Quotes about information
page 17

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“Experience informs us that the first defence of weak minds is to recriminate.”

Source: Biographia Literaria (1817), Ch. II

Konstantin Chernenko photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo
Jared Lee Loughner photo

“Firstly, the current government officials are in power for their currency, but I'm informing you for your new currency.”

Jared Lee Loughner (1988) Charged with 2011 Tucson shooting

December 8, 2010, video posting — www.kgun9.com, 9OYS Investigates: Who is Jared Loughner?, KGUN9, January 8, 2011, 2011-01-10 http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=13809065,

Kage Baker photo
Margaret Cho photo

“To keep the business from disintegrating, the concept of information systems architecture is becoming less of an option and more of a necessity”

John Zachman (1934) American computer scientist

Source: A Framework for Information Systems Architecture, 1987, p. 276, cited in: Jaap Schekkerman (2003) How to Survive in the Jungle of Enterprise Architecture. p. 131

Jane Goodall photo

“This very real difference between GM plants and their conventional counterparts is one of the basic truths that biotech proponents have endeavoured to obscure. As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals – and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science.
They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that the new foods were safe. Yet this, as Druker points out, was clearly not true.
Druker describes how amazingly successful the biotech lobby has been – and the extent to which the general public and government decision makers have been hoodwinked by the clever and methodical twisting of the facts and the propagation of many myths. Moreover, it appears that a number of respected scientific institutions, as well as many eminent scientists, were complicit in this relentless spreading of disinformation.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Senior academic condemns ‘deluded’ supporters of GM food as being ‘anti-science’ and ignoring evidence of dangers (4 March 2015) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2979645/Senior-academic-condemns-deluded-supporters-GM-food-anti-science-ignoring-evidence-dangers.html#ixzz4BZ4NnMuY
Foreword to Altered Genes, Twisted Truth (2015)

Patrick Stump photo
Hans Blix photo

“It was to do with information management. The intention was to dramatise it.”

Hans Blix (1928) Swedish politician

BBC TV's Breakfast With Frost, February 8, 2004

Robert Henryson photo

“Henryson's greatness is most plainly to be seen in the range of general principles and ideas which informs his poetry and which allows it to encompass tragedy and comedy alike. He is the most Shakespearian of the early Scottish poets.”

Robert Henryson (1425–1506) Scottish makar (poet)

John MacQueen, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography vol. 26, s. n. Henryson, Robert.
Criticism

Garry Kasparov photo

“Claude Shannon, the founder of information theory, invented a way to measure 'the amount of information' in a message without defining the word 'information' itself, nor even addressing the question of the meaning of the message.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 4, Counting Bits, The scientific measure of information, p. 28

John Archibald Wheeler photo
Algis Budrys photo

“Young man, you’re living proof that our basic policy is right. I wouldn’t trust an ignoramus like you with the information required to cut his throat.”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The End of Summer, p. 23
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

Ogden Nash photo
Thomas Kuhn photo
Henry Mintzberg photo

“Nowhere is the difference between either/or and both/and more clearly apparent than in the context of information.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 20, A Game of Beads, The wonder of quantum superposition, p. 182

Tommy Franks photo
Newton Lee photo
Henry Fountain Ashurst photo

“A speech is entertaining only when serenely detached from all information.”

Henry Fountain Ashurst (1874–1962) United States Senator from Arizona

"The Silver-Tongued Sunbeam" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,848048,00.html. Time (August 7, 1939)

Jane Roberts photo
Jane Roberts photo
Nick Bostrom photo
Richard Holbrooke photo
A. James Gregor photo
Raymond Kethledge photo
Heather Brooke photo
Norbert Wiener photo
Fiona Apple photo

“The way in which units of information, and relevant relations between them, are defined in the system. This is the semantic level of subject analysis.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

The Structure of Information Retrieval Systems (1959)

Howard Bloom photo

“The real core of communication is what information theory's founder, Claude Shannon calls "meaning." And meaning is not covered in information theory.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Brace Yourself: The Five Heresies
The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates (2012)

John Woolman photo
Charles Lyell photo

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

Simon Ramo (1913–2016) Father of the ICBM

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

Antoni Tàpies photo
Tom Clancy photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Quentin Crisp photo
Richard Feynman photo
Kevin Kelly photo

“Hereditary information does not exist independently of its embodiment.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

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

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan photo

“Religious intuition informs, conjoins, and transcends an otherwise fragmentary consciousness.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Tony Buzan photo
Mark Latham photo
Herman Cain photo
Thomas Young (scientist) photo
Seymour Papert photo
August-Wilhelm Scheer photo
L. David Mech photo
Don Marquis photo

“dear boss i relay this information
without any fear that humanity
will take warning and reform”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

archy and mehitabel (1927), what the ants are saying

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Newton Lee photo

“The two-way street of Total Information Awareness is the road that leads to a more transparent and complete picture of ourselves, our governments, and our world.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

Richard Cobden photo
James Martin (author) photo
Pierre-Simon Laplace photo
Garry Kasparov photo
Paul Theroux photo
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh photo

“An efficient telecommunications network is the foundation upon which an information society is built.”

