Quotes about issue
page 13

David Rockefeller photo
Hans Reichenbach photo

“Whereas the conception of space and time as a four-dimensional manifold has been very fruitful for mathematical physicists, its effect in the field of epistemology has been only to confuse the issue. Calling time the fourth dimension gives it an air of mystery. One might think that time can now be conceived as a kind of space and try in vain to add visually a fourth dimension to the three dimensions of space. It is essential to guard against such a misunderstanding of mathematical concepts. If we add time to space as a fourth dimension it does not lose any of its peculiar character as time. …Musical tones can be ordered according to volume and pitch and are thus brought into a two dimensional manifold. Similarly colors can be determined by the three basic colors red, green and blue… Such an ordering does not change either tones or colors; it is merely a mathematical expression of something that we have known and visualized for a long time. Our schematization of time as a fourth dimension therefore does not imply any changes in the conception of time. …the space of visualization is only one of many possible forms that add content to the conceptual frame. We would therefore not call the representation of the tone manifold by a plane the visual representation of the two dimensional tone manifold.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Alan Rusbridger photo

“[There is a] widespread feeling that newspapers are failing in their duty of truly representing the complexity of some of the most important issues in society.”

Alan Rusbridger (1953) British newspaper editor

Alan Rusbridger (2005) in: " Press needs greater scrutiny, says Guardian editor http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/mar/10/theguardian.pressandpublishing1" on guardian.co.uk, March 10, 2005: cited in: Tony Harcup (2007) The Ethical Journalist. p. 14.
2000s

Gulzarilal Nanda photo
Elia M. Ramollah photo

“Try to solve the issues from their root. Leaves and branches are not as necessary and important.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

The Great Master of Thought (Amen- Vol.3), Observing management

Bernie Sanders photo
Chris Adler photo
Roger Ebert photo

“The director, whose name is Pitof, was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/catwoman-2004 of Catwoman (23 July 2004)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Ray Comfort photo
Herman Cain photo

“In these days he promoted a bramin, by name Seeva Dew Bhut, to the office of prime minister, who embracing the Mahomedan faith, became such a persecutor of Hindoos that he induced Sikundur to issue orders proscribing the residence of any other than Mahomedans in Kashmeer; and he required that no man should wear the mark on his forehead, or any woman be permitted to burn with her husband’s corpse. Lastly, he insisted on all golden and silver images being broken and melted down, and the metal coined into money. Many of the bramins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mahomedans. After the emigration of the bramins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down; among which was one dedicated to Maha Dew, in the district of Punjhuzara, which they were unable to destroy, in consequence of its foundation being below the surface of the neighbouring water. But the temple dedicated to Jug Dew was levelled with the ground; and on digging into its foundation the earth emitted volumes of fire and smoke which the infidels declared to be the emblem of the wrath of the Deity; but Sikundur, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not desist till the building was entirely razed to the ground, and its foundations dug up….. “In another place in Kashmeer was a temple built by Raja Bulnat, the destruction of which was attended with a remarkable incident. After it had been levelled, and the people were employed in digging the foundation, a copper-plate was discovered, on which was the following inscription:- ‘Raja Bulnat, having built this temple, was desirous of ascertaining from his astrologers how long it would last, and was informed by them, that after eleven hundred years, a king named Sikundur would destroy it, as well as the other temples in Kashmeer’…Having broken all the images in Kashmeer, he acquired the title of the Iconoclast, ‘Destroyer of Idols’…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413)Kashmir
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Prakash Javadekar photo

“We have to reduce our carbon emissions. But I have not created the carbon emission problems, which have been done by others. But I am not into any blame game. The issue is that I have a right to grow. India and developing countries have the right to grow. These are the emerging economies. To that end, we need to grow. Our net emission may increase.”

