Quotes about many
page 55

“There aren't many of us left where I come from."
"And where is that?" asked Mrs. Brown.
The bear looked round carefully before replying.
"Darkest Peru.”

Michael Bond (1926–2017) English author, creator of Paddington the Bear

Page 9.
A Bear Called Paddington (1958)

“Today I walked into the sunset — to mail some letters —... But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters I walked home — and kept walking - The Eastern sky was all grey blue — bunches of clouds — different kinds of clouds — sticking around everywhere and the whole thing — lit up — first in one place — then in another with flashes of lightning — sometimes just sheet lightning — and some times sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it -. I walked out past the last house — past the last locust tree — and sat on the fence for a long time — looking — just looking at — the lightning — you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land — land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know — There was a wonderful moon. Well I just sat there and had a great time by myself — Not even many night noises — just the wind —... I wondered what you were doing - It is absurd the way I love this country — Then when I came back — it was funny — roads just shoot across blocks anywhere — all the houses looked alike — and I almost got lost — I had to laugh at myself — I couldn't tell which house was home - I am loving the plains more than ever it seems — and the SKY — Anita you have never seen SKY — it is wonderful”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas (September 11, 1916), pp. 183-184
1915 - 1920, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Love, Way, Home, Tree

“In later life I was charged by many with being an agitator; some of my friends in defending me against assault denied that I was an agitator; they were wrong, I was an agitator and as such did all that lay in my power with voice and pen to agitate against the injustices practices on workingmen and women.”

Terence V. Powderly (1849–1924) American mayor

[Powderly, Terence, 'The Path I Trod: The Autobiography of Terence V. Powderly, 1940, Columbia University Press, 9781163178164, https://archive.org/stream/pathitrodautobio00powdrich, 38]

Life, Women

“How lasting the impact of social media will have is yet to be determined, but one thing for sure, it has turned the chain of influence upside down. Today the reader, the lowly reader, that presumably passive consumer of all the great insight handed down by the reporter, confirmed by the analyst, attested to by the reference customer—this reader, I say, has now become the writer! Except it is not a reader/writer. It is reader/writers at large, many readers, the wisdom (or madness) of crowds. We have embarked upon the world's largest and longest cocktail party, and every issue imaginable is up for grabs.”

Geoffrey Moore (1946) American business writer

Paul Gillin, ‎Geoffrey A. Moore (2009), The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media. p. vii

Wisdom, World, Imagination, Madness

“So the temples were attacked “all along the way” as the armies of Islam advanced; they were “robbed of their sculptural wealth”, “pulled down”, “laid waste”, “burnt with naptha”, “trodden under horse’s hoofs”, and “destroyed from their very foundations”, till “not a trace of them remained”. Mahmûd of Ghazni robbed and burnt down 1,000 temples at Mathura, and 10,000 in and around Kanauj. One of his successors, Ibrãhîm, demolished 1,000 temples each in Hindustan (Ganga-Yamuna Doab) and Malwa. Muhammad Ghûrî destroyed another 1,000 at Varanasi. Qutbu’d-Dîn Aibak employed elephants for pulling down 1,000 temples in Delhi. “Alî I ‘Ãdil Shãh of Bijapur destroyed 200 to 300 temples in Karnataka. A sufi, Qãyim Shãh, destroyed 12 temples at Tiruchirapalli. Such exact or approximate counts, however, are available only in a few cases. Most of the time we are informed that “many strong temples which would have remained unshaken even by the trumpets blown on the Day of Judgment, were levelled with the ground when swept by the wind of Islãm.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Way, Strong, Time, Horse

“Many count their chickens before they are hatched; and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 55.

“Rows and flows of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air,
And feather canyons ev’rywhere,
I’ve looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun,
They rain and snow on ev’ryone,
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way.”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

"Both Sides Now"
Songs

Angels, Way, Sun

“Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 364

Life, Pleasure, Thinking

“I think of so many people who are no more, and I pity them. Yet they are not so much to be pitied, for they have solved every problem, beginning with the problem of death.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Death, People, Problem, Thinking

“There are some CNR clones. Prof D D Sharma in chemistry, Prof Ajay Sood in Physics are doing good work. Let’s see many more may come from the younger lot.”

C. N. R. Rao (1934) Indian chemist

Scientist wonders why nobody asks him about Dan David prize (2013)

“We understand the notions of both ethnic pride and hyphenated Americanism, but many of us are still bewildered about contradictory impulses: the emotional need to display Mexican decals on cars and hang Mexican flags on houses and businesses — or boo an American team at a soccer match — coupled with equally heated expressions of outrage that anyone might suggest that those who broke American law in coming to the United States would ever have to return where their hearts would “always be.” That paradox is the most disturbing — and ignored — aspect of the immigration debate: the contradictory impulse to fault the United States for a litany of sins (exploitation, racism, xenophobia, nativism) without commensurate attention to why any newcomer would wish to reside in a place that is so clearly culpable…”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, Western Cultural Suicide (2013)

Law, Cars, Understanding, Business

“Stevens’s poetry makes one understand how valuable it can be for a poet to write a great deal. Not too much of that great deal, ever, is good poetry; but out of quantity can come practice, naturalness, accustomed mastery, adaptations and elaborations and reversals of old ways, new ways, even—so that the poet can put into the poems, at the end of a lifetime, what the end of a lifetime brings him. Stevens has learned to write at will, for pleasure; his methods of writing, his ways of imagining, have made this possible for him as it is impossible for many living poets—Eliot, for instance. Anything can be looked at, felt about, meditated upon, so Stevens can write about anything; he does not demand of his poems the greatest concentration, intensity, dramatic immediacy, the shattering and inexplicable rightness the poet calls inspiration.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p. 65
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Pleasure, Way, Imagination, Understanding

