Quotes about instruction (643 quotes, page 4)

“You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's — not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you — not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity — not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul — a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's.”

John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law

as reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 29.

God , Books , Soul

“There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring. Important as the struggle for existence has been and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of man's nature is concerned there are other agencies more important. For the moral qualities are advanced, either directly or indirectly, much more through the effects of habit, the reasoning powers, instruction, religion, &c., than through natural selection; though to this latter agency the social instincts, which afforded the basis for the development of the moral sense, may be safely attributed.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", pages 403-404 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=420&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

Men , Religion , Law , Nature

“The story of the Northern Counties Building Society is instructive. Established in 1850 in the North East by dispossessed workers who pooled their funds to retrieve a home in the world it grew steadily over the years. It was part of the local economy and society, that most precious civic inheritance, a trusted financial institution. In 1965 it merged with another local institution, the Rock Building Society to become Northern Rock Building Society. It demutualised in 1997 and became Northern Rock, which sponsored Newcastle United and became the fifth biggest lender in the UK market. An institution that was founded by local people for local people and had partnered its region in good times and bad for a hundred and forty seven years, that had weathered four serious depressions and emerged stronger from each could not last through New Labour’s period in Government.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Blue Labour, Tackling Poverty Together http://www.bluelabour.org/2013/11/24/tackling-poverty-together/

People , World , Home , Time

“I reproach myself for a gross error. But I would reproach myself more if I had persisted in an error after observations revealed it clearly to be that. I made a deal of money in the late 1940s on the bull side, ignoring Satchel Paige’s advice to Lot’s wife, “Never look back.” Rather I would advocate Samuelson’s Law: “Always look back. You may learn something from your residuals. Usually one’s forecasts are not so good as one remembers them; the difference may be instructive.” The dictum “If you must forecast, forecast often,” is neither a joke nor a confession of impotence. It is a recognition of the primacy of brute fact over pretty theory. That part of the future that cannot be related to the present’s past is precisely what science cannot hope to capture. Fortunately, there is plenty of work for science to do, plenty of scientific tasks not yet done.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

February 1985, in William Breit and Roger W. Spencer (ed.) Lives of the laureates
1980s–1990s

Money , Law , Hope , Error

“Yet many human beings, resigned to sensuality and indolence, un-instructed and unimproved, have passed through life like travellers in a strange country.”
Sed multi mortales dediti ventri atque somno, indocti incultique vitam sicuti peregrinantes transiere.

Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician

Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter II

Life , Travel , Country

“The best way to keep anyone alive is by following their instructions and exemplifying their teachings, not just individually but also as a community.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Lecture, 2005
Lectures

Way , Communication

“Monks throng like a kennel of pups
from disputing with the masters who instruct them
whether the run of the wind is one, or one the ocean's waters
or one the spark of fire - an illimitable clamour.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Annwn

Water

“A Broadway play is so much an event, designed down to the bit parts to explode in your face on one particular night, that it is hard to judge any one of them fairly from the scrawny instructions known as a script.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

Clare Boothe Luce http://books.google.com/books?id=mVYfAQAAMAAJ&q=%22A+Broadway+play+is+so+much+an+event+designed+down+to+the+bit+parts+to+explode+in+your+face+on+one+particular+night+that+it+is+hard+to+judge+any+one+of+them+fairly+from+the+scrawny+instructions+known+as+a+script%22&pg=PA69#v=onepage (1982)

Parting , Night

“I would like to clarify the answer published in my name in last month’s issue of Moment Magazine. First of all, the opinions published in my name are solely my own, and do not represent the official policy of any Jewish movement or organization. Additionally, my answer, as written, is misleading. It is obvious, I thought, that any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion. Fundamental to the Jewish faith is the concept that every human being was created in the image of G-d, and our sages instruct us to support the non-Jewish poor along with the poor of our own brethren. The sub-question I chose to address instead is: how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields. I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed (on both sides!)—when one’s own family and nation is mercilessly targeted from those very people and places. Furthermore, some of the words I used in my brief comment were irresponsible, and I look forward to further clarifying them in a future issue. I apologize for any misunderstanding my words created.”

Manis Friedman (1946) American rabbi

Clarification of previous statement http://momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/a-statement-from-rabbi-friedman/
On the Israeli-Arab conflict

Women , War , Children , People

“The miller's daughter of fourteen could not believe that high gentry behaved badly to their wives, but her mother instructed her — "Oh, child, men's men: gentle or simple, they're much of a muchness…"”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Daniel Deronda (1876)

Men , Daughters

“A man came to Allah's Apostle and said, "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." He replied, "I do not find such a deed." Then he added, "Can you, while the Muslim fighter is in the battle-field, enter your mosque to perform prayers without cease and fast and never break your fast?" The man said, "But who can do that?" Abu- Huraira added, "The Mujahid (i. e. Muslim fighter) is rewarded even for the footsteps of his horse while it wanders about (for grazing) tied in a long rope."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated Abu Huraira, in Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44
Sunni Hadith

Horse

“To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”

Henry Gee (1962) British paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and editor

In Search of Deep Time—Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, by Henry Gee, pp. 116-117.

“What I set myself to do was this, to write a sort of grammar of thirteenth-century architecture, and to illustrate it with carefully measured details. I moreover resolved, when I did measure details or buildings, to do the part I wanted, and not to waste time by trying to make a finished drawing by means of the surroundings. The plan of the book fell through, for I had scarcely been at work two months before the advertisement of M. Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionary appeared, and I then continued tho drawings for my own instruction and without any intention of publication.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

William Burges, Architectural Drawings, London, 1870. p. 1; As cited in American Architect and Building News. 1881. Vol. 9. p. 236

Books , Appearance , Time , Parting

“Humans… entered the 'cognitive niche.' Remember the definition of intelligence from Chapter 2: using knowledge of how things work to attain goals in the face of obstacles. By learning which manipulations achieve which goals, humans have mastered the art of the surprise attack. They use novel, goal-oriented courses of action to overcome the Maginot Line defenses of other organisms, which can respond only over evolutionary time. The manipulations can be novel because human knowledge is not just couched in concrete instructions like 'how to catch a rabbit.' Humans analyze the world using intuitive theories of objects, forces, paths, places, manners, states, substances, hidden biochemical essences, and, for other animals and people, beliefs and desires…. People compose new knowledge and plans by mentally playing out combinatorial interactions among these laws in their mind's eye.”

Steven Pinker book How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 188

People , World , Law , Art

“I'm not a big fan of other people's punctuation. When I read a script I've got a sort of automatic eraser. I don't see punctuation or capitals or instructions. I want to decide when the sentence is over. Who's to say when a sentence ends and the other one begins? Sometimes it begins in the middle of the next sentence.”

Christopher Walken (1943) American actor

Jason Walsh (October 17, 2004) "Walken on the edge", Marin Independent Journal, Section: Lifestyles.

