Quotes about import
page 56

“I often wish I was asked more about the craft of the verse. I spent so many agonizing hours ensuring every line break was precise, every word and repetition chosen with care—because it was important to me to maintain the integrity of the lyric while also advancing the narrative. It’s that tightrope walk I’m studying in other people’s work and am continuously looking to understand further.”

Elizabeth Acevedo American poet and author

On desiring to be asked about her writing style in interviews in “Meet National Book Award Finalist Elizabeth Acevedo” https://lithub.com/meet-national-book-award-finalist-elizabeth-acevedo/ in LitHub (2018 Oct 29)

People, Understanding, Study

“It is especially important for Westerners to understand that high lamas, Zen masters, and Hindu gurus in the discipline of yoga are human beings, not supermen. We must not put them, as we have put Jesus Christ, on pedestals of reverence so high that we automatically exclude ourselves from their states of consciousness.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Foreward to The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects (1964)], by Alexandra David Neel

Understanding, Christ

“Political nationalism has become, for the European of our age the most important thing in the world, more important than civilization, humanity, decency, kindness, pity, more important than life itself.”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

The Unseen Assassins https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.216538/page/n49 (1932), p. 48; in later variants, "pity" was misquoted as "piety" in the Naval War College Review, Vol. 10 (1957), p. 27, and some internet citations have compressed "has become, for the European of our age" to read "has become for our age".

Life, Age, World

“The most important thing to remember is that we must live in the present, and if in the present moment we are still holding on to old wounds and betrayals, it is in this moment that forgiveness is called for.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

Against the Stream (2007)

Forgiveness, Betrayal

“Buddhism, it may be said, finds religious authority not only in texts and institutions, but also in enlightened people. Certainly, those undersood as realized have occupied and important if not always well defined place within the early and developed tradition.”

Reginald Ray (1942) Buddhist teacher

[Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations, Oxford University Press, 1999, 9780195350616, Preface, http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Buddhist%20Saints%20in%20India_A%20Study%20in%20Buddhist%20Values%20and%20Orientations_Reginald.pdf]

People

“It is not important to teach all that you know, teach what people need to know, and what they are ready to receive. Guide them so they improve their lives, become stronger, increase their capacities, gain deeper insight, and progressively become worthy to receive and appreciate higher wisdom. Be a constant traveller. Wherever you go, find out what people are missing and how it can be provided. In all things remember harmlessness..”

Govinda Bhagavatpada Indian philosopher advaita vendatna

The Himalayan Masters: A Living Tradition (2002)

Wisdom, People, Travel

“I worked as a medical illustrator for about ten years. It was not my career ambition; it was a way to finance my addiction to art and support my family. Medical illustration gave me the opportunity to investigate and portray the bodily systems in dramatic ways. Prior to my work as a medical illustrator, I prepared bodies at a medical-school morgue, which provided important training for understanding the fleeting nature of life. It also provided unforgettable studies into the iridescent, fibrous architecture that forms our physical body.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

High Times interview (2002)

Life, School, Family, Art

“Family is very important to me because my own family was so disruptive…Me and my brothers and sister were like ping pong balls, we didn’t know where we would end up.”

Pete Escovedo (1935) Mexican-American jazz musician and percussionist

On his chaotic upbringing in “Still drumming at 82, Latin Jazz legend Pete Escovedo pens memoir” https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/08/27/still-drumming-at-82-latin-jazz-legend-pete-escovedo-pens-memoir/ in East Bay Times (2017 Aug 27)

Family, Sister

“People understand that elders listen respectfully to everyone. There’s a place at their table for every person. But they know, too, that the elders have consistently been the best people to make important decisions. People are, therefore, comfortable deferring. Their dignity is not compromised, nor do they feel powerless or demeaned, because they are carrying out the decisions of the elders. They know the elders embody the wisdom of their ancestors, that without them they would never have gotten this far…”

Barry Lopez (1945) American writer

On the role of elders in certain societies in “The Goal Now Has to Be to Listen: An Interview with Barry Lopez” https://www.thegeorgiareview.com/posts/the-goal-now-has-to-be-to-listen-an-interview-with-barry-lopez/ in The Georgia Review (2019 Feb 15)

Wisdom, People, Making love, Feeling

“As the essays kept appearing, so did the five male lawyers (not the same ones, different ones, but they seemed to hunt in packs). And so did the criminal cases, mostly for contempt of court. One of them ended in a very short jail sentence, another is still pending. The debates were often acrimonious. Sometimes violent. But always important. Almost every essay got me into enough trouble to make me promise myself that I wouldn’t write another. But inevitably, situations arose in which the effort of keeping quiet set up such a noise in my head, such an ache in my blood, that I succumbed, and wrote.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Arundhati Roy: Literature provides shelter. That's why we need it (abridged version of her PEN America Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture,) The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/arundhati-roy-literature-shelter-pen-america (13 May 2019) Articles

Making love, Effort, Appearance

“The most important opportunity offered by increased exposure is the chance to focus with greater faith and intensity upon the hard work of writing.”