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (1938) Jordanian businesspeople

March 21, 2004, at the Arab ICT Regulators Forum, Movenpick Dead Sea, Jordan.

Brigham Young photo
Tom Clancy photo
Neil Armstrong photo
Bernard Lewis photo

“Most of the constantly rising burden of paperwork exists to give an illusion of transparency and control to a bureaucracy that is out of touch with the actual production process. Every new layer of paperwork is added to address the perceived problem that stuff still isn’t getting done the way management wants, despite the proliferation of paperwork saying everything has being done exactly according to orders. In a hierarchy, managers are forced to regulate a process which is necessarily opaque to them because they are not directly engaged in it. They’re forced to carry out the impossible task of developing accurate metrics to evaluate the behavior of subordinates, based on the self-reporting of people with whom they have a fundamental conflict of interest. The paperwork burden that management imposes on workers reflects an attempt to render legible a set of social relationships that by its nature must be opaque and closed to them, because they are outside of it. Each new form is intended to remedy the heretofore imperfect self-reporting of subordinates. The need for new paperwork is predicated on the assumption that compliance must be verified because those being monitored have a fundamental conflict of interest with those making the policy, and hence cannot be trusted; but at the same time, the paperwork itself relies on their self-reporting as the main source of information. Every time new evidence is presented that this or that task isn’t being performed to management’s satisfaction, or this or that policy isn’t being followed, despite the existing reams of paperwork, management’s response is to design yet another—and equally useless—form.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

The Desktop Regulatory State (2016), Chapter 2
The Desktop Regulatory State (2016)

Felix Frankfurter photo

“Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Dissenting, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 270 (1962).
Judicial opinions

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield photo

“In short, let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

16 March 1759
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Subhash Kak photo

“The world is a game of information and paradox.”

Subhash Kak (1947) Indian computer scientist

The Secrets of Ishbar (1996)

Nick Bostrom photo
Charles Edward Merriam photo

“This volume is an analysis of the American party system, an account of the structure, processes and significance of the political party, designed to show as clearly as possible within compact limits what the function of the political party is in the community. My purpose is to make this, as far as possible, an objective study of the organization and behavior of our political parties. It is hoped that this volume may serve as an introduction to students and others who wish to find a concise account of the party system; and also that it may serve to stimulate more intensive study of the important features and processes of the party. From time to time in the course of this discussion significant fields of inquiry have been indicated where it is believed that research would bear rich fruit. In the light of broader statistical information than we now have and with the aid of a thorough-going social and political psychology than we now have, it will be possible in the future to make much more exhaustive and conclusive studies of political parties than we are able to do at present. The objective, detailed study of political behavior will unquestionably enlarge our knowledge of the system of social and political control under which we now operate. But such inquiries will call for funds and personnel not now available to me.”

Charles Edward Merriam (1874–1953) American political scientist

Source: The American Party System, 1922, p. v; Preface lead paragraph

Newton Lee photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Speech in the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (September 17, 1787); reported in James Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention, ed. E. H. Scott (1893), p. 741.
Constitutional Convention of 1787

William Grey Walter photo
Judith Krug photo

“You should have access to ideas and information regardless of your age. If anyone is going to limit or guide a young person, it should be the parent or guardian — and only the parent or guardian.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

"A Library That Would Rather Block Than Offend" http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/011897library-florida.html by Pamela Mendels, The New York Times (January 18, 1997)

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I have always believed that freedom of information is so vital that only the national security, not the desire of public officials or private citizens, should determine when it must be restricted.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Statement on the Freedom of Information Act (1966)

“Entropy is not about speeds or positions of particles, the way temperature and pressure and volume are, but about our lack of information.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 11, The Message on the Tombstone, The meaning of entropy, p. 97-98

Nicholas Barr photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
John Zerzan photo
Mark Crispin Miller photo
Steven M. Greer photo

“They have had numerous extraterrestrial signals. They were apparently searching in a spectrum or in an area… where they hit the mother lode. The signals were so numerous that they began to have their systems externally jammed by some sort of human agency that did not want them to continue receiving those signals… [I received this information from a source in SETI. ] This person, if I were to say who he is, almost every one your listeners would probably know the name.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

July 30, 2006
Greer on a Coast to Coast AM radio show that was hosted by Art Bell
2006
Source: [Vance, Ashlee, SETI urged to fess up over alien signals, The Register, July 31, 2006, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/31/signals_seti/, 2007-02-21]
Source: SETI & ET Signals, Coast to Coast AM, July 30, 2006, 2007-05-11 http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2006/07/30.html,

Nathanael Greene photo
David Suzuki photo

“We now have access to so much information that we can find support for any prejudice or opinion.”

