Quotes about meaning
page 38

“I've told a dark story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being destroyed. … Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this potential is ever to be realized.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)

Truth, Understanding, Sense, Freedom

“It [the first work in her show 'Wind'] is dedicated to Jasper Johns – I named it 'Homage à Jasper Johns'. As he basically did these 'flags', I mean he is so famous because of 'flags', and I was thinking of a flag too, and so I did this, so I was thinking of him because he's so incredibly famous and I'm not.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

both laugh
2001 - 2010, Out to Lunch with Isa Genzken' (2009)

Thinking

“Our idealists must own that their velleity to abolish all suffering is most fully expressed in the Fifth Wisdom of Lamaism, the doctrine that teaches that "no durable happiness, nor yet security, for any sentient being can exist while others are a prey to suffering." That truth cannot be questioned and you may take it to heart: in practical terms it means we got ourselves born on the wrong planet -- in the wrong universe.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"On the Roof of the World", Liberty Bell magazine (December 1987)
1970s, 1980s

Wisdom, Truth, Question, Suffering

“To those who doubt and deny the preponderance of good over evil in human nature; who think the few are made to rule, and the many to serve; who put rank above brotherhood, and race above humanity; who attach more importance to ancient forms than to the living realities of the present; who worship power in whatever hands it may be lodged and by whatever means it may have been obtained; our government is a mountain of sin, and, what is worse, it seems confirmed in its transgressions. One of the latest and most potent European prophets, one who felt himself called upon for a special deliverance concerning us and our destiny as a nation, was the late Thomas Carlyle. He described us as rushing to ruin, and when we may expect to reach the terrible end, our gloomy prophet, enveloped in the fogs of London, has not been pleased to tell us. Warning and advice from any quarter are not to be despised, and especially not from one so eminent as Mr. Carlyle; and yet Americans will find it hard to heed even men like him, while the animus is so apparent, bitter and perverse.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Men, Mountain, Nature, Thinking

“What greater thing can you do — besides for God — than good for other people? That goes for you mean people, too — I mean, really, what is your problem?”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"We Are a Powder Drink" (20 August 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My7jqQx0mfo

God, People, Problem

“Well, moving swiftly sideways into cognitive neuroscience…In the past twenty years we’ve made huge strides, using imaging tools, direct brain interfaces, and software simulations. We’ve pretty much disproved the existence of free will, at least as philosophers thought they understood it. A lot of our decision-making mechanics are subconscious; we only become aware of our choices once we’ve begun to act on them. And a whole lot of other things that were once thought to correlate with free will turn out also to be mechanical. If we use transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the right temporoparietal junction, we can suppress subjects’ ability to make moral judgements; we can induce mystical religious experiences: We can suppress voluntary movements, and the patients will report that they didn’t move because they didn’t want to move. The TMPJ finding is deeply significant in the philosophy of law, by the way: It strongly supports the theory that we are not actually free moral agents who make decisions—such as whether or not to break the law—of our own free will.
“In a nutshell, then, what I’m getting at is that the project of law, ever since the Code of Hammurabi—the entire idea that we can maintain social order by obtaining voluntary adherence to a code of permissible behaviour, under threat of retribution—is fundamentally misguided.” His eyes are alight; you can see him in the Cartesian lecture-theatre of your mind, pacing door-to-door as he addresses his audience. “If people don’t have free will or criminal intent in any meaningful sense, then how can they be held responsible for their actions? And if the requirements of managing a complex society mean the number of laws have exploded until nobody can keep track of them without an expert system, how can people be expected to comply with them?”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 26, “Liz: It’s Complicated” (pp. 286-287)

People, Law, Way, Idea

“The Alaska Constitution is my bible in governing. I try to keep it so simple by reading the thing and believing in it and living it. It's providential. Some of the crafters of the Constitution are still alive. They're my mentors, my advisers. I get to meet with these folks and ask, "What did you mean by this?" And it makes so much sense.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Interview http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/vassilaros/s_585718.html by Dimitri Vassilaros for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, conducted 2008

Sense, Reading

“Nature then, is just nature. I admit I am very impressed with it. The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can do for is to put some order in ourselves. When a man ploughs his field at the right time, it means just that.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

De Kooning's lecture Trans/formation, at Studio 35, 1950.
1950's

Nature, Thinking, Time

“Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

"Putting First Things First", Foreign Affairs (January 1960)

Dreams, Cars, Freedom

“I was forced and pushed into the kind of painting that I did [during the late 1940's / early 1950's]. That is to say, the demands in this dialogue with myself – I give to it, I make some marks, it speaks to me, I speak to it, we have terrible arguments going on all night, weeks and weeks – do I really believe that? I make a mark, a few strokes, I argue with myself, not do I like or not, but is it true or not? Is that what I mean, is that what I want?”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, p. 67