David Chariandy (1969) Canadian writer

On his increased exposure as a writer in “Interviews: David Chariandy” https://bookpage.com/interviews/22971-david-chariandy-fiction#.XfgMUulKjcs in BookPage (2018 Aug 1)

Faith, Chance

“Faith healers have gotten one thing right: the human body can detect and defeat all types of diseases including cancer—the second leading cause of death in America. Our mind and body are closely connected. But faith healers have neglected one important point: the complex human brain—created in the image of God—is meant to invent new technologies including medical treatments for our mind and body.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Death, God, Disease, Faith

“The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost, and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

"Turning point at Chernobyl" https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2006/04/21/commentary/world-commentary/turning-point-at-chernobyl/#.XPoajKR7mUk, Japan Times (21 April 2006) 2000s

Thinking, Freedom, Time

“The world isn’t kind to black and brown girls, or black and brown women, especially when they come from working-class communities or from poverty. My girls taught me that it’s possible to make our own families, to find our families. They helped me believe in love and friendship and hope. But more than anything, after they had girls of their own, it was their girls who taught me the most important lessons: they helped me see the girl I was…”

Jaquira Díaz Puerto Rican writer

On the lessons her “home girls” taught her in “‘Either Hyper-Visible or Invisible’: An Interview with Jaquira Díaz” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/either-hyper-visible-or-invisible-an-interview-with-jaquira-diaz/ in Los Angeles Review of Books (2019 Oct 29)

Love, Women, Friendship, World

“One of the most important components of such injunctions of the past that we have blindly carried on and which deserves to be thrown in the dustbins of history is the rigid caste system. This system has vivisected our Hindu society into so many micro-fragments, forever at war with one another. From temples, streets, houses, jobs, village councils, to institutions of law and legislature, it has only injected a spectre of eternal conflict between two Hindus; weakened our unity and resolve to stand united against any external threats. It is one of the biggest impediments in the conception of a Hindu Rashtra.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

V. D. Savarkar, quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

War, Law, History, Past

“The thing is that there aren’t many stories told that are being shown to everybody from this, so any opportunity that I have to see a project that we could just release that to people that they could see a slice of life that they may not recognize or they may not know. It’s about family, it’s about being good people, it’s about culture, whether it’s music, theater, arts. And the opportunity to show that in a neighborhood and in a culture that I grew up in is very important to me.”

David Zayas (1962) Puerto Rican actor

On his film Shine in “INTERVIEW: David Zayas Talks To Me about ‘SHINE’” https://www.ramascreen.com/interview-david-zayas-talks-to-me-about-shine/ in Rama’s Screen (2018 Oct 1)

Life, People, Family, Art

“Today, tomorrow, and in these stormy decades in which we live, we can see the enormous and overriding importance that proletarian ideology has.”

Abimael Guzmán (1934–2021) Peruvian communist

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“We must export to get necessities. We could not produce more than perhaps half our food. We had no raw materials, except coal and iron. Now we were importing both. We were even bringing coals to Newcastle, at least figuratively. All these imports must be paid for by exports. ... At first our main competitors—Germany and Japan—were out of the race. Now they were coming along very fast. We must not relax; on the contrary, we must make even greater efforts.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

Speech in Newcastle (25 May 1956), quoted in The Times (26 May 1956), p. 6
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Making love, Food, Effort

“I wrote this book for my teenage self, so it’s all about themes that were important to my young self: questioning your identity and gender, but also your creative aspirations and the person you want to be.”

Jen Wang (1984) American comics artist

On her graphic novel The Prince and the Dressmaker in “Exclusive Interview & Graphic Novel Excerpt: Jen Wang’s The Prince and the Dressmaker” https://www.bookish.com/articles/jen-wang-prince-dressmaker/ in Bookish (2018 Feb 8)

Books, Question, Personality, Self-confidence

“In the long run, the most important changes required to make globalization work are reforms to reduce the democratic deficit.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Making Globalization Work

§10, p. 284
Making globalization work (2006)

Making love, Change

“Innovation is important; it has transformed the lives of everyone in the world. And intellectual property laws can and should play a role in stimulating innovation. However, the contention that stronger intellectual property rights always boost economic performance is not in general correct. It is an example of how special interests—those who benefit from stronger intellectual property rights—use simplistic ideology to advance their causes.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Making Globalization Work

§4, p. 106
Making globalization work (2006)

World, Law

“Few talk or think about Iraq these days; the media ignores this important but demolished nation. Iraq, let us recall, was the target of a major western aggression concocted by George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Britain’s Tony Blair, and financed and encouraged by the Gulf oil sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia.”

Eric Margolis (journalist) (1942) American journalist

Thinking

“He absolutely loved life and loved people and his family and gave it everything that he could. He was always so focused on doing what he thought was important or the right thing, and there was a joy that came out of that. I wish I could find my own and I seek to do that.”

Beto O'Rourke (1972) American politician

[Beto O'Rourke, 2017, One-on-One with Evan Smith of Texas Tribune #TribFest17, https://www.facebook.com/betoorourke/videos/1424903200892719/, video, Austin, Texas, Facebook] A tearful answer to the question "What’s the thing you take away from [Pat O'Rourke's, Beto's father,] life as a public servant?” during an interview with the Texas Tribune
2017

Love, Life, People, Making love

“I agree that those of us who believe we are pursuing justice must always ask ourselves about our own methods. It also occurs to me that, although we must strive to pursue justice in ways that win over even those who initially disagree with us, we must continue to pursue justice even when we are vilified. Both of these interpretations are relevant in this month of Elul, leading up to the High Holy Days. We recall that our deeds are our most important defending and prosecuting attorneys before the Holy One of Blessing during this season of judgement and introspection. Yet, we also know that we have earthly supporters and detractors. We should never let support blind us, or become a substitute for continuing to be both self-critical, and dedicated to our goals. We should not be dissuaded by our critics, but we should be able to honestly ask ourselves if there is anything to learn from them. Hopefully, the fact that sympathizers and critics are taking notice means that we are actually doing something.”

Arik Ascherman (1959) American rabbi

Pursue Justice Whether You Are Praised, or Vilified https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/pursue-justice-whether-you-are-praised-or-vilified/ (September 6, 2019), The Times of Israel.

Justice, Way, Support, Learning

“Eminent men were called on to take command and arrange suitable measures. They immediately acted as eminent men so often do; the took action to retain their eminence. Their first instinct is caution. When a man is important enough, it does not matter if he never does anything. It is only required of him that he do nothing wrong. Eminent figures all over the world prepared to do nothing wrong. They were not so concerned to do anything right.”