People , Reading

“Precepts may instruct, but examples persuade.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Heaven On Earth, 1654

“The presence of the kings of Islam is a great blessing from Allah… You should know that the country of Hindustan is a large land. In olden days, the kings of Islam had struggled hard and for long in order to conquer this foreign country. They could do it only in several turns…
Every (Muslim) king got mosques erected in his territory, and created madrasas. Muslims of Arabia and Ajam (non-Arab Muslim lands) migrated from their own lands and arrived in these territories. They became agents for the publicity and spread of Islam here. Uptil now their descendants are firm in the ways of Islam…Among the non-Muslim communities, one is that of the Marhatah (Maratha). They have a chief. For some time past, this community has been raising its head, and has become influential all over Hindustan…
…It is easy to defeat the Marhatah community, provided the ghãzîs of Islam gird up their loins and show courage…
In the countryside between Delhi and Agra, the Jat community used to till the land. In the reign of Shahjahan, this community had been ordered not to ride on horses, or keep muskets with them, or build fortresses for themselves. The kings that came later became careless, and this community has used the opportunity for building many forts, and collecting muskets…
In the reign of Muhammad Shah, the impudence of this community crossed all limits. And Surajmal, the cousin of Churaman, became its leader. He took to rebellion. Therefore, the city of Bayana which was an ancient seat of Islam, and where the Ulama and the Sufis had lived for seven hundred years, has been occupied by force and terror, and Muslims have been turned out of it with humiliation and hurt…
…Whatever influence and prestige is left with the kingship at present, is wielded by the Hindus. For no one except them is there in the ranks of managers and officials. Their houses are full of wealth of all varieties. Muslims live in a state of utter poverty and deprivation. The story is long and cannot be summarised. What I mean to say is that the country of Hindustan has passed under the power of non-Muslims. In this age, except your majesty, there is no other king who is powerful and great, who can defeat the enemies, and who is farsighted and experienced in war. It is your majesty’s bounden duty (farz-i-ain) to invade Hindustan, to destroy the power of the Marhatahs, and to free the down-and-out Muslims from the clutches of non-Muslims. Allah forbid, if the power of the infidels remains in its present position, Muslims will renounce Islam and not even a brief period will pass before Muslims become such a community as will no more know how to distinguish between Islam and non-Islam. This will be a great tragedy. Due to the grace of Allah, no one except your majesty has the capacity for preventing this tragedy from taking place.
We who are the servants of Allah and who recognise the Prophet as our saviour, appeal to you in the name of Allah that you should turn your holy attention to this direction and face the enemies, so that a great merit is added to the roll of your deeds in the house of Allah, and your name is included in the list of mujãhidîn fi Sabîlallah (warriors in the service of Allah). May you acquire plunder beyond measure, and may the Muslims be freed from the stranglehold of the infidels. I seek refuge in Allah when I say that you should not act like Nadir Shah who oppressed and suppressed the Muslims, and went away leaving the Marhatahs and the Jats whole and prosperous.
The enemies have become more powerful after Nadir Shah, the army of Islam has disintegrated, and the empire of Delhi has become childrens’ play. Allah forbid, if the infidels continue as at present, and Muslims get (further) weakened, the very name of Islam will get wiped out.
…When your fearsome army reaches a place where Muslims and non-Muslims live together, your administrators must take particular care. They must be instructed that those weak Muslims who live in the countryside should be taken to towns and cities. Next, some such administrators should be appointed in towns and cities as would see to it that the properties of Muslims are not plundered, and the honour of no Muslim is compromised.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

Letter to Ahmad Shah Abdali, Ruler of Afghanistan. Translated from the Urdu version of K.A. Nizami, Shãh Walîullah Dehlvî ke Siyãsî Maktûbãt, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, p.83 ff.
From his letters

War , Children , Age , Way

“Now there are classes indeed where the newly dead are instructed. I used to teach some of these.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 331, Page 331
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 7

Dead

“As the savages whom we have instructed are ready when left to themselves to return to their ancestral mode of life, so our young people quickly forget what they have learned at school, and sink back into the commonplace existence from which a right education would have saved them.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 241

Life , People , Education , School

“And so it went until the alarm was struck in the famous Missouri debate. Then wise men remembered what Washington had said, 'Resist with care the spirit of innovation upon the principles of the Constitution'. They saw that the letting alone was all on one side, that the unfortunate anomaly was deeply scheming to become the rule, and they roused the country. The old American love of liberty flamed out again. Meetings were everywhere held. The lips of young orators burned with the eloquence of freedom. The spirit of John Knox and of Hugh Peters thundered and lightened in the pulpits, and men were not called political preachers because they preached that we are all equal children of God. The legislatures of the free States instructed their representatives to stand fast for liberty. Daniel Webster, speaking for the merchants of Boston, said that it was a question essentially involving the perpetuity of the blessings of liberty for which the Constitution itself was formed. Daniel Webster, speaking for humanity at Plymouth, described the future of the slave as 'a widespread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death'. The land was loud with the debate, and Rufus King stated its substance in saying that it was a question of slave or free policy in the national government. Slavery hissed disunion; liberty smiled disdain. The moment of final trial came. Pinckney exulted. John Quincy Adams shook his head. Slavery triumphed and, with Southern chivalry, politely called victory compromise.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Love , Death , Men , God

“The traditional picture of the blind old singer of Chios is largely made up of memories that go back to the time when a poet was a vates— a priestly and God-inspired seer. His blindness is merely the outward sign of the inward light that fills his being and enables him to see things others cannot see. This bodily infirmity expresses— as does the lameness of the divine smith Hephaestus—a second idea that was current in primitive times, that a maker of poems, ornaments and other products of handicraft can only come from the ranks of those who are unfit for war and foray. But apart from this feature, the legendary ‘Homer’ is an almost perfect example of the mythical poet who was still half-divine, a wonder-worker and a prophet. We find the clearest embodiment of this idea in Orpheus, the primeval singer who had his harp from Apollo and instruction in the art of song from the Muse herself; with his music he could move not merely men and beasts but even rocks and could reclaim Eurydice from the bonds of death.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

The Social History of Art, Volume I. From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages, 1999, Chapter III. Greece and Rome

Death , Men , God , War

“As nations are among the largest and the most complete divisions into which society is formed, the grandest aggregations of organized human power; as they raise to observation and distinction the world’s greatest men, and call into requisition the highest order of talent and ability for their guidance, preservation and success, they are ever among the most attractive, instructive and useful subjects of thought, to those just entering upon the duties and activities of life.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Life , Men , World , Success

“A sketch of the progress of Geology is the history of a constant and violent struggle between new opinions and ancient doctrines sanctioned by the implicit faith of many generations and supposed to rest on scriptural authority. The inquiry, therefore, although highly interesting to one who studies the philosophy of the human mind, is singularly barren of instruction to him who searches for truths in physical science.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.3, p. 34
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Truth , Faith , History , Search

“But the knowledge of the library is not that of the world; a youth of solitude is bad preparation for a manhood of action; from the earliest age we need to mingle with our kind; the child corrects and instructs the child more than their masters; our equals are the tools wherewith experience works out its lessons; and the play-ground, with its rival interests, its injustices, its necessity for the ready wit and the curbed temper is both miniature and prophesy of the world, which will but bring back the old struggles only with a sterner aspect, and the same successes, but with more than half their enjoyment departed.”