Prakash Javadekar (1951) Indian politician

On India's carbon emissions, as quoted in " India's Carbon Emission may Increase as it Grows: Javadekar http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/Indias-Carbon-Emission-may-Increase-as-it-Grows-Javadekar/2014/06/18/article2286148.ece, The New Indian Express (18 June 2014)

Paul Manafort photo
T. E. Lawrence photo
Bryant Gumbel photo
Yousef Saanei photo

“There is complete consensus on this issue. It is self-evident in Islam that it is prohibited to have nuclear bombs. It is eternal law, because the basic function of these weapons is to kill innocent people. This cannot be reversed … You cannot deliberately kill innocent people.”

Yousef Saanei (1937) Iranian grand ayatollah

As quoted in "Nuclear weapons unholy, Iran says" in SFGate (31 October 2003) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/31/MNGHJ2NFRE1.DTL.
2003

Ron Klain photo

“We’ve got to find a way to make the world work for everyone. Climate change is an issue that impacts [sic] that greatly by making it harder for people to live where they live, by causing disruptions, and lack of resources.”

Ron Klain (1961) American lawyer

Interviewed, together with his wife, at Georgetown University gotnews http://gotnews.com/ebola-czar-called-overpopulation-top-leadership-issue/ (2008)

George Carlin photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Bill Nye photo

“There are major issues that people - as taxpayers and voters - will have to make informed decisions on in the near future. They will need to understand the science and the ethical considerations to form their opinions. Some of these are issues that will affect humanity for decades to come.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, 'The Science Guy' returns to tackle issues for older audience, Journal Gazette, Mattoon, Illinois, June 8, 2005, Associated Press]

Tom Stoppard photo
Gore Vidal photo

“Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Gods and Greens" (1989)
1990s, A View from the Diner's Club (1991)

Alexander Marlow photo

“At our website, Breitbart News, we have about 20 million readers most of them are grassroots conservative voters, and some of them are very loyal, and their number one issue has consistently been since last year, immigration. And they’re looking for someone who’s going to seal the border, and prioritize border security as number one, unlike the people who are outside”

Alexander Marlow (1986) american journalist

Breitbart’s Marlow: Immigration Is ‘Number One’ With Grassroots, Trump ‘Growing Big Tent’ http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/09/14/breitbarts-marlow-immigration-is-number-one-with-grassroots-trump-growing-big-tent/ (September 14, 2015)

Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Todd Snider photo

“It's an issue for me
I went to see this therapist
She said just do the best you can do
Do the best you can do
I was hoping for something more specific”

Todd Snider (1966) American singer

Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number 10).
The Excitement Plan (2009)

Enoch Powell photo

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.

The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race'. The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...

In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.

We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.

Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.

Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 36-37.
1970s

S. Nambi Narayanan photo
Camille Paglia photo
Charlie Beck photo

“This is a national issue, one that is important when we talk about police legitimacy. This is an important national conversation we need to have. When something happens in Missouri or the streets of New York City, it has an impact here. We are all tied together.”

Charlie Beck (1953) Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

On controversial cases of police killing unarmed civilians — quoted in: [December 5, 2014, http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/government-and-politics/20141204/lapd-police-chief-charlie-beck-on-police-killings-this-is-an-important-national-conversation-we-need-to-have, LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck on police killings: ‘This is an important national conversation we need to have’, The Pasadena Star-News, December 4, 2014, Lauren Gold]

Charles T. Canady photo
John McCain photo

“I have not been keeping up with it as much as I should have maybe, because it’s certainly—This and Paris Hilton are the kind of issues that seem to get a lot more attention than maybe some of us think they deserve.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

On being asked whether O. J. Simpson could get a fair trial in the robbery case, in a televised interview http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20838374/ on Hardball with Chris Matthews, 17 September 2007
2000s, 2007

Robin Lane Fox photo
Joss Whedon photo

“My visions of the future are always pretty much standard issue. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer… and there are flying cars.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

