Quotes about lack
page 14

Roger Ebert photo
Éric Pichet photo
John Gray photo

“Hobbes’s understanding of the dangers of anarchy resonates powerfully today. Liberal thinkers still see the unchecked power of the state as the chief danger to human freedom. Hobbes knew better: freedom’s worst enemy is anarchy, which is at its most destructive when it is a battleground of rival faiths. The sectarian death squads roaming Baghdad show that fundamentalism is itself a type of anarchy in which each prophet claims divine authority to rule. In well-governed societies, the power of faith is curbed. The state and the churches temper the claims of revelation and enforce peace. Where this kind is impossible, tyranny is better than being ruled by warring prophets. Hobbes is a more reliable guide to the present than the liberal thinkers who followed. Yet his view of human beings was too simple, and overly rationalistic. Assuming that humans dread violent death more than anything, he left out the most intractable sources of conflict. It is not always because human beings act irrationally that they fail to achieve peace. Sometimes it is because they do not want peace. They may want the victory of the One True Faith – whether a traditional religion or a secular successor such as communism, democracy or universal human rights. Or – like the young people who joined far-Left terrorist groups in the 1970s, another generation of which is now joining Islamist networks – they may find in war a purpose that is lacking in peace. Nothing is more human than the readiness to kill and die in order to secure a meaning in life.”

Post-Apocalypse: After Secularism (pp. 262-3)
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam photo
Harry Reid photo

“I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up.”

Harry Reid (1939) American politician

Source: threatening to obstruct the Senate if the Republicans used the nuclear option. Quoted in The Washington Post, December 13, 2004, GOP May Target Use of Filibuster http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59877-2004Dec12.html

Chen Shui-bian photo

“All the problems in Taiwan are caused by a lack of adequate and new constitution of Taiwan.”

Chen Shui-bian (1950) Taiwanese politician

Pet Phrases, Regarding to setting up the new constitution and independence of Taiwan

Gordon R. Dickson photo

“Radical hope anticipates a good for which those who have the hope as yet lack the appropriate concepts with which to understand it.”

Jonathan Lear (1948) American philosopher

Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Harvard University Press: 2008), p. 103

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

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

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

Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo

“.. there is no longer any beauty except the struggle. Any work of art that lacks a sense of aggression can never be a masterpiece.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

In the 'First Futurist Manifesto,' Filippo Marinetti, 1909; as quoted in Critical Writings: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, New Edition, quoted in the text on the Back Cover, Macmillan, 7 Apr 2007
1900's

Manuel Castells photo

“The fundamental digital divide is no measured by the number of connections to the Internet, but by the consequences of both connection and lack of connection.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: The Internet Galaxy - Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (2001), Chapter 9, The Digital Divide in a Global Perspective, p. 269

William Wordsworth photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Wesley Clair Mitchell photo

“In physical science and in industrial technique… we have emancipated ourselves… from the savage dependence upon catastrophes for progress… In science and in industry we are radicals—radicals relying on a tested method. But in matters of social organization we retain a large part of the conservatism characteristic of the savage mind…
The 'social reformer' we have always with us, it is true. Or rather most of us are 'social reformers' of some kind… Yet the story of the past in matters of social organization is not a story that we should like to have continued for a thousand and one years. Reform by agitation or class struggle is a jerky way of moving forward, uncomfortable and wasteful of energy. Are we not intelligent enough to devise a steadier and a more certain method of progress? Most certainly, we could not keep social organization what it is even if we wanted to. We are not emerging from the hazards of war into a safe world. On the contrary, the world is a very dangerous place for a society framed as ours is, and I for one am glad of it.
Taking us all together as one people in a group of mighty peoples, our first and foremost concern is to develop some way of carrying on the infinitely complicated processes of modern industry and interchange day by day, despite all tedium and fatigue, and yet to keep ourselves interested in our work and contented with the division of the product…
What is lacking to achieve that end… is not so much good will as it is knowledge—above all, knowledge of human behavior. Our best hope for the future lies in the extension to social organization of the methods that we already employ in our most progressive fields of effort. In science and in industry… we do not wait for catastrophes to force new ways upon us… We rely, and with success, upon quantitative analysis to point the way; and we advance because we are constantly improving and applying such analysis. While I think that the development of social science offers more hope for solving our social problems than any other line of endeavor, I do not claim that these sciences in their present state are very serviceable.
They are immature, speculative, filled with controversies. Nor have we any certain assurance that they will ever grow into robust manhood, no matter what care we lavish upon them…. Those of us who are concerned with the social sciences… are engaged in an uncertain enterprise; perhaps we shall win no great treasures for mankind. But certainly it is our task to work out this lead with all the intelligence and the energy we possess until its richness or sterility be demonstrated.”