Painting, Night

“A moment lost, forever gone,
can never be again,
so know how much it means to me;
all you said,
all you gave,
all your love to me.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)

Love

“That doesn’t mean that the religious completely abjure evidence. If it supports their preconceptions, they’ll accept it.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 152

Support

“To meet these necessities the Government has been developing a water power project at Muscle Shoals to be equipped to produce nitrogen for explosives and fertilizer. It is my opinion that the support of agriculture is the chief problem to consider in connection with this property. It could by no means supply the present needs for nitrogen, but it would help and its development would encourage bringing other water powers into like use.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Support, Problem, Water, Help

“I see Legros less often sometimes at Andler's as little as possible it means I get to bed late and I am short of funds, it is very pleasant nonetheless Courbet is so charming, Legros often goes there they get on very well he has some superb articles in the figaro. in the gazette des Beaux Arts.... then he will have one in the courrier du Commerce those are the ones I know about. success, women, good food, wine, beer, new acquaintances as a result of these articles, in short an accolade!!!!!!!!.... success can be harmful, it makes you relax, you sit on it and are distracted.... you alone should correct the faults, you know what I think of advice, correction. the gifted man should walk alone, straight to his goal, what happens is nothing, rejection, success, selling pleasing, all that is nonsense.”

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836–1904) painter from France

quote from a letter of Fantin-Latour, Paris, 26 June 1859, to James Whistler in London; from The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler - Repository: Glasgow University Library http://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence/people/display/?cid=1073&nameid=Fantin_Latour_IH&sr=0&rs=1&surname=Fantin-latour&firstname= - System Number: 01073; Call Number: MS Whistler F 4.

Women, Food, Art, Beer

“The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part I, ch. 2 (Bea Schachter)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Books, Art, Literature, Support

“To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker's son] for his mean birth, "My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

54 Iphicrates
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Birth

“But I felt it was important to put those kinds of decisions in the book. And I've got to tell you I really - I mean, I don't want to be cavalier about it but I've done what I've done and I, frankly, if people like what I did, great. And if they don't like what I did at least read the book. That's all I ask. And at least be open minded enough to figure out the decision making process. Why did I do what I did?”

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

2010s, 2011, Q&A with Former President George W. Bush (January 2011)

People, Books, Decision, Reading

“Thus society is born, as something required by nature, and (because this nature is human nature) as something accomplished through a work of reason and will, and freely consented to. Man is a political animal, which means that the human person craves political life, communal life, not only with regard to the family community, but with regard to the civil community.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

The Rights of Man (1945). London: Geoffrey Bles, pp. 7–8.

Life, Family, Communication, Nature

“Fellini was a man of many selves and contradictions: he quoted Dante with genuine emotion while executing pornographic doodles on the table napkin then balked at paying the lunch bill while handing out millions of lire to the beggars of Rome. Although he boasted he was heterosexual, he nonetheless directed one of the greatest bisexual films of all time. He was Mr. Cool as well as the Nutty Professor. He contains multitudes and the journey to his center never ceases. Quite simply, you end up cherishing an Onion Man with no center. Federico really had a rough time of it but pretended otherwise and had the grace never to expose his personal problems in public. And then there are the films that continuously generate new meanings. For example, 8 1/2 contains alembicated allusions to Hamlet of tremendous power and beauty that resonate in the mind long after the film is over.”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

On Fellini's personality, in Indiewire (April, 2003)

Beauty, Quotes, Problem, Time

“Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

p, 125
Evolution and Ethics (1893)

“Mageeba: Do you know what I mean by a relatively free press, Mr. Wagner?
Wagner: Not exactly, sir, no.
Mageeba: I mean a free press which is edited by one of my relatives.”

Tom Stoppard Night and Day

Act II.
Night and Day (1978)

“People who been told that the Reform Party consists of well-meaning simpletons mouthing naive solutions to complex problems should study Harper's speeches on behalf of Reform.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Eight, The Founding Assembly, p. 149

People, Problem, Study

“Business as usual is over. And I think what I mean by that is that you know, the President-elect looks at this and says what’s best for the country? How do we put America and Americans first and stop trying to figure out how we cater to you know, pundits and the establishment class, big donors. He is putting Americans first and foremost. And when he talks about Americans first, he means I don’t care what a bunch of elites tell me or people at a dinner party. He wants to know what American workers care about, what American families care about, what’s going to help American businesses grow.”