Murray Leinster book The Wailing Asteroid

Source: The Wailing Asteroid (1960), Chapter 3

Men, World

“Milk, barley, wheat, cereals, butter, cheese, tomatoes, honey, dates, fruits, almonds, and sugar-candy are all Sattvic food-stuffs. They render the mind pure and calm and play a very important part in the practices of spiritual aspirants, in the mental development of the student, and in the personality- power of the leaders of mankind.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

Food, Parting, Personality

“I think the most important thing is to instantly give them a sense of who you are and how you feel in that moment. If a speaker is nervous and tells the audience that, people immediately contextualize it and respond accordingly. If a performer is in a good mood or feeling wild and crazy and says so, I’ve found, the crowd will be good at matching that energy. So for me, the rapport is built by a genuineness conveyed as quickly as possible.”

Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian

On connecting with your audience in “Life’s Work: An Interview with Trevor Noah” https://hbr.org/2018/09/lifes-work-an-interview-with-trevor-noah in Harvard Business Review (September-October, 2018) Personal life

People, Feeling, Mood, Thinking

“In Latino culture the idea of the border is very contemporary. It’s very much of our world, its politics are important to us. It’s also a part of our emotional relationship to the rest of our family in Puerto Rico, or wherever, and our own relationship to roots—the land of our roots—and where we are now…”

Quiara Alegría Hudes (1977) American playwright and composer

On the concept of the border in “Quiara Alegría Hudes: Water by the Spoonful” https://www.guernicamag.com/water-by-the-spoonful/ in Guernica Magazine (2012 Jul 2)

World, Family, Idea, Parting

“They were human beings who had a life, who had a lineage, who had parents, who had children, who had lives. They were not poor or rich. They were people and these people had humanity. So it was important that someone who knew them write about the event…”

Dany Laferrière (1953) Haitian Canadian novelist and journalist

On reporting about the 2010 earthquake in Haiti in “An Interview with Dany Laferrière” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/an-interview-with-dany-laferriere-jessie-chaffee (WWB Daily, 2016)

Life, Children, People, Parent

“This self-analysis is one of the most important magic preliminaries. Many of the occult systems have neglected it, and that is why they did not achieve good results. This psychic preliminary work is indispensable to obtain the magic equilibrium, and without it, there is no regular progress of the development to be thought of. Therefore you ought to devote some minutes’ time to self-criticism in the morning and at night. If you have got the chance of some free moments during the day, avail yourself of them and do some intensive thinking...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 36

Thinking, Chance, Time, Self-confidence

“Wait...you only thought to ask about how many people would die 10 minutes before the strike??? That’s a rather important piece of info to nearly overlook.”

Krystal Ball (1981) American journalist

Twitter Post https://twitter.com/krystalball, (21 June 2019)

People, Waiting

“Be these people either Conservatives or Socialists, Yellows or Reds, the most important thing is — and that is the point I want to stress — that all of them are right in the plain and moral sense of the word... I ask whether it is not possible to see in the present social conflict of the world an analogous struggle between two, three, five equally serious verities and equally generous idealisms? I think it is possible, and that is the most dramatic element in modern civilization, that a human truth is opposed to another human truth no less human, ideal against ideal, positive worth against worth no less positive, instead of the struggle being as we are so often told, one between noble truth and vile selfish error.”

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) Czech writer

R.U.R. supplement in The Saturday Review (1923)

People, Truth, World, Error

“Great drama, drama that may reach the alchemical level, must have dimension and its relevance will take care of itself. Writing about AIDS rather than the cocktail set, or possibly the fairy kingdom, will not guarantee importance.... The old comment that all periods of time are at an equal distance from eternity says much, and pondering on it will lead to alchemical theatre while relevance becomes old hat.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Alchemy in the Theatre (1994).

Time

“But the dominant position certainly is to minimize the importance of the ASI findings. This is a general phenomenon in the whole secularist press: instead of a thorough analysis and a lively debate worthy of the importance and unequivocal verdict of the report, the page is turned as quickly as possible. This is, of course, a strong indication that the report’s findings are embarrassing for the secularists because they go against what the secularists have been saying for all these years. Like spoilt children, the secularists are used to having it all their own way, and when reality interferes, they close their eyes, shut off their ears and refuse to know. And they will lie and cheat in order to prevent others from knowing.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya, the Finale (2003)

Children, Lie, Way, Reality

“Given the widely acknowledged importance of the Ayodhya conflict, one would have expected at least some of the well-funded Western academics to embark on their own investigation of the issue rather than parroting the slogans emanating from Delhi’s Jama Masjid and JNU. Their behaviour in the Ayodhya debate provides an interesting case study in the tendency of establishment institutions and settled academics to genuflect before ideological authorities overruling proper scholarly procedure in favour of the political fashion of the day.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

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

Fashion, Study

“Freedom of speech is very important because it is a fundamental part of our rights. Everyone must be allowed to say what they mean.”

Arifur Rahman (1984) Award-winning Cartoonist, Animator, Illustrator

Quoted in Mediehuset Dagsavisen, November 25, 2015 https://www.dagsavisen.no/nyheter/navn-i-nyhetene/kjemper-for-tankefrihet-1.473246

Freedom, Parting

“Nature is interested in only two things—to survive and to reproduce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that, all the cultural input, is responsible for the boredom of man. So we have varieties of religious experience. You are not satisfied with your own religious teachings or games; so you bring in others from India, Asia or China. They become interesting because they are something new. You pick up a new language and try to speak it and use it to feel more important. But basically, it is the same thing.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Description: from U.G Krishnamurti
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Feeling, Game, Nature

“The problem is this: Nature has assembled all these species on this planet. The human species is no more important than any other species on this planet. For some reason, man accorded himself a superior place in this scheme of things. He thinks that he is created for some grander purpose than, if I could give a crude example, the mosquito that is sucking his blood. What is responsible for this is the value system that we have created. And the value system has come out of the religious thinking of man. Man has created religion because it gives him a cover. This demand to fulfill himself, to seek something out there was made imperative because of this self-consciousness in you which occurred somewhere along the line of the evolutionary process. Man separated himself from the totality of nature.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Description: from U.G Krishnamurti
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Religion, Nature, Problem, Thinking

