Quotes about high
page 25

“As we survey the various stages of evolution, from the simplest one-cell creatures up to man. we see a steady improvement in the methods of learning and adaptation to a hostile world. Each step in learning ability gives better adaptation and greater chance of survival. We are carried a long way up the scale by innate reflexes and rudimentary muscular learning faculties. Habits indeed, not rational thought, assist us to surmount most of life's obstacles. Most, but by no means all; for learning in the high mammals exhibits the unexplained phenomenon of "insight," which shows itself by sudden changes in behavior in learning situations -- in sudden departures from one method of organizing a task, or solving a problem, to another. Insight, expectancy, set, are the essentially "mind-like" attributes of communication, and it is these, together with the representation of concepts, which require physiological explanation. At the higher end of the scale of evolution, this quality we call "mind" appears more and more prominently, but it is at our own level that learning of a radically new type has developed -- through our powers of organizing thoughts, comparing and setting them into relationship, especially with the use of language. We have a remarkable faculty of forming generalizations, of recognizing universals, of associating and developing them. It is our multitude of general concepts, and our powers of organizing them with the aid of language in varied ways, which forms the backbone of human communication, and which distinguises us from the animals.”

Colin Cherry (1914–1979) British scientist

Source: Hebb, D. O., The Organization of Behavior, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1949.
Source: On Human Communication (1957), On Cognition and Recognition, p. 304

Life, Hostility, World, Way

“In the upstairs bedroom, old Ann dies very slowly, remembering the events of the long-ago wedding night and the next morning… She is attended by a nurse with an Irish accent (Eileen Atkins), who sometimes prompts her: "Remember a happy time!" Dissolve to Ann's memory of a happy time. It is so mundane that if it qualifies as a high point in her life, it compares with Paris Hilton remembering a good stick of gum.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/evening-2007 of Evening (29 June 2007) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Life, Happiness, Wedding, Memory

“Unfortunately… the ADA language was designed by experts, and it shows all the non-humane features you can expect from them. It is… a typical Computer Science hacking job—do not try and understand what you are doing, just get it running. As a result of this poor psychological design… although a government contract may specify the programming be in ADA, probably over 90% will be done in FORTRAN, debugged, tested, and then painfully, by hand, be converted to a poor ADA program, with a high probability of errors!”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)

Error, Understanding, Science

“From his high pedestal, Prof. Sharma could afford to disregard the 'very few authors whose work effectively addresses the feudalism thesis in a critical manner', and he 'appears to have been in no mood to take heed of criticism levelled at his work'. This disregarding and ignoring of counter-evidence is tactically the best way to prolong your dominant position (which is why this tactic was adopted by most secularists in the Ayodhya debate): it denies publicity and respectability to the critic's alternative thesis. But to the progress of science, this upholding of dogma and suppression of debate is detrimental. According to Prof. Wink, the effect has been this : 'Under the impact of the feudalism thesis the historiography of the period is still in utter disarray.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

Way, Mood, Appearance, Science

“We were high above fields, and there far, far below, was a small shadow as of a great bird tearing along the neatly marked off fields. It gave me the most tremendous shock to realize for the first time the terrific speed we were going at and that that shadow meant us — us, like a mirror! That "bird"”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

it was us.
On her first flight.
Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)

Bird, Tear, Time, Speed

“Nothing's for certain, It could always go wrong, Come in when it's raining, Go on out when it's gone, We could have us a high time, Living the good life, Well I know”

Robert Hunter (1941–2019) American musician

"High Time"
Song lyrics, (1970)

Life, Time

“It has already been observed that women, wherever placed, however high or low in the scale of cultivation, hold the destinies of human kind. Men will ever rise or fall to the level of the other sex.”

Frances Wright (1795–1852) American activist

Lecture II: Of Free Inquiry, considered as a Means for obtaining Just Knowledge
A Course of Popular Lectures (1829)

Women, Men, Sex

“So it was that my most impressionable years of boyhood were spent gazing at not a whale, but a whale's penis. Whenever I tired of strolling through the chill aisles of the aquarium, I'd steal off to my place on the bench of the high-ceilinged stillness of the exhibition room and spend hours on end there contemplating this whale's penis.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 4: The Whale's Penis and the Woman with Three Occupations

“I'm going out now like a babyA naïve unsatisfiable babyGrabbing onto whatever's aroundFor the soaring high or the crushing downWith hidden cracks that don't show, but that constantly just grow.”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

2:45.
Lyrics, Either/Or (1997)

“The brilliant summaries by Bourbaki (1969) and Weyl (1951)… set a high standard of exposition, but… there is room for a history of mathematical ideas which will demand less mathematical expertise and offer a more detailed account of the motivation of research.”

George Frederick James Temple (1901–1992) British mathematician

100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981)

History, Mathematics, Motivation, Idea

“[El Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y del Cemento] had shown that it is possible in Spain to create organizations in which there exists a perfect harmony between different professions, between those above and those below; organizations in which everyone is able to live a life of high human rank, as gentlemen, a life of mutual respect and help and of maximum personal dignity.”

Eduardo Torroja (1899–1961) Spanish architect

Francisco Arredondo Verdú, La obra de Eduardo Torroja (1977) pp. 50-51, as quoted by Lino Camprubí, Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime (2014) p. 181.

Life, Help, Personality, Perfection

“The price for misreading and misinterpreting a woman has become extremely high; divorce battles, custody fights, poisonous interactions, accusations of abuse, incest, harassment, and even rape alongside the everyday unhappiness lead to a need to escape through self-destructive behaviors and addictions. It is "crunch time" for men today. Their personal isolation and dependency on women is greater than ever, while women's anger, withdrawal from relationships with men, and defensive sense of being victimized also are at a peak.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

Introduction, p. 1
What Men Still Don't Know About Women, Relationships, and Love (2007)

Women, Men, Behavior, Sense

“My old lip color could barely keep up with my busy schedule. In the time it takes to notice the wide discrepancy between my salary and that of my male peers, I'd have to reapply! In the seconds to count the number of women in high political office, seated on corporate executive boards and featured in film and television over the age of 40, my lip color would be as invisible as this glass ceiling only inches above my head! L'Oreal. Because I am worth it. And because holding myself to an impossible standard of beauty keeps me from starting a riot!”

