Quotes about import
page 19

Atal Bihari Vajpayee photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“How often will the lip frame some indifferent question, when the heart is full of the most important!”

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

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Fred Thompson photo

“After sleeping late on Sunday, I was back at my desk that afternoon. I had two prime considerations. First, I wanted to be certain that the tapes were not a trap for the committee or that there was a significant bit of missing information that we lacked; experience taught me that matters of this importance do not usually fall into your lap without more complications that are immediately apparent. Second, if our information was legitimate, I wanted to be sure the White House was fully aware of what was to be disclosed so that it could take appropriate action. Legalisms aside, it was inconceivable to me that the White House could withhold the tapes once their existence was made known. I believed it would be in everyone’s interest if the White House realized, before making any public statements, the probable position of both the majority and the minority of the Watergate committee. Even though I had no authority to act for the committee, I decided to call Fred Buzhardt at home. Buzhardt was the only White House staff member with whom I had had any substantial contact. He had been unassuming and straightforward in his dealings with me. He never tried to enlist me in any White House strategy, to suggest that I relay confidential information, or to so any of the things that were probably assumed by many of the so-called sophisticates in Washington.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

page 86
At That Point in Time, Warning the White House about the Watergate tapes

Steve Wozniak photo

“Creative things have to sell to get acknowledged as such. Steve Jobs didn't really set the direction of my Apple I and Apple II designs but he did the more important part of turning them into a product that would change the world. I don't deny that.”

Steve Wozniak (1950) American inventor, computer engineer and programmer

"Letters-General Questions Answered" p. 96 http://www.woz.org/letters/general/96.html
Woz.org files

Lydia Maria Child photo

“That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

Letter to the Advocates of Woman’s Suffrage (1870).
1870s

Scott McClellan photo

“Q: …would he possibly stand under a sign that says "Mission Accomplished" today as he did three years ago?
Scott McClellan: Well, Peter, I think that there are some Democrats that refuse to recognize the important milestone achieved by the formation of a national unity government. And there is an effort simply to distract attention away from the real progress that is being made by misrepresenting and distorting the past. And that really does nothing to help advance our goal of achieving victory in Iraq.
Q: Scott, simple yes or no question, could the President stand under a sign that says --
Scott McClellan: No, see, this is -- this is a way that --
Q: It has nothing to do with Democrats.
Scott McClellan: Sure it does.
Q: I'm asking you, based on a reporter's curiosity, could he stand under a sign again that says, "Mission Accomplished"?
Scott McClellan: Now, Peter, Democrats have tried to raise this issue, and, like I said, misrepresenting and distorting the past --
Q: This is not --
Scott McClellan: -- which is what they're doing, does nothing to advance the goal of victory in Iraq.
Q: I mean, it's a historical fact that we're all taking notice of --
Scott McClellan: Well, I think the focus ought to be on achieving victory in Iraq and the progress that's being made, and that's where it is. And you know exactly the Democrats are trying to distort the past.
Q: Let me ask it another way: Has the mission been accomplished?
Scott McClellan: Next question.
Q: Has the mission been accomplished?
Scott McClellan: We're on the way to accomplishing the mission and achieving victory.”

Scott McClellan (1968) Former White House press secretary

Source: Press briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060501-4.html, May 1, 2006

Vladimir Lenin photo

“You are known among us as a protector of the arts so you must remember that, of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important.”

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

Из всех искусств важнейшим для нас является кино.
Conversation with A.V.Lunacharsky (April 1919); also quoted in A Concise History of the Cinema: Before 1940 (1971) by Peter Cowie, p. 137, Complete Works of V.I.Lenin - 5th Edition - Vol. 44. - p. 579.
1910s

Joseph Campbell photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Bill Sali photo
John Howard photo

“The most important civil liberty… is to stay alive and to be free from violence and death…”

John Howard (1939) 25th Prime Minister of Australia

Terrorism Summit http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/id-cards-on-table-at-terror-summit/2005/08/05/1123125891748.html?oneclick=true (Friday, 5 August 2005)

William Saroyan photo
Tad Williams photo
Norman Vincent Peale photo

“Libertarians, in short, simply do not believe that theft is proper whether it is committed in the name of a state, a class, a crises, a credo, or a cliche.This is a far cry from sharing common ground with those who want to create a society in which super capitalists are free to amass vast holdings and who say that that is ultimately the most important purpose of freedom.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

"Letter From Washington," http://www.panarchy.org/hess/libertarianism.html The Libertarian Forum 1, no. 6 http://web.archive.org/web/20071201123614/http://mises.org/journals/lf/1969/1969_06_15.pdf (15 June 1969), p. 2

“Almost every important choice in our lives is really just an expression of hope.”