Sean Spicer (1971) American political strategist and former White House Press Secretary and Communications Director for President…

Incoming Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer on the Media: ‘Business as Usual Is Over’ http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/12/29/incoming-trump-press-secretary-sean-spicer-on-the-media-business-as-usual-is-over/ (December 29, 2016)

People, Family, Business, Thinking

“The series of events leading up to the formation of the biblical community and its religion apparently began unexpectedly. Moses killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating one of the slaves. It is difficult to imagine this being a fictional invention, especially since the biblical writers never chose to comment on this noteworthy aspect of the protagonist’s dark past. When Moses later tried to intervene between two quarreling slaves, one of them responded, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:11-15). Is the monopoly of force — the ability to coerce other human beings — truly the ultimate basis of social authority? If it seems undesirable to ground social authority on something that essentially boils down to the superior ability to commit murder, then what is the alternative?”

George E. Mendenhall (1916–2016) American academic

Ancient Israel’s Faith and History: An Introduction the Bible in Context (2001)

Religion, Imagination, Communication, Past

“She looked down a slope, needing to squint for the sunlight, onto a vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together, like a well-tended crop, from the dull brown earth; and she thought of the time she’d opened a transistor radio to replace a battery and seen her first printed circuit. The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had. Though she knew even less about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate. There’d seemed no limit to what the printed circuit could have told her (if she had tried to find out); so in her first minute of San Narciso, a revelation also trembled just past the threshold of her understanding.”

Thomas Pynchon book The Crying of Lot 49

Source: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Chapter 1

Communication, Understanding, Sense, Time

“By them saying I should fall in line is an insult. I'm not asking for an invitation. I think they should get behind me, not fall in line like sheep. They're so paranoid, it makes me think they have weak candidates and they're afraid. The more they attack, the more they show their hand, and I mean that across party lines. It's not politics as usual. We're running a different campaign, and they're scared to death.”

Scott Ashjian (1963) American businessman

[Jourdan, Kristi, Tea Party activists say candidate uninvited, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1B, March 18, 2010]

Death, Thinking

“By all means, let's work together.”

Thabo Mbeki (1942) South African politician, President of South Africa

26 August 2011, University of Stellenbosch http://blogs.sun.ac.za/news/2011/08/26/thabo-mbeki-calls-on-students-to-strengthen-africa%E2%80%99s-sovereignty/.

“In conceptual art the idea or the concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive; it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman.”

Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) American artist

Source: Quotes of Sol Lewitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," 1967, p. 80. Cited in: Diane Waldman. Carl Andre https://archive.org/stream/carlandre00wald#page/7/mode/1up. Published 1970 by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. p. 7

Art, Idea, Decision, Dependency

“(a) There is a general tendency towards integration in the various sciences, natural and social. (b) Such integration seems to be centered in a general theory of systems. (c) Such theory may be an important means of aiming at exact theory in the nonphysical fields of science. (d) Developing unifying principles running "vertically" through the universe of the individual sciences, this theory brings us nearer to the goal of the unity of sciences. (e) This can lead to a much needed integration in scientific education.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Variant: Mayor aims of general theory: (1) There is a general tendency toward integration in the various sciences, natural and social. (2) Such integration seems to be centered in a general theory of systems. (3) Such theory may be an important means for aiming at exact theory in the nonphysical fields of science. (4) Developing unifying principles running "vertically" through the universe of the individual sciences, this theory brings us nearer the goal of the unity of science. (5) This can lead to a much-needed integration in scientific education. Source: 1950s, "General systems theory," 1956, p. 38, cited in: Alexander Laszlo and Stanley Krippner (1992) " Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development http://archive.syntonyquest.org/elcTree/resourcesPDFs/SystemsTheory.pdf" In: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Ch. 3, pp. 47-74.

Education, Nature, Universe, Science

“Most power structures are deeply incompetent, staffed by people who don't really believe in their institutions and that most power is the projection of the perception of power. And the more secretively it works, the more incompetent it is, because secrecy breeds incompetence, while openness breeds competence, because one can see and can compare actions and see which one is more competent. To keep up these appearances, institutional heads or political heads such as presidents spend most of the time trying to walk in front of the train and pretending that it is following them, but the direction is set by the tracks and by the engine of the train. Understanding that means that small and committed organisations can outmanoeuvre these institutional dinosaurs, like the State Department, the NSA or the CIA.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

Source: Repubblica.it interview, 23 Dec 2016 link http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/12/23/news/assange_wikileaks-154754000/