TV Guide (27 December – 2 January 2004), and Foreword to Fray

Clarence Thomas photo
Daniel Dennett photo

“[I]f you want to reason about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason-responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of special consideration, I'm eager to [participate]. I certainly grant the existence of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for taking faith as a way of getting to the truth, and not, say, just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function that I do take seriously). But you must not expect me to go along with your defense of faith as a path to truth if at any point you appeal to the very dispensation you are supposedly trying to justify. Before you appeal to faith when reason has you backed into a corner, think about whether you really want to abandon reason when reason is on your side. You are sightseeing with a loved one in a foreign land, and your loved one is brutally murdered in front of your eyes. At the trial it turns out that in this land friends of the accused may be called as witnesses for the defense, testifying about their faith in his innocence. You watch the parade of his moist-eyed friends, obviously sincere, proudly proclaiming their undying faith in the innocence of the man you saw commit the terrible deed. The judge listens intently and respectfully, obviously more moved by this outpouring than by all the evidence presented by the prosecution. Is this not a nightmare? Would you be willing to live in such a land? Or would you be willing to be operated on by a surgeon you tells you that whenever a little voice in him tells him to disregard his medical training, he listens to the little voice? I know it passes in polite company to let people have it both ways, and under most circumstances I wholeheartedly cooperate with this benign agreement. But we're seriously trying to get at the truth here, and if you think that this common but unspoken understanding about faith is anything better than socially useful obfuscation to avoid mutual embarrassment and loss of face, you have either seen much more deeply into the issue that any philosopher ever has (for none has ever come up with a good defense of this) or you are kidding yourself.”

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

David Brin photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Rick Santorum photo

“At a time when, over and over again, we were told, "Forget it, you can't win", we were winning. We were winning in a very different way, because we were touching hearts. We were raising issues that, well, frankly, a lot of people didn't want to have raised.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

2012-04-10
Santorum in His Own Words
Washington Wire
Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/04/10/santorum-in-his-own-words/
2012-04-13

Alain de Botton photo
David Cameron photo

“Britain is a special country. We have so many great advantages: a Parliamentary democracy where we resolve great issues about our future through peaceful debate; a great trading nation, with our science and arts, our engineering and our creativity, respected the world over. And while we are not perfect, I do believe we can be a model for the multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, where people can come and make a contribution and rise to the very highest that their talent allows.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech delivered outside outside 10 Downing Street, announcing that he would resign as prime minister after British voters chose to leave the European Union in a referendum (June 24, 2016), see David Cameron's resignation speech in full http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/24/europe/david-cameron-full-resignation-speech/ (published by CNN)
2010s, 2016

Jack McDevitt photo
Saul D. Alinsky photo

“No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. xxiv

George Soros photo
Philip Schaff photo
Stephen Leacock photo
Rupert Boneham photo
Jennifer Beals photo
Kid Cudi photo

“I've got some issues that nobody can see and all of these emotions are pouring out of me I bring them to the light for you it's only right”

Kid Cudi (1984) American rapper, singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor from Ohio

- Soundtrack 2 My Life
Music

Alan Greenspan photo

“Without calling the overall national issue a bubble, it's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

May 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/21/business/21fed.html?_r=1&oref=slogin, Greenspan said in a speech that he did not believe there was a national housing bubble similar to the bubble in the stock market. But he said there was "froth" in housing and he called the pace of housing price increases unsustainable.
2000s

M.I.A. photo
River Phoenix photo
François Hollande photo

“The British have been particularly shy about the issues of financial regulation, and attentive only to the interests of the City – hence their reluctance to see the introduction of a tax on financial transactions and tax harmonisation in Europe.”

François Hollande (1954) 24th President of the French Republic

As quoted in "New French leader fires a broadside at Britain: You only care about the City of London, says President Hollande" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2141040/Francois-Hollande-French-president-says-Britain-cares-City.html (8 May 2012), Daily Mail.