David Suzuki (1936) Canadian popular scientist and environmental activist

What a difference 50 years makes, davidsuzuki.org, 2008-06-27 http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suzuki/Article_Archives/weekly06270801.asp,

George Porter photo

“Science is, on the whole, an informal activity, a life of shirt sleeves and coffee served in beakers.”

George Porter (1920–2002) British chemist

Nobel Banquet Speech http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1967/porter-speech.html in Stockholm, December 10, 1967.

Oriana Fallaci photo

“I am not speaking, obviously, to the laughing hyenas who enjoy seeing images of the wreckage and snicker good–it–serves–the–Americans–right. I am speaking to those who, though not stupid or evil, are wallowing in prudence and doubt. And to them I say: "Wake up, people. Wake up!!" Intimidated as you are by your fear of going against the current—that is, appearing racist (a word which is entirely inapt as we are speaking not about a race but about a religion)—you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that a reverse–Crusade is in progress. Accustomed as you are to the double–cross, blinded as you are by myopia, you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that a war of religion is in progress. Desired and declared by a fringe of that religion, perhaps, but a war of religion nonetheless. A war which they call Jihad. Holy War. A war that might not seek to conquer our territory, but that certainly seeks to conquer our souls. That seeks the disappearance of our freedom and our civilization. That seeks to annihilate our way of living and dying, our way of praying or not praying, our way of eating and drinking and dressing and entertaining and informing ourselves. You don’t understand or don’t want to understand that if we don’t oppose them, if we don’t defend ourselves, if we don’t fight, the Jihad will win. And it will destroy the world that for better or worse we’ve managed to build, to change, to improve, to render a little more intelligent, that is to say, less bigoted—or even not bigoted at all. And with that it will destroy our culture, our art, our science, our morals, our values, our pleasures… Christ! Don’t you realize that the Osama Bin Ladens feel authorized to kill you and your children because you drink wine or beer, because you don’t wear your beard long or a chador, because you go to the theater or the movies, because you listen to music and sing pop songs, because you dance in discos or at home, because you watch TV, wear miniskirts or short–shorts, because you go naked or half naked to the beach or the pool, because you *** when you want and where you want and who you want? Don’t you even care about that, you fools? I am an atheist, thank God. And I have no intention of letting myself be killed for it.”

"Rage and the Pride">Oriana Fallaci - The Rage and the Pride http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rage-Pride-Oriana-Fallaci/dp/084782599X - Universe Publishing; Intl edition, 2002, ISBN 9780847825998

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo
Mark Zuckerberg photo
Andrew P. Napolitano photo

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA. He didn’t use the CIA. He didn’t use the FBI and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What the heck is GCHQ? That’s the initials for the British spying agency. They have 24-7 access to the NSA database.”

Andrew P. Napolitano (1950) American judge and syndicated columnist

Fox & Friends interview, March 14, 2017
[The battle within Fox News, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/03/17/the-battle-within-fox-news, Wemple, Eric, March 17, 2017, The Washington Post] "Though Napolitano may have presented his research on a show that Fox News considers commentary or opinion, he was debuting news reporting."
[Judge Andrew Napolitano, Brian Kilmeade, 2017, Judge Nap: Obama 'Went Outside Chain of Command,' Used British Spy Agency to Surveil Trump, http://video.insider.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=5358700250001, video, Fox News Network] (quoted text at 01:16)

Herbert A. Simon photo

“In view of the dramatic effects that alternative representations may produce on search and recognition processes, it may seem surprising that the differential effects on inference appear less strong. Inference is largely independent of representation if the information content of the two sets of inference rules [one operating on diagrams and the other operating on verbal statements] is equivalent—i. e. the two sets are isomorphs as they are in our examples”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1980s and later, "Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words," (1987), p. 71, as cited in: Bauer, Malcolm I., and Philip N. Johnson-Laird. " How diagrams can improve reasoning http://mentalmodels.princeton.edu/papers/1993diags%26reasoning.pdf." Psychological Science 4.6 (1993): 372-378.

“I would say, on the basis of having observe a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Interview on Sixty Minutes (31 March 1979)
Actual quote, which can be heard in Discovery Channel's Curiosity: How Evil Are You?: I would say -- on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment, and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments -- that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.