Understanding, Secret, People, Appearance

“Roger: It seems that way – it’s kind of weird how things are with music these days. You’re not really touring for the record anymore ‘cause no one buys the record. Everything’s downloaded and all that kind of stuff. We have the new songs but we’re still just touring because we’d be on tour anyway, ya know what I mean. So yeah we’re still touring in support of the new record but the new record is kind of supporting us sort of”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Music, Way, Support

“A reconsideration of the discussion in which I took an active part more than 40 years ago has left me with a rather depressing view of the somewhat shameful state of what has become an established part of economic science, the subject of ‘economic systems’. It appears to me that in this subject political attractiveness has been preserved by the flimsiest of arguments. The kindest thing one can say is that some well-meaning people have allowed themselves to be deceived by the vague and thoughtless language commonly used by specialists in the theory of these issues.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

People, Appearance, Science, Parting

“(on whether he is bipolar.) Wow, what does that mean? … What's the cure? Medicine? Make me like them? Not going to happen. I'm bi-WINNING! I win here and I win there. Now what?”

Charlie Sheen (1965) American film and television actor

On Good Morning America February 28, 2011

“Tell her about it
Tell her everything you feel
Give her every reason to accept
That you're for real.
Tell her about it.
Tell her all your crazy dreams.
Let her know you need her
Let her know how much she means.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Tell Her About It.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)

Dreams, Feeling

“Then, above all, the English people have a curious sense of humour, rather than wit. Humour comes from the heart; wit comes from the brain. We can laugh at ourselves. Do you remember what Ruskin said? "The English laugh is the purest and truest in the metals that can be minted," and indeed, only Heaven can know what the country owes to it. Well, laughter is one of the best things that God has given us, and with hearty laughter neither malice nor indecency can exist. And of all men who have shown us what that laughter can mean, none was like Dickens, every one of whose characters is English to the marrow; and if I might mention a living writer, I think the truest Englishmen are found in Mr. Priestley's novels.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast from London (25 September 1933), quoted in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 13.
1933

Men, God, People, Thinking

“Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 30

Life, Truth

“The notion that the Constitution of the United States, designed, among other things, 'to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,... and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,' prohibits the States from simply banning this visibly brutal means of eliminating our half-born posterity is quite simply absurd.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) (dissenting).
2000s

Justice

“As I conceive this doctrine to be a gross misrepresentation of the character and moral government of God, and to affect many other articles in the scheme of Christianity, greatly disfiguring and depraving it; I shall show, in a fuller manner than I mean to do with respect to any other corruption of Christianity, that it has no countenance whatever in reason, or the Scriptures; and, therefore, that the whole doctrine of atonement, with every modification of it, has been a departure from the primitive and genuine doctrine of Christianity.”

Joseph Priestley book An History of the Corruptions of Christianity

On conventional doctrines of Jesus Christ's atonement for sins, in Part II : Opinions Relating to the Doctrine of Atonement, Introduction
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)

God, Departure

“The Chinese novel was written primarily to amuse the common people. And when I say amuse I do not mean only to make them laugh, though laughter is also one of the aims of the Chinese novel. I mean amusement in the sense of absorbing and occupying the whole attention of the mind. I mean enlightening that mind by pictures of life and what that life means.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

The Chinese Novel (1938)

Life, People, Sense, Laughter

“If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted government intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or begat a child.”

William J. Brennan (1906–1997) American judge

Writing for the court, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972).

Decision, Personality

“Nevermore
Let the great interests of the State depend
Upon the thousand chances that may sway
A piece of human frailty; swear to me
That ye will seek hereafter in yourselves
The means of sovereignty.”

Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795–1854) British politician

Act v.
Ion (1835)

Chance, Dependency

“The masses had already confused the meanings of Tasawwuf and it was believed that Sufis are those miserable failures in the world, who escape reality and pass their time as recluses in dark corners of oratories or mosques and that, they are incapable of self-sustenance and cannot courageously face the rigors of practical life. But this concept is not correct. The real Tasawwuf was taught by the Holy Prophet-SAW himself to his students, the Companions.”

Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan (1934–2017) Pakistani Sufi leader

Life, World, Failure, Courage

“Wherefore it is impossible to succeed in comparing wealth of different eras or different nations. This, in political economy, like squaring the circle in mathematics, is impracticable, for want of a common mean or measure to go by.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XXI, Section VI, p. 244

Mathematics, Wealth

“The power of art is that it can connect us to one another, and to larger truths about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

Truth, Art

“Josh's actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn't mean 'unforgivable.' He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things. […] They are no more perfect a family than any family, but their Christian witness is not marred in our eyes because following Christ is not a declaration of our perfection, but of HIS perfection. […] Let others run from them. We will run to them with our support.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Regarding Joshua Duggar, who admitted to molesting five minor girls, including his own sisters, when he was 14 years old.