“Piketty ends Capital in the Twenty-First Century with a call to arms — a call, in particular, for wealth taxes, global if possible, to restrain the growing power of inherited wealth. It’s easy to be cynical about the prospects for anything of the kind. But surely Piketty’s masterly diagnosis of where we are and where we’re heading makes such a thing considerably more likely. So Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an extremely important book on all fronts. Piketty has transformed our economic discourse; we’ll never talk about wealth and inequality the same way we used to.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Why We’re in a New Gilded Age", The New York Review of Books (May 8, 2014)
The New York Review of Books articles

Books, Making love, Way, Wealth

“Doniger makes clear that no history focused on an imperial centre can capture the history of the Hindus here, any more than could such a state-focused story in the days before the arrival of the Muslims. But at the same time, the very structure of her presentation points also to the import-ance of the state as a locus for understanding how the history of the Hindus depends also on an engagement with broader currents of historical change extending outside India and linking this history to larger, worldwide processes.”

Wendy Doniger (1940) American Indologist

Gilmartin, David (December 2010), "Review of Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History (New York: Penguin), 2009. 779 pages. $35", Indian Historical Review, 37: 338–345
The Hindus' (2009), About her book 'The Hindus

Making love, History, Understanding, Change

“The maritime importance of a nation in the ways of commerce is not wholly measured by the numbers and tonnage of fast and luxurious steamships possessed, but rather by the countless smaller and perhaps unimposing vessels that carry its national flag to remote places.”

David Bone (1874–1959) commodore and author (b. 1874, d. 1959)

The Lookoutman (1923), Chapter 6, Tramp Steamers, p. 97

Way

“Not cool. Ever. I’ve never been cool and I don’t really care about being cool. It’s just an awful lot of time and hair gel wasted. At school I was a medium-clever geek. If you’re at public school (Sherbourne) and you’re not that good at rugby, you spend quite a few important years of your life feeling like a real loser. We’ve never been about cool. What’s happened to us is more about showing that the geeks at school can get there in the end. And you have to stay true to who you are, the root of all this is to do with our friendship.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2048220/Chris-Martin-Coldplay-Gwyneth-Paltrow-album.html source

Life, Friendship, School, Feeling

“There’s a unique trust between me and the public that’s grown up and that’s really important to me, but the truth is that trust has come about because the programmes I make are not about me. The subject is always bigger: that’s the lesson I’ve learned about making documentaries.”

Reggie Yates (1983) English actor, television presenter and radio DJ

On how he’s viewed differently compared to when he was a television personality in “Reggie Yates: ‘I have late-night romantic dinners with my laptop’” https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/18/reggie-yates-searching-for-grenfell-missing-victims-interview in The Guardian (2018 Mar 18)

Truth, Making love, Learning

“I became the protagonist of my story and the protagonist of my life. I realized we’ve all been left out of this story. We are always the supporting characters, and we have to say no. My job is to show people that everyone belongs in the theater, everyone belongs making films, everybody has something important to teach someone else. And that’s why stories are so important.”

Josefina Lopez (1969) American playwright

On making Latinos the center of the story in “Josefina López: ‘I became the protagonist of my story’” https://boyleheightsbeat.com/josefina-lopez-i-became-the-protagonist-of-my-story/ in Boyle Heights Beat (2018 Sep 19)

Life, People, Making love, Support

“I consider it vitally important to preserve the democratic achievements which have been attained in the last few years. We have paid with all our history and tragic experience for these democratic achievements, and they are not to be abandoned, whatever the circumstances, and whatever the pretexts. Otherwise, all our hopes for the best will be buried.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, Resignation Address (1991)

Hope, History

“The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, p. 3
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

“The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Commanding Heights, Interview on PBS” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/int_miltonfriedman.html, (Oct. 1, 2000)

Way, Business

“It’s important to preserve our cultural practices of our Bolivian people, because they enrich the national identity.”

Jeanine Áñez (1967) President of Bolivia

People

“I was not really of the barrio, but the barrio was an important part of my life. Spanish was my first language; English was the language of my reading world. This was the world I lived in—an idealistic world, and unreal world that filled my senses with hopes, with joy and identification…”

Estela Portillo-Trambley (1936–1998) American writer

On her upbringing (as quoted in the book Chicana Ways: Conversations with Ten Chicana Writers https://books.google.com/books?id=yq0PkmCGWoEC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq)

Life, World, Hope, Sense

“The legends of fieldwork locate all important sites deep in inaccessible jungles inhabited by fierce beasts and restless natives, and surrounded by miasmas of putrefaction and swarms of tsetse flies.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Wonderful Life

Alternative models include the hundredth dune after the death of all camels, or the thousandth crevasse following the demise of all sled dogs.
Source: Wonderful Life (1989), p. 65

“We live in a patriarchal imaginary where men cannot conceptualise women as fully human. What’s really important is how this shit resides in us, how this just lives in us, man, even if we’re the good guy – it should give a motherfucker pause.”

Junot Díaz (1968) Dominican-American writer

Lunch with the FT interview (July 2014) https://www.ft.com/content/a438f98e-01f4-11e4-bb71-00144feab7de

Women, Men, Guy

“Though there are important differences among species, there is reason to be optimistic that these methods can provide useful interventions for humans…This paper and related studies have the potential for huge clinical impact in Alzheimer’s disease and others involving brain inflammation.”