“There can have been few occasions in all our long political history when to the son of a man who counted for something in his day and generation has been vouchsafed the privilege of setting the seal on the work which the father began but had perforce to leave unfinished. Nearly 29 years have passed since Joseph Chamberlain entered upon his great campaign in favour of Imperial Preference and Tariff Reform. More than 17 years have gone by since he died, without having seen the fulfilment of his aims and yet convinced that, if not exactly in his way, yet in some modified form his vision would eventually take shape. His work was not in vain. Time and the misfortunes of the country have brought conviction to many who did not feel that they could agree with him then. I believe he would have found consolation for the bitterness of his disappointment if he could have foreseen that these proposals, which are the direct and legitimate descendants of his own conception, would be laid before the House of Commons, which he loved, in the presence of one and by the lips of the other of the two immediate successors to his name and blood.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1932/feb/04/import-duties in the House of Commons (4 February 1932) introducing the Import Duties Act 1932. Chancellor of the Exchequer

Love, Disappointment, Way, Feeling

“Why should it not be the whole function of a word to denote many things?”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 38.

“I wouldn't hire them [women] with the same salary. But there are many women who are competent.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

About equal pay for women. Bolsonaro diz que não pagaria a mulheres o mesmo salário dos homens http://www.redetv.uol.com.br/superpop/videos/ultimos-programas/bolsonaro-diz-que-nao-pagaria-a-mulheres-o-mesmo-salario-dos-homens. RedeTV! (15 February 2016).

Women

“It was obvious there would be no return to "normality." The economy wouldn't be coming back. Globalism was over. The politicians and generals were failing to pull things together at the center. We would not be returning to Boston. The computer industry, in which so many hopes had been vested, was fading into history.”

James Howard Kunstler book World Made By Hand

Source: World Made By Hand (2008), Chapter 4, p. 24

Hope, History

“Many innovations of current history and philosophy of science were, in fact, anticipated in Neurath’s oeuvre. The rediscovery of Neurath was therefore not merely a phenomenon of academic nostalgia, but itself constitutes research into the conditions and possibilities of changing a paradigm in the philosophy of science.”

Friedrich Stadler (1951) Austrian historian

Friedrich Stadler (1996). "Otto Neurath—encyclopedia and utopia." In: E. Nemeth & F. Stadler (Eds.). Encyclopedia and utopia: The life and work of Otto Neurath (1882–1945), Boston: Kluwer. Stadler, 1996, p. 3

History, Nostalgia, Science, Change

“One of the great moral advances of the Enlightenment was abolishing torture. Its interesting to think how far we've come when we think about the fact that 300 years ago in every square of every civilized city, certainly in Europe, torturing people to death was not just that took place, but was something you would've taken your children to go and see on a Saturday afternoon. Right? I mean, that's what was happening. Now, the question is what did people learn, empirically, when they decided, "Oh gosh, drawing and quartering actually causes too much suffering; I think we'll put it out?" I mean, I don't think there's a fact that changed there that somebody had to realize. I think the example, by the way, is particularly important because while it shows that there can be moral progress, it also shows that it's absolutely not necessary, and there can also be moral regression, as in the case of the current administration. But I don't see that what's taking place somehow when Bush decides to legalize torture and thereby cancel one of the major achievements of the Enlightenment (Well he has! Right? I mean many of the achievements of the enlightenment, but that one in particular.) I don't see that what's happened is that there's something that he doesn't know. That he could somehow be tutored on.”

Susan Neiman (1955) American academic

Beyond Belief conference (November 2006)

Death, Children, People, Way

“Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On the Ignorance of the Learned" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Knowledge, Sense, Learning

“The soft droppes of rain perce the hard marble; many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks.”

John Lyly book Euphues

Source: Euphues (Arber [1580]), P. 81. Compare: "Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow", Plutarch, Of the Training of Children; "Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat" (translation: "Continual dropping wears away a stone"), Lucretius, i. 314; "Many strokes, though with a little axe,/ Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak", William Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI, act ii, sc. 1.

“The point of departure is the measurement problem, as it appears in physics; the manner in which measurements allow us to characterize subsystems; the role of such subsystems as tools in system analysis; and the relationships existing between different ways of perceiving or interacting with the same system. Our conclusions are: (1) there exists no universal family of of analytic units appropriate for the treatment of all interactions; (2) there are on the contrary many such families of analytic units, all of which are equally “real” and entitled to be treated on the same footing; (3) the appropriate use of natural interactions can enormously extend the class of physical observables accessible to us; (4) the concept of a model must be formulated, in its most general terms, as the sharing of a subsystem by two otherwise distinct systems, capable of imposing the same dynamic on an appropriate system with which they can both interact. We establish these results through a variety of terminologies which turn out to be equivalent: stability, invariance, symmetry, homeostasis.”

Robert Rosen (1934–1998) American theoretical biologist

Introduction; Quoted in: " Fundamentals of Measurement and Representation of Natural Systems by Robert Rosen http://www.panmere.com/?page_id=15" at panmere.com. Fundamentals of measurement and representation of natural systems. (1978)

Family, Way, Departure, Nature

“Don't you see that's just one of the consequences of all this? There will be more Mercers. So many more. So many people who do't want to be found but who will be. So any people who wanted no part of all this. That's what's new. There used to be the option of opting out. But now that's over. Completion is the end. We're closing the circle around everyone - it's a totalitarian nightmare.”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Kalden/Ty, to Mae; p. 486
The Circle (2013)

People, Parting

“At Brahmanabad, after many people were killed, “all prisoners of or under the age of 30 years were put in chains… All the other people capable of bearing arms were beheaded and their followers and dependents were made prisoners.””