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

Other Gift Books

Youth , Age , World , Knowledge

“I bought a copy of the Nashville Tennessean out of a metal box, just to see what was happening in the world. The principal story indicated that the state legislature, in one of those moments of enlightenment with which the southern states often strive to distinguish themselves, was in the process of passing a law forbidding schools from teaching evolution. Instead they were to be required to instruct that that the earth was created by God, in seven days, sometime, oh, before the turn of the century. The article reminded us that this was not a new issue in Tennessee. The little town of Dayton—not far from where Katz and I now sat, as it happened—was the scene of the famous Scopes trial in 1925, when the state prosecuted a schoolteacher named John Thomas Scopes for rashly promulgating Darwinian hogwash. As nearly everyone knows, Clarence Darrow, for the defense, roundly humiliated William Jennings Bryan, for the prosecution, but what most people don’t realize is that Darrow lost the case. Scopes was convicted, and the law wasn’t overturned in Tennessee until 1967. And now the state was about to bring the law back, proving conclusively that the danger for Tennesseans isn’t so much that they may be descended from apes as overtaken by them.”

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods (1997), Chapter 8 (pp. 107-108)

God , People , World , School

“In following Seth's dream recall instructions, we found ourselves collecting some excellent examples of precognitive dreams. Some were clear-cut and almost exactly matched the foreseen future event. Others were partially disguised in symbolism. Still others were so interwoven with other dream material that we marked them as indicative of precognition and let it go at that. Sometimes dreams that seemed nonsense contained one clear, important image that shortly -- within a few days -- would appear in a different context entirely. In several cases, two or more future events would be condensed into one dream.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 249

Dreams , Appearance , Future

“Public opinion* is the unseen product of education and practical experience. Education, in turn, is the function, in co-operation, of the family, the church and the school. If the family fails in its guiding influence and discipline and if the church fails in its religious instruction, then everything is left to the school, which is given an impossible burden to bear. It is just this situation which has arisen in the United States during the generation through which we are still passing. In overwhelming proportion, the family has become almost unconscious of its chief educational responsibility. In like manner, the church, fortunately with some noteworthy exceptions, has done the same. The heavy burden put upon the school has resulted in confused thinking, unwise plans of instruction and a loss of opportunity to lay the foundations of true education, the effects of which are becoming obvious to every one. Fundamental dis cipline, both personal and social, has pretty well disappeared, and, without that discipline which develops into self-discipline, education is impossible.
What are the American people going to do about it? If they do not correct these conditions, they are simply playing into the hands of the advocates of a totalitarian state, for that type of state is at least efficient, and it is astonishing to how many persons efficiency makes stronger appeal than liberty.
Then, too, we have many signs of an incapacity to understand and to interpret liberty, or to distinguish it from license. There is a limit to liberty, and liberty ends where license begins. It is very difficult for many persons to understand this fact or to grasp its implications. If we are to have freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of the press, why should we not be free to say and think and print whatever we like? The answer is that the limit between liberty and license must be observed if liberty itself is to last. To suppose, as many individuals and groups seem to do, that liberty of thought and liberty of speech* include liberty to agitate for the destruction of liberty itself, indicates on the part of such persons not only lack of common sense but lack of any sense o humor. If liberty is to remain, the barrier between liberty and license must be recognized and observed.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)

People , Education , School , Family

“If you honestly need the calendar to instruct you to show affection to your partner then what kind of loveless nightmare are you trapped in”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

14 February 2011
Twitter

“Has not the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her Way was to pass thro’ a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct Course; one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left, so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was completed, the poor Snake died with thirst.”

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

Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania reported in Albert H. Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1907), vol. 10, pp. 57–58.
Decade unclear

Way , Drink , Decision , Time

“Although the Mathematicks according to its Etymology, signifies only Discipline, yet it merits the Name of Science better than any other, because its Principles are self-evident, and independent on any sensible Experience, and its Propositions demonstrated beyond all possible Doubt or Opposition. Youth were anciently instructed herein before Philosophy, on which Account Aristotle called it the Science of Children. This was taught them not only to raise and excite their Genius, but also as a fit preparative to the Study of Nature; and it was upon this Account that the Divine Plato inscribed on his School… that none wholly ignorant of Geometry should be admitted there.”

Jacques Ozanam (1640–1718) French mathematician

Source: A Mathematical Dictionary: Or; A Compendious Explication of All Mathematical Terms, 1702, p. 1, The Introduction; Lead paragraph

Children , Youth , School , Nature

“If America is to produce great painters and if young artists wish to assume a place in the history of the art of their country, their first desire should be to remain in America to peer deeper into the heart of American life, rather than spend their time abroad obtaining a superficial view of the art of the Old World. In the days when I studied abroad conditions were entirely different. The facilities for study in this country were meagre. There were even no life classes in our art schools and schools of painting. Naturally one had to seek instruction elsewhere, abroad. Today we need not do that.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Interview, Philadelphia Press; quoted in Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins (1933).

Life , World , School , Art

“The natural gravitation of the body pulls down with it those of little mind, strangling and overwhelming them with the multitude of the fleshly elements. Blessed are they to whom it is given to resist with superior strength the weight that would pull them down, taught by the guiding lines of right instruction to leap upward from earth and earth-bound things into the ether and the revolving heavens.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

79.
On the Special Laws

Nature

“The Objective of Ahlehadeeth movement is to propagate and inculcate pure Tawheed in all spheres of life by following exact instructions of Kitab and Sunnah to gain satisfaction of Allah. The social and political objectives of Ahl-i-Hadeeth Movement is to bring about all round reforms of the society through ensuring the rectification of Aqeedah and 'Amal”

Muhammad Asadullah Al-Ghalib (1948) Bangladeshi academic

i.e. faith & deeds
(English Translation). http://www.ahlehadeethbd.org/porichitienglish.html
Organizational leaflet

Life , Faith

“When somebody enrolls, consider he or she has joined up for the duration of the universe — never permit an "open-minded" approach… If they enrolled, they're aboard, and if they're aboard they're here on the same terms as the rest of us — win or die in the attempt. Never let them be half minded about being Scientologists. … When Mrs. Pattycake comes to us to be taught, turn that wandering doubt in her eye into a fixed, dedicated glare. … The proper instruction attitude is, "We'd rather have you dead than incapable."”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Scientology Policy Letters

Universe , Dead

“Treatises may be didactic in tone, but essentially they lack the conclusiveness of an instruction which could be asserted, like doctrine, by virtue of its own authority. … Tirelessly the process of thinking makes new beginnings, returning in a roundabout way to its original object. This continual pausing for breath is the mode most proper to the process of contemplation. For by pursuing different levels of meaning in its examination of one single object it receives both the incentive to begin again and the justification for its irregular rhythm.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels [Origin of the German Mourning Play] (1925), p. 28

Way , Thinking

“The development of relations between State and Church affords a very instructive example of how the carelessness of a single statesman can have after-effects which last for centuries. When Charlemagne was kneeling at prayer in St. Peter's, Rome, at Christmas in the year 800, the Pope, giving him no time to work out the possible effects of so symbolic an action, suddenly bent down and presto! popped a golden crown on his head! By permitting it, the Emperor delivered himself and his successors into the hands of a power which subjected the German Government and the German people to five hundred years of martyrdom.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