Wesley Clair Mitchell (1874–1948) American statistician

Source: "Statistics and Government," 1919, pp. 45, 47, 48-51; as cited in: Arthur F. Burns. " New Facts on Business Cycles http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0386," in: Arthur F. Burns (ed). The Frontiers of Economic Knowledge. Princeton University Press. 1954. p. 61 - 106; p. 63

Ray Comfort photo
Peter Medawar photo
Garry Kasparov photo
Max Scheler photo

“Impulses of revenge lead to ressentiment the more they change into actual *vindictiveness*, the more their direction shifts toward indeterminate groups of objects which need only share one common characteristic, and the less they are satisfied by vengeance taken on a specific object. If the desire for revenge remains permanently unsatisfied, and especially if the feeling of “being right (lacking in an outburst of rage, but an integral part of revenge) is intensified into the idea of a “duty,” the individual may actually wither away and die. The vindictive person is instinctively and without a conscious act of volition drawn toward events which may give rise to vengefulness, or he tends to see injurious intentions in all kinds of perfectly innocent actions and remarks of others. Great touchiness is indeed frequently a symptom of a vengeful character. The vindictive person is always in search of objects, and in fact he attacks—in the belief that he is simply wreaking vengeance. This vengeance restores his damaged feeling of personal value, his injured “honor,” or it brings “satisfaction” for the wrongs he has endured. When it is repressed, vindictiveness leads to ressentiment, a process which is intensified when the *imagination* of vengeance, too, is repressed—and finally the very emotion of revenge itself. Only then does this *state of mind* become associated with the tendency to detract from the other person's value, which brings an illusory easing of the tension."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Ferdinand Marcos photo
Laisenia Qarase photo
Max Born photo
Mao Zedong photo

“The country is so beautiful, where so many heroes had devoted their lives into it. Sorry that the Qin Emperor or the Han Wu Emperor lacks a sense for literacy; while the founders of the Tang and Song dynasties came short in style. The great man, Genghis Khan, only knew how to shoot eagles with an arrow. The past is past. To see real heroes, look around you.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Qinyuanchun ["Snow"] (沁园春•雪) (1936; first published in late 1945). Variant translation of the last stanza: "All are past and gone! / For truly great men / Look to this age alone."

Tsunetomo Yamamoto photo
Fidel Castro photo
Francois Rabelais photo

“Subject to a kind of disease, which at that time they called lack of money.”

Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Pantagruel (1532), Chapter 16.

Potter Stewart photo

“Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”

Potter Stewart (1915–1985) American judge

Dissenting, United States v. Ginzburg, 383 U.S. 463 (1965).

Eric Hoffer photo
Debito Arudou photo
Eric Foner photo
TotalBiscuit photo

“That shows an obscene! lack of foresight!”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

Audio blogs, Worms World Party Remastered b******s

David Wood photo

“Nietzsche would say my friends lacked ears.”