Maria Bamford (1970) American actress and comedian

How to WIN! (2006)

Women, Age, Beauty, Color

“Search for the high austere and lonely way
The Spirit moves in through eternities.
Ah, in the soul what memories arise!
And with what yearning inexpressible,
Rising from long forgetfulness I turn
To Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still:
White for Thy whiteness all desires burn.
Ah, with what longing once again I turn!”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Way, Soul, Search, Memory

“The overall importance of capital today, as noted, is not very different from what it was in the eighteenth century. Only its form has changed: capital was once mainly land but is now industrial, financial, and real estate. We also know that the concentration of wealth remains high, although it is noticeably less extreme than it was a century ago. The poorest half of the population still owns nothing, but there is now a patrimonial middle class that owns between a middle and a third of total wealth, and the wealthiest ten percent now own only-two thirds of what there is to own rather than nine-tenths.”

Thomas Piketty book Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Source: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), p. 377; As cited in: " Thomas Piketty Capital in the twenty first century‎ Part III http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.nl/2014/03/thomas-piketty-capital-in-twenty-first_30.html" on robertpaulwolff.blogspot.nl, 2014/03.

Change, Wealth

“It is high time that our government start to acknowledge that we have a labor-export policy and rid the industry of unscrupulous labor recruiters and protect our migrant workers. We already have enough, ripe reasons to initiate a government- to-government arrangement for labor migration since we have long seen the reality of labor exodus of Filipinos to other countries. The Philippine government can no longer deny this.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com:8080/headlines/667587/government-urged-get-ready-rise-number-unemployed 2011

Reality, Time, Country

“Deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort’s words, “It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.””

Alain de Botton book Status Anxiety

Source: Status Anxiety (2004), p. 119.

People, Night

“Minors are an intended audience for the highly profitable sex industry. Impressionable teenagers are easily persuaded to have abortions, and homosexual clubs in high school are designed for the young.”

Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) American activist

[Schlafly, Phyllis, 2004, September, Activist Judges Rule for Special Interests, Phyllis Schlafly Report, 38, 2, http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2004/sept04/psrsept04.html, 2007-03-30]

School, Sex

“The golden chain of affection is binding together all who compose the goodly fellowship of the saints. Calvary rather than Sinai is the typical source of the church's inspiration; and bonds of law are being supplanted by bonds of love Indeed, the whole host of the redeemed is marching in solid phalanx against the combined forces of ignorance and error, of depravity and sin; while, high above all the regimental standards, floats the banner of the cross, blazoned with this suggestive inscription, "Everyone that loveth is born of God."”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 111.

Love, God, Law, Error

“Teaching Latin to someone like me in high school was somewhat like trying to teach a pig to dance. It's a waste of the teacher's time and it irritates the pig.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

Teaching the Pig to Dance

School, Teachers, Time, Dance

“These words were said full tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any that shall be saved. Then were it a great unkindness to blame or wonder on God for my sin, since He blameth not me for sin.
And in these words I saw a marvellous high mystery hid in God, which mystery He shall openly make known to us in Heaven: in which knowing we shall verily see the cause why He suffered sin to come. In which sight we shall endlessly joy in our Lord God.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 27
Context: And for the tender love that our good Lord hath to all that shall be saved, He comforteth readily and sweetly, signifying thus: It is sooth that sin is cause of all this pain; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
These words were said full tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any that shall be saved. Then were it a great unkindness to blame or wonder on God for my sin, since He blameth not me for sin.
And in these words I saw a marvellous high mystery hid in God, which mystery He shall openly make known to us in Heaven: in which knowing we shall verily see the cause why He suffered sin to come. In which sight we shall endlessly joy in our Lord God.

God, Suffering, Joy

“I hear always the sad voices
of summer
passing like red winged birds
over the high grass”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Red Winged Birds (1917)

Sadness, Bird, Grass, Summer

“Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

Pain, Suffering

“Come, take my hand
And wander in the willow river
Glistening the blue bells
Come, take my flesh
And wander in the sunny corn
That shimmer stills at snowfalls
'Cause I love you lover
I love you, like I love
The Four high Seasons.”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Children of the Sun (1969)

Love, Lovers, Season

“So, Kent Hovind gets out of prison and every atheist wants a piece of him. I understand that; I hate liars, I hate anyone who deceives even little old ladies and especially other people's children. So, of course I'd love to have the opportunity to get into it with Mister (not Doctor) Kent Hovind, as would every other atheist activist with a passion for science and a concern for truth. Understand though that this charlatan is every kind of fraud. He just wants to reestablish his racket. His schtick is to pretend to be more important than he is; we all know that his thesis was just as bogus as the PHD that he bought from a mail order catalog for about $100, he also claims to have taught high school science for about 15 years, hoping that folks will think that he has some verifiable connection to a high school somewhere (an actual school), but what I suspect is really the case is he may have preached to homeschooled kids at his house (which he used as a church sometimes). I can understand Atheist Podcast wanting to have this guy on to take him to task, but remember, he is a conman, a professional fraud. In his mind, he gains merit and financial supporters as a result of being "oppressed in the face of adversity", so go ahead and have him on, but only as a sideshow freak, someone to gawk at; show him the contempt he deserves. Don't treat him like an opponent, as if he had something to bring to the table.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Debating Dr Dunno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKw8K7o-vwY (August 4, 2015)

Love, Hate, Children, People

“I don't think that would be entirely unfair. There are some things which get on one's nerves and some things that don't. And I'm, to use a rather journalistic word, allergic to the things that are typically American. I think that's fairly natural to someone who has just been described as a Tory and is always ready to describe himself as a High Tory.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

When asked if he was 'anti-American' (Face the Press, Channel 4 TV, 9 October, 1983), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), p. 428
1980s

Nature, Thinking

“If Soviet society is to move forward with confidence toward our great goals, each new generation must rise to an ever-higher level of learning and general cultivation, occupational skill and civic activism. One might say that such is the law of societal progress. In the context of the scientific and technological revolution, under a virtual avalanche of information, this law imposes unwontedly high demands on both those who study and those who teach—from rank-and-file classroom teachers to government ministers.”

Konstantin Chernenko (1911–1985) Soviet politician

Quoted in "Soviet Education" - Page 109 - by International Arts and Sciences Press, M.E. Sharpe, Inc - Education - 1958

Law, Confidence, Study, Learning

“I warmly second the advice of the wisest of men—"Don't be ambitious; don't be at all too desirous to success; be loyal and modest." Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

Men, Success

“It is a high privilege to sit as a member of this convention. Those who exercise it have been raised to the rank of a true nobility. It is a mark of personal merit which did not come by right of birth but by right of conquest. No one can ever question your title as patriots. No one can ever doubt the place of affection and honor which you hold forevermore in the heart of the Nation. Your right to be here results from what you dared and what you did and the sacrifices which you made for our common country. It is all a glorious story of American enterprise and American valor.”