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Chachnama, in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3
Quotes from The Chach Nama

People, Age, Dependency

“Protocols:
Number 10, paras. 6,7
A scheme of government should come ready made from one brain, because it will never be clinched firmly if it is allowed to split into fractional parts in the minds of many. It is allowable, therefore, for us to have cognizance of the scheme of action but not to discuss it lest we disturb its artfulness, and interdependence of its component parts, the practical force of the secret meaning of each clause. To discuss and make alteration in a labor of this kind by means of numerous votings is to impress upon it the stamp of all ratiocinations and misunderstandings which have failed to penetrate the depth and nexus of its plottings….
These schemes will not turn existing institutions upside down just yet, They will only effect changes in their economy and consequently in the whole combined movement of their progress, which will thus be directed along the paths laid down in our schemes.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Secret, Art, Change, Parting

“There were too many secret things going on. And too many perfectly banal, openmouthed evils driven by ambition or fanaticism distracting everyone from the creeping apocalypse.”

Glen Cook (1944) American fiction writer

Source: Lord of the Silent Kingdom (2007), Chapter 20 (pp. 518)

Secret, Evil

“Though many a flower may win my praise,
The violet has my love;
I did not pass my childish days
In garden or in grove:
My garden was the window-seat,
Upon whose edge was set
A little vase—the fair, the sweet—
It was the violet.”

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

The Violet from The Literary Souvenir, 1831
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Love, Flowers

“One can ask two different kinds of questions with regard to the topics of study in psychology as well as in other sciences. One can ask for the phenomenal characteristics of psychological units or events, for example, how many kinds of feelings can be qualitatively differentiated from one another or which characteristics describe an experience of a voluntary act. Aside from this are the questions asking for the why, for the cause and the effect, for the conditional-genetic interrelations. For example, one can ask: Under which conditions has been a decision made and which are the specific psychological effects which follow this decision? The depiction of phenomenal characteristics is usually characterized as “description”, the depiction of causal relationships as “explanation.””

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Kurt Lewin (1927). "Gesetz und experiment in der Psychologie" [Law and experiment in psychology]. in: Symposion, Vol 1, p. 375-421. Translated by and cited in: Kurt Kreppner " On the Generation of Data in the Study of Social Interaction1 http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ptp/v17n2/7871.pdf" in: Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa Vol 17, nr. 2, p. 109. 1920s

Feeling, Question, Decision, Study

“Above all, do not give up your moral and political autonomy by accepting in somebody else's terms the illiberal practicality of the bureaucratic ethos or the liberal practicality of the moral scatter. Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues — and in terms of the problems of history making.”

C. Wright Mills book The Sociological Imagination

Appendix: "On Intellectual Craftsmanship"
The Sociological Imagination (1959)

History, Problem, Personality

“When Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sind, he took captives wherever he went and sent many prisoners, especially women prisoners, to his homeland. Parimal Devi and Suraj Devi, the two daughters of Raja Dahir, who were sent to Hajjaj to adorn the harem of the Caliph, were part of a large bunch of maidens remitted as one-fifth share of the state (Khums) from the booty of war (Ghanaim). The Chachnama gives the details. After the capture of the fort of Rawar, Muhammad bin Qasim “halted there for three day, during which time he masscered 6,000 …men. Their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoner.” When the (total) number of prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons (Kalichbeg has sixty thousand), amongst whom thirty were the daughters of the chiefs. They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of prisoners were forwarded in charge of the Black Slave Kaab, son of Mubarak Rasti.96 In Sind itself female slaves captured after every campaign of the marching army, were married to Arab soldiers who settled down in colonies established in places like Mansura, Kuzdar, Mahfuza and Multan. The standing instructions of Hajjaj to Muhammad bin Qasim were to “give no quarter to infidels, but to cut their throats”, and take the women and children as captives. In the final stages of the conquest of Sind, “when the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim… one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number… (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers”.97 Obviously, a few lakhs of women were enslaved and distributed among the elite and the soldiers.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Chachnama, in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

Women, Men, War, Children

“The differences between the two sexes is one of the important conditions upon which we have built the many varieties of human culture that give human beings dignity and stature.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Male and Female (1949), p. 7

Sex

“It is electromagnetism (EM) in all its many forms that has been so basic, that haunts us and guides us.”

Nick Holonyak (1928) American inventor

about what has been the guiding idea for the development of transistor electronics, in a foreword of the special Indian Edition of [Rao, Elements of Engineering Electromagnetics, Sixth Edition, Pearson Education India, 2006, 8131703991, xix]

“Howard is a dynamic performer on many levels. There you are. He sent me to Liverpool. Marvellous place. Howard was the most effective Home Secretary since Peel. Hang on, was Peel Home Secretary?”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Ben Macintyre, "'Hello, I'm your MP. Actually no, I'm your candidate. Gosh'", The Times, 19 April 2005, p. 23.
On Michael Howard.
2000s, 2005

Home

“In recent years, demagogy, violence, cruelty, and vileness have seized a great country embarked on the path of socialist development. I refer, of course, to China. It is impossible without horror and pain to read about the mass contagion of anti-humanism being spread by "the great helmsman" and his accomplices, about the Red Guards who, according to the Chinese radio, "jumped with joy" during public executions of "ideological enemies" of Chairman Mao.
The idiocy of the cult of personality has assumed in China monstrous, grotesquely tragicomic forms, carrying to the point of absurdity many of the traits of Stalinism and Hitlerism. But this absurdity has proved effective in making fools of tens of millions of people and in destroying and humiliating millions of intelligent citizens.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Police Dictatorships

Pain, People, Fools, Intelligence

“Ah! as you say, we should slip over many thoughts and act as though we did not perceive them.”