4 July 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

People , Time , Christmas

“Since the matter has been raised, may I say that the individual concerned is not an endorsed member of the Labour Party, and, so far as I am concerned, never will be endorsed? [Interruption. ] May I add that, as the Labour Party has played the leading part in the establishment and sustenance of parliamentary democracy, we do not need any instructions on the matter from skin-deep democrats on the Conservative Benches or defectors on this side?”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

Remark http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/dec/03/engagements-1 in the House of Commons (3 December 1981), referring to Peter Tatchell. Foot subsequently corrected "endorsed member" to "endorsed candidate".
1980s

Democracy , Parting

“A digital computer can usually be regarded as consisting of three parts: (i) Store. (ii) Executive unit. (iii) Control…. The executive unit is the part which carries out the various individual operations involved in a calculation…. It is the duty of the control to see that… [the table of] instructions are obeyed correctly and in the right order…. A typical instruction might say—"Add the number stored in position 6809 to that in 4302 and put the result back into the latter storage position." Needless to say it would not occur in the machine expressed in English. It would more likely be coded in a form such as 6809430217. Here 17 says which of various possible operations [add] is to be performed on the two numbers…. It will be noticed that the instruction takes up 10 digits and so forms one packet of information…”

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

Parting

“Palestinians and Arabs were not the only ones cast as Nazis. Israel was also accused — by Israelis as well as by Palestinians — of Nazi-style crimes. In the context of Israeli massacres of Palestinians in 1948, a number of Israeli ministers referred to the actions of Israeli soldiers as "Nazi actions," prompting Benny Marshak, the education officer of the Palmach, to ask them to stop using the term. Indeed, after the massacre at al-Dawayima, Agriculture Minister Aharon Zisling asserted in a cabinet meeting that he "couldn't sleep all night… Jews too have committed Nazi acts." Similar language was used after the Israeli army gunned down forty-seven Israeli Palestinian men, women, and children at Kafr Qasim in 1956. While most Israeli newspapers at the time played down the massacre, a rabbi rote that "we must demand of the entire nation a sense of shame and humiliation… that soon we will be like Nazias and the perpetrators of pogroms." The Palestinians were soon to level the same accusation against the Israelis. Such accusations increased during the intifada. One of the communiqués issued by the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising defined the intifada as consisting of "the children and young men of the stones and Molotov cocktails, the thousands of women who miscarried as a result of poison gas and tear gas grenades, and those women whose sons and husbands were thrown in the Nazi prisons." The Israelis were always outraged by such accusations, even when the similarities were stark. When the board of Yad Vashem, for example, was asked to condemn the act of an Israeli army officer who instructed his soldiers to inscribe numbers on the arms of Palestinians, board chairman Gideon Hausner "squelched the initiative, ruling that it had no relevance to the Holocaust."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Massad, in Palestinian and Jewish History: Recognition or Submission? in the Autumn 2000 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies.
On Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany

Women , Men , Children , Education

“I explained to the crowd that my voice was hoarse from a cold and that my physician had advised me not to attend. "I hope that you will not disclose to him that I have violated his instructions," I told them. I congratulated Mr. de Klerk for his strong showing. I thanked all those in the ANC and the democratic movement who had worked so hard for so long. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the wife of the great freedom fighter Martin Luther King Jr., was on the podium that night, and I looked over to her as I made reference to her husband's immortal words.
"This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy--pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops — Free at last! Free at last! I stand before you humbled by your courage, with a heart full of love for all of you."”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Love , Life , People , Hope

“The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.”

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

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Men , People , Exercises , Support

“On commercial airlines, at takeoff the flight attendants instruct passengers in the use of oxygen masks, reminding them to secure their own masks before assisting others. In the same way, to be effective spiritual warriors we must protect ourselves first. Otherwise we are of no use to anyone. The greatest protection of all comes from our unconditional, unmotivated, uninterrupted devotional service. Such service opens us up to a flow of divine love and protection in all circumstances.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume III: Solace for the Heart in Difficult Times (Hari-Nama Press, 2000), Chapter 8 - How To Strengthen Ourselves

Love , Way

“It is truly not the merit of the school if we do not come out selfish. Each sort of corresponding pride and every wind of covetousness, eagerness for office, mechanical and servile officiousness, hypocrisy, etc., is bound as much with extensive knowledge as with elegant, classical education, and since this whole instruction exercises no influence of any sort on our ethical behavior, it thus frequently falls to the fate of being forgotten in the same measure as it is not used: one shakes off the dust of the school.”

Max Stirner book The False Principle of our Education

Source: The False Principle of our Education (1842), p. 22

Fate , Education , School , Behavior

“For Moses, that God should "visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation" (Exod. 20:5) is an unacceptable form of group punishment akin to the morally indiscriminate punishment of Sodom. Challenging God's pronouncement of the punishment of the sons for the sins of the fathers, Moses argues with God, against God, and in the name of God. Moses engages God with fierce moral logic:
Sovereign of the Universe, consider the righteousness of Abraham and the idol worship of his father Terach. Does it make moral sense to punish the child for the transgressions of the father? Sovereign of the Universe, consider the righteous deeds of King Hezekiah, who sprang from the loins of his evil father King Achaz. Does Hezekiah deserve Achaz's punishment? Consider the nobility of King Josiah, whose father Amnon was wicked. Should Josiah inherit the punishment of Amnon? (Num. Rabbah, Hukkat XIX, 33)
Trained to view God as an unyielding authoritarian proclaiming immutable commands, we might expect that Moses will be severely chastised for his defiance. Who is this finite, errant, fallible, human creature to question the explicit command of the author of the Ten Commandments? The divine response to Moses, according to the rabbinic moral imagination, is arresting:
By your life Moses, you have instructed Me. Therefore I will nullify My words and confirm yours. Thus it is said, "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers."”

Harold M. Schulweis (1925–2014) American rabbi and theologian

Deut. 24:16
Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey (2008)

Life , Death , God , Children

“Everyone I was working with was elder to me, so they didn't really like taking instructions from me”

Akshay Agrawal (1998) Serial Social Entrepreneur

A Class Apart - Mid Day 23rd October 2016 http://www.mid-day.com/articles/zomato-for-schools-mumbai-boy-akshay-agrawal-creates-website-to-rank-schools/17706190

“It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of al-Jazari's work in the history of engineering. Until modern times there is no other document from any cultural area that provides a comparable wealth of instructions for the design, manufacture and assembly of machines… Al-Jazari did not only assimilate the techniques of his non-Arab and Arab predecessors, he was also creative. He added several mechanical and hydraulic devices. The impact of these inventions can be seen in the later designing of steam engines and internal combustion engines, paving the way for automatic control and other modern machinery. The impact of al-Jazari's inventions is still felt in modern contemporary mechanical engineering [2].”

Donald Hill (1922–1994) British historian and engineer

Donald Hill, Studies in Medieval Islamic Technology,; as cited in: Salim Al-Hassani. " 800 Years Later: In Memory of Al-Jazari, A Genius Mechanical Engineer http://muslimheritage.com/article/800-years-later-memory-al-jazari-genius-mechanical-engineer," at muslimheritage.com, 2015.

Way , History , Time , Wealth

“The soul completely dominated by its desire for spiritual instruction is never sated.”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

The Philokalia Vol. 4, Faber and Faber.