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

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Exercises, Birth, Question, Heart

“The male sense of space must differ from that of the female, who has such interesting, active, and significant inner space. The space that interests men is outer. The fly ball high against the sky, the long pass spiraling overhead, the jet fighter like a scarcely visible pinpoint nozzle laying down its vapor trail at 40,000 feet, the gazelle haunch flickering just beyond arrow-reach, the uncountable stars sprinkled on their great black wheel, the horizon, the mountaintop, the quasar — these bring portents with them and awaken a sense of relation with the invisible, with the empty. The ideal male body is taut with lines of potential force, a diagram extending outward; the ideal female body curves around centers of repose.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

“The Disposable Rocket,” Michigan Quarterly Review (Fall 1993)

Men, Star, Sense, Flying

“Satan be praised! Glory to you on High
where once you reigned in Heaven, and in the
Pit where now you dream in taciturn defeat!
Grant that my soul, one day, beneath the Tree
of Knowledge, meet you when above your brow
its branches, like a second Temple, spread!”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Gloire et louange à toi, Satan, dans les hauteurs
Du Ciel, où tu régnas, et dans les profondeurs
de l’Enfer, où, vaincu, tu rêves en silence!
Fais que mon âme un jour, sous l’Arbre de Science,
Près de toi se repose, à l’heure où sur ton front
Comme un Temple nouveau ses rameaux s’épandront!
"Les Litanies de Satan" [Litanies of Satan]
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Dreams, Soul, Knowledge, Tree

“Everyone is stopped and waiting, maitre d's, hansom cab drivers and governments. Everyone's waiting for the end. Let's hope the apocalypse is pleasant, Your Highness.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

1899, quoted in Franz Hare, Jahrhundertwende 1900: Untergangsstimmung und Fortschrittsglauben, Stuttgart, 1998, p. 190

Hope, Waiting

“It's good to be king, If just for a while.
To be there in velvet, yea to give 'em a smile.
It's good to get high, and never comedown.
It's good to be king of your own little town.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

It's Good To Be King
Lyrics, Wildflowers (1994)

Smile

“I'm going to climb up this ladder, you understand, to this gate that's like this high and I'm going to pass two dogs and some bags and myself over the thing into a cab driver's arms. THAT's my plan!”

Megan Mullally (1958) American actress

Attributed

Dogs, Understanding

“The Iowa caucuses are no more predictive than a gasbag on an ethanol high swaying from a bridge in Madison County.”

Timothy Egan (1954) American writer

How Stupid Is Iowa? (2016)

“The Lierna Chair is a chair specially designed as a seat to be placed next to the dining table. It was therefore with the rather high back that shields behind the diner, tight to facilitate the movements of those who serve lunch and that is well suited to the position composed of people sitting. The chair was designed by us for the Cassina, and we are oriented on a light chair with joints in sections reduced to the essentials …”

Achille Castiglioni (1918–2002) Italian designers and architect

Sedia Lierna, Achille e Pier Giacomo Casiglioni, Lierna (Lake Como), 1971. Scultore. in: Fondazione Achille Castiglioni., Lierna Village, Lake Como, p. 201 ( online http://fondazioneachillecastiglioni.it/progetto/sedia-lierna/)

People, Light

“There may not be a high-level purpose for humanity, but that doesn't mean we can't find inspiration in the world. I think there is a combination of psychological and environmental factors that combine to create various urges in humanity -- most importantly the urge to create, to contribute something to the world, to express your personal worldview and see how the world responds. Art doesn't happen in a vacuum, and if it were only for personal gain then nobody would ever release music to the public. The process changes you, and also changes the world itself, creating ripples of inspiration which flow between the artist and the listener.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

World, Art, Music, Thinking

“It was a rather beggarly set of authorities that reinstated the charges against Christ's tenant two days later at that dreary place, Þingvellir by Öxará. Even the Danish proxy's booth was a shambles, as if the royal power no longer gave any thought to protecting its image of authoritarian splendor against Iceland's storms of wind and rain, which were so inseparable from its folk, crooked and frostbitten pieces of timberwood in the shape of humans. Iceland's weather was a mill that left nothing unpulverized but for the country's basalt peaks. It uprooted and demolished all human works, wiping away not only their color but also their form... The high court was convened in the dilapidated cottage that had once been called a courthouse. Its roof had been torn off, giving wind and rain free range throughout the hall. Mire that had run from the turf walls onto the rotten floorplanks hadn't been mucked out. Inward along the floorboards hobbled Jón Hreggviðsson from Rein, gray-haired, groaning, and puffing.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Color, Christ, Weather, Country

“I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the Government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation, because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia he does not need a motion in the House of Representatives; he needs a mirror.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

Misogyny speech

People, Hope, Housing

“It seems to me that we have three choices; first, public services of high standard and cost but of limited scope, leaving unfilled a substantial part of the present gap, not necessarily benefiting those in real need and benefiting many who are not in need at all (this has been our historical approach); second, public services to meet the requirements of all, with the beneficiaries making a contribution by way of fee according to their means, and with adequate provision for complete remission in suitable cases; or third, universal public services provided for rich and poor alike on terms the poorest can afford; that is, the welfare state where all benefit and the whole cost is met by the taxpayer in general. I think it is well-known that I am an advocate of the second approach.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

February 24, 1966, page 72.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Way, Thinking, Universe, Parting

“Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob.”

Herman Melville book White-Jacket

Source: White-Jacket (1850), Ch. 7

Life

“In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high…. the early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B. C." does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd (even a very literate crowd) that they remain almost alone…”

George Sarton (1884–1956) American historian of science

Preface.
A History of Science Vol.2 Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C. (1959)

Men, Education, Reality, Sense

“There is no doubt that Sheik Osama bin Laden has a high level of faithfulness, trustworthiness, and transparency. He is faithful to his religion and to Jihad for the elevation of the word of Allah…This man has a pure, honest and believing personality. He defends all that belongs to Islam and who renounces anything that is not Islamic.”

