For in these bodies of ours the heart is of more value than the hand; all our real living is in that.”
Tibi dextera bello utilis: ingenium est, quod eget moderamine nostro; tu vires sine mente geris, mihi cura futuri; tu pugnare potes, pugnandi tempora mecum eligit Atrides; tu tantum corpore prodes, nos animo; quantoque ratem qui temperat, anteit remigis officium, quanto dux milite maior, tantum ego te supero; nec non in corpore nostro pectora sunt potiora manu: vigor omnis in illis.

Ovid Metamorphoses

Book XIII, 361–369; translation by Frank Justus Miller https://archive.org/details/metamorphoseswit02oviduoft
Metamorphoses (Transformations)

Intelligence , Thinking , Time , Help

“The peasantry, having lifted itself up out of its medieval status, cannot politically generate it's own rage. — Speech in Paris, 1934”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Rage

“2nd Soldier: Do you mean that, as a General, you're not the tiniest bit ambitious for our military future?
General: I prefer our military past. The harm's done and there it is. As for being a General, well, at the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords, we're all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.”

Peter Ustinov Romanoff and Juliet

Act I
Romanoff and Juliet (1956)

Age , Past , Future

“[On the lyrics of his songs] They meant a lot to my generation. And it's nice to know you've written songs that mean something to someone rather than some trivial pop dirge. I'm not thriving off a career slagging off the Queen. I think I have something valid to say. My words are my bullets. I like to brag that somehow I got it right.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)

Thinking

“When we inquire about the general forms of economic phenomena, about their uniformities, or about a key to understanding them, we ipso facto indicate that we wish at that moment to consider them as something to be investigated, to be sought for, as the “unknown”; and that we wish to trace them to the relatively “known,” just as any science deals with its object of inquiry.”

Joseph Alois Schumpeter The Theory of Economic Development

The Theory of Economic Development (1934), Ch. 1 : The Circular Flow of Economic Life as Conditioned by Given Circumstances

Understanding , Science

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with angels.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Mark 8:35-37
Bible References

Life , World , Angels , Soul

“And now I have explained the series of social and intellectual conditions by which the discovery of sociological laws, and consequently the foundation of Positivism, was fixed for the precise date at which I began my philosophical career: that is to say, one generation after the progressive dictatorship of the Convention, and almost immediately after the fall of the retrograde tyranny of Bonaparte.”

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) French philosopher

Source: A General View of Positivism (1848, 1856), p. 71

Law

“Unhappy the general who comes on the field of battle with a system.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability.”

Ronald Fisher (1890–1962) English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist

Reported by J. S. Huxley in Evolution in Action, London: Chatto and Windus, 1953.
1950s

Nature

“In order to prove whether the spirit can speak or not, it is necessary in the first place to define what a voice is and how it is generated.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

“The metals are all essentially identical; they differ only in form. Now, the form brings out accidental causes, which the experimenter must try to discover and remove, as far as possible. Accidental causes impede the regular union of sulphur and mercury; for every metal is a combination of sulphur and mercury. A diseased womb may give birth to a weakly, leprous child, although the seed was good; the same is true of the metals which are generated in the bowels of the earth, which is a womb for them; any cause whatever, or local trouble, may produce an imperfect metal. When pure sulphur comes in contact with pure mercury, after more or less time, and by the permanent action of nature, gold is produced.”

Albertus Magnus (1206–1280) Dominican friar

As quoted by Francis Preston Venable, A Short History of Chemistry (1894) p. 28. https://books.google.com/books?id=fN9YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA28

Disease , Birth , Nature , Time

“Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development… The general policy of the past has been to drive, but the era of force must give way to that of knowledge, and the policy of the future will be to teach and to lead, to the advantage of all concerned”

Henry Gantt (1861–1919) American engineer

Gantt (1910) Work, Wages, and Profits: Their Influence on the Cost of Living, p. 116. cited in: Daniel A. Wren (1994) The evolution of management thought. p. 137.
Work, Wages, and Profits: Their Influence on the Cost of Living. 1910

People , Way , Nature , Knowledge

“By generalization of methods developed by Kamefuchi, O'Raifeartaigh, and Salam, conditions for renormalizability of general gauge theories of massive vector mesons are derived. … It is shown that all theories based on simple Lie groups (with the one exception of the neutral vector meson theory in interaction with a conserved current) are unrenormalizable.”

Abdus Salam (1926–1996) theoretical physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics recipient

[Renormalizability of Gauge Theories, Phys. Rev., 127, 331, 1 July 1962, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.127.331]

Lie , Gauge

Quotes about general page 7

Quotes about general
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