Soul

“I Thaddeus Kosciuszko being just in my departure from America do hereby declare and direct that should I make no other testamentary disposition of my property in the United States I hereby authorise my friend Thomas Jefferson to employ the whole thereof in purchasing Negroes from among his own or any others and giving them liberty in my name, in giving them an education in trades or otherwise and in having them instructed for their new condition in the duties of morality which may make them good neighbours, good fathers or mothers, husbands or wives and in their duties as citizens teaching them to be defenders of their liberty and Country and of the good order of society and in whatsoever may make them happy and useful and I make the said Thomas Jefferson my executor of this.”

Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1817) Polish and American military leader

T. Kosciuszko, 5th day of May 1798. (See The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 30, Princeton 2004, p. 332-333). Note: Thomas Jefferson never did carry out this request.
Version of 5 May 1798

Education , Departure , Country , Happiness

“There is something so gratifying to human vanity in fancying ourselves superior to most around us, that we believe few young men attain their majority without imbibing more or less of the taint of unbelief, and passing through the mists of a vapid moral atmosphere, before they come to the clear, manly, and yet humble perceptions that teach most of us, in the end, our own insignificance, the great benevolence as well as wisdom of the scheme of redemption, and the philosophy of the Christian religion, as well as its divinity.
Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block of the young is a disposition not to yield to their belief unless it conforms to their own crude notions of propriety and reason. If the powers of man were equal to analyzing the nature of the Deity, to comprehending His being, and power, and motives, there would be some little show of sense in thus setting up the pretence of satisfying our judgments in all things, before we yield our credence to a religious system. But the first step we take brings with it the instructive lesson of our incapacity, and teaches the wholesome lesson of humility. From arrogantly claiming a right to worship a deity we comprehend, we soon come to feel that the impenetrable veil that is cast around the Godhead is an indispensable condition of our faith, reverence, and submission.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

Preface
The Wing-and-Wing (1842)

Wisdom , Men , Faith , Religion

“If one wants to make a machine mimic the behaviour of the human computer in some complex operation one has to ask him how it is done, and then translate the answer into the form of an instruction table. Constructing instruction tables is usually described as "programming."”

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

“The Mathematics which effectually exercises, not vainly deludes or vexatiously torments studious Minds with obscure Subtilties, perplexed Difficulties, or contentious Disquisitions; which overcomes without Opposition, triumphs without Pomp, compels without Force, and rules absolutely without Loss of Liberty; which does not privately overreach a weak Faith, but openly assaults an armed Reason, obtains a total Victory, and puts on inevitable Chains; whose Words are so many Oracles, and Works as many Miracles; which blabs out nothing rashly, nor designs anything from the Purpose, but plainly demonstrates and readily performs all Things within its Verge; which obtrudes no false Shadow of Science, but the very Science itself, the Mind firmly adheres to it, as soon as possessed of it, and can never after desert it of its own Accord, or be deprived of it by any Force of others: Lastly the Mathematics, which depend upon Principles clear to the Mind, and agreeable to Experience; which draws certain Conclusions, instructs by profitable Rules, unfolds pleasant Questions; and produces wonderful Effects; which is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the 47 unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human Affairs.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

"Ration before the University of Cambridge on being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics," (1660), reported in: Mathematical Lectures, (1734), p. 28

Faith , Art , Exercises , Mathematics

“The Dong button was just that, a big green button with the word Dong engraved on it. You pushed it, and it went dong. Well, that was almost too simple. Should there not be a deeper reason for it? And the small instruction plate over it didn’t add much. It read: “Wrong prong, bong gong.””

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer

Description of a Dong button, which is later revealed to reverse the flow of time for the wielder, if there has been a dire error made which needs correcting, Ch. 3
Ch. 3 -->
Space Chantey (1968)

Reading

“I heard my mother remark occasionally: 'A man who accepts a job under anyone is a slave.' That impression became so indelibly fixed that even after my marriage I refused all positions. I met expenses by investing my family endowment in land. Moral: Good and positive suggestions should instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their early ideas long remain sharply etched.”

Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936) Indian yogi and guru

Autobiography of a Yogi (1946)

Marriage , Children , Family , Idea

“The Kropotkins, the Perovskayas, the Breshkovskayas, and hosts of others repudiated wealth and station and refused to serve King Mammon. They went among the people, not to lift them up but themselves to be lifted up, to be instructed, and in return to give themselves wholly to the people. That accounts for the heroism, the art, the literature of Russia, the unity between the people, the mujik and the intellectual. That to some extent explains the literature of all European countries, the fact that the Strindbergs, the Hauptmanns, the Wedekinds, the Brieux, the Mirbeaus, the Steinlins and Rodins have never dissociated themselves from the people.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Intellectual Proletarians (1914)

People , Art , Literature , Country

“Come, then, with what voice Thou wilt come, Thou power- clad Messenger of my Redeemer! Come with thunder on Thy tongue, or with a sweet "harp of ten strings;" come to us simple as a little child, or wise as a scribe instructed of God; but, O! let us only feel that fire in Thy message which lies not in sentences nor in tones, but in a heart itself inflamed from above, and pouring fire into our hearts.”

William Arthur (minister) (1819–1901) Wesleyan Methodist minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 323.

God , Feeling , Heart

“Why lean upon a blind guide, if you have eyes of your own? Why be clothed by one who is naked, if you have put on Christ? Why use the shield of another, when the apostle gives you armour of your own? It would be better for him to learn from you to acknowledge the resurrection of the flesh, than for you from him to deny it; because if Christians must needs deny it, it would be sufficient if they did so from their own knowledge, without any instruction from the ignorant multitude.”

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

De Resurrectione Carnis [Of the Resurrection of Flesh] Ch.1 as quoted in The Writings of Tertullian, Vol.2 http://books.google.com/books?id=nlcPAQAAMAAJ Tr. Peter Holmes, as contained in Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to AD 325 Vol.15 (1870)

Knowledge , Learning , Christ , Clothes

“It’s an old story, perhaps the oldest on earth,” Joan said. “The sky rumbles, the clouds congeal, the sun spasms. Is that a saint I see on high? An angel? The Lord God Jehovah himself? Now a holy voice booms down, instructing the poor prophet to grab a sword and thrust it into a fellow human, or perhaps a hundred fellow humans, or even a million if the cause is sufficiently sacred. The prophet never talks back. The tradition existed before me. It flourishes to this day. The sword, the blood, the freshly created corpses littering the battlefield, exuding the stink of epiphany.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 10 (p. 243)

God , Angels , Sun

“At this moment in time, it's pointing in the direction that the players aren't good enough, to be able to (i) take on the instructions that we give them and (ii) deal with the situation when the pressure is turned up - and it's disappointing. OK, there's a disappointing group of players in there but you keep on shooting yourself in the foot week in and week out. Something has to change.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

2-Jan-2006, Radio Derby
PB blames the players for DCFC's poor record.

Disappointment , Change , Time

“The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

The Dignity and Importance of History http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dwebster/speeches/dignity-history.html (23 February 1852)

Truth , History

“Time is short, your obligations are infinite. Are your houses regulated, your children instructed, the afflicted relieved, the poor visited, the work of piety accomplished?”

Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742) French Catholic bishop and famous preacher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 5.

