Quotes about import
page 35

Hillary Clinton photo
Susan Cain photo
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor photo

“The strategies that managers employ are at least as important as the facilities at their disposal.”

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 1, Processes and Policies, p. 27.

Hassan Rouhani photo
Gerhard Richter photo
Harvey Mansfield photo
Clifford D. Simak photo
Ursula Goodenough photo
Lewis Mumford photo

“The vast material displacements the machine has made in our physical environment are perhaps in the long run less important than its spiritual contributions to our culture.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

"The Drama of the Machines" in Scribner's Magazine (August 1930)

John Zerzan photo
William Howard Taft photo
Russell Brand photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Rick Perry photo

“Audie Murphy remains a shining example for anyone who believes in the importance of service, for generations now and into the future.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

Upon awarding the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor posthumously to Audie Murphy, the most highly decorated American soldier of World War II. (29 October 2013)
2013

Pierre Trudeau photo

“Trudeau: Well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it's more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier—
CBC reporter Tim Ralfe [interrupting]: At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that?
Trudeau: Well, just watch me.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Responses to reporters following the kidnapping by the FLQ of a provincial cabinet minister who was eventually murdered. CBC video archives http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-71-162-429-21/unforgettable_moments/conflict_war/trudeau_just_watch_me (13 October 1970)

Abby Stein photo

“I say to a lot of people who struggle [with coming out] — they're always afraid how it's going to affect their family — and to me it's always family is really important, but there has to be a 'you' that can be part of a family. If there's no 'you,' [you can't] be part of the family.”

Abby Stein (1991) Trans activist, speaker, and educator

On NBC News, January 13, 2017 http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/outfront-trans-woman-spreads-lgbtq-awareness-hasidic-community-n706611
2017

Theodor Mommsen photo
Frederick Douglass photo
James Whitbread Lee Glaisher photo

“The invention of logarithms and the calculation of the earlier tables form a very striking episode in the history of exact science, and, with the exception of the Principia of Newton, there is no mathematical work published in the country which has produced such important consequences, or to which so much interest attaches as to Napier’s Descriptio.”

James Whitbread Lee Glaisher (1848–1928) English mathematician and astronomer

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th Edition; Article “Logarithms.”; Reported in Robert Edouard Moritz. Memorabilia mathematica; or, The philomath's quotation-book, (1914) : On the invention of logarithms

Nelson Mandela photo
Charles Stross photo
John Calvin photo
George Peacock photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Bill Whittle photo

“The idea that industry is important and therefore must be run by government is one of the ugliest and least American concepts out there.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

Twitter https://twitter.com/BillWhittle/status/885563016120459264 (13 July 2017)
2010s

Bruce Springsteen photo
Kurt Lewin photo
Samson Raphael Hirsch photo

“However important it is that love shall precede marriage, it is far more important that it shall continue after marriage.”

Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) Jewish theologian, germany 19th century

Commentary on Genesis XXIV, 67 quoted by Joseph H. Hertz, Pentateuch, p. 87

Matthew Simpson photo

“If this be a happy new year, a year of usefulness, a year in which we shall live to make this earth better, it is because God will direct our pathway. How important, then, to feel our dependence upon Him!”

Matthew Simpson (1811–1884) American bishop and academic

American clergyman and bishop http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/authors/matthew_simpson_a001.htm, Giga-usa.com.

Peter F. Drucker photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Tim Powers photo

“It’s important to feel good about yourself. This morning I met somebody I really like—me.”

Source: Expiration Date (1995), Chapter 34 (p. 253)

Bill Gates photo

“I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

OS/2 Programmers Guide, November 1987
1980s

Lars Peter Hansen photo
Newt Gingrich photo

“If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs, it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

1995-08-27
Gingrich Suggests Tough Drug Measure
New York Times
0362-4331
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/27/us/gingrich-suggests-tough-drug-measure.html
2011-12-12
Former Marijuana User Newt Gingrich Proposed the Death Penalty for Trafficking Marijuana in 1996
Paul
Constant
The Stranger
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/12/12/former-marijuana-user-newt-gingrich-proposed-the-death-penalty-for-trafficking-marijuana-in-1996
regarding his "Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996" (H.R. 4170) bill
1990s

Joseph Smith, Jr. photo
Kumar Sangakkara photo
Immanuel Kant photo

“Mathematics, from the earliest times to which the history of human reason can reach, has followed, among that wonderful people of the Greeks, the safe way of science. But it must not be supposed that it was as easy for mathematics as for logic, in which reason is concerned with itself alone, to find, or rather to make for itself that royal road. I believe, on the contrary, that there was a long period of tentative work (chiefly still among the Egyptians), and that the change is to be ascribed to a revolution, produced by the happy thought of a single man, whose experiments pointed unmistakably to the path that had to be followed, and opened and traced out for the most distant times the safe way of a science. The history of that intellectual revolution, which was far more important than the passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope, and the name of its fortunate author, have not been preserved to us. … A new light flashed on the first man who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle (whether his name was Thales or any other name), for he found that he had not to investigate what he saw hi the figure, or the mere concepts of that figure, and thus to learn its properties; but that he had to produce (by construction) what he had himself, according to concepts a priori, placed into that figure and represented in it, so that, in order to know anything with certainty a priori, he must not attribute to that figure anything beyond what necessarily follows from what he has himself placed into it, in accordance with the concept.”