Fathi Yakan (1933–2009) Lebanese Islamic cleric-politician

Top Lebanese Sunni Cleric Fathi Yakan: Bin Laden a Man After My Own Heart; I Am Not Sad Because of 9/11 and I Have Never Condemned this Attack, MEMRI, March 2007 http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1408.htm,

Faith, Religion, Personality

“During Muslim rule in India, foreign and Indian Muslims were freely bestowed jobs and gifts. Foreign Muslims were most welcome here. They came in large numbers and were well provided for. Muhammad Tughlaq was specially kind to them, as averred by Ibn Battutah. He writes that "the countries contiguous to India like Yemen, Khurasan and Fars are filled with anecdotes about… his generosity to the foreigners in so far as he prefers them to the Indians, honours them, confers on them great favours and makes them rich presents and appoints them to high offices and awards them great benefits". He calls them aziz or dear ones and has instructed his courtiers not to address them as foreigners. 'The sultan ordered for me," writes Ibn Battutah, "a sum of six thousand tankahs, and ordered a sum of ten thousand for Ibn Qazi Misr. Similarly, he ordered sums to be given to all foreigners (a'izza) who were to stay at Delhi, but nothing was given to the metropolitans."… There are scores of instances of Muhammad Tughlaq's generosity to foreigners…. The point to note here is that under Sultan Muhammad so much wealth was awarded to so many deserving and undeserving foreign Muslims that at the close of his reign the Delhi treasury had become bankrupt. There was also the loss of popularity because "the people of India hate the foreigners (Persians, Turks, Khurasanis) because of the favour the sultan shows them."”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Ibn Battutah, trs. Mahdi Husain, p. 105-140. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5

Hate, People, Loss, Country

“World War II changed the demography. For a while, high seriousness was a part (only a part) of the mix. No one likes to think that the vector that has carried him into the demography could get lost in the demography, but that is what happens. Rock and roll—or the generating spirit of rock and roll—could get lost there, easily. And just think of all the ideas—and changes—there were implicit in the hegemony of rock and roll. We could be left with... just some of the music.”

George W. S. Trow (1943–2006) American writer

Collapsing Dominant (1997)

War, World, Music, Idea

“My personal opinion of Mach is not very high. Frankly, it's a piece of crap. It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and even managed to make up a few of its own.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

2000s, (2001)

Personality

“I often discuss the benefits of adopting a plant-based diet with patients who have high cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, or coronary artery disease. I encourage these patients to go to the grocery store and sample different plant-based versions of many of the basic foods they eat. … Interestingly, our ACC/American Heart Association (AHA) prevention guidelines do not specifically recommend a vegan diet, as the studies are very large and observational or small and randomized, such as those on Ornish's whole food, plant-based diet intervention reversing coronary artery stenosis. The data are very compelling, but larger randomized trials are needed to pass muster with our rigorous guideline methodology. Wouldn't it be a laudable goal of the American College of Cardiology to put ourselves out of business within a generation or two? We have come a long way in prevention of cardiovascular disease, but we still have a long way to go. Improving our lifestyles with improved diet and exercise will help us get there.”

Kim A. Williams (1955) American cardiologist

"CardioBuzz: Vegan Diet, Healthy Heart?" https://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Prevention/46860, MedPage Today (July 21, 2014).

Disease, Food, Way, Exercises

“All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

June 1890, page 299
John of the Mountains, 1938

Love, God, World, Beauty

“"Listen, LISTEN… I agree… with everything… you're carving… on the kitchen table, I do. But do you think maybe this might have something to do with your per-ARGH!"(falls backward as if kicked). That first high kick to the thorax generally does the trick.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

Talking with women about their periods.
Like, Totally (2006)

Thinking

“Barani mourned: “Should the king consider the payment of a few tankas by way of jiziya as sufficient justification for their allowing all possible freedom to the infidels to observe and demonstrate all orders and detail of infidelity, to read the misleading literature of their faith, and to propagate their teachings, how could the true religion get the upper hand over other religions, and how could the emblems of Islam be held high? How will the true faith prevail if rulers allow the infidels to keep their temples, adorn their idols, and to make merry during their festivals with beating of drums and dhols, singing and dancing?””

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

Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231

Faith, Religion, Way, Literature

“I read his awful name, emblazon'd high
With golden letters on th' illumin'd sky.”

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) English author

Poems (1773), "An Address to the Deity", p. 128.

Reading

“Even after the part with the Ten Commandments, we still have God's self-appointed prophet ordering his army of barbaric thieves to pillage villages, killing every man, woman and child, but ironically some predominantly atheist countries in the modern world have finally achieved that sort of peaceful society [purported to be the product of a land governed under Mosaic law], with high education [and] very low crime, and the greatest threat to that comes from religious fundamentalists.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, The Damn Commandments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0 (January 7, 2015)

God, World, Education, Peace

“If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day;
But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.”

James Stephens (1882–1950) Irish writer

"A Glass of Beer" (1918), line 9, in Collected Poems (London: Macmillan, 1954) p. 185.

Beer

“The motives for conceiving modern systems engineering are to be found, at least in part, in past disasters. Arthur D. Hall III [1989] cites: the chemical plant leakage in Bhopal (1986); the explosion of the NASA Challenger space shuttle (1986) and the Apollo fire (1967); the sinking of the Titanic (1912); the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl (1986) and the disaster at Three Mile Island power plant (1979). He cites, too, the capture of markets by Japan from the U. S., the decline in US productivity and the failure of the US secondary school system. He identifies the millions of people dying of starvation every year while other nations stockpile surplus food, medical disasters such as heart disease, while governments subsidize grains used to produce high cholesterol meat, milk and eggs; and many more. One implication is clear: systems engineering faces challenges well beyond the sphere of engineering.”

Derek Hitchins (1935) British systems engineer

Source: Advanced Systems Thinking, Engineering and Management (2003), p. 75-76

People, Disease, School, Food

“Surely by now I should know
I can control
My highs and my lows
By questioning all that I do,
Examining every move,
Trying to get back to the rudiments.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)

Question

“Working in this field I felt that I had begun a task methodologically and technically sound and necessary, the broader elaboration of which could not be expected for decades. Nevertheless it soon became clear that though these problems are difficult, they are by no means impossible to solve. One had only to clear out a number of hoary philosophical prejudices and to set his scientific goal high enough to arrive at explanation and prediction. Today it can no longer be doubted that the questions set, for example, by psychoanalysis are readily accessible to experimental clarification if only appropriate methods and concepts are employed.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, 1935, p. v-vi.