Children , Affliction , Time , Housing

“The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education had issued instructions in 1989 that ‘Muslim rule should never attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud

Education

“"I knew that before you were born." Let him who would instruct a wiser man consider this as said to himself.”

Phaedrus book Fables

Book V, fable 9, line 4.
Fables

“Painting in the chamber of a Prince who was indisposed, the Physician said, that he hoped bymeans of his Highness, to obtain also the favor of a picture by Salvator. The Prince made he request, and Salvator readily consented. The Physician then desired the Painter not to egin his picture till he had given him the idea, nd the design. Salvator made no reply; ut when the Physician called for pen and ink o write his prescription, he desired him to stop ill he should tell him what to write. The Docor, not comprehending his meaning, said * Signor Salvator, this is a business which conerns me, not you." "I would have you to know Mr. Doctor" replied Salvator, " that I can more easily instruct you in the cure of your tickt than you can me in the art I profess, being a much better Painter than you are a Physician.'*”

Peter Beckford (1643–1710) Governor of Jamaica

Hope , Art , Idea , Business

“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

“Having been informed of events by Vice-Chancellor von Papen, President Hindenburg summoned General Goering, in his capacity of Chief of Police, and myself to Neudeck. Our instructions are to consult with you on the measures to be taken to ensure internal peace. If a complete relaxation of tension does not immediately take place (and to this end we must avoid any ministerial crisis), martial law will be proclaimed.”

Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946) German field marshal

Quoted in "Hitler and I" - Page 186 - by Otto Strasser, Gwenda David, Eric Mosbacher - Germany - 1940

Peace , Law

“I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and child, to answer the question in their own heart, what kind of a being God is?... Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen him, heard him, or communed with him?... God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 6:303-04 (7 April 1844)
1840s, King Follett discourse (1844)

God , Secret , World , Communication

“You will always find some Eskimos ready to instruct the Congolese on how to cope with heat waves.”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec book Unkempt Thoughts

p, 125
Unkempt Thoughts (1957)

“By these criteria let Alexander also be judged! For from his words, from his deeds, and from the instruction' which he imparted, it will be seen that he was indeed a philosopher.”

Plutarch book Moralia

On the Fortune Of Alexander, I, 4, 328B Loeb, F.C. Babbitt
Moralia, Others

“The only privilege a student had that was worth his claiming, was that of talking to the professor, and the professor was bound to encourage it. His only difficulty on that side was to get them to talk at all. He had to devise schemes to find what they were thinking about, and induce them to risk criticism from their fellows. Any large body of students stifles the student. No man can instruct more than half-a-dozen students at once. The whole problem of education is one of its cost in money.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Money , Education , Problem , Thinking

“There is one quality I find in all the artists I admire most – men like Masaccio, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cézanne. I mean a disturbing element, a distortion, giving evidence of a struggle of some sort... Great Art is not Perfect. Here the disturbing element comes in. It is instructive to know that Rembrandt copied Mantegna, whose art is the extreme opposite of his own. Why did he do so? Because he was conscious that his own art lacked the classical element. He was aware of the opposite, and that makes him greater.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote in 'Conversations with Henri Moore', J.P. Hodin, in 'The Observer', 24 Nov. 1958
1955 - 1970

Men , Art , Perfection

“Perhaps the most prominent single element in modern scientific management is the task idea. The work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least one day in advance, and each man receives in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the task which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work. And the work planned in advance in this way constitutes a task which is to be solved, as explained above, not by the workman alone, but in almost all cases by the joint effort of the workman and the management. This task specifies not only what is to be done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Principles of Scientific Management, 1911, p. 39.

Way , Idea , Effort , Time

“Let Divines, and Philosophers, Statesmen and Patriots unite their endeavours to renovate the Age, by impressing the Minds of Men with the importance of educating their little boys, and girls — of inculcating in the Minds of youth the fear, and Love of the Deity, and universal Phylanthropy; and in subordination to these great principles, the Love of their Country — of instructing them in the Art of self government, without which they never can act a wise part in the Government of Societys great, or small — in short of leading them in the Study, and Practice of the exalted Virtues of the Christian system.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Letter to John Adams (4 October 1790) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/4sdms10.txt

Love , Men , Youth , Age

“Go, then, young men, where glory waits you. The field is the world. Go where the abjects wander, and gather them into the fold of the sanctuary. Go to the lazarettos where the moral lepers herd, and tell them of the healing balm. Go to the haunts of crime, and float a gospel message upon the feculent air. Go wherever there are ignorant to be instructed, timid to be cheered, and helpless to be succored, and stricken to be blessed, and erring to be reclaimed. Go wherever faith can see, or hope can breathe, or love can work, or courage can venture. Go and win the spurs of your spiritual knighthood there.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 131.

Love , Men , World , Faith

“Clearly, one can obfuscate one's ideas with a compiler language but it's harder. To some extent one is talking about what one wants rather than how one wants to do it. The trouble with machine code, of course, is that when you look at a random section of machine code you don't know what properties of the instructions the programmer really wanted to exploit.”

Fernando J. Corbató (1926–2019) American computer scientist

"PL/I as a Tool for System Programming" http://web.archive.org/web/20080206153039/http://home.nycap.rr.com/pflass/PLI/plisprg.html, Datamation, 15 (5), 6 May 1969, pp. 68–76

Idea

“Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written "Alice in Wonderland" than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica.”

Stephen Leacock book Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Preface
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)

Way , Reading , Personality

“Unfortunately, several decades of Keynesian instruction on the virtues of budget deficits have left the public and our political leaders confused about the costs of running persistent deficits. […] Keynes has been that influential defunct scribbler for the past generation. But who would ever have thought that the politician hearing Keynes's voice in the air might be Ronald Reagan”

Martin Feldstein (1939–2019) American economist

"Counterrevolution in Progress", Challenge (1988).

Past

“Mr. Tsuburaya was a gentleman. He was very charismatic. Mr. Tsuburaya would never express his anger at me or the other monster actors. However, he would express his anger at the members of his staff. Mr. Tsuburaya often pretended to be asleep when he in fact was just thinking about his work. Once he had decided what he wanted to do, he would pretend to wake up. He then would begin giving instructions to the members of his staff. There were two things Mr. Tsuburaya hated. One was snakes and the other was bloodshed. I remember that someone once asked Mr. Tsuburaya why he never showed bloodshed in the monster films on which he worked. Mr. Tsuburaya replied that he never showed it because he knew that children went to see the movies. One day, a Toho employee suggested that the studio produce a film about a giant snake. Mr. Tsuburaya didn't like the idea, so the movie was never made. Mr. Tsuburaya would try to inspire the people with whom he worked. His inspiration helped me keep playing giant monsters for eighteen years.”

Haruo Nakajima (1929–2017) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Haruo Nakajima Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/nakajima.htm, Kaiju Conversations (March 1995)

Hate , Children , People , Idea

“We often hear that mothers do the caring; fathers just do the playing. This is a false dichotomy -- even a dangerous one -- because fathers’ particular style of play involves both a conscious focus on teaching and, as the research is now showing, is instructive to children even when it is not consciously designed to be so.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 57.