Nancy Kopell (1942) American mathematician

Brain wave stimulation may improve Alzheimer’s symptoms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology News, Anne Trafton, http://news.mit.edu/2019/brain-wave-stimulation-improve-alzheimers-0314 (14 March 2019)

Disease, Study, Relation ships

“Britain is not earning her living. We are not keeping pace with the economic performance of our European and North American neighbours, and we are certainly not achieving the potential that is in us. … At the end of a war of prolonged sacrifice we were left with much obsolete industrial plant, and a short-fall in the capital necessary to scrap and renew it. For a century we had lived on cheap food and raw materials imported from overseas. They are not and will not in future be available to us. … We cannot continue to live beyond or ability or our willingness to earn. That is the one basic fact with which Britain has yet to come to terms.”

Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

'Foreword' (June 1977), Patrick Hutber (ed.), What's Wrong with Britain? (Sphere, 1978), p. 7
Later life

War, Food, Future

“One was my movement, which I’m very conscious of in films, especially coming from martial arts. Think about how many times a character is seen just sitting or walking or standing, it’s a lot of time in film and it says so much about a character. So I’ve always been keen to pay attention to movement and that was one thing he said he noticed. Never have I heard a director talk like that about me. And also he said that the eyes were important because it really has to come through the make-up. So he was interested in those two aspects especially…”

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (1950) American actor

On being chosen for the role of Krull in Planet of the Apes in “Comic-Con 2001: An Interview With Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa” http://fanboyplanet.com/comic-con-2001-an-interview-with-cary-hiroyuki-tagawa/ in Fanboy Planet (2001 Jul 27)

Making love, Art, Thinking, Time

“Outside of that you have teachers who are increasingly deskilled through models of curricula that claim that objective assessments are all that matters, and that teachers just have to implement the assessments. So teachers are completely losing control over the conditions of their labor, they’re being abused, they’re not being paid properly, they’re losing their benefits, and their unions are being disseminated. This is a full-fledged attack. It’s an attack on one of the most important foundations of a democracy, it’s an attack on teachers, and it’s an attack on young people — particularly those who are marginalized by virtue of class, race, and ethnicity.”

Henry Giroux (1943) American academic

Interview with Media For Us, 2019

People, Democracy, Teachers

“We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever.”

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

In Adams' Argument for the Defense in the case of Rex v. Wemms: Suffolk Superior Court, Boston, 3-4 December, 1770; source "The Adams Papers", http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/
1770s

World, Communication, Suffering, Time

“In the Labour movement they said they would have no truck with coalition, but if Britain stayed in the EEC then for decades to come they would be enmeshed in various forms of coalition government than ever before. That was the most important issue of all. If in Britain the people did not like a government they could vote it out of office, but they had no similar recourse in the case of the institutions of the EEC, which had supreme powers and which were undemocratic.”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

Speech to the Labour Party conference on Britain's membership of the EEC (26 April 1975), quoted in The Times (28 April 1975), p. 4
1970s

People

“It is really to be lamented that after a public servant has passed a life in important and faithful services, after having given the most plenary satisfaction in every station, it should yet be in the power of every individual to disturb his quiet, by arraigning him in a gazette and by obliging him to act as if he needed a defence, an obligation imposed on him by unthinking minds which never give themselves the trouble of seeking a reflection unless it be presented to them. However it is a part of the price we pay for our liberty, which cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it. To the loss of time, of labour, of money, then, must be added that of quiet, to which those must offer themselves who are capable of serving the public, and all this is better than European bondage. Your quiet may have suffered for a moment on this occasion, but you have the strongest of all supports that of the public esteem.”

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

Letter to John Jay from Paris, France (January 25, 1786). Source: “ From Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 25 January 1786 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-09-02-0190,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 9, 1 November 1785 – 22 June 1786, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954, p. 215.] 1780s

Life, Money, Faith, Support

“It turns out you left something rather important off your career plan: for example, there’s no ticky-box on the diagram for HAVING A LIFE—TASK COMPLETED. And so you kept putting it off, and de-prioritized it, and put it off again until the law of conservation of shit-stirring dragged it front and centre and lamped you upside yer heid, as your clients might put it.”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 1, “Liz: Red Pill, Blue Pill” (p. 16)

Life, Law, Box

“I still feel that style is important for reading pleasure, and sex is important for pleasure in life. Each appeases a different type of desire. And while I find nothing shameful in taking direct erotic pleasure from reading or writing, I don’t think they entail a necessary relation. The processes you have me describing are contingent psychological processes. Neither marks one end nor the other of any necessary or even philosophical relationship…”

Samuel R. Delany (1942) American author, professor and literary critic

On including sexual themes in his writings in “Samuel R. Delany, The Art of Fiction No. 210” https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6088/samuel-r-delany-the-art-of-fiction-no-210-samuel-r-delany in The Paris Review (Summer 2011)

Life, Pleasure, Sex, Feeling

“Ethics is the most vital and important of all sciences. It has both its theoretical and applied aspects. Its mission is nothing less than the establishment of harmony among the inhabitants of the earth and the transformation of world-wide contention into peace and happiness.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), Contents of Ethics, pp. 56–57

Happiness, World, Peace, Science

“The well being of others is on an average as important as our own, and should as a general thing be appraised at the same value. If a certain amount of happiness is scheduled to fall to the lot of the earth, it makes absolutely no difference whether it falls on me, or on you, or on somebody a thousand miles away. It would serve the ends of absolute ethics quite as well if it fell on an insect or a horse as if it fell on a man. The only important thing from the standpoint of universal good is that the pleasure be experienced. It is not important what particular individual or species is the beneficiary. It might even go to another world, and be just as satisfactory to a universal well-wisher, who looked at Cosmos from the serene altitudes of pure reason, without any prejudices whatever one way or another in the matter. This is the ideal. It is a long, long way from our natures. But only in so far as we approximate this ideal do we rise above those imperfections of our being which have been ground out by the methods that have operated in the development of life on earth.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), Contents of Ethics, pp. 54–55