John Twelve Hawks American writer

Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Golden City (2009)

Donald J. Trump photo

“We are very blessed to call this nation our home. And that is what America is: it is our home. It’s where we raise our families, care for our loved ones, look out for our neighbors, and live out our dreams. It is my prayer, that on this Thanksgiving, we begin to heal our divisions and move forward as one country, strengthened by a shared purpose and very, very common resolve. In declaring this national holiday, President Lincoln called upon Americans to speak with “one voice and one heart.” That’s just what we have to do. We have just finished a long and bruising political campaign. Emotions are raw and tensions just don’t heal overnight. It doesn’t go quickly, unfortunately, but we have before us the chance now to make history together to bring real change to Washington, real safety to our cities, and real prosperity to our communities, including our inner cities. So important to me, and so important to our country. But to succeed, we must enlist the effort of our entire nation. This historic political campaign is now over. Now begins a great national campaign to rebuild our country and to restore the full promise of America for all of our people. I am asking you to join me in this effort. It is time to restore the bonds of trust between citizens. Because when America is unified, there is nothing beyond our reach, and I mean absolutely nothing. Let us give thanks for all that we have, and let us boldly face the exciting new frontiers that lie ahead. Thank you. God Bless You and God Bless America.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

A Thanksgiving Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnv6Kb7syQ (23 November 2016)
2010s, 2016, November

Noam Chomsky photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Arsène Wenger photo

“In England, football is important for everybody.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

22 November 1996
Quotations from the Public Comments of Arsene Wenger: Manager, Arsenal Football Club (2005)

Richard Nixon photo
Poul Anderson photo
Marissa Mayer photo

“There are different phases of companies. When you’re in the tens of people, the idea itself either attracts people or it doesn’t. People are there because they think the problem you’re trying to solve is just that important.”

Marissa Mayer (1975) American business executive and engineer, former ceo of Yahoo!

The New York Times: "Marissa Mayer Is Still Here" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/business/marissa-mayer-corner-office.html (18 April 2018)

Lewis Mumford photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“The importance of imitation for the development of higher cognition in human beings: We embody ideas before we abstract them out and then represent them in an articulated way. What is the child doing when they play house? They are watching their parent over multiple instantiations, and then abstracting out the spirit called Mother, and that is whatever is mother-like across all those multiple manifestations, and then laying out that pattern internally and manifesting it in an abstract world. It's that you're smart enough to pull out the abstraction, and then embody it. And certainly the child is striving toward an ideal. If children don't engage in that kind of dramatic and pretend play to some tremendous degree, then they don't get properly socialized. It's really a critical element of developing self understanding and of also developing the capability of being with others, because what you do when you're a child, especially around the age of four is: you jointly construct a shared fictional world, and then you act out your joint roles within that shared fictional world. Embodied imitation and dramatic abstraction constituted the ground out of which higher abstract cognition emerged. How else could it be? Clearly we were mostly bodies before we were minds. Clearly. And so we were acting out things way before we understood them.”

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

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_GPAl_q2QQ "Biblical Series III: God and the Hierarchy of Authority"

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood photo
Iain Banks photo
André Weil photo

“An important point is that the p-adic field, or respectively the real or complex field, corresponding to a prime ideal, plays exactly the role, in arithmetic, that the field of power series in the neighborhood of a point plays in the theory of functions: that is why one calls it a local field.”

André Weil (1906–1998) French mathematician

as translated by Martin H. Krieger "A 1940 letter of André Weil on analogy in mathematics." http://www.ams.org/notices/200503/fea-weil.pdf Notices of the AMS 52, no. 3 (2005) pp. 334–341, quote on p. 340

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“Every human being is the natural guardian of his own importance.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 9: "Science and Philosophy"

Brandon Boyd photo
Paul Klee photo

“One of the most winning characteristics of Prokofiev’s music is its indomitable energy. In expressing this quality, stability of tempo is particularly important.”