David Wood (1946) British philosopher, born 1946

Source: Philosophy At The Limit (1990), Chapter 8, Performative Reflexivity, p. 133

Jacques Barzun photo
George Lakoff photo
George Hendrik Breitner photo

“That painting with that man - that drunken man - was first a soup-distribution [on the streets], which I had seen, and for which I also made those studies of which you speak. Also failed; simply due to lack of perseverance. I have made another drawing of it, which V. Wisselingh found quite good and he afterwards sold to an American, and he does not know where it has gone.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Dat schilderij met die man, die dronken man was eerst een soep-uitdeeling, die ik gezien had, en waarvoor ik ook die studies gemaakt heb, waarover je spreekt. Ook mislukt, eenvoudig door gebrek aan doorzetten. Ik heb nog wel een teekening van gemaakt, die V. Wisselingh nogal goed vond en naderhand aan een Amerikaan heeft verkocht, en niet weet waar gebleven is”, aldus Breitner.
In Breitner's letter to Jan Veth, 1901, RKD Den Haag; as cited in Van Gogh en Breitner in Den Haag, Helewise Berger, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, p. 67
1900 - 1923

Han-shan photo

“Worry for others— it does no good in the end.
The great Dao, all amid joy, is reborn.
In a joyous state, ruler and subject accord,
In a joyous home, father and son get along.
If brothers increase their joy, the world will flourish.
If husband and wife have joy, it's worthy of song.
What guest and host can bear a lack of joy?
Both high and low, in joy, lose their woe before long.
Ha ha ha.”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Translated by Mary Jacob[citation needed]
It is unlikely that this poem, translated by Mary Jacob, is authored by Han-shan. In comparing it with every poem in the corpus it will be found that there is not a close match. Moreover, neither the language nor the content of this poem is that of Han-shan. Most importantly, this poem does not have the appropriate number of lines for a Han-shan poem. Jacob's poem has 9 lines; there is not a single example of a 9 line poem in all of Han-shan's poetry. All of Han-shan's poems are 4, 8, 10 or 14 lines, with a few that have more than 14. Further, Jacob's poem has an odd number of lines; there is not a single example of a poem with an odd number of lines in all of Han-shan's poetry. Finally, the 9th and final line in Jacob's poem has the words “ha ha ha.” Not a single Han-shan poem has those words as a final line. Perhaps someone is having a joke?
Disputed

Amit Chaudhuri photo
Camille Paglia photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo

“If a lack of money had prevented people from improving their lot, then mankind would still be living in the caves: unless you believe that investment capital first arrived from outer space.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Theodore Dalrymple remembers Ken Saro-Wiwa - and asks, if unearned income from oil has done so much harm to Nigeria, will increased unearned aid flows not do similar harm to Africa as a whole? http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000708.php (January 3, 2006).
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)

Woodrow Wilson photo
Russell Brand photo
John Gray photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Jeffrey D. Sachs photo
African Spir photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Ashoka photo
John W. Gardner photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Ron Paul photo
Roger Ebert photo
African Spir photo
Max Stirner photo
Camille Pissarro photo
Benno Moiseiwitsch photo
Benjamin Graham photo

“Cartels have spread and will spread as long as the world lacks an effective mechanism by which balanced expansion may be achieved without a resulting disruption of prices.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: World Commodities and World Currencies (1944), Chapter II, The Issue of Cartels, p. 21

Andrew Dickson White photo
Piet Joubert photo
Larry Sanger photo
Rollo May photo
George Holmes Howison photo
William Styron photo

“When I was first aware that I had been laid low by the disease, I felt a need, among other things, to register a strong protest against the word “depression.” Depression, most people know, used to be termed “melancholia,” a word which appears in English as early as the year 1303 and crops up more than once in Chaucer, who in his usage seemed to be aware of its pathological nuances. “Melancholia” would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for the blacker forms of the disorder, but it was usurped by a noun with a bland tonality and lacking any magisterial presence, used indifferently to describe an economic decline or a rut in the ground, a true wimp of a word for such a major illness. It may be that the scientist generally held responsible for its currency in modern times, a Johns Hopkins Medical School faculty member justly venerated — the Swiss-born psychiatrist Adolf Meyer — had a tin ear for the finer rhythms of English and therefore was unaware of the semantic damage he had inflicted by offering “depression” as a descriptive noun for such a dreadful and raging disease. Nonetheless, for over seventy-five years the word has slithered innocuously through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing, by its very insipidity, a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control.
As one who has suffered from the malady in extremis yet returned to tell the tale, I would lobby for a truly arresting designation. “Brainstorm,” for instance, has unfortunately been preempted to describe, somewhat jocularly, intellectual inspiration. But something along these lines is needed. Told that someone’s mood disorder has evolved into a storm — a veritable howling tempest in the brain, which is indeed what a clinical depression resembles like nothing else — even the uninformed layman might display sympathy rather than the standard reaction that “depression” evokes, something akin to “So what?” or “You’ll pull out of it” or “We all have bad days.””