Question, Problem

“It is not unfair to conclude that some of the pro-BMAC authors have committed serious breaches of academic deontology. For me personally, seeing this shameless overruling of historical evidence with a high-handed use of academic and media power, was the immediate reason to involve myself in this controversial question.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

Question, Personality

“After all, people with a herd instinct hold mediocrity in high esteem. They praise it as having great value. They believe they are strong because they are the majority. The middling level has no terrors, no anxieties. They huddle together, indulging in the illusion of warmth. If you’re alone with nothing, and certainly not yourself. And how content they are with that state of affairs!”

Elfriede Jelinek book The Piano Teacher

P 66
The Piano Teacher (1988)

People, Strong

“During the fourteenth century some unknown scholars prepared a new translation of the whole Bible into the Middle High German dialect. It slavishly follows the Latin Vulgate. It may be compared to Wiclif's English Version (1380), which was likewise made from the Vulgate, the original languages being then almost unknown in Europe. A copy of the New Testament of this version has been recently published, from a manuscript in the Premonstratensian convent of Tepl in Bohemia. Another copy is preserved in the college library at Freiberg in Saxony.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

German versions of the Bible that preceded the Luther Bible

“Khomeini was one of some 200 Ayatollahs and never considered by others as "supreme" in anything. His limited knowledge of theology and history and his inability to master Persian and Arabic at a high level meant he would never attain the summit within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy. Khomeini was a politician and owed his place in the Iranian panorama to the success of his political movement against various rivals and adversaries.
Khamenei’s knowledge of theology and history is certainly superior to that of Khomeini. He also has a better command of both Persian and Arabic. Had Khamenei built a career within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy he would have had a good chance of reaching higher rungs of the ladder than Khomeini.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Iran after Khamenei: the Debate Starts http://english.aawsat.com/2017/03/article55369052/iran-khamenei-debate-starts, Ashraq Al-Awsat (March 10, 2017)

History, Knowledge, Chance, Success

“Lord Jesus Christ, our foolish minds are weak; they are more than willing to be drawn—and there is so much that wants to draw us to itself. There is pleasure with its seductive power, the multiplicity with its bewildering distractions, the moment with its infatuating importance and the conceited laboriousness of busyness and the careless time-wasting of light-mindedness and the gloomy brooding of heavy-mindedness—all this will draw us away from ourselves to itself in order to deceive us. But you, who are truth, only you, our Savior and Redeemer, can truly draw a person to yourself, which you have promised to do—that you will draw all to yourself. Then may God grant that by repenting we may come to ourselves, so that you, according to your Word, can draw us to yourself—from on high, but through lowliness and abasement.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1850s, Practice in Christianity (September 1850), p. 157

God, Pleasure, Truth, Light

“I've been the girl with her skirt pulled high,
Been the outcast never running with mascara eyes.
I see the world as a candy store
With a cigarette smile saying things you can't ignore.”

Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter

God Is a DJ, written by Pink, Billy Mann and Jonathan S. Davis
Song lyrics, Try This (2003)

World, Smile, Girl

“To hold that a state cannot, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, utilize its public school system to aid any or all religious faiths or sects in the dissemination of their doctrines and ideals does not, as counsel urge, manifest a governmental hostility to religion or religious teachings. A manifestation of such hostility would be at war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment's guaranty of the free exercise of religion. For the First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere. Or, as we said in the Everson case, the First Amendment has erected a wall between Church and State which must be kept high and impregnable.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Writing for the court, McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948).

Hostility, War, School, Faith

“An earlier version of this volume was originally contracted for and produced as a monograph by Warner Modular Communications, Inc., a subsidiary member of the Warner communications and entertainment conglomerate. The publishing house had run a relatively independent operation up to the time of the controversy over this document. The editors and publisher were enthusiastic about the monograph and committed themselves to put it out quickly and to promote it with vigor. But just prior to publication, in the fall of 1973, officials of the parent company got wind of it, looked at it, and were horrified by its “unpatriotic” contents. Mr. William Sarnoff, a high officer of the parent company, for example, was deeply pained by our statement on page 7 of the original that the “leadership in the United States, as a result of its dominant position and wide-ranging counter-revolutionary efforts, has been the single most important instigator, administrator, and moral and material sustainer of serious bloodbaths in the years that followed World War II.” So pained were Sarnoff and his business associates, in fact, that they were quite prepared to violate a contractual obligation in order to assure that no such material would see the light of day. […] they decided to close down the publishing house […]. The history of the suppressed monograph is an authentic instance of private censorship of ideas per se. The uniqueness of the episode lies only in the manner of suppression. Usually, private intervention in the book market is anticipatory, with regrets that the manuscript is unacceptable, perhaps “unmarketable.””

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Sometimes the latter contention is only an excuse for unwillingness to market, although it may sometimes reflect an accurate assessment of how the media and journals will receive books that are strongly critical of the established order.
Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, pp. xiv-xvii.

Pain, War, Books, World

“The Constitution of the United States of America, Article V, Section 1: "There shall be a National Anthem containing incomprehensible words and a high note that normal humans cannot hit without risk of hernia."”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway (2001)

“I sing of warfare and a man at war.
From the sea-coast of Troy in early days
He came to Italy by destiny,
To our Lavinian western shore,
A fugitive, this captain, buffeted
Cruelly on land as on the sea
By blows from powers of the air—behind them
Baleful Juno in her sleepless rage.
And cruel losses were his lot in war,
Till he could found a city and bring home
His gods to Latium, land of the Latin race,
The Alban lords, and the high walls of Rome.
Tell me the causes now, O Muse, how galled
In her divine pride, and how sore at heart
From her old wound, the queen of gods compelled him—
A man apart, devoted to his mission—
To undergo so many perilous days
And enter on so many trials. Can anger
Black as this prey on the minds of heaven?”

Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985) American poet, critic and translator

opening lines
The Aeneid (1983)

God, War, Home, Rage

“It is just most delightful to me that I live in this way in the heart of Amsterdam. In a second you can eat somewhere and be back home again. You never have to wait for the tram. It is less than seven minutes [walking] from Dam Square. To me that is so unusual and so pleasant. I walk there daily.... the window [of his new studio] is about 2.25 m wide and high, and underneath a standing window of the same size, breadth-wise.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) 't is al allerheerlijkst voor me, dat ik zoo midden in Amsterdam woon. In een oogenblik kun je ergens gaan eten en weer 't huis zijn. Je hoeft nooit op de tram te gaan staan. 't is niet verder dan een minuut of zeven van de Dam. dat is voor mij zoo ongewoon en zoo prettig. Ik loop er heen, dag in en uit.. ..'t raam [van het atelier] is ongeveer 2.25 m breed en hoog, en daaronder een staand raam van zelfde breedte. Quote of Breitner in his letter from Amsterdam, 11 May 1893, to Herman van der Weele; from the original letter in the RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/1154 1890 - 1900

Way, Home, Waiting, Heart

“…Upon this, Sher Shah turned again towards Kalinjar… The Raja of Kalinjar, Kirat Sing, did not come out to meet him. So he ordered the fort to be invested, and threw up mounds against it, and in a short time the mounds rose so high that they overtopped the fort. The men who were in the streets and houses were exposed, and the Afghans shot them with their arrows and muskets from off the mounds. The cause of this tedious mode of capturing the fort was this. Among the women of Raja Kirat Sing was a Patar slave-girl, that is a dancing-girl. The king had heard exceeding praise of her, and he considered how to get possession of her, for he feared lest if he stormed the fort, the Raja Kirat Sing would certainly make a jauhar, and would burn the girl…
“On Friday, the 9th of RabI’u-l awwal, 952 A. H., when one watch and two hours of the day was over, Sher Shah called for his breakfast, and ate with his ‘ulama and priests, without whom he never breakfasted. In the midst of breakfast, Shaikh NizAm said, ‘There is nothing equal to a religious war against the infidels. If you be slain you become a martyr, if you live you become a ghazi.’ When Sher Shah had finished eating his breakfast, he ordered Darya Khan to bring loaded shells, and went up to the top of a mound, and with his own hand shot off many arrows, and said, ‘Darya Khan comes not; he delays very long.’ But when they were at last brought, Sher Shah came down from the mound, and stood where they were placed. While the men were employed in discharging them, by the will of Allah Almighty, one shell full of gunpowder struck on the gate of the fort and broke, and came and fell where a great number of other shells were placed. Those which were loaded all began to explode. Shaikh Halil, Shaikh Nizam, and other learned men, and most of the others escaped and were not burnt, but they brought out Sher Shah partially burnt. A young princess who was standing by the rockets was burnt to death. When Sher Shah was carried into his tent, all his nobles assembled in darbAr; and he sent for ‘Isa Khan Hajib and Masnad Khan Kalkapur, the son-in-law of Isa Khan, and the paternal uncle of the author, to come into his tent, and ordered them to take the fort while he was yet alive. When ‘Isa Khan came out and told the chiefs that it was Sher Shah’s order that they should attack on every side and capture the fort, men came and swarmed out instantly on every side like ants and locusts; and by the time of afternoon prayers captured the fort, putting every one to the sword, and sending all the infidels to hell. About the hour of evening prayers, the intelligence of the victory reached Sher Shah, and marks of joy and pleasure appeared on his countenance. Raja Kirat Sing, with seventy men, remained in a house. Kutb Khan the whole night long watched the house in person lest the Raja should escape. Sher Shah said to his sons that none of his nobles need watch the house, so that the Raja escaped out of the house, and the labour and trouble of this long watching was lost. The next day at sunrise, however, they took the Raja alive…””

Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India

Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi of Abbas Khan Sherwani in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume IV, pp. 407-09. Quoted in S.R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition

Death, Women, Men, War

“The Lord descended from above
And bow’d the heavens high;
And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.

On cherubs and on cherubims
Full royally he rode;
And on the wings of all the winds
Came flying all abroad.”

Thomas Sternhold (1500–1549) British writer

A Metrical Version of Psalm 104, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Flying

“Were I as base as is the lowly plain,
And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain
Ascend to heaven, in honour of my Love.”

Joshua Sylvester (1563–1618) English poet

Poem: Love's Omnipresence http://www.bartleby.com/106/25.html

Love

“We face the dilemma… that if everyone gets his deserts, some may be driven from the table: and if everyone comes to the table, some may not get their deserts. In practice, this seems to be resolved by the establishment of a social minimum as reflected for instance, in the poor law, in social security and various welfare sevices. The principle of desert come into play above this social minimun. That is to say, society lays a modest table at which all can sup and a high table at which the deserving can feast”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Boulding (1962) "Social Justice in Social Dynamics", in: R.B. Brandt, ed. Social Justice. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. p. 83 as cited in: Toril Aalberg (2003) Achieving Justice: Comparative Public Opinion on Income Distribution. p. 33
1960s

Law

“The only reason I can have a high-pressure job and a home and see my kids is because my husband works from home. He does the cooking and shopping. […] You can't have it all. Neither men nor women.”

Cathy Newman (1974) journalist

Cited in " Cathy Newman: 'The internet is being written by men with an agenda' https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/19/cathy-newman-the-internet-is-being-written-by-men-with-an-agenda", 25 March 2018.

Women, Men, Home, Cooking

“Our young people are faced by a series of different groups which believe different things and advocate different practices, and to each of which some trusted friend or relative may belong. So a girl's father may be a Presbyterian, an imperialist, a vegetarian, a teetotaller, with a strong literary preference for Edmund Burke, a believer in the open shop and a high tariff, who believes that women's place is in the home, that young girls should wear corsets, not roll their stockings, not smoke, nor go riding with young men in the evening. But her mother's father may be a Low Episcopalian, a believer in high living, a strong advocate of States' Rights and the Monroe Doctrine, who reads Rabelais, likes to go to musical shows and horse races…”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1920s, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), p. 161

Women, Men, People, Music

“You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

a remark to E. Rouart [son of Henri Rouart in 1904; as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 274
1896 - 1917

Time, Future

“Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 127.

Optimism, Knowledge, Reality, Parting

“The ultimate end of education is not a perfection in the accomplishments of the school, but fitness for life; not the acquirement of habits of blind obedience, and of prescribed diligence, but a preparation for independent action. We must bear in mind that whatever class of society a pupil may belong to, whatever calling he may be intended for, there are certain faculties in human nature common to all, which constitute the stock of the fundamental energies of man. We have no right to withhold from any one the opportunities for developing all their faculties. It may be judicious to treat some of them with marked attention, and to give up the idea of bringing others to high perfection. The diversity of talent and inclination, of plans and pursuits, is a sufficient proof of the necessity for such a distinction. But I repeat that we have no right to shut out the child from the development of those faculties also, which we may not for the present conceive to be very essential for his future calling or station in life.”

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer

Letters on Infants' Education (1819)

Life, Education, School, Idea

“The oppressive weight of disaster and tragedy in our lives does not arise from a high percentage of evil among the summed total of all acts, but from the extraordinary power of exceedingly rare incidents of depravity to inflict catastrophic damage, especially in our technological age when airplanes can become powerful bombs. (An even more evil man, armed only with a longbow, could not have wreaked such havoc at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.)”