William H. Pryor Jr. photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

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

Respectfully Quoted says this is "obviously spurious", noting that the OED's earliest citation for the word "deflation" is from 1920. The earliest known appearance of this quote is from 1935 (Testimony of Charles C. Mayer, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, Seventy-fourth Congress, First Session, on H.R. 5357, p. 799)
Misattributed

Jerry Siegel photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Linus Torvalds photo

“The fact is, there aren't just two sides to any issue, there's almost always a range of responses, and "it depends" is almost always the right answer in any big question.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Linus' blog: Black and white, 2008-11-02, Torvalds, Linus, 2008-11-02 http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/11/black-and-white.html,
2000s, 2008

Robert Frost photo
Atal Bihari Vajpayee photo
Angela Merkel photo
Nicolas Bratza photo
Yeh Jiunn-rong photo
Tommy Franks photo
Eric Holder photo
Clarence Thomas photo
Raymond Kethledge photo
James Anthony Froude photo

“The Providence that watches over the affairs of men works out of their mistakes, at times, a healthier issue than could have been accomplished by their wisest forethought.”

James Anthony Froude (1818–1894) English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 278.

Edward Said photo
Bill O'Neill photo
Alauddin Khalji photo
Leo Igwe photo
Ron Paul 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

Erving Goffman photo
Julia Stiles photo
Andrew S. Tanenbaum photo

“While most people can talk rationally about kernel design and portability, the issue of free-ness is 100% emotional.”

Andrew S. Tanenbaum (1944) Dutch computer scientist

In a Usenet message, 3 Feb 1992.
The "Linux is Obsolete" Debate

Louise Bours photo
Richard Sherman (American football) photo

“I also think that there's a way to go about things, and there's a way to do things. And I think the issue at hand needs to be addressed internally, and before we move on, because from personal experience, you know, you are living in the hood, living in the inner city, you deal with things, you deal with people dying.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Press conference (16 September 2015), as quoted in "Video: Richard Sherman speaks passionately on Black Lives Matter" https://web.archive.org/web/20150917000340/http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/video-richard-sherman-speaks-passionately-on-black-lives-matter/ (16 September 2015), by Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times, Seattle, Washington
Press conference (16 September 2015)

Bill Bryson photo

“I knew more things in the first ten years of my life than I believe I have known at any time since. I knew everything there was to know about our house for a start. I knew what was written on the undersides of tables and what the view was like from the tops of bookcases and wardrobes. I knew what was to be found at the back of every closet, which beds had the most dust balls beneath them, which ceilings the most interesting stains, where exactly the patterns in wallpaper repeated. I knew how to cross every room in the house without touching the floor, where my father kept his spare change and how much you could safely take without his noticing (one-seventh of the quarters, one-fifth of the nickels and dimes, as many of the pennies as you could carry). I knew how to relax in an armchair in more than one hundred positions and on the floor in approximately seventy- five more. I knew what the world looked like when viewed through a Jell-O lens. I knew how things tasted—damp washcloths, pencil ferrules, coins and buttons, almost anything made of plastic that was smaller than, say, a clock radio, mucus of every variety of course—in a way that I have more or less forgotten now. I knew and could take you at once to any illustration of naked women anywhere in our house, from a Rubens painting of fleshy chubbos in Masterpieces of World Painting to a cartoon by Peter Arno in the latest issue of The New Yorker to my father’s small private library of girlie magazines in a secret place known only to him, me, and 111 of my closest friends in his bedroom.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 36

Carrie Ann Inaba photo

“When I was growing up there were few Asians on TV and now I'm one of many and that makes me happy. I see how far we've come, which is amazing. But diversity is still an issue and we have to continue to grow the message.”

Carrie Ann Inaba (1968) American entertainer

"Carrie Ann Inaba goes vegetarian, George Takei shops for a hybrid", in MNN.com (16 November 2011) http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/carrie-ann-inaba-goes-vegetarian-george-takei-shops-for-a-hybrid

“Atheist is really ʺa thoroughly honest, unambiguous term,ʺ it admits of no paltering and of no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is for clear‐cut issues and unambiguous speech.”

Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer

Theism Or Atheism: The Great Alternative (1921), Chapter XIII: Agnosticism.

Aron Ra photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo
Charles Krauthammer photo