Quotes about import
page 36

“It pains to see that some investors are importing raw commodities, although just on their door steps, similar produces are left to decay.”

Ali Mohamed Shein (1948) President of Zanzibar

Insisting investors to give local produce first priority. 2007-11-14 http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2007/11/14/102447.html

Pain

“I feel more important to just encourage people to get involved, one way or another. If I can inspire some leaders, that would be great. I don't know if I want to be a leader.”

Joe the Plumber (1973) American conservative activist and commentator

"Q & A: 'Joe the Plumber'" interview by Sarah Pulliam, in Christianity Today (May 2009) Web-only article

People, Way, Feeling

“Obviously, based on the crisis and what happened and the effects that we're still feeling, it's now clear that maintaining financial stability is just as an important a responsibility as monetary and economic stability. And indeed, this is, you know, very much a return to the—where the Fed came from in the beginning. Remember the reason that Fed was created was to try to reduce the incidents of financial panics, so financial stability was the original goal of creation of the Fed. So now we sort of come full circle.”

Ben Bernanke (1953) American economist

Lecture 4: The Aftermath of the Crisis
The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis (2012)

Feeling

“As I have already hinted, one of the directions of work which the realm of ideas of the Macy meetings has suggested concerns the importance of the notion and the technique of communication in the social system. It is certainly true that the social system is an organization like the individual, that it is bound together by a system of communication, and that it has a dynamics in which circular processes of a feedback nature play an important part. This is true, both in the general fields of anthropology and sociology and in the more specific field of economics; and the very important work, which we have already mentioned, of von Neumann and Morgenstern on the theory of games enters into this range of ideas. On this basis, Drs. Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead have urged me, in view of the intensely pressing nature of the sociological and economic problems of the present age of confusion, to devote a large part of my energies to the discussion of this side of cybernetics.”

Norbert Wiener book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

Introduction. p. 24.
Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948)

Age, Game, Communication, Idea

“In such countries, genocide is not too important…”

François Mitterrand (1916–1996) 21st President of the French Republic

Comments about Rwanda attributed to President Mitterrand by Philip Gourevitch in "Reversing the Reversals of War," The New Yorker, 26 April 1999.
Attributed

Country

“Those who argue for a nonpolitical reading of Paul can point out that one of the first things he addresses in the beginning of the letter to the Romans is sexual perversion—usually seen as a moral rather than a political issue. Through must of its history, the church has picked up this concern and focused on morality instead of politics. Everything changes, however, if we realize that we are presented here with a false dichotomy, now as then. In Paul's world, it would have been understood that sexuality was tied up with power since one of the prerogatives of the powerful was sexual penetration. Certain homosexual activities in Paul's time could thus be considered displays of the inequality of power. Equally important, the sexual escapades of the emperor were well known to the people. In Romans 1:31 Paul reproaches rebelliousness against parents; most of his readers would have been aware of Emperor Nero's incestuous relations with his mother. Not even sexuality and politics can be separated in Paul's thinking.”

Joerg Rieger (1963) divinity school scholar

Source: Christ and Empire (2007), pp. 45-46

People, World, History, Thinking

“It is important that a woman’s “noes” be respected and her “yeses” be respected. And it is also important when her nonverbal “yeses” (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal “noes” that the man not be put in jail for choosing the “yes” over the “no.””

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

He might just be trying to become her fantasy.
Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 315.

“It is accepted fact that the world has been moving from an economy of goods to an economy of knowledge. And knowledge is the single most important resource to any advanced society.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

World, Knowledge

“The ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus, propounded an hypothesis of the constitution of matter, and gave the name of atoms to the ultimate unalterable parts of which he imagined all bodies to be constructed. In the 17th century, Gassendi revived this hypothesis, and attempted to develope it, while Newton used it with marked success in his reasonings on physical phenomena; but the first who formed a body of doctrine which would embrace all known facts in the constitution of matter, was Roger Joseph Boscovich, of Italy, who published at Vienna, in 1759, a most important and ingenious work, styled Theoria Philosophiæ Naturalis ad unicam legem virium, in Natura existentium redacta. This is one of the most profound contributions ever made to science; filled with curious and important information, and is well worthy of the attentive perusal of the modern student. In more recent days, the theory of Boscovich has received further confirmation and extension in the researches of Dalton, Joule, Thomson, Faraday, Tyndall, and others.”

Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) Croat-Italian physicist

Alfred Marshall Mayer, Lecture-notes on Physics (1868) Part 1 https://books.google.com/books?id=hqsLAAAAYAAJ

Imagination, Science, Success, Parting

“I was brought up to believe that cricket is the most important activity in men's lives, the most important thread in the fabric of the cosmos.”