Preface to the Second Edition [Tr. F. Max Müller], (New York, 1900), p. 690; as cited in: Robert Edouard Moritz, Memorabilia mathematica or, The philomath's quotation-book https://openlibrary.org/books/OL14022383M/Memorabilia_mathematica, Published 1914. p. 10
Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)

Robert N. Proctor photo

“It is certainly true that, in one important sense, the Nazis sought to politicize the sciences.”

Robert N. Proctor (1954) American historian

Source: Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, 1988, p. 290

Leonid Brezhnev photo

“Our militant union with peoples which still have to carry on an armed struggle against the colonialists constitutes an important element of our line in international affairs.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in Ussr and Countries of Africa http://leninist.biz/en/1980/UCOA319/01.5.1-Struggle.of.Former.Portuguese.Colonies

Malala Yousafzai photo

“In a situation where a lifelong school break was being imposed upon us by the terrorists, rising up against that became very important, essential.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Malala in Interview with a Pakistani Television network, 2011-12; Cited in: The girl who wanted to go to school http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/the-girl-who-wanted-to-go-to-school.html." The New Yorker by Basharat Peer, posted October 10, 2012
2010 -

Charles Sumner photo
Mitsumasa Yonai photo
Roy Lichtenstein photo
Erik Naggum photo
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning photo

“To some this may appear to be a small matter, but to Mr. Harry Hook, it is very important. He is a street trader in the Barnsley Market. He has been trading there for some six years without any complaint being made against him; but, nevertheless, he has now been banned from trading in the market for life. All because of a trifling incident. On Wednesday, October 16, 1974, the market was closed at 5:30. So were all the lavatories, or 'toilets' as they are now called. They were locked up. Three quarters of an hour later, at 6:20, Harry Hook had an urgent call of nature. He wanted to relieve himself. He went into a side street near the market and there made water, or 'urinated' as it is now said. No one was about except one or two employees of the council, who were cleaning up. They rebuked him. He said: 'I can do it here if I like'. They reported him to a security officer who came up. The security officer reprimanded Harry Hook. We are not told the words used by the security officer. I expect they were in language which street traders understand. Harry Hook made an appropriate reply. Again, we are not told the actual words, but it is not difficult to guess. I expect it was an emphatic version of 'You be off'. At any rate, the security officer described them as words of abuse. Touchstone would say that the security officer gave the 'reproof valiant' and Harry Hook gave the 'counter-check quarrelsome'; As You Like It, Act V, Scene IV. On Thursday morning the security officer reported the incident. The market manager thought it was a serious matter. So he saw Mr. Hook the next day, Friday, October 18. Mr. Hook admitted it and said he was sorry for what had happened. The market manager was not satisfied to leave it there. He reported the incident to the chairman of the amenity services committee of the Council. He says that the chairman agreed that 'staff should be protected from such abuse.”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

That very day the market manager wrote a letter to Mr. Hook, banning him from trading in the market.
Ex Parte Hook [1976] 1 WLR 1052 at 1055.
Judgments

Ted Nelson photo

“HOW TO LEARN ANYTHINGAs far as I can tell these are the techniques used by bright people who want to learn something other than by taking courses in it. […]1. DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN. But you can't know this exactly, because you don't know exactly how any field is structured until you know all about it.2. READ EVERYTHING YOU CAN ON IT, especially what you enjoy, since that way you can read more of it and faster.3. GRAB FOR INSIGHTS. Regardless of points others are trying to make, when you recognize an insight that has meaning for you, make it your own […] Its importance is not how central it is, but how clear and interesting and memorable to you. REMEMBER IT. Then go for another.4. TIE INSIGHTS TOGETHER. Soon you will have your own string of insights in a field. […]5. CONCENTRATE ON MAGAZINES, NOT BOOKS. Magazines have far more insights per inch of text, and can be read much faster. But when a book really speaks to you, lavish attention on it.6. FIND YOUR OWN SPECIAL TOPICS, AND PURSUE THEM.7. GO TO CONVENTIONS. For some reason, conventions are a splendid concentrated way to learn things; talking to people helps. […]8. "FIND YOUR MAN." Somewhere in the world is someone who will answer your questions extraordinarily well. If you find him, dog him. […]9. KEEP IMPROVING YOUR QUESTIONS. Probably in your head there are questions that don't seem to line up with what your hearing. Don't assume that you don't understand; keep adjusting the questions till you get an answer that relates to what you wanted.10. YOUR FIELD IS BOUNDED WHERE YOU WANT IT TO BE. Just because others group and stereotype things in conventional ways does not mean they are necessarily right. Intellectual subjects are connected every which way; your field is what you think it is. […]”