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696) French noble

Ah! comme vous dites, il faut glisser sur bien des pensées, et ne faire pas semblant de les voir.
Lettres, 70.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

“It cannot be maintained that Islam did not provide an ample opportunity to Hindu saints, philosophers and princes to understand its true character and role. Before the armies of Islam invaded India, the sufis had settled down in many parts of India, built mosque and khanqahs and started their work of conversion. They were the sappers and miners of Islamic invasions which followed in due course. Moinuddin Chishti was not the first 'saint' of Islam to send out an invitation to an Islamic invader to come and kill the kafirs, desecrate their shrines, and plunder their wealth.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Understanding, Parting, Wealth

“Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; VIII
Lacon (1820)

“Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis. This crisis has many causes, but much of it has been brought about by poor leadership decisions at every level of government. In addition, our electoral process is dominated by financial interests that are threatened by the very notion of reform.”

Jim Webb (1946) American politician, military officer and author

"What It Takes To Be a Leader" in Parade magazine (May 18, 2008)

Decision, Country

“For many years I was the youngest among my mathematical friends. It makes me melancholy to realize that I now have become the oldest in most groups of scientists.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 2, Student Years, p. 37

Mathematics

“Calcutta, for me, was a particular idea of the modern city, and I found it in many forms, works, and genres. … by ‘modernity’ I have in mind something that was never new. True modernity was born with the aura of inherited decay and life. … if you look at paintings and photographs, and see old films of the city, you notice that these walls and buildings were never new – that Calcutta was born to look more or less as I saw it as a child. I’m not referring here to an air of timelessness; the patina that gave to Calcutta’s alleys, doorways, and houses their continuity and disposition is very different from the eternity that defines mausoleums and monuments. It’s this quality I’m trying to get at when I speak of modernity. … modernity in the nineteenth century is indistinguishable from nature; perhaps it is nature – in some ways, the culvert, which has emerged from the rock, seems more of its place than the mountain itself.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

citation needed
On Modernity

Life, Way, Mountain, Idea

“I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Source: The Paris Review interview (1981), p. 338

Thinking

“The work of the world must still be done,
And minds are many though truth be one.”

Henry Newbolt (1862–1938) English poet and writer

The Echo.

Truth, World

“Management wins Stanley Cups. Players can only do their best. You've got to bring the right ingredients to make a Stanley Cup winner and if the manager is not doing his job, the players can only do so much. You produce and do what's right, but if you don't have the talent there, you're not going to win many games.”

Andy Bathgate (1932–2016) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Andy Bathgate," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep197801.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2004-04-20)

Game

“Through much of the last century, America’s faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations. Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along. And even after nearly 225 years, we have a long way yet to travel.”

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

2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)

Faith, Hope, Way, Travel

“Once wine was the means to artificial happiness; now things are much more sophisticated, and what was one of the great secrets of medicine has become the only bliss many find in this life.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

Ch 10
The Rahotep series, Book 2: Tutankhamun

Life, Secret, Wine, Happiness

“For the notion of progress in the arts, (either spiritually or artistically) has been discredited by many respectable intellects (Kierkegaard and Baudelaire above all, both of whom encountered the idea when it first reared itself in its present form in Europe).”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

X magazine (1959-62)

Art, Idea

“I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in god. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

King sharing his thoughts on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to ban school prayer, ** Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html 1960s

God, Thinking

“Whether the influence of increasing returns on trade and geography is rising or falling, one thing is clear: much was learned from the intellectual revolution that brought increasing returns into the heart of how we think about the world economy. It wasn't just that economists could make sense of previously puzzling data, we found ourselves able to see things that had previously been in an intellectual blind spot. Many people contributed to this process of enlightenment; I'm proud to have been a part of the journey.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"The Increasing Returns Revolution in Trade and Geography", The American Economic Review (Jun., 2009)

People, World, Thinking, Sense

“Of all the ridiculous expressions people use--and people use a great many ridiculous expressions--one of the most ridiculous is "No news is good news." "No news is good news" simply means that if you don't hear from someone, everything is probably fine, and you can see at once why this expression makes such little sense, because everything being fine is only one of many, many reasons why someone may not contact you. Perhaps they are tied up. Maybe they are surrounded by fierce weasels, or perhaps they are wedged tightly between two refrigerators and cannot get themselves out. The expression might as well be changed to "no news is bad news," except that people may not be able to contact you because they have just been crowned king or are competing in a gymnastics tournament. The point is that there is no way to know why someone has not contacted you, until they contact you and explain themselves. For this reason, the sensible expression would be "no news is no news," except that it is so obvious that it is hardly an expression at all.”

Daniel Handler book The Hostile Hospital

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

People, Way, Sense, Change

“I got me slaves and slave-girls.' For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling that being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or, rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable. God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God's?”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Homilies on Ecclesiastes; Hall and Moriarty, trs., de Gruyter (New York, 1993) p. 74 https://books.google.com/books?id=BReXJwwE_D8C&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74.