Bernard Hollowood (1910–1981) English cricketer

Cricket on the Brain (1970)

Men

“The Helsinki Treaty confirms yet again the principle of freedom of conscience. However, a stern and relentless struggle will have to be carried on if the contents of this treaty are to be given reality. In the Soviet Union today many thousands of people are persecuted because of their convictions, both by judicial and by non-judicial organs, for the sake of their religious beliefs and for their desire to bring their children up in the spirit of religion, for reading and disseminating - often only to a few acquaintances - literature which is unwelcome to the State, but which in accordance with ordinary democratic practice is absolutely legitimate, e. g. religious literature, and for attempts to leave the country. On the moral plane the persecution of persons who have defended other victims of unjust treatment, who have worked to publish and in particular to distribute information regarding the persecution and trials of persons with deviant opinions, and of conditions in places of internment, is particularly important.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Nobel Peace Prize Speech (1975)

Children, People, Religion, Literature

“If we follow our divine calling, we shall receive this unique consolation that there is no work so mean and so sordid that does not look truly respectable and highly important in the sight of God”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Coram Deo!
Gen 1:28; Col 1:1ff
Page 94.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God

“One recent history of economic thought (Jürg Niehans’s A History of Economic Theory) devotes twenty-four pages to Samuelson’s ideas. Adam Smith only gets thirteen. Samuelson’s work on stock markets and the random walk takes up less than two of those twenty-four pages. He was “the last generalist in economics,” as he liked to say, and for him financial market studies were just a side project that he at times seemed deeply ambivalent about. His intervention was, however, crucial to the triumph of the random walk. Here was one of the most important economists of all time, and he didn’t think the relationship between coin flips and the stock market was a dinner-speech triviality.”

Justin Fox (1964) American journalist

Justin Fox, Myth of Rational Market (2009), Ch. 4 : A Random Walk from Paul Samuelson to Paul Samuelson

History, Idea, Thinking, Study

“I conclude that there is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases. And we should try again to say how convention in any important sense is involved in language; or, as I think, we should give up the attempt to illuminate how we communicate by appeal to conventions.”

Donald Davidson (philosopher) (1917–2003) scriitor amator

Davidson, Donald. " A nice derangement of epitaphs http://www.hf.uio.no/csmn/english/research/news-and-events/events/davidson_derangement.pdf." Philosophical grounds of rationality: Intentions, categories, ends 4 (1986): 157.

Communication, Idea, Thinking, Sense

“As for myself, I confess to a preference for clear-cut situations, for radical and even extreme positions. But I also feel a secret and very strong attraction to ambiguous situations… for example, that hovering moment when it is no longer day and not yet night, the shades of emotion between indifference and friendship… (they) are so fascinating because they are so indefinable. That which is pure transition, is all the more appealing to the mind because of its elusiveness. It is the same in the cases of Mondrian, Kandinsky and the Cubists: abstraction and figuration have a common frontier in their work that is so tenuous that we often do not know which side we are on. It is this ambiguity that imports a rare poetic charm to their paintings. Artists like Klee, Miro and Dubuffet have also pitched their tents on this borderline and constantly travel from one side tot the other.”

Michel Seuphor (1901–1999) designer, draughtsman, painter

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), pp. 43/44: (1962)

Friendship, Secret, Travel, Feeling

“It was fantastic to fight with Michael, a privilege for me. I said in 2005 that it was important to become Champion when Michael was still there, for the value and the recognition that people outside the sport would give to the championship. But people said we did not fight directly in 2005; this year, it was me versus Michael all year. The history books will say that the last two Championships he raced in were won by Alonso, and that makes me very proud. It was a pleasure to compete against him.”

Fernando Alonso (1981) Spanish racing driver

About racing against, and beating, Michael Schumacher http://www.planet-f1.com/News/Story_Page/0,15909,3210_3463_1771697,00.html (December 13, 2006)

People, Pleasure, Books, History

“It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country’s efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to insure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Speech to the NAACP http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/gardner.html (29 June 1947).

Effort, Freedom, Country

“Many magnify in words the importance of public duties, but few appreciate them in feeling; and that, not so much for want of feeling, as for want of carrying it out to whatever results the understanding reaches.”

Henry Taylor (1800–1886) English playwright and poet

Source: The Statesman (1836), Ch. 9. p. 64

Feeling, Understanding

“We also said that what is true of Europe is also true of Africa and South America. The countries of these continents have recently gained political freedom, but it has done little to help them to regain their spiritual identity. If they wish to rise in a deeper sense, they must recover their soul, their Gods, their roots in their own psyche. If they need any change, and there is no doubt they do, it must come from within themselves as a part of their own experience. They have to make the. best use of their own psychic and spiritual gifts. They cannot nse through imported deities, saviours and prophets.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Hindu View of Christianity and Islam (1992)

God, Soul, Sense, Freedom

“Get the facts. Recognize the equities of all concerned. Realize the necessity of doing a better job every day. Keep an open mind and work hard. The last is most important at all. There is no short cut.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Alfred P. Sloan in: The Magazine of Wall Street, (1927), Vol. 41, p. 480

“You will learn nothing of importance from this story except, perhaps, how to die; but then, you were born knowing that and in any case it only has to be done once. It is easy: ask anyone who has done it.”

Kyril Bonfiglioli (1928–1985) British art dealer

Source: All the Tea in China (1978), Ch. 1.

Learning

“Life is very fleeting. It’s important to be gentle and optimistic. We look behind and think what we’ve done in this life has been good. It was simple; it was modest. Everyone creates their own story and moves on. That’s it. I don’t feel particularly important. What we create is not important. We’re very insignificant.”

Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) Brazilian architect

Quoted in "Why Oscar Niemeyer is king of curves" http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article3035080.ece, Tom Dyckhoff, The Times Online (London, 2007-12-12).