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

Dream Machines
Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974, rev. 1987)

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington photo
George Eliot photo

“He fled to his usual refuge, that of hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some favourable chance which would save him from unpleasant consequences – perhaps even justify his insincerity by manifesting prudence.
In this point of trusting in some throw of fortune's dice, Godfrey can hardly be called old-fashioned. Favourable Chance is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance, that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 9 (at page 73-74)

Robert Hall photo
Richard Nixon photo
D.H. Lawrence photo

“I hold that the parentheses are by far the most important parts of a non-business letter.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Letter to Blanche Jennings (15 April 1908), Letters of D.H. Lawrence (1979), edited by James T. Boulton

Ernest Flagg photo
Wyndham Lewis photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Undoubtedly one of the most important provisions in the preparation for national defense is a proper and sound selective service act. Such a law ought to give authority for a very broad mobilization of all the resources of the country, both persons and materials. I can see some difficulties in the application of the principle, for it is the payment of a higher price that stimulates an increased production, but whenever it can be done without economic dislocation such limits ought to be established in time of war as would prevent so far as possible all kinds of profiteering. There is little defense which can be made of a system which puts some men in the ranks on very small pay and leaves others undisturbed to reap very large profits. Even the income tax, which recaptured for the benefit of the National Treasury alone about 75 per cent of such profits, while local governments took part of the remainder, is not a complete answer. The laying of taxes is, of course, in itself a conscription of whatever is necessary of the wealth of the country for national defense, but taxation does not meet the full requirements of the situation. In the advent of war, power should be lodged somewhere for the stabilization of prices as far as that might be possible in justice to the country and its defenders.”

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

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Christine O'Donnell photo

“It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth, with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun. The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

" Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/8/local/ed-board.pdf", BioScience volume 31 (1981), p. 559; Reprinted in J. Peter Zetterberg, editor, Evolution versus Creationism, Oryx Press, Phoenix, Arizona, 1983.

Evelyn Waugh photo
Adolf Eichmann photo

“Obeying an order was the most important thing to me. It could be that is in the nature of the German.”

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

Die Welt memoirs (1999)

Ronald David Laing photo

“It is of fundamental importance not to make the positivist mistake of assuming that because a group’s members are in formation this means that they’re necessarily on course.”

Source: The Politics of Experience (1967), p.82 (of original version see Google Books link here https://books.google.com/books?id=ZGTUlU5E5rAC&dq=politics+of+experience&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22positivist+mistake%22)

Will Cuppy photo

“Other kings let their ministers make their mistakes for them, but Louis insisted on making the important mistakes personally.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Louis XIV

“A news sense is really a sense of what is important, what is vital, what has color and life — what people are interested in. That's journalism.”

Burton Rascoe (1892–1957) American writer

As quoted in Useful Quotations : A Cyclopedia of Quotations (1933) edited by Tryon Edwards, C. N. Catrevas, and Jonathan Edwards

Tad Williams photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Bernard Lewis photo
Robert Costanza photo
Henry Adams photo
Amit Ray photo

“Silence is the language of Om. We need silence to be able to reach our Self. Both internal and external silence is very important to feel the presence of that supreme Love.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

OM Chanting and Meditation (2010) http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/OM_Chanting_and_Meditation.html?id=3KKjPoFmf4YC,

Heather Langenkamp photo
John Adams photo

“There is one Resolution I will not omit. Resolved that no Slaves be imported into any of the thirteen colonies.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Autobiography (1802–1807), passage on events of April 6, 1776, The Founding Fathers: John Adams: A Biography in his own Words https://web.archive.org/web/20111029143754/http://home.nas.com/lopresti/ps2.htm (1973), by James Bishop Peabody, Newsweek, New York, p. 197
1800s

Thomas Little Heath photo

“Greek mathematics reveals an important aspect of the Greek genius of which the student of Greek culture is apt to lose sight.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

Preface p. v
A History of Greek Mathematics (1921) Vol. 1. From Thales to Euclid

Ai Weiwei photo
Timothy McVeigh photo
Edward Hopper photo

“So much of every art is an expression of the subconscious that it seems to me most of all the important qualities are put there unconsciously, and little of importance by the conscious intellect. But these are things for the psychologist to untangle.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

Quote in Hopper's letter to Charles H. Sawyer, October 29, 1939; as cited in Edward Hopper, Lloyd Goodrich; New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1971, p. 164
1911 - 1940

Peter D. Schiff photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
E.M. Forster photo

“N. B. this book and pensées not important and the temptation to mistake them for Creation must be resisted.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 155 (1943)

Robert M. Price photo
Chen Shui-bian photo

“The most important task in my term is to improve the economy.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

During his campaign for re-election, April 12, 2003
Pet Phrases, 2003

John Angell James photo