God, Girl, Nature, Freedom

“We must work assiduously and with determined boldness to remove from the body politic this cancerous disease of discrimination which is preventing our democratic and Christian health from being realized. Then and only then will we be able to bring into full realization the dream of our American democracy-a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men do not argue that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character, where they recognize that the basic thing about a man is not his specific but his fundamentum; a dream of a place where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, and men will dare to live together as brothers-that is the dream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)

Men, Health, Disease, Dreams

“After making public the gruesome discoveries made at the wasteland near Minsk, dozens of reports appeared in the press about similar mass graves uncovered in all regional centres of the Republic and many lesser towns. Who lies in these graves, who were the people shot in all those years, and - most importantly - who were the murderers? We have no answer yet to these questions, and one gets an impression that there are powerful forces not interested at all in such answers ever being given.”

Vasil Bykaŭ (1924–2003) Belarusian writer

'Zhazhda peremen' ['Thirst for Change'], Pravda, 24 November 1989, p.4. Source: [Modernity and Ambivalence, Zygmunt Bauman, 68, 2013, John Wiley & Sons, 9780745638119]

People, Question, Appearance

“Yossarian — the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Catch-22 (1961)

“The reason there are so many gay people now is because it's a chemical warfare operation. I have the government documents where they said they're going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so people don't have children.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Source: The Alex Jones Show, June 2010 https://www.salon.com/2013/06/27/that_time_alex_jones_said_the_government_is_turning_people_gay/.

Children, People

“But three decades have evaporated in our lives, too quickly and without sufficient residual evidence of their importance. But much has changed since then. The hope that there would be expeditious resolutions to our myriad problems has long since evaporated with those years. Many who debated and hoped then, now do neither. There now seems to be a broad acceptance of the racial divide as a permanent state. While we once celebrated those things that we had in common with our fellow citizens who did not share our race, so many now are triumphal about our differences, finding little, if anything, in common. Indeed, some go so far as to all but define each of us by our race and establish the range of our thinking and our opinions, if not our deeds by our color.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Hope, Color, Problem, Thinking

“But, as to the alms and support of the poor, I would say, that it is a good and praise-worthy work, and I cordially approve of it. Also, that many pious, gentile philosophers, as Aristotle, Plato, &c., have considered it as right and just. But we contradict that sincere and true repentance, or the true seed and foundation of sincere love, which is a fruit of true faith, consists there in; for we may give in hypocrisy, as well as in love, as may be seen by the Scribes and Pharisees, by the open heathens and daily, yet, by the papists.”

Menno Simons (1496–1561) Dutch theologian, founder of the Mennonites

The Complete Works of Menno Simons https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=btJAAQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-btJAAQAAMAAJ&rdot=1, by Menno Simons, p.27, January 1, 1871

Love, Faith, Support, Sincerity

“The … false ideal … [that is] tokenism—which is commonly guised as Equal Rights, and which yields token victories—deflects and shortcircuits gynergy, so that female power, galvanized under deceptive slogans of sisterhood, is swallowed by The Fraternity. This method of vampirizing the Female Self saps women by giving illusions of partial success while at the same time making Success appear to be a far-distant, extremely difficult to obtain "elusive objective." When the oppressed are worn out in the game of chasing the elusive shadow of Success, some "successes" are permitted to occur—"victories" which can easily be withdrawn when the victim's energies have been restored. Subsequently, women are lured into repeating efforts to regain the hard-won apparent gains…. [¶] Thus tokenism is insidiously destructive of sisterhood, for it distorts the warrior aspect of Amazon bonding both by magnifying it and by minimizing it. It magnifies the importance of "fighting back" to the extent of making it devour the transcendent be-ing of sisterhood, reducing it to a copy of comradeship. At the same time, it minimizes the Amazon warrior aspect by containing it, misdirecting and shortcircuiting the struggle. [¶] This is a demonically double-sided trap, for of course reforms, such as legalization of abortion, aid many women in desperate situations. However, because the "changes" that are achieved are victories in a vacuum, that is, in a totally oppressive social context, they do not essentially free the Female Self but instead function to hide both the fact of continuing oppression and the possibilities for better options and for more radical freedom…. The Labrys of the A-mazing Female Mind must cut through the coverings of these double-sided/multiple-sided situations, dis-covering the context, identifying the more radical problems, yet neglecting none.”

Mary Daly (1928–2010) American radical feminist philosopher and theologian

Source: Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978–1990), pp. 375–376 (fnn. omitted, fn. at "apparent gains." giving as examples the Equal Rights Amendment, affirmative action, and abortion & fn. at "more radical freedom." stating "the fact that Lesbians/Spinsters have no need of abortions, unless forcibly raped").

Women, Game, Problem, Effort

“Many Abolitionists have yet to learn the ABC of woman's rights.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Journal (June 1860)

Learning

“Guruji did not teach me more than four Ragas. He often drew an analogy between swaras and money and said that one must spend only as much as is required of both. My practice would follow this method. I was given a certain palta and would have to keep repeating it for days on end. It seemed boring and monotonous then, but later I thanked him for this rigorous training. The entire relationship with a guru was different in those days. Our respect for him was so great that there was no question of us asking him to teach us something particular, not because of our blind devotion, but because of our innate belief that he knew what was best for us. I remember getting caught by him invariably, whenever I tried something new. For instance, on radio, I sang Raga Bhinbhas, working it out on my own, quite confident that guruji would not hear me, as there was no electricity in Kundgol. But as luck would have it, he happened to be in Belgaum that evening. I was subsequently taken to task for using a komal dhaivat in Bibhas. This was followed by comprehensive training of the Raga. There are so many Ragas with which I associate a strange incident with guruji--Suha, Marwa … the list is endless.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

In "On Gangubai Hangal by Sabina Sehgal Computer Science & Engineering - University of Washington".