Life, Feeling, Thinking

“It… has long been realized by those engaged in the work of installing scientific management, that transference of skill is one of the most important features(*)… The importance of transference of skill was realized many years ago. Studies in division of work and in elapsed time of doing work were made by Adam Smith, Charles Babbage, M. Coulomb and others, but accurate measurement in management became possible when Mr. Taylor devised his method of observing and recording elementary unit net times for performance with measured allowance for fatigue.
It is now possible to capture, record and transfer not only skill and experience of the best worker, but also the most desirable elements in the methods of all workers. To do this, scientific management carefully proceeds to isolate, analyze, measure, synthesize and standardize least wasteful elementary units of methods. This it does by motion study, time study and micro-motion study which are valuable aids to sort and retain all useful elements of best methods and to evolve from these a method worthy to be established as a standard and to be transferred and taught. Through this process is made possible the community conservation of measured details of experience which has revolutionized every industry that has availed itself of it.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: The present state of art of industrial management, 1913, p. 1124-5 ; (*) See Primer of Scientific Management, F. B. Gilbreth, p. 56; Psychology of Management, L. M. Gilbreth, chap. 8; Motion Study, F. B. Gilbreth, p. 36.

Communication, Study, Time

“I've come to the end of von Hügel's voluminous work on Catherine of Genoa. For such outlay in erudition, it's basically an unrewarding book (for me!), but full of interesting side-lights…Curious, for instance, that Catherine, always universally cited as the recognised authority, the most important and competent witness to the nature of Purgatory, should actually never have had a vision of it - neither as shewing nor as visiting in spirit, as other mystics did.. Her statements are pure conclusions, analogies, based on her own spiritual experiences of suffering and bliss: "So that's what it must be like in Purgatory!"”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

Books, Nature, Light, Suffering

“Dualism is particularly important in both my paintings and my graphics.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

from: Years of Struggle 1902-14' Autobiography Berlin 1934
1921 - 1956

Painting

“My days at Baylor were not too different from my days as part of a company. I had to manage my time. I had to divide it into certain pieces so that I’d get as much done as I possibly could. And I had to have the discipline to stay focused on the most important things that needed to get done.”

Mark Hurd (1957–2019) American businessman, philanthropist and CEO of Oracle

Interview with Baylor Business Review: "Q & A with Mark Hurd" https://bbr.baylor.edu/mark-hurd-fa06/ (Fall 2006)

Time, Parting

“Aside from the equation it draws between making money and being good, the modern ideal of a successful life posits a further linkage between making money and being happy. This latter association rests on … assumptions. First, it is presumed that identifying what will make us happy is not an inordinately difficult task. Just as our bodies typically know what they need in order to be healthy… so, too, the theory goes, can our minds to be relied upon to understand what we should aim for so as to flourish as whole human beings. … Second, it is taken for granted that the enormous range of … consumer goods available to modern civilization is not merely a gaudy, enervating show responsible for stoking desires bearing little relevance to our welfare, but is, rather, a helpful array of potentialities and products, capable of satisfying some of our most important needs.”

Alain de Botton book Status Anxiety

Source: Status Anxiety (2004), Chapter 5 (pt.6 27:39).

Life, Money, Happiness, Understanding

“The reverse process is extremely important to me — that artistic images can inspire to words and different myths, and that in certain cultures this process has been the normal relation between images and words. It is known as a rule in the so-called Germanic art, and through the middle ages heaps of such stories are directly inspired by fantastic images.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Quote in Jorn's letter to anthropologist Francis Huxley (1970) - on the relation between words and images
1959 - 1973, Various sources

Age, Art

“No anti-porn feminist I know has suggested that there is one image, or even a few, that could lead a non-rapist to rape; the argument, rather, is that taken together, pornographic images create a world that is at best inhospitable to women, and at worst dangerous to their physical and emotional well-being. In an unfair and inaccurate article that is emblematic of how anti-porn feminist work is misrepresented, Daniel Bernardi claims that Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon believed that “watching pornography leads men to rape women.” Neither Dworkin nor MacKinnon “pioneers in developing a radical feminist critique of pornography, saw porn in such simplistic terms. Rather, both argued that porn has a complicated and multilayered effect on male sexuality, and that rape, rather than simply being caused by porn, is a cultural practice that has been woven into the fabric of a male-dominated society. Pornography, they argued, is one important agent of such a society since it so perfectly encodes woman-hating ideology, but to see it as simplistically and unquestionably leading to rape is to ignore how porn operates within the wider context of a society that is brimming with sexist imagery and ideology. If, then, we replace the “Does porn cause rape?” question with more nuanced questions that ask how porn messages shape our reality and our culture, we avoid falling into the images-lead-to-rape discussion. What this reformulation does is highlight the ways that the stories in pornography, by virtue of their consistency and coherence, create a worldview that the user integrates into his reservoir of beliefs that form his ways of understanding, seeing, and interpreting what goes on around him.”

Gail Dines (1958) anti-pornography campaigner

Pornland: How Porn Hijacked Our Sexuality, Ch 5, Page 85, Gail Dines

Women, Men, Hate, World

“As far as my exhibition concerned [opening was 8 May 1954, in Ghent].... there is however a recent and important painting hanging there 'Man met Boompje' [Man with tree, later titled 'The Gardener] - permettez-moi - with beautiful refracting matters and color: lemon-yellow spots and lacquerish black on white, (face) transparent pure light-blue with a very thin layer glacis over it (in the small wall) and strong-blue painted vertical line. Yellow brown and mauve brush-sweeps with small red dashes over it (for the small tree), and further a lot of beautiful white.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Wat nu mijn tentoonstelling betreft (opening was 8 mei 1954, in Gent].. .er is echter een recent en belangrijk werk bij n.l. 'Man met boompje' [later 'De Tuinman' getiteld] - permettez-moi- met mooie brekende materies en kleur: citroengele vlekken en lakachtig zwarte op wit, (gezicht) transparante zuivere lichte blauwe met een heel dunne glacis erover (in muurtje) en sterk blauwe geschilderde vertikale lijn. Geelbruine en mauve vegen met daarop kleine rode streepjes (voor boompje) verder veel mooi wit.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, May 1954; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 164 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

Beauty, Color, Tree, Light

“Naturally I don't believe books and I don't believe teachers, but I do believe-it's important for me to believe you [Gene]. Christ, I've got to believe you, at least. I know you better than anybody.”