Life, Happiness, Pleasure, World

“The Universal Kinship means the kinship of all the inhabitants of the planet Earth. Whether they came into existence among the waters or among desert sands, in a hole in the earth, in the hollow of a tree, or in a palace; whether they build nests or empires; whether they swim, fly, crawl, or ambulate; and whether they realise it or not, they are all related, physically, mentally, morally—this is the thesis of this book. But since man is the most gifted and influential of animals, and since his relationship with other animals is more important and more reluctantly recognised than any other, the chief purpose of these pages is to prove and interpret the kinship, of the human species with the other species of animals.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

The Universal Kinship (1906), Preface

Books, Tree, Universe, Water

“The evolution of consciousness, in its ethical import, means the extension in both space and time of the consciousness of similarity. Starting from individual egoism, consciousness has extended, vividly or vaguely, from individual self to family, and from family to clan, and from clan to tribe, and from tribe to nation, and from nation to race, and from race to species, and from species to kingdom. This amplification has gone on and is still going on in both space and time. Universal consciousness of similarity contemplates all the beings in space and all those to be in time.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Egoism and Altruism, pp. 120–121

Family, Universe, Time, Self-confidence

“Where did these two elements in our nature, egoism and altruism, come from? Why have human beings and all other beings known to terrestrial intelligence these two elements, just as they are, in their natures? Why have they not all egoism or all altruism? Why have not the beings in the universe a tendency to act each for its own individual self without any particle of regard for others? Or why are they not so natured as to be oblivious of self and conscious only of those around them? These are profound questions and questions of superlative importance to the student of social culture. What the social scientist is attempting to do, or should be attempting to do, is to ameliorate the relation of associated beings, and this is to be accomplished by improving the conduct or modifying the modes of motion of these beings. And it is necessary in order to modify these modes of motion to know where and how these modes of motion have been acquired. It is impossible for a physician to prescribe rationally to a pathology whose causation he does not know.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Egoism and Altruism, pp. 98–99

Intelligence, Question, Nature, Universe

“There is the sharp and bitter division between Socialists and Communists, principally on the important question of method and tactics. In general, however, Socialists propose to bring about as rapidly as possible the social ownership of land, sources and the principle means of production, thereby abolishing the possibility of the existence of any class on an income derived not from work but from ownership. This does not necessarily mean that no man will have a home he can call his own. His right will rest on use and not on a title deed.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

"Why I Am A Socialist", Princeton Alumni Weekly, 1928. Reprinted in Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John Campbell McMillian, The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition, The New Press, 2011.

Home, Question

“In matters concerning truth and justice there can be no distinction between big problems and small; for the general principles which determine the conduct of men are indivisible. Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1955) as quoted in Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (1997) ed. Gerald Holton, Yehuda Elkana, p. 388, from The Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem (1979
1950s

Men, Truth, Justice, Problem

“There is a tradition of popular struggle in the United States that has been downplayed and ignored. It ebbs and flows but never ceases. Moved by a combination of anger and hope, ordinary people have organized, agitated, demonstrated, and engaged in electoral challenges, civil disobedience, strikes, sit-ins, takeovers, boycotts, and sometimes violent clashes with the authorities - for better wages and work conditions, a safer environment, racial and gender justice, and peace and nonintervention abroad. Against the heaviest odds, they have suffered many defeats but won some important victories, forcible extracting concessions and imposing reforms upon resistant rulers.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 320

People, Peace, Justice, Hope

“The American two-party electoral system, with its ballyhoo and hoopla, its impresarios and stunt artists, is the greatest show on earth. Campaign time is show time, a veritable circus brought into our living rooms via television as a form of entertainment. The important thing is that the show must go on - because it is more than just a show. The two-party system electoral social order. It channels and limits political expression, and blunts class grievances. It often leaves little time for the real issues because it gives so much attention to the contest per se who will run? who is ahead? who will win the primaries? who will win the election? It provides the form of republican government with little of the substance. It fives the plutocratic system of appearance of popular participation while being run by and for a select handful of affluent contestants.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 11, p. 179

Appearance, Time

“I am an unhappy man. I am haunted by my inability to express the inexpressible, to come to terms with the unknown. The pursuit of beauty is, of course, a major psychological drive. It its various guises—which is to say, the urge to perfection, the yearning to merge with the eternal, the explorer’s restlessness, the realization of an Absolute created by ourselves, yet larger than our totality—it is perhaps the most important human thrust.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Palace of Love (1967), Chapter 6 (p. 346)

Beauty, Perfection

“In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison. I see the relative absence of these things and the distortions of scientific thinking often encountered in science fiction as terrible wasted opportunities. Real science is as amenable to exciting and engrossing fiction as fake science, and I think it is important to exploit every opportunity to convey scientific ideas in a civilization which is both based upon science and does almost nothing to ensure that science is understood.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 9, “Science Fiction—A Personal View” (p. 166)

Idea, Thinking, Science

“It appears that we are to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are to have 1,300,000 unemployed in this country. There are no unemployed in the United States of America, no unemployed at all in France. There are hardly any unemployed in Italy. The United States of America, France, and Italy are protectionist countries. We are a free-trade import country.”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

Speech to the Constitutional Club (20 November 1923), quoted in The Times (21 November 1923), p. 17

Appearance, Country

“It’s about learning to listen, much like in music. You can train your ears to history. You can train your ears to the earth. You can train your ears to the wind. It’s important to listen and then to study the world, like astronomy or geology or the names of birds. A lot of poets can be semihistorians. Poetry is very mathematical. There’s a lot in the theoretical parts that is similar. Quantum physicists remind me of mystics. They are aware of what happens in timelessness, though they speak of it through theories and equations.”

Joy Harjo (1951) American writer

On her advice to poets in “The First Native American U.S. Poet Laureate on How Poetry Can Counter Hate” https://time.com/5658443/joy-harjo-poet-interview/ in Time Magazine (2019 Aug 22)

World, Music, History, Mathematics

“So in addition to what I’ve quoted to you just now, in Prizren, I say particularly in this place and in this town, I want to tell you something that I consider to be the most important in this town, because in it, there are Serbs, Albanians, Muslims, Turks, Roma, and others. Every one of the ethnic groups, to a large proportion. That is why I believe that this town and this region should be an example of carrying out the policy of national equality of rights, a policy that would make it possible for all people to give — to live on a footing of equality and under humane conditions, that there should be a high degree of mutual understanding and that a joint life of all citizens should be built successfully.”