Money, Confidence, Question, Training

“The Alliance for Progress is an alliance between one millionaire and many beggars.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Interview with C. L. Sulzberger, The New York Times (November 7, 1964), p. 26.

“Many economists would have you believe that their field is an objective science. I disagree, and I think that it is equally a tool that humans use to enforce and encode our social and moral preferences and prejudices about status and power, which is why plutocrats like me have always needed to find persuasive stories to tell everyone else about why our relative positions are morally righteous and good for everyone: like, we are indispensable, the job creators, and you are not; like, tax cuts for us create growth, but investments in you will balloon our debt and bankrupt our great country; that we matter; that you don't. For thousands of years, these stories were called divine right. Today, we have trickle-down economics. How obviously, transparently self-serving all of this is.”

Nick Hanauer (1959) American businessman

"Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming" TED (conference) August 2014 http://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_beware_fellow_plutocrats_the_pitchforks_are_coming/transcript?language=en

Thinking, Science, Country

“There are many who say in effect that public opinion has little to do with war, that it is explained by the influence of the vested interests who profit by it — armament makers or groups of capitalists. But even when we have admitted that those interests do exert great influence, it only pushes the question further back. Why are the mass of men, millions, powerless in this matter as against a tiny minority, a few dozen or a few score or a few hundred who profit by the general disaster? There are undoubtedly some who say to the millions in effect: "We should like you to go to war because it would expand our profits."”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

But why do the millions obey?
Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Men, War, Question

“The major enemy of poker players is their rationalizations for their failures to think…. Many poor players evade thinking by letting their minds sink into irrational fogs. Their belief in luck short-circuits their minds by excusing them from their responsibility to think. Belief in luck is a great mystical rationalization for the refusal to think.”

Frank R. Wallace (1932–2006) Philosopher, author, entrepreneur

Wallace, Frank R. Poker: A Guaranteed Income for Life by Using the Advanced Concepts of Poker. Quoted in A Friendly Game of Poker by Ira Glass and Jake Austen, Chicago Review Press, 2003, page 210

Failure, Thinking

“It is a bit unsettling, at first, to think of Apple as a control freak, because it is completely at odds with their corporate image. Weren't these the guys who aired the famous Super Bowl ads showing suited, blindfolded executives marching like lemmings off a cliff? Isn't this the company that even now runs ads picturing the Dalai Lama (except in Hong Kong) and Einstein and other offbeat rebels?
It is indeed the same company, and the fact that they have been able to plant this image of themselves as creative and rebellious free-thinkers in the minds of so many intelligent and media-hardened skeptics really gives one pause. It is testimony to the insidious power of expensive slick ad campaigns and, perhaps, to a certain amount of wishful thinking in the minds of people who fall for them. It also raises the question of why Microsoft is so bad at PR, when the history of Apple demonstrates that, by writing large checks to good ad agencies, you can plant a corporate image in the minds of intelligent people that is completely at odds with reality.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

"Class Struggle on the Desktop"
In the Beginning... was the Command Line (1999)

People, Guy, History, Intelligence

“The terrible consequences of being Jewish that my grandmother faced are ones endured by many ethnic groups, and must always be viewed as a brutal example of man's inhumanity to man. I feel honoured to be able to tell her incredible story of strife and survival.”

Hana Maria Pravda (1916–2008) British actress

her granddaughter Isobel pravda; quoted in "Holocaust diarist is played by actress granddaughter", Dalya Alberge, Evening Standard, Dri 11 Jan 2013 p. 29
About

Feeling

“No one has ever done one experiment to prove any phase of macro-evolution at all the effect that evolution has on science, I think is devastating. America is rapidly losing ground in the world market in our science students. We are turning out students that many other countries are able to beat in academic scores and academic knowledge because we waste so much class time and textbook time on this dumb idea of evolution.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

World, Idea, Knowledge, Thinking

“The God of the Jews was an absolute God, who believed in other gods himself, to be sure, but forbade me to obey them, contrary to our own beliefs in the North. We have many gods and obey them all, and they us, the god of the sea and the god of the land, the god of thunder and the god of poetry.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Ólafur
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

God, Sea

“What they needed, in addition to many specific grievances against their particular king, was a fundamental presupposition against kings in general. What they needed was a theory of government that provided a place for rebellion, that made it respectable, and even meritorious under certain circumstances.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (1922)

“My voice is not for me. Every time I make a sentence I think how many people for how many generations had a voice that no one could hear. At most they will be remembered as numbers; in many cases, even numbers don’t exist.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: 'Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again...', 2011

People, Thinking, Time

“Jefferson Davis is categorical in pronouncing four million Americans, and all their descendants for all future time, to be "the degenerate sons of Ham", fit only to be slaves. This implies that Negroes were descended from the Canaanites. But the Canaanites were not black! Neither were the great majority of the many millions of slaves in the ancient world. We mention these facts as conclusively refuting Davis' thesis, even if there is someone not under legal constraint who is inclined to accept the lunatic notion that anyone today can be justly enslaved because of the episode described in the ninth chapter of Genesis.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, Defending the Cause of Human Freedom (1994)

World, Time, Future

“Many a person has been saved from summer alcoholism, not to mention hypertoxicity, by Dostoyevsky.”

Roy Blount Jr. (1941) American writer

“Reading and Nothingness, Of Proust in the Summer Sun,” New York Times (June 2, 1985).