John Knowles book A Separate Peace

Finny, on his trust in Gene.
Source: A Separate Peace (1959), P. 163

Books, Nature, Teachers, Christ

“Breathe out, so that your breath travels infinitely to the ends of the universe: breathe in, so that your breath reaches your one point and continues infinitely there. The ki breathing methods are an important way of unifying mind and body. At night when all is quiet and calm, do this alone, and you will feel that you are the universe and that the universe is you. It will lead you to supreme ecstasy of being one with the universe. At this moment the life power that is rightfully yours is fully activated.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

15 : Ki breathing exercises
Ki Sayings (2003)

Life, Way, Travel, Feeling

“I lost my father when I was 13-years-old. He was a great man, my father, and very intelligent. I love him very much. I believe it's very important that parents have a personal connection with their children. It helps kids feel more secure, have a feeling of family, makes them feel loved.”

Preity Zinta (1975) film actress

Famous quotes
Source: [imdb.com, Preity Zinta's famous quotes, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006689/bio, 27 November, 2006]

Love, Children, Family, Feeling

“Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.”

Steve Allen (1921–2000) American comedian, actor, musician and writer

Funny People (1981)

Life, Thinking, Laughter

“It was very personal. Political comes from the viewing process. Nothing is ever political if it's genuine. In the reaction, yes, it can be political. But the motives were based completely on a deep need to communicate and share information. The film language has evolved enough that you should get people interacting with the film. It's exciting for us to exhibit it, and it's exciting for people to watch it…I think it's very important for the gay community to have random characters that represent nothing more than people…I think it's part of a wave that will set a precedent of some sort so that you will no longer need a label.”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

On My Own Private Idaho, The Face, (1992)

People, Communication, Motivation, Thinking

“One of the most important virtues in social life, a virtue that is becoming less common by the day, is discretion.”

Adolph Freiherr Knigge book Über den Umgang mit Menschen

Eine der wichtigsten Tugenden im gesellschaftlichen Leben, die täglich seltener wird, ist die Verschwiegenheit.
Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788)

Life

“I pick up the details that drive the organization insane. But sweating the details is more important than anything else.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

Top 15 quotes from PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi

“Use cases, scenarios or scripts are roughly synonymous terms for important ways to focus our design activities. I prefer the term use case (although quickly saying it three times can leave your tongue tied) because it emphasizes usage. A use case is a textual description of a sequence of interactions between an actor (roughly corresponding to an external agent or class of users) and the system we are designing. Use cases were first described by Ivar Jacobson in his book “Object Oriented Software Engineering A Use Case Driven Approach.”
Use cases have been around in various forms for quite some time. Jacobson, however, made the keen observation that use cases can be treated as refineable, extensible and even reusable specifications of system requirements. We’ve had these same goals for object designs. We know that it is harder to actually accomplish them than it is to talk about them.”

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

About What is a Use Case?
Designing scenarios: Making the case for a use case framework (1993)

Books, Way, Time

“We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace… we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1780s, Letter to George Rogers Clark (1780)

Peace, Country

“The most important of the beat poets. He was a really true poet with an original voice, probably the most lyrical of those poets.”

Nancy Peters (1936) American writer and publisher

Carol Ness, "Beat Poet Gregory Corso, 70, Dies of Cancer" http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/18/MN143830.DTL, San Francisco Chronicle, 2001-01-18. : On Gregory Corso. 2000s

“Time and experience have forcefully taught that the power to inspect dwelling places, either as a matter of systematic area-by-area search or, as here, to treat a specific problem, is of indispensable importance in the maintenance of community health; a power that would be greatly hobbled by the blanket requirement of the safeguards necessary for a search of evidence of criminal acts.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Frank v. Maryland, 359 U.S. 360, 372 (1959); majority opinion in 5-4 ruling that allowed health inspectors to enter a private home without a search warrant (May 4, 1959).
Judicial opinions

Health, Search, Communication, Problem

“Proportion is all; and, in sports at school, I lost it by surrendering to the awful significance of my self-consciousness. Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.”