Children , Falseness

“In addition to the poll-tax and public degradation in dress and demeanour imposed on them, the non-Muslims were subjected to various hopes and fears. Rewards in the form of money and public employment were offered to apostates from Hinduism. The leaders of Hindu religion and society were systematically repressed, to deprive the sect of spiritual instruction, and their religious gatherings and processions were forbidden in order to prevent the growth of solidity and a sense of communal strength among them. No new temple was allowed to be built nor any old one to be repaired, so that the total disappearance of all places of Hindu worship was to be merely a question of time. But even this delay, this slow operation of Time, was intolerable to many of the more fiery spirits of Islam, who tried to hasten the abolition of ‘infidelity’ by anticipating the destructive hand of Time and forcibly pulling down temples.”

Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958) Indian historian

Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, Volume III, Calcutta, 1928, pp. 164-67. Quoted in S.R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) ISBN 9788185990583

Money , Fear , Religion , Hope

“But there is an even more potent cause for the near total erasure of such material from our public discourse and our instruction. And that is the form of “secularism” which we have practised these forty-five years: a “secularism” in which double-standards have been the norm, one in which everything that may remove the dross by which our national identity has been covered has become anathema.”

Arun Shourie book Missionaries in India

Missionaries in India

“With my new instructions I returned to Berlin. The very day after my arrival I was visited by General of the Army Eisenhower with his numerous retinue, amongst whom was General Spaatz, Chief of the US Strategic Air Command. We received General Eisenhower at the Headquarters of the front in Wedenschlosse. Present at the meeting was A. Ya. Vyshinsky. We greeted each other like soldiers, and, I may say, in a friendly way. Taking both my hands in his, Eisenhower looked me over for a long time, then said, "So that's what you're like."”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

p. 659

Way , Time

“The religious instruction I received of the Lutheran pastor Bode, preparatory to my confirmation, produced no effect upon my mind in favour of the truth of our divine religion, having studied all the works written against it with so much energy. I often insinuated to pastor Bode my doubts on religious matters, but either he did not or would not understand me; I was wavering between deism and atheism, so much so, that had it not been for the love towards my revered father, and the persuasions of Ferry, I should have avoided being present at the imposing and sacred ceremony of confirmation, which produced such an effect upon my young mind, that I prayed sincerely to God to give me faith, and had I not continued to read with Ferry and one Belzing so many blasphemous works, I should have returned to my former religious principles much sooner, as I did at a later period of my life.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Love , Life , God , Truth

“Vyasa is depicted as the spiritual preceptor of five Brahmins who learned from him the Vedas and the MBh, and whom he instructed in religion. He also gave spiritual counsel to members of the Bharat family, both Pandavas and Kauravas, exercising control over their lives. That he was their spiritual preceptor as well as their concerned elder is particularly evident in the case of Pandavas, in whose lives the major events were supervised by Vyasa.”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

In p. 50.
Sources, Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr̥ṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata

Family , Religion , Exercises , Learning

“From any vocabulary of ideas we can build other ideas by formal combinations of signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas.”

Ian Hacking (1936) Canadian philosopher

Source: The Emergence Of Probability, 1975, Chapter 15, Inductive Logic, p. 139.

Idea

“The relationship between governments and the press has always been recognized as a matter of large importance. Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. Whereever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press. It has always been realized, sometimes instinctively, oftentimes expressly, that truth and freedom are inseparable. An absolutism could never rest upon anything save a perverted and distorted view of human relationships and upon false standards set up and maintained by force. It has always found it necessary to attempt to dominate the entire field of education and instruction. It has thrived on ignorance. While it has sought to train the minds of a few, it has been largely with the purpose of attempting to give them a superior facility for misleading the many. Men have been educated under absolutism, not that they might bear witness to the truth, but that they might be the more ingenious advocates and defenders of false standards and hollow pretenses. This has always been the method of privilege, the method of class and caste, the method of master and slave.”

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

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

Men , Truth , Education , Way

“I purpose now, while the impression is more pure and clear within me, to mark down the main things I can recollect of my father. To myself, if I live to after-years, it may be instructive and interesting, as the past grows ever holier the farther we leave it. My mind is calm enough to do it deliberately, and to do it truly. The thought of that pale earnest face which even now lies stiffened into death in that bed at Scotsbrig, with the Infinite all of worlds looking down on it, will certainly impel me. It is good to know how a true spirit will vindicate itself with truth and freedom through what obstructions soever; how the acorn cast carelessly into the wilder-ness will make room for itself and grow to be an oak. This is one of the cases belonging to that class, "the lives of remarkable men," in which it has been said, "paper and ink should least of all be spared." I call a man remarkable who becomes a true workman in this vineyard of the Highest. Be his work that of palace-building and kingdom-founding, or only of delving and ditching, to me it is no matter, or next to none. All human work is transitory, small in itself, contemptible. Only the worker thereof, and the spirit that dwelt in him, is significant. I proceed without order, or almost any forethought, anxious only to save what I have left and mark it as it lies in me.”

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

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Death , Men , Truth , World

“Little by little his conversation, always instructive and animated, gave a special direction to my tastes, which would have led me by preference towards letters. I resolved to complete my scientific studies and followed the courses in advanced mathematics given by M. [Jean Guillaume] Gamier. It was at the same time agreed by us that, in order to relieve him in his work, I should give some of the other courses with which he was charged. I thus found myself his pupil and his colleague.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

"Notice sur J.G. Garnier," Annuaire de l'acad. roy. de Brux. (1841) Vol. vii pp. 200-201 as quoted in Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician by Frank Hamilton Hankins

Mathematics , Study , Time , Animals

“Nothing is of greater importance than the right early instruction of youth.”

Peter Stuyvesant (1612–1672) Dutch politician

History of the State of New York By John Romeyn Brodhead, pg 508 : 1660 on the education of Youth.

Youth

“When students' language, culture and experience are ignored or excluded in classroom interactions, students are immediately starting from a disadvantage. Everything they have learned about life and the world up to this point is being dismissed as irrelevant to school learning; there are few points of connection to curriculum materials or instruction and so students are expected to learn in an experiential vacuum. Students' silence and nonparticipation under these conditions have frequently been interpreted as lack of academic ability or effort, and teachers’ interactions with students have reflected a pattern of low expectations which become self-fulfilling.”