Alcohol, Summer, Personality

“We must be careful, however, not to let the process of acquiring new ideas interfere with the detailed knowledge that our vehicle has assiduously collected and carefully stored in many associative connections during its lifetime. We know that this may happen in humans who are overly dedicated to the development of ideas. They tend to connect many individual cases into general categories ad then use the categories as if they were things, losing the potential for categorizing in other ways by remembering each instance.”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

Source: Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (1984), p. 52 as cited in: Vehicles – Valentino Braitenberg, 1984 http://problemboard.com/bio/?p=5 at problemboard.com, 2013

Way, Idea, Knowledge

“You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too.”

Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American singer and actor

Source: Paul Robeson Speaks (1978), p. 46

People, Courage, Fight

“Since there've been so many questions about what the President was doing over 30 years ago, what is it he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting? What was he doing after his honorable discharge?”

Jeff Gannon (1957) American journalist

February 10, 2004
Questions asked at Press Conferences

War, Question, Fight, Housing

“What is surprising is that almost all the trends that developed within the sciences, Aristotelianism and an extreme Platonism included, produced results, not only in special domains, but everywhere; there exist highly theoretical branches of biology and highly empirical parts of astrophysics. The world is a complex an many-sided thing.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

Pg 152.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

World, Science, Parting

“The relatively strong Jewish element in Hungary was a particular thorn in [Hitler's] flesh, especially as many Jews were eminent in Hungarian finance, commerce and industry, in the press and in the professions. Of course, the bourgeois middle classes cherished a feeling of resentment that the executive posts and the offices in the liberal professions most in demand were in Jewish hands. The Jews supported each other with the solidarity of their race and earned more than twenty-five percent of the national income. After the First World War, there had been a wave of open anti-Semitism in Hungary. Even writers with left-wing sympathies have pointed out that nine-tenths of the higher positions of Béla Kun’s regime were filled by Jews. It was, therefore, humanly understandable that the crimes of the Communists were attributed to the Jews. But the innate Hungarian sense of fairness and justice, strengthened by the efforts of both Catholic and Protestant Churches to suppress all forms of racial prejudice, soon re-established good relations between Jews and non-Jews.”

Miklós Horthy (1868–1957) Hungarian Admiral and Regent 1920-1944

Source: Memoirs, p. 208

War, World, Justice, Feeling

“During my detention, they kept asking me: Ai Weiwei, what is the reason you have become like this today? My answer is: First, I refuse to forget. My parents, my family, their whole generation and my generation all paid a great deal in the struggle for freedom of speech. Many people died just because of one sentence or even one word. Somebody has to take responsibility for that.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: ‘Shame on Me.’, 2011

People, Family, Parent, Freedom

“He'd threatened me so many times. I thought he was so crazy he could hire a hit man to come get me anytime.”

Margaret Keane (1927) American artist

2014, Cited by Jesse Hamlin

Time

“Man is the result of slow growth; that is why he occupies the position he does in animal life. What does a pup amount to that has gained its growth in a few days or weeks, beside a man who only attains it in as many years.”

Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) scientist and inventor known for his work on the telephone

Bell Telephone Talk (1901)

Life, Animals

“While there are many women who had no desire to be granted the right of franchise, since the duty has been imposed upon them at this most opportune time, affording them the opportunity and privilege of mobilizing under the banner in the greatest battle ever waged in behalf of that greatest of all institutions, the American home, they will not be found wanting.”

Georgia Hopley (1858–1944) American journalist and temperance advocate

The Washington Times. August 9, 1922. pg. 5. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1922-08-09/ed-1/seq-5/

Women, Home, Time

“Miss Follett was not a “business woman,” in the sense of having actually managed any sort of business. But her lucid and illuminating ideas about organization were of priceless interest and value to the many industrial leaders and students of human relations problems, organization and politics with whom she came in contact. Her conceptions were in advance of her time. They are still in advance of current thinking. But they are a gold-mine of suggestion for anyone who is interested in the problems of establishing and maintaining human co-operation in the conduct of an enterprise. They have the added advantage of being presented with remarkable simplicity and clarity.”

Henry C. Metcalf (1867–1942) American business theorist

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xi

Idea, Business, Problem, Thinking

“If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Love, Life, People, Courage

“Corruption is a global problem. But it is more widespread in rapidly developing countries. It is a growth problem. There are many corruption-related problems in Russia too. So, regarding stress tests, I think that such tests should be applied to all companies.”

Dmitry Medvedev (1965) Russian Prime Minister and former president

cnbc.com http://www.cnbc.com/id/102088768

Problem, Thinking, Country

“We've had too many divisions or stand-offs regarding the pan-blue and pan-green divide, the mainlander-Taiwanese divide and even the southern Taiwan-northern Taiwan divide. In fact, we're all in the same boat.”

Wang Ju-hsuan (1961) Taiwanese politician

Wang Ju-hsuan (2015) cited in " Chu's running mate: 'We're all in same boat' http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201511180030.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 18 November 2015.

“The people of India may be poor, many of them may be illiterate, but few societies in the world can match the Indian people in the confidence and maturity with which they exercise their democratic rights.”

R. Venkataraman (1910–2009) seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of India

Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.184.