Andre Dubus (1936–1999) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

Under the Lights.
Broken Vessels (1991)

People, School, Sport

“The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Roman commonwealth of its aristocratic character. We have already indicated that the plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate; for, while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights prevailed, the new constitution set out from a distinction between the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens. Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a corresponding opposition were formed; and we have already shown how the former engrafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of progress were mixed up with the last movements of the old opposition between the orders. The formation of these new parties began in the fifth century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century which followed. The development of this internal change is, as it were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and not merely so, but the process of formation is in this case more withdrawn from view than any other in Roman history. Like a crust of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the current concealing itself beneath and slowly extending, there arose in opposition to it the new party of progress. It is very difficult to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements, which do not for the present yield their historical product in any distinct actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as of the development of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the strength of that encrusting ice, of the growth of the current beneath, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up which was at hand. The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier institutions belonging to the times of the patriciate. Persons who once had filled the highest ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position. The most ancient of these was doubtless the permission given to the descendants of such magistrates to place the wax images of these illustrious ancestors after their death in the family hall, along the wall where the pedigree was painted, and to have these images carried, on occasion of the death of members of the family, in the funeral procession.. the honouring of images was regarded in the Italo-Hellenic view as unrepublican, and on that account the Roman state-police did not at all tolerate the exhibition of effigies of the living, and strictly superintended that of effigies of the dead. With this privilege were associated various external insignia, reserved by law or custom for such magistrates and their descendants:--the golden finger-ring of the men, the silver-mounted trappings of the youths, the purple border on the toga and the golden amulet-case of the boys--trifling matters, but still important in a community where civic equality even in external appearance was so strictly adhered to, and where, even during the second Punic war, a burgess was arrested and kept for years in prison because he had appeared in public, in a manner not sanctioned by law, with a garland of roses upon his head.(6) These distinctions may perhaps have already existed partially in the time of the patrician government, and, so long as families of higher and humbler rank were distinguished within the patriciate, may have served as external insignia for the former; but they certainly only acquired political importance in consequence of the change of constitution in 387, by which the plebeian families that attained the consulate were placed on a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should include neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it,(7) and the curule aedileship, which bore a part in the administration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state.(8) Although this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet it exhibited in a short time, if not at the very first, a certain compactness of organization--doubtless because such a nobility had long been prefigured in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in reality therefore amounted nearly to what we should now call the creation of a batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired a distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started; there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary nobility--both of which in fact had never disappeared--but there was a governing hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage. The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state--the senate and the equestrian order--from organs of the commonwealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome - Volume 2

Death, Men, War, Youth

“At this stage of man’s evolution, our scientists have been like little children facing a table piled high with the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One piece is picked up and its holder says, “This is the important piece. I hold the one key to everything in my hands.” Well, of course, he does. Because every piece is a key piece.”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 177.

Children

“I believe that it is of the utmost importance that we all should feel and inculcate among the people and circulate amongst them what I call a sense of compatriotism. We should all feel that we are all nationals of one country, whatever our race, colour, creed, or sect…”

A.D. Patel (1905–1969) Fijian politician

January 1964 call for “One Country, One Nation, One People”

People, Feeling, Sense, Country

“A model that unifies all types of selection (chemical, sociological, genetical, and every other kind of selection) may open the way to develop a general ‘Mathematical Theory of Selection’ analogous to communication theory… Selection has been studied mainly in genetics, but of course there is much more to selection than just genetical selection… yet, despite the pervading importance of selection in science and life, there has been no abstraction and generalisation from genetical selection to obtain a general selection theory and general selection mathematics”

George R. Price (1922–1975) American population geneticist

Price, G.R. (1995). "The nature of selection." Journal of Theoretical Biology 175:389-396 (written circa 1971)

Life, Way, Communication, Mathematics

“With respect to the importation of slaves it was left to Congress. This disturbed the 2 Southernmost states who knew that Congress would immediately suppress the importation of slaves. Those 2 states therefore struck up a bargain with the 3 New England states. If they would join to admit slaves for some years, the 2 Southernmost states would join in changing the clause which required 2/3 of the legislature in any vote. It was done. These articles were changed accordingly, and from that moment the 2 Southern states and the 3 Northern ones joined Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and made the majority 8 to 3 against us instead of 8 to 3 for us as it had been through the whole Convention. Under this coalition, the great principles of the Constitution were changed in the last days of the Convention.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-24-02-0387
Source: Discussion with Jefferson (1792)

Change

“I do not often follow its path from a previously conceived drawing. If I have a strong feeling about its start, I do not need to know its end; the battle for solution is the most important. If the end of the work seems too complete and final, posing no question, I am apt to work back from the end, that in its finality it poses a question and not a solution.
Sometimes when I start a sculpture I begin with only a realized part; the rest is travel to be unfolded, much in the order of a dream.”

David Smith (1906–1965) American visual artist (1906-1965)

1950s, Tradition and Identity' (1959)

Dreams, Travel, Feeling, Question

“And I've always said, you know, that I don't respect people that don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that there's a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell — or not getting eternal life, or whatever — and you think that, "Well, it's not really worth tellin' 'em this, because it would make it socially awkward", and atheists who think that people shouldn't proselytize, "Just leave me alone. Keep your religion to yourself"… How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you and you didn't believe it —that truck was bearing down on you — there's a certain point where I tackle you, and this is more important than that.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

" A Gift of a Bible http://www.crackle.com/c/penn-says/a-gift-of-a-bible/2415037", Penn Says episode 192 (), Crackle, 2:59 2000s

Life, Hate, People, Religion

“Anyway everyboy (sorry) knows that what women have done that is really important is not to constitute a great, cheap labor force that you can zip in when you're at war and zip out again afterwards but to Be Mothers, to form the coming generation, to give birth to them, to nurse them, to mop floors for them, to love them, cook for them, clean for them, change their diapers, pick up after them, and mainly sacrifice themselves for them. This is the most important job in the world. That’s why they don’t pay you for it.”