The phrase “nervous breakdown” seems to be on its way out, certainly deservedly so, owing to its insinuation of a vague spinelessness, but we still seem destined to be saddled with “depression” until a better, sturdier name is created.
Source: Darkness Visible (1990), IV

Anthony Burgess photo
Arthur Jensen photo
George Reisman photo
Yoshida Shoin photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“Muhammad seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning, Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 6.4 (trans. Anton C. Pegis)

“I was shamed into helping the unborn after 12 years of silence, in 1986. Since then, my only client has been the unborn. I don't work for a movement. I don't work for a party. I don't work for candidates. I work for the unborn, and I don't give a flying flick about what people want to do on paper with bylaws, and all that kind of stuff, because it's just like the Pharisees, who had all their rules about the Sabbath, but they didn't know that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath! I will stand for the unborn, and I will not relent! I don't know Mr. Clymer, but Howard Phillips has lost ALL of my respect, because he stands for people who want to kill ONE, only ONE, innocent child, and that's all that counts! If you want ONE innocent child, GO with this man, but I'll tell you what- I've got my paperwork filled out. All it lacks is my signature, and my wife's signature, and we're the hell out of here, if you vote to stay with a national party that will put up with ONE dead baby, much less many thousands of dead babies. And you sir [pointing at Jim Clymer] need to repent! Because the blood will be on your hands when you stand before God. You won't be able to argue about procedural votes, and keeping the party together before God! You'll be standing there quaking in your boots, wishing you'd washed yourself in the blood of the Lamb. That's all I've got to say…The only thing that matters to me is doing my job to stop the killing of the unborn.”

Paul deParrie (1949–2006) American activist

The Last Words of Paul deParrie http://www.constitutionpartyoregon.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=111&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Albert Einstein photo

“I do not believe in freedom of the will. Schopenhauer's words: “Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills” accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of freedom of will preserves me from taking too seriously myself and my fellow men as acting and deciding individuals and from losing my temper.”

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

Variant translation:
I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.
1930s, My Credo (1932)

Joseph H. Hertz photo

“Everything in the Universe was as the Creator willed it — nothing superfluous, nothing lacking — a harmony.”

Joseph H. Hertz (1872–1946) British rabbi

Genesis I, 31 (p. 5)
The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (one-volume edition, 1937, ISBN 0-900689-21-8

Glen Cook photo

“No world lacks its villains so self-confident that they don’t believe they can get the best end of a bargain with the darkness.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 5, “An Abode of Ravens: Headquarters” (p. 382)

Salma Hayek photo
Nagarjuna photo
William Morris photo
Joseph von Fraunhofer photo
Cato the Elder photo
Roger Ebert photo
Heather Brooke photo

“A lack of government oversight hasn't hindered the internet. Quite the opposite. A hands-off approach is largely responsible for its fantastic growth and success. The tremendous innovation and economic boon produced by the free internet should be proof enough that the dead hand of government isn't needed.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/20/we-should-all-be-hactivists "We should all be hacktivists now", Column in the Guardian, 20 April 2012.
Attributed, In the Media

Irvine Welsh photo
Sun Myung Moon photo

“In daily life, which sex is usually more disruptive or problem-causing? Percentage-wise, it is usually women. What contributes to that? It is mainly because they lack perseverance.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Perseverance and Contemplation http://www.unification.net/1978/780827.html (1978-08-27)

Ann Coulter photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency.”

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

Der Majorität der Dummen ist unüberwindbar und für alle Zeiten gesichert. Der Schrecken ihrer Tyrannei ist indessen gemildert durch Mangel an Konsequenz.
Ideas and Opinions
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

Jerry Coyne photo
George H. W. Bush photo