Boris Berman (1948) Russian/American musician

Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Conclusion

George W. Bush photo
Maxwell D. Taylor photo

“So the future depends not only on what we do but on what other powers do. Will they join in the nuclear arms race or save their resources for later, more renumerative uses? Will they increase their productivity while we succumb to inflation and its social and economic consequences? Will they live in harmony at home while we remain riven by factionalism and terrorized by crime? Most important of all, will they choose their goals wisely and pursue them relentlessly while we flounder in aimlessness or exhaust ourselves in internecine struggles? These matters are quite as important as the decline of absolute American power in determining the equilibrium of international relations in the 1970s. One thing is sure: the international challenge tends to merge more and more with the domestic challenge until the two become virtually indistinguishable. The threats from both sources are directed at the same sources of national power which provide strength both for our national security and for our domestic welfare. It is clear, I believe, that we cannot overcome abroad and fail at home, or succeed at home and succumb abroad. To progress toward the goals of our security and welfare we must advance concurrently on both foreign and domestic fronts by means of integrated national power responsive to a unified national will.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Closing words, p. 421-422
Swords and Plowshares (1972)

Julius Streicher photo

“We handed the most important belongings of our people -- the railroads and the banks -- to aliens who 2000 years ago had turned the temple into a house of usury. Back then there was a man who had the bravery to drive out these scoundrels with a whip! If today a national socialist is seen with such a temple-whip, he's thrown into jail.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Wir haben unsere wichtigsten Volksgüter, die Eisenbahnen und die Banken, den Fremdlingen überlassen, die schon vor 2000 Jahren den Tempel zu einem Wucherhaus gemacht haben. Damals hatte schon einer den Mut besessen, mit einer Peitsche dieses Gesindel auszutreiben! Wenn heute ein Nationalsozialist mit einer solchen Tempelpeitsche angetroffen wird, wird er ins Gefängnis geworfen.
05/01/1925, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament; debate about the budget of the ministry of justice ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)

Barbara Hepworth photo
Adam Smith photo

“The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from its foreign trade.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter I, p. 479.

George Chakiris photo
James Meade photo

“The great majority of politicians and other interested persons tend to…. concentrate on…. measures such as education and training of labour and investment in modern efficient capital equipment…. These reforms are of extreme importance but they are concerned basically with raising the output per head of those who are in employment rather than about the number of heads that will find suitable employment.”

James Meade (1907–1995) British economist

James Meade, Full Employment Regained? An Agathotopian Dream, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1995), p. xvii; As cited in: O'higgins, Niall. "The challenge of youth unemployment." International Social Security Review 50.4 (1997): p. 89

Hermann Rauschning photo
Greg Bear photo

“There is no war so important that to win it, we must destroy our minds.”

Greg Bear (1951) American writer best known for science fiction

Source: Short fiction, Hardfought (1983), p. 76

Alfred Stieglitz photo
George Gissing photo
Margaret Sanger photo
Paul Klee photo
Nathan Leone photo
Mariano Rajoy photo

“The most important thing we can do for you is what you can do for yourselves”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

8 November, 2015
As President, 2015
Source: RT https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/190886-rajoy-discurso-podais-hacer-vosotros

Narendra Modi photo

“Democracy, voters, voting responsibility […] everyone in Vadodara […] the awakening of the voters was very important and I thank and congratulate them.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2014, "Election results 2014 LIVE: Vadodara goes wild as hero Modi arrives", 2014

Theodore Kaczynski photo
James Branch Cabell photo
Aldo Leopold photo
George W. Bush photo

“More and more of our imports come from overseas.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Speech Beaverton, Oregon, (September 25, 2000) discussing U.S. oil imports, most of which come from within the western hemisphere http://www.metacafe.com/watch/174420/george_w_bush_slipups/
2000s, 2000

Norman Tebbit photo
Ragnar Frisch photo
Charles Evans Hughes photo

“Public officers, whose character and conduct remain open to debate and free discussion in the press, find their remedies for false accusations in actions under libel laws providing for redress and punishment, and not in proceedings to restrain the publication of newspapers and periodicals. The general principle that the constitutional guaranty of the liberty of the press gives immunity from previous restraints has been approved in many decisions under the provisions of state constitutions. The importance of this immunity has not lessened. While reckless assaults upon public men, and efforts to bring obloquy upon those who are endeavoring faithfully to discharge official duties, exert a baleful influence and deserve the severest condemnation in public opinion, it cannot be said that this abuse is greater, and it is believed to be less, than that which characterized the period in which our institutions took shape. Meanwhile, the administration of government has become more complex, the opportunities for malfeasance and corruption have multiplied, crime has grown to most serious proportions, and the danger of its protection by unfaithful officials and of the impairment of the fundamental security of life and property by criminal alliances and official neglect, emphasizes the primary need of a vigilant and courageous press, especially in great cities. The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any the less necessary the immunity of the press from previous restraint in dealing with official misconduct. Subsequent punishment for such abuses as may exist is the appropriate remedy consistent with constitutional privilege.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Lucy Aharish photo
Laisenia Qarase photo
William Montgomery Watt photo
Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis photo
Frank Johnson Goodnow photo
Satyajit Ray photo

“Last, but not least -- in fact, this is most important -- you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.”

Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) Indian author, poet, composer, lyricist, filmmaker

Satyajit Ray:Quotes: Quotable Quote, 13 December 2013, Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/625702-last-but-not-least----in-fact-this-is-most,

Giacomo Casanova photo
Adolf Eichmann photo
Sylvia Earle photo

“The ocean is large and resilient, but it is not too big to fail. What we are taking out of the sea, what we are putting into the sea are actions that are undermining the most important thing the ocean delivers to humankind – our very existence.”

Sylvia Earle (1935) American oceanographer

[Earle, Sylvia, BREAKING: Dr. Sylvia Earle Boldly Addresses the UN To Urge Legal Protection for High Seas, http://mission-blue.org/2015/01/breaking-dr-sylvia-earle-boldly-addresses-the-un-to-urge-legal-protection-for-high-seas/, www.missionblue.org, Mission Blue, 28 January 2015]

Donald J. Trump photo
Eric Hoffer photo
Marco Rubio photo

“The most important job we have is not congressman or senator or governor. It's family and mother and husband and wife.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

'Faith and Freedom' fundraiser event in Anderson, South Carolina , quoted in * 2014-8-25
2014-08-29
In South Carolina, Rubio heals wounds on the right
Peter
Hamby
CNN
2010s, 2014
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/politics/rubio-sc-fundraiser/index.html?hpt=po_t1

Peter Sellars photo
George W. Bush photo

“My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Remarks by the President to the Diet, Tokyo, Japan. (February 18, 2002) http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/press/release/2002/0902-gwbjapan1.html
2000s, 2002

Thomas Robert Malthus photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo

“Over time, every way of thinking generates important problems that it cannot solve.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 3. Opening sentence.

Michel Foucault photo
Stella Vine photo
George W. Bush photo

“Power can be very addictive. And it can be corrosive. And it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2017, Interview with Matt Lauer (2017)

Alfred Horsley Hinton photo

“A little thought, however, will show that both aerial and linear perspective play as important a part in the heavens as on the earth beneath.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Perspective of clouds, p. 96

Will Eisner photo
Lawrence H. Summers photo

“…it’s important to remember how fortunate we are as a country to have a currency and a bond market that is seen in every way as a source of strength and it’s a huge responsibility for us to keep it that way.”

Lawrence H. Summers (1954) Former US Secretary of the Treasury

Tom Braithwaite (April 9, 2009) "Summers sees end to ‘sense of free-fall’" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4f1ac1c-2537-11de-8a66-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1, Financial Times
2000s

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“He was extremely important to his contemporaries, who wanted nothing more than to see in his the Expected One; they wanted almost to press it upon him and and to force him into the role - but that he then refuses to be that!”

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

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), p. 60

Agatha Christie photo
Francis Escudero photo

“I am happy and humbled by the continued confidence by the people, but what is important is that public servants seeking the people’s vote like me continue to work to prove that we are worthy of the positions entrusted to us.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/02/08/906431/loren-chiz-tied-top-spot-latest-pulse-asia-survey
2013, Mid-Term Campaign Trail

Pierce Brown photo
Hermann Samuel Reimarus photo
Richard Koch photo

“In 1897, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) noticed a regular pattern in distributions of wealth or income, no matter the country or time period concerned. He found that the distribution was extremely skewed toward the top end: A small minority of the top earners always accounted for a large majority of the total wealth. The pattern was so reliable that Pareto was eventually able to predict the distribution of income accurately before looking at the data.
Pareto was greatly excited by his discovery, which he rightly believed was of enormous importance not just to economics but to society as well. But he managed to enthuse only a few fellow economists….
Pareto's idea became widely known only when Joseph Moses Juran, one of the gurus of the quality movement in the twentieth century, renamed it the "Rule of the Vital Few." In his 1951 tome The Quality Control Handbook, which became hugely influential in Japan and later in the West, Juran separated the "vital few" from the "trivial many," showing how problems in quality could be largely eliminated, cheaply and quickly, by focusing on the vital few causes of these problems. Juran, who moved to Japan in 1954, taught executives there to improve quality and product design while incorporating American business practices into their own companies. Thanks to this new attention to quality control, between 1957 and 1989, Japan grew faster than any other industrial economy.”

Richard Koch (1950) German medical historian and internist

Introduction
The 80/20 Individual (2003)