Joanna Russ (1937–2011) American author

Part 7, Chapter 1 (p. 137)
Fiction, The Female Man (1975)

Love, Women, War, World

“What we see in Lincoln is a collection of the virtues we think are most important in a democratic leadership.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)

Thinking

“It’s very important to be able to accept things, you know. Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most of never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

Love Over Scotland, chapter 112.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Art, Thinking, Learning, Forgetting

“This fundamental and most important article being established upon such full evidence, it remained to be examined within what limits the errors arising from observations actually taken at sea could be contained.
In order to determine this point, I computed the ship's longitude from each of the observations made by captain Campbell, and, upon comparing the results of several that were taken near the same time and under the like circumstances, it appeared that in general the observer was not liable to err more than one minute in judging of the apparent contact of the moon's limb and the object with which it was compared. Now this being nearly the same error that would be found to obtain, if the like observations were to be made with the same instruments on land, it may hence be inferred, that in moderate weather the motion of the ship is no otherwise an impediment in this sort of observations, than as it renders the repetition of them more tedious and troublesome to the observer, which yet ought by no means to be omitted; because if each single observation be liable to an error of a minute only, by taking the mean of five or six, the error on this head may be so far diminished as to be of small moment.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence (1832), To Mr. Cleveland Secretary of the Admiralty (April 14, 1760)

Error, Appearance, Time, Weather

“I think that's wrong… I actually believe that people of faith make better leaders… Whether they are Christians, as I am. My faith has sustained me through some very bad times. I've battled cancer, I've lost a child, I've been tested. But whether it's a person of Christian faith or Jewish faith or Muslim faith or other faiths, I think faith gives us humility, and empathy and optimism, and I think those are important things… Yes, I would be fine with that…”

Carly Fiorina (1954) American corporate executive and politician

The Tonight Show Featuring Jimmy Fallon http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/carly-fiorina-talks-trump-religion-rocks-fallon-tonight-show-n431346 (21 September 2015). 2010s, 2015, The Tonight Show Featuring Jimmy Fallon (September 2015)

People, Faith, Optimism, Thinking

“I have always got on well with Rachida, She's someone who has all sorts of qualities, an incredible energy, an important presence. She leaves no one indifferent.”

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (1973) French politician

Interview with The Daily Telegraph (2003)

Indifference

“I frequently ask leaders if they know what their personal values are, and most say yes. Then I ask them: ‘Have you written them down?’ Most say no. Values are incredibly important! They determine who we really are—what our character is, the real you when the mask is off.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 68-69. On Living Your Values

Personality

“The neoclassical theory of wage determination, which I taught for 30 years and have tried to explain in my textbook … has nothing to say about fairness…. Beginning in the mid-1970s, I began to find myself in a series of roles in which I have participated in setting or controlling wages and salaries. These included sitting on three wage stabilization bodies during the Nixon and Ford administrations, as a director of two corporations, as a provost of a private university, as a president of a foundation, and as a trustee of a liberal arts college. In one of the corporations I serve as chairman of the compensation committee.
In none of these roles did I find the theory that I taught so long to be the slightest help. The factors involved in setting wages and salaries in the real world seemed to be very different from those specified in the neoclassical theory. The one factor that seemed to be of overwhelming importance in all these situations was fairness.”

Albert Rees (1921–1992) American economist

“The Role of Fairness in Wage Determination.” Journal of Labor Economics (1993)

World, Art, Universe, Help

“You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lan Mandragoran
(9 November 2000)

Wisdom, Courage, Parting

“Most businesses -— like most of anything else in life -— fall somewhere between mediocre and good. Few are great. When you compare great companies with good ones, many widely practiced business norms turn out to correlate with mediocrity, not greatness. So, then, why would we want to import the practices of mediocrity into the social sectors?”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

Source: Good To Great And The Social Sectors, 2005, p. 1

Life, Business

“We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. … And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It is a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)

Love, Life, Feeling

“I would do this again, because these issues are that important to me.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

TIME, March 8, 2012.
Media interviews

“The anxiety about death is met in two ways. The reality of death is excluded from daily life to the highest possible degree. The dead are not allowed to show that they are dead; they are transformed into a mask of the living. The other and more important way of dealing with death is the belief in a continuation of life after death, called the immortality of the soul. This is not a Christian and hardly a Platonic doctrine. Christianity speaks of resurrection and eternal life, Platonism of a participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. But the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation in the productive process.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 110

Life, Death, Way, Soul

“God's commandments are not grievous. God put them in the garden, said "You can eat of any tree except that one tree, The Knowledge of Good and Evil." It's real simple, Adam. Enjoy the garden, have lots of kids, and don't learn about evil. […] Parents, don't teach your kids about all the evil things. Don't have drug education classes where you show them, "Hey, this is marijuana. This is how you smoke it. Now don't you do that." Duh. Don't put them in sex ed classes in seventh grade, it's a plumbing class at that time. Don't do that, okay? Let them be ignorant. Let them learn it from mom and dad, not from some heathen, okay? It's real simple Adam. Enjoy the world and have lots of kids and don't learn about evil. Don't learn all that stuff. The Lord said, "Hey, have you eaten off that tree I told you not to eat from?" God is not asking for information. He's asking for a confession. And the man said, "The woman (he passed the buck) whom thou gavest to be with me. Now God, this is really your fault, you know. If you hadn't given her to me I wouldn't have this problem." He said to the woman, "Have you done this?" She said, "Well, the snake that you made…." We still do the same thing, nothing changes, okay? Fear God, keep his commandments. Just like the taking of life is very important in any culture. Murder is serious. Giving life is important. That's why God put certain rules down for reproduction, okay? Follow his rules. "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Don't even look and lust or you've committed adultery already in your heart. By the way, ladies, that's why it's important how you dress, okay? My daddy always said, "If you're not in business, don't advertise."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Women should dress in modest apparel. That's what the Bible says, alright.
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

Life, Women, God, World

“In the long run, the methods are the important part of the course. It is not enough to know the theory; you should be able to apply it.”