Jim Cummins (professor) (1949) professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society (1996), pp. 2-3

Life , World , School , Effort

“The war with the Soviet Union began in June 1941, I think. And I believe it was two months later, or maybe three, that Heydrich sent for me. I reported. He said to me: "The Führer has ordered physical extermination." These were his words. And as though wanting to test their effect on me, he made a long pause, which was not at all his way. I can still remember that. In the first moment, I didn't grasp the implications, because he chose his words so carefully. But then I understood. I didn't say anything, what could I say? Because I'd never thought of a … of such a thing, of that sort of violent solution. … Anyway, Heydrich said: "Go and see Globocnik, the Führer has already given him instructions. Take a look and see how he's getting on with his program. I believe he's using Russian anti-tank trenches for exterminating the Jews." As ordered, I went to Lublin, located the headquarters of SS and Police Commander Globocnik, and reported to the Gruppenführer. I told him Heydrich had sent me, because the Führer had ordered the physical extermination of the Jews. … Globocnik sent for a certain Sturmbannführer Höfle, who must have been a member of his staff. We went from Lublin to, I don't remember what the place was called, I get them mixed up, I couldn't say if it was Treblinka or some other place. There were patches of woods, sort of, and the road passed through — a Polish highway. On the right side of the road there was an ordinary house, that's where the men who worked there lived. A captain of the Ordnungspolizei welcomed us. A few workmen were still there. The captain, which surprised me, had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, somehow he seemed to have joined in the work. They were building little wooden shacks, two, maybe three of them; they looked like two- or three-room cottages. Höfle told the police captain to explain the installation to me. And then he started in. He had a, well, let's say, a vulgar, uncultivated voice. Maybe he drank. He spoke some dialect from the southwestern corner of Germany, and he told me how he had made everything airtight. It seems they were going to hook up a Russian submarine engine and pipe the exhaust into the houses and the Jews inside would be poisoned.
I was horrified. My nerves aren't strong enough … I can't listen to such things… such things, without their affecting me. Even today, if I see someone with a deep cut, I have to look away. I could never have been a doctor. I still remember how I visualized the scene and began to tremble, as if I'd been through something, some terrible experience. The kind of thing that happens sometimes and afterwards you start to shake. Then I went to Berlin and reported to the head of the Security Police.”

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

Source: Eichmann Interrogated (1983), p. 75 - 76.

Men , War , Way , Thinking

“What was the origin of our slave population? The evil commenced when we were in our Colonial state, but acts were passed by our Colonial Legislature, prohibiting the importation, of more slaves, into the Colony. These were rejected by the Crown. We declared our independence, and the prohibition of a further importation was among the first acts of state sovereignty. Virginia was the first state which instructed her delegates to declare the colonies independent. She braved all dangers. From Quebec to Boston, and from Boston to Savannah, Virginia shed the blood of her sons. No imputation then can be cast upon her in this matter. She did all that was in her power to do, to prevent the extension of slavery, and to mitigate its evils.”

James Monroe (1758–1831) American politician, 5th President of the United States (in office from 1817 to 1825)

Speech in the Virginia State Convention for altering the Constitution https://books.google.com/books?id=R9ctAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA78&dq=%22The+evil+commenced+when+we+were+in+our+Colonial+state%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBmoVChMIwM7FxfHTxwIViPM-Ch3fiQrs#v=onepage&q=%22The%20evil%20commenced%20when%20we%20were%20in%20our%20Colonial%20state%22&f=false (2 November 1829)

Evil

“Men meet together for many reasons in the course of business. They need to instruct or persuade each other. They must agree on a course of action. They find thinking in public more productive or less painful than thinking in private. But there are at least as many reasons for meetings to transact no business. Meetings are held because men seek companionship or, at a minimum, wish to escape the tedium of solitary duties. They yearn for the prestige which accrues to the man who presides over meetings, and this leads them to convoke assemblages over which they can preside. Finally, there is the meeting which is called not because there is business to be done, but because it is necessary to create the impression that business is being done. Such meetings are more than a substitute for action. They are widely regarded as action.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VII https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Aftermath I, Section IV, p 139
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Men , Pain , Business , Thinking

“The idea that a pupil is a passive recipient, a container waiting to be filled by the teacher's knowledge and instruction - all this is nonsense. Teaching is a living relationship, of give and take, of mutual learning.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Violinist Yehudi Menuhin

Idea , Knowledge , Learning , Teachers

“The higher dimension of religion has also always been practiced by a relatively few uncommon individuals. Indeed, it was largely the response to the more conventional or superficial aspects of such extraordinary personalities that produced the great cultic movements of exoteric religion among the masses. But such cultic movements are created by and designed for the instruction and social improvement of ordinary people, not men and women of the more highly evolved or awakened type. Therefore, alongside the development of exoteric religions there have always been secret societies and esoteric groups founded on practice of higher personal, moral, and biologically evolutionary disciplines.”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

http://www.aboutadidam.org/relationship/secret.html

Women , People , Religion , Personality

“While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch-Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his "best ideas of democracy" had been secured at church meetings.”

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

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

People , Democracy , Idea

“In 1936 the notion of a computable function was clarified by Turing, and he showed the existence of universal computers that, with an appropriate program, could compute anything computed by any other computer. […] In some subconscious sense even the sales departments of computer manufacturers are aware of this, and they do not advertise magic instructions that cannot be simulated on competitors machines, but only that their machines are faster, cheaper, have more memory, or are easier to program.”

John McCarthy (1927–2011) American computer scientist and cognitive scientist

" Towards a Mathematical Science of Computation http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/towards.html", Information Processing 1962: Proceedings of IFIP Congress 62, ed. Cicely M. Popplewell (Amsterdam, 1963), pp. 21–28
1960s

Sense , Universe , Memory

“History is littered with examples of normal people being persuaded to act in deviant, criminal or irrational ways. How do you persuade someone to do something they would not normally be prepared to do? Some people might think of hypnosis. However, hypnosis isn’t really what it appears to be. It’s only a kind of play acting and no one would carry out an instruction to really commit a robbery any more than they’d murder someone if they were told to.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Derren Brown: The Heist (2006)

People , Way , History , Thinking

“An unbiased reader, on opening one of their [Fichte’s, Schelling’s or Hegel’s] books and then asking himself whether this is the tone of a thinker wanting to instruct or that of a charlatan wanting to impress, cannot be five minutes in any doubt. … The tone of calm investigation, which had characterized all previous philosophy, is exchanged for that of unshakeable certainty, such as is peculiar to charlatanry of every kind and at all times. … From every page and every line, there speaks an endeavor to beguile and deceive the reader, first by producing an effect to dumbfound him, then by incomprehensible phrases and even sheer nonsense to stun and stupefy him, and again by audacity of assertion to puzzle him, in short, to throw dust in his eyes and mystify him as much as possible.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 23
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real

Books , Time

“Teachers of every kind are to be sternly ordered not to thrust precious stones down the throats of dogs… that is, to the mean, the ignoble, the worthless. To shopkeepers and the low born they are to teach nothing more than the rules about prayer, fasting, religious charity and the Hajj pilgrimage along with some chapters of the Quran and some doctrines of the faith without which their religion cannot be correct and valid prayers are not possible. They are to be instructed in nothing more. They are not to be taught reading and writing for plenty of disorders arise owing to the skill of the low-born in knowledge…”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they. Chapter 2.
Fatawa-i-Jahandari

Faith , Religion , Dogs , Knowledge

“It is very possible for a teacher to be fluent in speech, earnest in manner, happy in his choice of illustration, and to be a very inefficient teacher, nevertheless. We are often apt to think it enough if we deliver a good lesson, and to forget that, after all, its value depends upon the degree in which it is really received and appropriated by the children. Now, in order to secure that what we teach shall really enter their minds, and be duly fixed and comprehended there, it is above all things necessary that we should be able to use effectively the important instrument of instruction to which our attention is now to be drawn.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Joshua G. Fitch. The art of questioning https://archive.org/stream/artofquestioning00fitcrich#page/n7/mode/2up. 9th edition. Published 1879. pp. 78-79

Children , Thinking , Teachers , Dependency

Quotes about instruction page 4

Quotes about instruction
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