Slobodan Milošević (1941–2006) Yugoslavian and Serbian politician

Slobodan Milošević (2002) International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia https://www.icty.org/x/cases/slobodan_milosevic/trans/en/020516IT.htm

Life, People, Making love, Quotes

“Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Governments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown. … Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental throne. And, if it be asked what has made us to differ from others, the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our houses, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Vol. II, ch. 10
History of England (1849–1861)

Men, Bad luck, Happiness, Pleasure

“Not to have gone into Europe would, in my view, have been a misfortune. But to come out would be on an altogether greater scale of self-inflicted injury. It would be a catastrophe. … I care very much about the influence of Britain in the world, and also about our capacity to control our own destiny. To me, that is much more important than the legalistic definition of sovereignty.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech at the St Ermin's Hotel, Westminster (26 March 1975), quoted in The Times (27 March 1975), p. 8
1970s

World, Self-confidence

“Let us be on the side of those who want people to be free to live their own lives, to make their own mistakes, and to decide, in an adult way and provided they do not infringe the rights of others, the code by which they wish to live; and on the side of experiment and brightness, of better buildings and better food, of better music (jazz as well as Bach) and better books, of fuller lives and greater freedom. In the long run these things will be more important than the most perfect of economic policies.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

The Labour Case (Penguin, 1959), p. 146
1950s

People, Books, Making love, Food

“The answer is to increase industrial efficiency, to build up our exports, and to substitute home production for imports wherever this can be achieved competitively and economically, to broaden the base of our economy with capital investment, through the training of skilled manpower and the encouragement to accept change, to enable us to expand without running into strains and stresses such as have revealed themselves in past periods of expansion.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (12 December 1964), quoted in The Times (14 December 1964), p. 14
Prime Minister

Home, Change, Past, Training

“The basic confrontation which seemed to be colonialism versus anti-colonialism, indeed capitalism versus socialism, is already losing its importance. What matters today, the issue which blocks the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity will have to address this question, no matter how devastating the consequences may be.”

Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks

Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

Question, Wealth

“Of all the varieties of media bias, the deepest is the bias against relevance. The more important the issue, the less it is discussed.”

George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist

"Stop eating fish. It’s the only way to save the life in our seas" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/seas-stop-eating-fish-fishing-industry-government, The Guardian, 9 May 2019.

“When the first shot is fired, no one can calculate what will be the issue of the war. It is, therefore, of vast importance to reflect maturely before we begin it.”

Claude Louis Hector de Villars (1653–1734) Marshal General of France

Quoted in The officer's manual. Napoleon's maxims of war

War

“The method of the science not being practiced much nowadays, except what logic prescribes to all sciences generally, that fitted for the peculiar nature of metaphysics being simply ignored, it is no wonder that those who everlastingly turn the Sisyphean stone of this inquiry do not seem so far to have made much progress. Though here I neither can nor will expatiate upon so important and extensive a subject, I shall briefly shadow forth what constitutes no despicable part of this method, namely, the infection between sensuous and intellectual cognition, not only as creeping in on those incautious in the application of principles, but even producing spurious principles under the appearance of axioms.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section V On The Method Respecting The Sensuous And The Intellectual In Metaphysics

Nature, Appearance, Science, Parting

“We also visited one of our great partners in the Southern Cone: Argentina. With President Mauricio Macri and our partners from Uruguay and Paraguay, we pushed ideology away from Mercosur. We also have been able to achieve important victories in terms of international trade, by successfully finalizing negotiations that had been going on for decades without a conclusion.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).

Victory

“Our Amazon rainforest is larger than Western Europe and it remains virtually untouched. This shows that we are one of the countries that protects the most its environment. This time of the year, dry weather and winds favor both spontaneous and criminal fires. It is also important to mention that indigenous and local populations also use fire as part of their culture and means of survival. All countries have their issues. However, the sensationalist attacks we have suffered from much of the international media due to the Amazon fires have aroused our patriotic sentiment. It is a misconception to state that the Amazon is a world heritage; and it is a misconception, as scientists attest, to say that our forest is the lung of the world. Resorting to these fallacies, some countries, instead of helping, have followed the lies of the media and behaved disrespectfully, with a colonialist spirit. They have questioned what is most sacred to us: our sovereignty! One of them, at the last G7 meeting, dared to suggest imposing sanctions against Brazil without even listening to us.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

World, Question, Suffering, Time

“What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort; to defend needed reforms against easy attacks; to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor.”

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

I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.
2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)

“I’m not here to tell you my troubles with the administration or — I’m happy to be on the program, because I’ve already read 96 percent of the book, and we’re investigating, but for me to start telling you what might be available and what the problems are and what the challenges are going to be, I think, is very unprofessional in an investigation of this seriousness… It’s under investigation and consideration right now. But the importance of this discussion today is critical not only to the committees — there are four committees, and how they relate to each other will come forward very shortly — but there is also the question of the media, the Fourth Estate, the press. This is now public information that, it seems to me, shouldn’t be great breaking news over a progressive news program, but this has to be investigated by the rest of the media, unless they consider this to be irrelevant or too late, or whatever reasons are, that they’re coerced or afraid themselves, too timid… I consider the relationship of the committees on the subject matter, the responsibility of the media, and the American people being brought into this discussion as the citizens, that in a representative democracy, that’s what all of us are supposed to be working on.”