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

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)

Parting

“The reason why the music is important is that it's an art form— an ancient art form— that takes in the mythology of our people.”

Wynton Marsalis (1961) American jazz musician

Attributed

People, Art, Music

“I will not say that a witness shall not be asked to what may tend to disparage him: that would prevent an investigation into the character of the witness, which may often be of importance to ascertain. I think those questions only should not be allowed to be asked which have a direct and immediate effect to disgrace or disparage the witness.”

Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley (1744–1804) British judge and politician

Macbride v. Macbride (1805), 4 Esp. 242.

Question, Thinking

“The initial motive for developing APL was to provide a tool for writing and teaching. Although APL has been exploited mostly in commercial programming, I continue to believe that its most important use remains to be exploited: as a simple, precise, executable notation for the teaching of a wide range of subjects.”

Kenneth E. Iverson (1920–2004) Canadian computer scientist

"A Personal View of APL", IBM Systems Journal, 30 (4), 1991

Motivation

“The growth of entrepreneurial classes throughout the world is an asset in the promotion of human rights and individual liberty, and it should be understood and used as such. Yet peace is the first and most important condition for continued prosperity and freedom. America's military power must be secure because the United States is the only guarantor of global peace and stability. The current neglect of America's armed forces threatens its ability to maintain peace.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Foreign Affairs http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20000101faessay5-p20/condoleezza-rice/campaign-2000-promoting-the-national-interest.html, January/February 2000.

World, Peace, Freedom

“For us Europeans, Africa as a neighboring continent is of prime importance. The development of African countries is in our very own vested interest. We, as Germans, but also we, as members of the European Union, will have to deal with this.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

2016, Joint press conference of 17 November 2016

Country

“My point is, I don't know. I wasn't there. But I believe whether God did it in six days or whether he did it in six days that represented periods of time, he did it. And that's what's important. But you know, if anybody wants to believe they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

[Republican Presidential Debate, 2007-06-05, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/05/se.01.html, CNN]
asked whether he believes God created the universe in six literal days 6,000 years ago
Republican Debates

God, Time

“I should premise that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter III: "Struggle For Existence", page 62 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=77&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

Life, Sense, Success, Dependency

“The city was breaking state and national laws every day—it had to—and the governor was outraged. He wanted to bring the whole state back under his own authority. It wasn’t an unreasonable wish, but the times weren’t ripe; and when they eventually were, the old forms of government would be no more important than the difference between Homoousian and Homoiousian. But it was going to take a lot of argument to convince the Albany man of that.”

Poul Anderson book Brain Wave

Source: Brain Wave (1954), Chapter 9 (p. 76)

Law, Time

“The important and the unimportant are the same only at the start.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Lo importante y lo no importante no son iguales sólo en sus comienzos.
Voces (1943)

““Democracy 2.0.” He shudders briefly. “I’m not sure about the validity of voting projects at all, these days. The assumption that all people are of equal importance seems frighteningly obsolescent.””

Charles Stross book Accelerando

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 8 (“Elector”), p. 353

People, Democracy

“Be careful to read books before you recommend them. Recently some church groups have been induced to recommend books which turned out to be filled with obscenity. This is an important part of the Socialist-Communist campaign to discredit religious culture. What technique could better serve their purpose than to have the churches themselves sponsor degenerate literature!”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Books, Literature, Reading, Parting

“The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, the important day,
Big with the fate Of Cato, and of Rome.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act I, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Fate

“The crop of spiritual talent that is born to you, of human nobleness and intellect and heroic faculty, this is infinitely more important than your crops of cotton or corn, or wine or herrings or whale-oil, which the Newspapers record with such anxiety every season.”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

Wine, Season

“His [Turgot's] first important literary and scholastic effort was a treatise On the Existence of God. Few fragments of it remain, but we are helped to understand him when we learn that he asserted, and to the end of his life maintained, his belief in an Almighty Creator and Upholder of the Universe. It did, indeed, at a later period suit the purposes of his enemies, exasperated by his tolerant spirit and his reforming plans, to proclaim him an atheist; but that sort of charge has been the commonest of missiles against troublesome thinkers in all times.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

only three fragments of this treatise remain, per Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (baron de l'Aulne), The life and writings of Turgot:Comptroller-General of France, 1774-6 http://books.google.com/books?id=DNHrAAAAMAAJ& W. Walker Stephens, editor, Longman, Green and Co. 1895 p. 7 Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 167-168

Life, God, Understanding, Effort

“In this book Neil Fligstein takes issue with prevailing theories of the corporation and proposes a radically new view that has important implications for American competitiveness.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Abstract
The transformation of corporate control, 1993

Books

“Politics seems much less important today. When you see your young daughter smiling as she was, and moving around, it's a superb feeling.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Colin Wills, "'This will be a big change in my life .. politics is now less important' says new dad Gordon Brown", Sunday Mirror, 30 December, 2001, p. 4.
Press conference on the birth of his first daughter, Jennifer Jane Brown, 29 December 2001; she died nine days later.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Smile, Feeling, Daughters

“There is, I am convinced, a sea of goodwill out in the country of people and places yearning to help. We need to tap into it. We need to make that connection. We need to come up with new ways and new ideas to make life better for those affected by this war, so that kids can go to school, incomes can be sustained, and homes can be both purchased and lived in for a long time. The truth is, we live in deeds, not days; in actions and thoughts and feelings, not heartbeats. If the untimely battlefield deaths of generations of American heroes have taught us nothing else, it should be this unalterable fact: what you do with your time here on earth is far more important than the time you had to do it. Those who live most are those who love most, who act the noblest and do their best.”