Stephen Jay Gould book I Have Landed

"The Good People of Halifax", p. 390 (originally appeared in The Globe and Mail, 2001-09-20)
I Have Landed (2002)

Age, Evil

“The relationship of the big Wall Street banks to the high frequency traders, when you think about it, was a bit like the relationship of the entire society to the big Wall Street banks. When things went well, the HFT guys took most of the gains; when things went badly, the HFT guys vanished and the banks took the losses.”

Michael Lewis book Flash Boys

Source: Flash Boys (2014), p. 264

Guy, Thinking, Loss

“Most high and important Signor, Having recently obtained a 'Queen of Persia' of some quality, which I thought worthy of appearing before your Highness' [= Prince Philip II] exalted presence, I had her sent, pending the time when other works of mine were drying, to take embassies from me to your Highness, and be company to the landscape and [a] St. Margaret, previously sent by Ambassador [Fransesco] Vargas.... Most high and potent Signor's servant, who kisses your feet, Titiano Vecellio.”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

In a letter to Philip II, then still Prince of Spain, sent from Venice 11th Oct. 1552; as quoted in Titian: his life and times - With some account of his family... Vol. 2. J. A. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle, Publisher London, John Murray, 1877, p. 218
For the first time in the annals of Italian painting history we are informed by this letter about a painting which is nothing more than a landscape! According to reports of visitors [for instance Aurelio Luini ] of Titian's studio, he very probably painted more landscapes, but all of them are perished.
1541-1576

Kiss, Appearance, Time

“It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 104

People, Thinking

“For those who are still merely vegetarian and not yet vegan, I ask, what in heaven's name are you waiting for? If you are trying to avoid the health pitfalls of eating carcasses—high fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol content; lack of fiber; deficiency of vitamins and enzymes; abundance of stored toxins—well, then take a good look at the dairy you're eating. Dairy is basically liquid meat without the iron. … Milk should be viewed as no more or less than what it is: a delivery system for fat, cholesterol, blood, pus, antibiotics, and carcinogenic growth hormones. … If your reason for abstaining from meat has more to do with an emotional attachment to animals than a concern for your health, then understand that dairy cows are truly sick, miserable, abused creatures … Someone who has become vegetarian for emotional reasons ought to switch to the vegan diet as swiftly and surely as someone brought to vegetarianism for reasons of health.”

Howard F. Lyman (1938) American activist

Source: No More Bull! (2005), Ch. 6: Message for My Fellow Vegetarians and Vegans, pp. 79-80

Health, Understanding, Waiting, Animals

“In April 1946, when I came to Hughes Aircraft to institute high-technology research and development, it was far from the place it was to become. Howard Hughes, I was informed, rarely came around. When he did show up, it was to take up one or another trivial issue. He would toss off detailed directions, for instance, on what to do next about a few old airplanes decaying out in the yard or what kind of seat covers to buy for the company-owned Chevrolets, or he would say he wanted some pictures of clouds taken from an airplane. An accountant from Hughes Tool Co. ((started by Howard's father)) had the title of general manager but was there only to sign checks. A few of Howard's flying buddies were on the payroll, using assorted fanciful titles like some in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, but apparently did next to nothing. A lawyer was on hand to process contracts, but there were practically none. In addition to the Spruce Goose flying freighter, a mammoth eight-engine plywood seaplane that barely managed to fly even once, there was an experimental Navy reconnaissance plane under development (which, with Hughes at the controls, later crashed, almost killing him). The contracts for both planes had been canceled. Perhaps, I said to myself, this is one of those unforeseeable lucky opportunities. Why not use Hughes Aircraft as a base to create a new and needed defense electronics supplier?”

Simon Ramo (1913–2016) Father of the ICBM

MEMOIRS OF AN ICBM PIONEER Simon Ramo broke with Howard Hughes, then built TRW, the company that developed the U.S. missile. He says what went right then would go wrong today. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1988/04/25/70453/index.htm in FORTUNE Magazine, April 25, 1988

Flying

“The corn was springing fresh and green,
And the lark sang loud and high,
And the red was on your lip, Mary,
And the love-light in your eye.”

Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye (1807–1867) British songwriter, composer, poet and author

Lament of the Irish Emigrant

Love, Spring, Light

“He in whose heart the law was, and who alone of all mankind was content to do it, His sacrifice alone can be the sacrifice all-sufficient in the Father's sight as the proper sacrifice of humanity; He who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, He alone can give the Spirit which enables us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. He is the only High-Priest of the universe.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 87.

God, Law, Universe, Heart

“Among organization theorists general, if not universal agreement obtains that it is proper to view the development of organization theory as divided into three periods. Conventionally, this "history" is regarded as beginning early in this century; and the three periods are customarily are designed by the terms classic, neo-classic and modern… The classical period has its beginning, in the conventional view, with Frederick W. Taylor and Henri Fayol… [and] reaches its high point in the thirties with the work of James Mooney and of the editors and authors of the Paper in the Science of Administration. The neo-classical wave is seen as beginning with the Hawthorne experiments in the late twenties. These experiments challenge the formality and rationality of classical theory with the "discovery"of human relations.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Dwight Waldo (1978), "Organization Theory: Revisiting the Elephant," Public Administration Review, 38 (November/December): p. 589

History, Universe, Science

“I helped Stephen with the story and then I auditioned for SpongeBob, I used my Plankton voice, which sounds like a mix of Tony the Tiger and Gregory Peck. It’s actually an imitation of a friend from high school that had a really deep voice.”

Mr. Lawrence (1969) American voice actor, comedian, writer, storyboard artist, animator and director

School, Help

“Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest,— which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 438.

Life

“I thank the Supreme Court magistrates for affirming the TRO. This confirms that Senator Grace Poe remains a candidate for president and whose name stays on the official ballot, notwithstanding the orchestrated efforts to disqualify her. We hope that the high court will also uphold the laws and long established jurisprudence when it decides on the other petitions in connection with the candidacy of Senator Grace.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2016, January 12). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153807055665610/ 2016, Facebook

Law, Hope, Effort

“We went to a club where singers and stand-up comedians performed in the hope of being discovered. A thin girl with bright red hair and sequined T-shirt reached the end of her passionately murmured song on a sudden shrill, impossible top note. All conversation ceased. Someone, perhaps maliciously, dropped a glass. Halfway through, the note became a warbling vibrato and the singer collapsed on the stage in an abject curtsy, arms held stiffly in front of her, fists clenched. Then she sprang to her tiptoes and held her arms high above her head with the palms flat as if to forestall the sporadic and indifferent applause."They all want to be Barbra Streisand or Liza Minnelli," George explained as he sucked a giant cocktail through a pink plastic straw. "But no one's looking for that kind of stuff anymore."”