John Conyers (1929–2019) American politician from Michigan

After Ron Suskind Reveals Bush Admin Ordered Iraq-9/11 Fakery, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers Opens Congressional Probe https://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/14/after_ron_suskind_reveals_bush_admin, DemocracyNow! (14 August 2008)

Happiness, People, Books, Democracy

“Today the Committee will consider the WikiLeaks matter. The case is complicated, obviously. It involves possible questions of national security, and no doubt important subjects of international relations, and war and peace. But fundamentally, the Brennan observation should be instructive.”

John Conyers (1929–2019) American politician from Michigan

U.S. Congress House Hearing: Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Issue Raised by Wikileaks. Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, Second Session, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg63081/html/CHRG-111hhrg63081.htm (16 December 2010). CSpan recording https://www.c-span.org/video/?297115-1/wikileaksthe-espionage-act-constitution

War, Peace, Question, Relation ships

“We will be informed by our most important ally that it is in our interests to stay in the EU, no matter how flawed we may feel that organisation to be. Never mind the loss of sovereignty; never mind the expense and the bureaucracy and the uncontrolled immigration. The American view is very clear.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Boris Johnson urges Obama not to intervene in EU debate https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35800232 BBC News (14 March 2016) 2010s, 2016

Feeling, Loss

“The motives of people like Dalrymple, those who wilfully set out to deny the facts of the destruction of the Hindu civilisation of India, are the opposite. Their denial of the large-scale destruction and denigration of Hindu religion and culture by the Muslim raiders, invaders and conquerors of India is motivated by the deep-seated political aim of the Independence movement to brook no divide between Hindu and Muslim. It was for its time and for all time a noble aim. That was one of the things V. S. Naipaul said to the BJP gathering--that the project of Nehru and Gandhi to avoid going into the import of that history was in itself positively motivated. There is never any justification for one community in India to conduct a pogrom against another. Not then, not now. But surely the construction of history should be truthful. Suppression can only exacerbate the anger.”

William Dalrymple (1965) author and historian

Farrukh Dhondy, Does Willy Get It Wilfully Wrong?, Outlook India, https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/does-willy-get-it-wilfully-wrong/223746 About William Dalrymple

People, Truth, Religion, History

“It’s incredible, I think, you know, a.) to be able to meet her through his lens, not just with his honor and respect for her as the monarch, but the love that he has for her as his grandmother. All of those layers have been so important for me so that when I met her I had such a deep understanding and, of course, incredible respect for being able to have that time with her. And we’ve had a really — she’s an incredible woman.”

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (1981) American former actress and member by marriage of the British royal family

About meeting The Queen
Engagement interview (November 2017)

Love, Making love, Understanding, Thinking

“The new artist-society will consist of painters, sculptors and architects. The founders don’t intend that the character of the union will be determined by one single art movement. They believe that there is room for every important expression of this period and they intend the new union as a gathering place for the best young artists, who will collectively determine the character of the society.”

Charley Toorop (1891–1955) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: tekst in circulaire van Charley Toorop, in het Nederlands:) De nieuwe vereeniging zal bestaan uit schilders, beeldhouwers en architecten. De oprichters stellen zich niet op het standpunt, dat het karakter der vereeniging door één enkele kunstrichting bepaald wordt. Zy gelooven dat voor iedere belangrijke uiting van deze tyd plaats is en bedoelen de nieuwe vereeniging als verzamelplaats voor de beste jonge kunstenaars, die gezamenlyk het karakter van de vereeniging bepalen.
text of Charley Toorop, in a circular for possible members of the new artist-society 'A.S.B.', Amsterdam 8 Dec. 1926; in the Archive J.J.P. Oud, Nederlands Architectuur museum, Rotterdam
before 1930

Art

“The really important facts were that spatial relationships had ceased to matter very much and that my mind was perceiving the world in terms of other than spatial categories. At ordinary times the eye concerns itself with such problems as where? — how far?”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

how situated in relation to what? In the mescaline experience the implied questions to which the eye responds are of another order. Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does its perceiving in terms of intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationships within a pattern."
The Doors of Perception (1954)

World, Problem, Time

“Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock, in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn’t their parents’. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Chris Cornell Flashback Q&A: 'We Have to Be Aware That Life Is So Short', Yahoo!, May 19, 2017 https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/chris-cornell-flashback-qa-aware-life-short-023857577.html, Solo career Era

People, Music, Thinking, Parent

“Origen taught that all souls were created at the beginning of creation as angelic spirits. In this condition they sinned and for their apostasy were transferred into material bodies. It was this view of preexistence which was proclaimed heretical. In any case, heresy thus condemned so long ago need not be regarded today as of major importance. Truth matters a great deal more and a condemned heresy may turn out to be a truth, as happened, for example, when a local church of Rome condemned Galileo’s heliocentric doctrine and forced him to recant. Galileo was right and the church in question was wrong. It is therefore quite legitimate for both clergy and laity of the Christian faith to preach and believe in both preexistence and reincarnation.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Source: Reincarnation & Christianity https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/ReincarnationChristianity.pdf (1967)

Truth, Faith, Angels, Soul

“Members of the Christian faith sometimes object to the doctrine of reincarnation on the grounds that to accept it would be a violation of Christian doctrine. While it is true that a Council of Constantinople in the sixth century A. D. pronounced belief in the pre-existence of the soul to be heretical, an examination of the Scriptures strongly suggests that the doctrine of rebirth was generally accepted in those days and that Our Lord himself believed it. Whether this be the case or not, the student of the Christian doctrine may well ask whether a decision made by a group of men in the sixth century should be regarded as binding today. This objection to reincarnation by Christians, on grounds of doctrinal fidelity, is sufficiently important to merit a somewhat detailed examination. From this it is found that reincarnation has neither been proclaimed nor condemned by any general council of the Church or by any creed accepted by a general council. The Council of Constantinople held in 543 A. D., which proclaimed heretical Origen’s teaching of the preexistence of the soul and affirmed the doctrine of special creation, was not a general council, and so not universally authoritative.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Reincarnation & Christianity https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/ReincarnationChristianity.pdf (1967)

Men, Faith, Soul, Decision