Michael Mullen (1946) U.S. Navy admiral and 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

From Op-Ed "Memorial Day" (26 May 2008)

Love, Life, Death, War

“It’s been my great fortune to be surrounded by people that have reminded me of how important process is, not outcome. When you’re an actor, or really an artist of a collaborative form, you have so little control of the outcome. And if you are only focused on that…it won’t turn out well. If you’re focused on the outcome, chances are you’re focused on people’s perceptions of the outcome—how much money something makes, how it looks, rather than how it feels. And I think that has been the most valuable—one of the most valuable—lessons I’ve learned is to really appreciate, recognize, and practice the process, not the outcome.”

Zoey Deutch (1994) American actress

Interview with Coveteur Magazine, 2018 http://coveteur.com/2018/05/14/zoey-deutch-talks-beauty-secrets-career/

Money, People, Feeling, Thinking

“It's very important to decode your own messages, like saying "I feel angry" instead of kicking the cat, and people who learn to do this find they are misunderstood less often and, as a fringe benefit, are clawed by fewer cats.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

People, Feeling, Cats, Learning

“Books are the tools of both teacher and pupil. A library is perhaps the most important adjunct of instruction. It is open to all and is used by all. In every department of science throughout the world the keenest intellects are at work, seeking for solutions to the unending series of problems that present themselves in the physical and natural world. 'Light, more light,' said the dying philosopher, and the longing of the world is but the echo of his last faint cry. To do our duty and to give reply to the many demands made upon us requires all the light and all the experience of other minds, wheresoever they may be found.”

Henry H. Goodell (1839–1905)

Thirty-Seventh Annual Report of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, (1900), p. 17.

Books, World, Nature, Problem

“We cannot import evolution and learning without exporting control.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

Learning

“One important idea is that science is a means whereby learning is achieved, not by mere theoretical speculation on the one hand, nor by the undirected accumulation of practical facts on the other, but rather by a motivated iteration between theory and practice.”

George E. P. Box (1919–2013) British statistician

Source: Science and Statistics (1976), p. 791

Motivation, Idea, Learning, Science

“Reconstruction aspired to restore the foundations of freedom to a wayward South and it expected to triumph as effortlessly as 19th-century liberal notions of progress had promised. Instead, the same Romantic feudalism that had created the old Southern order reasserted its hegemony, and postwar Southern aristocrats appealed to a set of cultural and racial biases which safely defused the importance of property, and sharply restricted access to it. This might have been averted had the victorious Union been willing to pour the resources into Reconstruction it had devoted to winning the war. But Reconstruction became a symbol of how quickly political fatigue afflicts liberal democracies. Moreover, understanding Reconstruction as a bourgeois revolution which was strangled in its cradle by vengeful cotton nabobs offers some larger parallels to the optimistic era that prevailed between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Islamic state terrorism.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Defending Reconstruction (2017)

War, Democracy, Understanding, Freedom

“The Sufism that survived and even prospered was tame and promised to subserve prophetism. Some great Sufi poets like Rumi and Attar convey a wrong impression of Islamic Sufism in general; they have been its show-pieces, not its representative figures. Mainstream Sufism has been represented by its silsilas like the Naqshbandiyya, Qadiriyya, Chishtiyya, Dervish, Marabout, Ribat, etc. They had no independent ideology of their own and they only served the spiritual-intellectual categories (manisha) of prophetic Islam; in fact, they became its most willing spokesmen. They never questioned its dogmas, not even its barbaric ideas about the kafirs, the jihad, the zimmis, the dar al-harb. There is nothing to show that they ever spoke against Islamic wars and oppression. On the other hand, as their history shows they were part and parcel of Islamic Imperialism, its enthusiastic sappers and miners and also its beneficiaries. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Dervish and Sufis have fought against the unbelievers in time of war. The devotees have accompanied the Shaikh or Murshid or Pir to the threatened frontiers. … In India, the sufis have been an important limb of Islamic Imperialism and expansion.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Hindu View of Christianity and Islam (1992)

War, History, Idea, Question

“This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary market insights. Nor even is it about having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies. What is a visionary company? Visionary companies are premier institutions -- the crown jewels -- in their industries, widely admired by their peers and having a long track record of making a significant impact on the world around them. The key point is that a visionary company is an organization -- an institution. All individual leaders, no matter how charismatic or visionary, eventually die; and all visionary products and services -- all "great ideas" -- eventually become obsolete. Indeed, entire markets can become obsolete and disappear. Yet visionary companies prosper over long periods of time, through multiple product life cycles and multiple generations of active leaders.”

James C. Collins book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Book abstract, as cited in: Joe Kelly, ‎Louise Kelly (1998), An Existential-systems Approach to Managing Organizations. p. 256
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, 1994

Life, Books, World, Idea