People, World, Exercises, Confidence

“In fact, my art generally nauseated me. Often, when I wanted to set down a poem on an uncontaminated piece of paper, I′d start feeling sick and I did actually throw up in front of many drawings. I tremble all over in front of each picture-poem and before every action I would swallow a jar of pressed vine vermin. Time and again I strove for a kind of non-art, and time and again I failed, like a chimpanzee wanting to throw away a banana without peeling it. My disgust at producing art naturally atracted collectors, and ocassionaly photographers.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 238 (2002)

Art, Feeling, Nature, Time

“About this time the King learned that the inhabitants of two hilly tracts, denominated Kuriat and Nardein, continued the worship of idols and had not embraced the faith of Islam' Mahmood resolved to carry the war against these infidels, and accordingly marched towards their country' The Ghiznevide general, Ameer Ally, the son of Arslan Jazib, was now sent with a division of the army to reduce Nardein, which he accomplished, pillaging the country, and carrying away many of the people captives. In Nardein was a temple, which Ameer Ally destroyed, bringing from thence a stone on which were curious inscriptions, and which according to the Hindoos, must have been 40,000 years old…'The celebrated temple of Somnat, situated in the province of Guzerat, near the island of Dew, was in those times said to abound in riches, and was greatly frequented by devotees from all parts of Hindoostan' Mahmood marched from Ghizny in the month of Shaban AH 415 (AD Sept. 1024), with his army, accompanied by 30,000 of the youths of Toorkistan and the neighbouring countries, who followed him without pay, for the purpose of attacking this temple'…'Some historians affirm that the idol was brought from Mecca, where it stood before the time of the Prophet, but the Brahmins deny it, and say that it stood near the harbour of Dew since the time of Krishn, who was concealed in that place about 4000 years ago' Mahmood, taking the same precautions as before, by rapid marches reached Somnat without opposition. Here he saw a fortification on a narrow peninsula, washed on three sides by the sea, on the battlements of which appeared a vast host of people in arms' In the morning the Mahomedan troops advancing to the walls, began the assault…”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 38-49
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

War, People, Youth, Faith

“Mandingo is racist trash, obscene in its manipulation of human beings and feelings, and excruciating to sit through in an audience made up largely of children, as I did last Saturday afternoon. The film has an "R" rating, which didn't keep many kids out, since most came with their parents… if [Chicago] believes Mandingo should be shown to children, then there are no possible standards left and the only thing to do is transfer the censors to the parks department, where they can supervise paper‑plate‑ throwing contests.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mandingo-1975 of Mandingo (25 July 1975) Reviews, Zero star reviews

Children, Feeling, Parent

“The main problem with many nonscientific world models is the vigor with which they insist upon their rightness. Once a world model claims to be completely right, it is no longer open to any changes. …Closed systems can be comforting, but they are limited. …It's not the best we can do. Neither is extreme "open-mindednesss" that slides into "empty headedness"—the ideal that we can never really know anything.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

World, Problem, Change

“Dire agonies, wild terrors swarm,
And Death glares grim in many a form.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 55

Death

“There are a great many obscene minds, yet more railing and satirical, but very few fastidious ones. A man must have good manners, be very polite, and even have a great deal of originality to be able to jest gracefully and be felicitous in his remarks about trifles; to jest in such a manner and to make something out of nothing is to create.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

4
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation

“As also the great number of Corporations; which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater, like wormes in the entrayles of a natural man.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 29, p. 174
Leviathan (1651)

Nature, Wealth

“I shoot only on film and plate. I don’t touch digital. There are many reasons: mentally it’s very different to work with film. It’s expensive, it’s heavy, so you have to prepare. It’s precious and every photograph you have to say yes! It’s now! There's no fiddling about and fixing it later. I really believe the soul of photography is its relationship with the instant.”

Hélène Binet (1959) Swiss photographer

Source: Ten questions for photographer Hélène Binet http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2012/december/06/ten-questions-for-photographer-helene-binet/, Phaidon Press, 6 December 2012.

Soul

“We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

“Conversation Between D’Alembert and Diderot”
D’Alembert’s Dream (1769)

Feeling, Sense, Memory

“.. the wall, the window or the door — and so many other images that parade in my canvases — are indeed there and I am far from trying to hide the fact. With this I mean that I do not think that images, in my works, should be considered as indifferent excuses to prop visual elements, as the 'subject-matters' were said to be for Impressionists and Fauves. From those 'subject-matters', it is further said, the ensuing abstractionists or Informalists liberated themselves. My walls, windows or doors — or at least my suggestions of them — do not avoid their responsibility and hold their full archetypal or symbolic weight.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

Thinking, Indifference

“As I sit at my desk, I know where I am. I see before me a window; beyond that some trees; beyond that the red roofs of the campus of Stanford University; beyond them the trees and the roof tops which mark the town of Palo Alto; beyond them the bare golden hills of the Hamilton Range… beyond that other mountains, range upon range, until we come to the Rockies; beyond that the Great Plains and the Mississippi; beyond that the Alleghenies; beyond that the eastern seaboard; beyond that the Atlantic Ocean; beyond that is Europe; beyond that is Asia. I know, furthermore, that if I go far enough I will come back to where I am now. In other words, I have a picture of the earth as round. I visualize it as a globe. I am a little hazy on some of the details… I probably could not draw a very good map of Indonesia, but I have a fair idea where everything is located on the face of this globe. Looking further, I visualize the globe as a small speck circling around a bright star which is the sun, in the company of many other similar specks, the planets. Looking still further, I see our star the sun as a member of millions upon millions of others in the Galaxy. Looking still further, I visualize the Galaxy as one of millions upon millions of others in the universe.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society, 1956, p. 3 Introduction

Mountain, Star, Idea, Tree

“So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Original text: J'ai tant de sentiments et d'idées qui me sont communes avec les Anglais, que l'Angleterre est devenue pour moi une seconde patrie intellectuelle.
Voyages en Angleterre et en Irlande (Journeys to England and Ireland), 1835.
1830s

Feeling