Ian McEwan book In Between the Sheets

Page 139. (From the seventh and final short story, 'Psychopolis')
In Between the Sheets (1978)

Hope, Girl, Passion, Indifference

“Data management housekeeping is not the only problem to plague oversimplified approaches to high speed computation. The physical problems which are of practical interest tend to have rather significant complications. Examples of these complications are as follows: boundaries are likely to be irregular; interiors are likely to be inhomogeneous; computations required may be dependent on the states of the variables at each point; propagation rates of different physical effects may be quite different; the rate of convergence, or convergence at all, may be strongly dependent on sweeping through the array along different axes on succeeding passes; etc. The effect of each of these complications is very severe on any computer organization based on geometrically related processors in a paralleled processing system.”

Gene Amdahl (1922–2015) American physicist

Source: Validity of the single processor approach... (1967), p. 483

Problem, Dependency, Speed

“Institutions are social structures that have attained a high degree of resilience. [They] are composed of cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative elements that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life. Institutions are transmitted by various types of carriers, including symbolic systems, relational systems, routines, and artifacts. Institutions operate at different levels of jurisdiction, from the world system to localized interpersonal relationships. Institutions by definition connote stability but are subject to change processes, both incremental and discontinuous.”

W. Richard Scott (1932) American sociologist

Source: Institutions and Organizations., 1995, p. 33 (2001:48)

Life, World, Change

“Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a muse.”

Edmund Waller (1606–1687) English poet and politician

Panegyric to My Lord Protector (or Panegyric on Cromwell).
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

“I have just been thinking that the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) does not really represent my work. I have always been convinced that other things of mine are more important… Narcism, fake heroism, and blindness have a lot to answer for, in the 'Blaue Reiter'. All those high-sounding words about the birth of a great spiritual moment still resounding in my ears. Kandinsky can air his personal opinion about that or any other revolution he cares to mention. But I dislike the whole thing… Take my advice – work, and don't spent so much time thinking about blue riders or blue horses.”

August Macke (1887–1914) German painter of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter

In a letter to his friend Franz Marc (Jan. 1912), quoted in 'Meseure 38'; as quoted in Movement, Manifesto, Melee: The Modernist Group, 1910-1914, Milton A. Cohen, Lexington Books, Sep 14, 2004, p. 73, (note 19)

Birth, Thinking, Time, Horse

“In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence — but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.
It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1962)

Men, Pleasure, Literature, Question

“The reduction of poverty is the over-arching objective of the MDGs. Progress is not measured by national or global averages, but by how well the health of the poor improves. If we miss the poor, we miss the point. A health system that lacks commodities for managing high-mortality infectious diseases and the main killers of mothers and young children will not have an adequate impact.”

Margaret Chan (1947) Director-General of the World Health Organization

"Exclusive Interview with WHO's Dr. Margaret Chan" http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/frontlines/global-healthiraq/exclusive-interview-whos-dr-margaret-chan, April-May 2011.

Children, Health, Disease

“The reciprocal relation of color to color produces a phenomenon of a more mysterious order. This new phenomenon is psychological. A high sensitivity is necessary in order to expand color into the sphere of the surreal without losing creative ground. Color stimulates certain moods in us. It awakens joy or fear in accordance with its figuration. In fact, the whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color. Our entire being is nourished by it. This mystic quality of color should likewise find expression in a work of art.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 45
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

World, Fear, Art, Color

“My mom always taught me to hold my head up high and be strong and confident in everything I do. … I’ve been interested in fitness and nutrition for most of my life. I became a vegetarian at a very young age and had to learn how to get the proper nutrition to my body. Over a 15-year process I visited trainers, dietitians and doctors; read hundreds of books and studies; and eventually became a personal trainer and fitness nutritionist myself. I want to use all of my real-life experience and the science behind my certifications to help educate everyone struggling with their body image. … Modeling is a lot of hard work and you have to have a very strong sense of self and confidence to succeed.”

Jayde Nicole (1986) Canadian model, Playboy's Playmate of the Month January 2007 and Playmate of the Year 2008

"Jayde Nicole, Miss 2008, Interview", in RunwayLive.com (20 August 2011) https://www.runwaylive.com/3306-jayde-nicole-miss-2008-interview.html.

Life, Books, Age, Education

“Consistency of the person's strategic preference across tests (and subject matters) is curiously high.”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

Source: Learning Strategies, Teaching Strategies, and Conceptual or Learning Style (1988), p. 85. as cited in: Colin A. Hardy, Michael Mawer (1999) Learning and Teaching in Physical Education. p. 62.

Personality

“A programming language is like a natural, human language in that it favors certain metaphors, images, and ways of thinking. The language used strongly colors the computer culture. It would seem to follow that educators interested in using computers and sensitive to cultural influences would pay particular attention to the choice of language. But nothing of the sort has happened. On the contrary, educators… have accepted certain programming languages in much the same way as they accepted the QWERTY keyboard. An informative example is the way in which the programming language BASIC has established itself as the obvious language to use in teaching children how to program computers… Today, and in fact for several years now, the cost of computer memory has fallen to the point where any remaining economic advantages of using BASIC are insignificant. Yet in most high schools, the language remains almost synonymous with programming, despite the existence of other computer languages that are demonstrably easier to learn and are richer in the intellectual benefits that can come from learning them. The situation is paradoxical. The computer revolution has scarcely begun, but is already breeding its own conservatism.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 1, Computers and Computer Cultures

Children, Education, School, Color

“Labeling a high-ranking wolf alpha emphasizes its rank in a dominance hierarchy. However, in natural wolf packs, the alpha male or female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw none. Thus, calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a doe deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its young offspring, so "alpha" adds no information. Why not refer to an alpha female as the female parent, the breeding female, the matriarch, or simply the mother? Such a designation emphasizes not the animal's dominant status, which is trivial information, but its role as pack progenitor, which is critical information.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/alstat/. Canadian Journal of Zoology 77:1196-1203 (1999).

Nature, Parent, Wolf, Animals

Quotes about high page 25

Quotes about high
page 25