People, Family, Support, Christ

“La Tia was fearless, but that could mean either that she had no guile or that she had no conscience.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 10 “Mizzippy” (p. 188).

“Our discussion has shown that while in war many different roads can lead to the goal, to the attainment of the political object, fighting is the only possible means.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

On War (1832), Book 1

War, Fight

“They who interpret secularism as dharma-nirpekshata fail to understand either dharma or secularism. A secular state does not mean an anti-religious state, nor even an irreligious state. For, in that sense, the people of India just never can become secular. A secular state simply means a state which does not identify itself with any specific mode of worship and holds the balance even between all sects- secularism thus mean sampradayanirpekshata and not dharma-nirpekshata.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) 10th Prime Minister of India

Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha Session, Indore – September, 7-8, 1968
Quotes from ataljee.org

People, Understanding, Sense

“One can say that the author is an ideological product, since we represent him as the opposite of his historically real function. (When a historically given function is represented in a figure that inverts it, one has an ideological production.) The author is therefore the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

"What is an author?" (1984)

Fear

“As I consider a future political and economic agreement with Great Russia to be the immutable aim of our foreign policy, we must attempt at least not to make an enemy of Russia…I refuse to support Poland, even if that means that Poland will be eaten up. On the contrary, I reckon with this, and if at the moment we cannot help Russia to regain her old Imperial frontiers, we should at least not hinder her from doing so…The same applies to Lithuania and Latvia.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to General von Massow (31 January 1920), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 67-68.

Support, Future, Help

“It is the place of liberal Christianity to state the supremacy of the everlasting ends of life over the means of living, of the believer over the thing believed, the man over the system, the worker over the product. We are not liberals because we believe less but because we believe more. We dare to believe without an infallible guarantee of the substance of our faith in a moral issue. It is not an historical opinion. Liberalism is not a new system of dogma, but a new point of view. … The place of liberal Christianity is to restore to the moderm man his spiritual integrity.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

"New Pastor in Initial Sermon," The Register and Leader (Des Moines), January 16, 1911, p. 5

Life, Faith

“The only justifiable stopping place for for the expansion of altruism is the point at which all whose welfare can be affected by our actions are included within the circle of altruism. This means that all beings with the capacity to feel pleasure or pain should be included; we can improve their welfare by increasing their pleasures and diminishing their pains.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 4, Reason, p. 120

Pain, Pleasure, Feeling

“Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5

Life, Sadness, Suicide

“Just because I’m a-clappin’ for it, doesn’t mean I’m a-votin’ for it.”

Mike Pence (1959) 48th Vice President of the United States

Whispering to fellow House Representative Jeff Flake in response to President George W. Bush's inaugural speech at his first inauguration — https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/03/mike-pence-jeff-flake-republican-party-friendship-216208 (January 20, 2001) 2000s

“Education in Chile has been modeled as a "consumer good" and this was accepted with much resignation by a broad layer of society for many years, they believed that education and health were to be treated like any other topic…. For this reason we cannot fail to recognize the intervention that the student movement made on the consciousness of thousands of Chileans who today are dissatisfied with the reality of today's education model, to whom a change of the outdated constitution makes sense, who understand the need to reform the taxation system, who no longer put up with the overexploitation of our natural resources, to benefit foreign capital, i. e. Chile awoke and once again came to believe in the possibility of building a different country. One which is more just, a country where education and health are guaranteed, a country where workers have dignified working conditions, where young people are not exploited nor ill-treated in their work-place, where women are integrated with rights and equal opportunities, a country where the environment is protected, where natural resources are exploited to improve the living condition of its people, a country were culture develops freely, where there is access to literature, a country where children don't suffer discrimination because they don't have any money, a country where a walk down your street doesn't mean constant fear of being assaulted, a country where the most disadvantaged youth don't have to resort to drugs or delinquency to give sense to their lives, a country where grandparents are not made to feel as burdens, a country where the development of knowledge becomes a task of society as a whole, where advances in science are placed at the service of the people. We are once again beginning to dream of this beautiful country …because we are not the same that we were a year ago, hope has resurfaced despite the elaborate effort of those who foster neoliberal ideology and who are trying to eternalize capitalism in a process of permanent auto-reproduction, excluding all possibility of a social revolution.”

Karol Cariola (1987) Chilean politician

Ser un joven comunista, por Karol Cariola, La Jota de Ingenieria, November 2011, 2013-10-03 http://www.jotainjenieria.cl/ser-un-joven-comunista-por-karol-cariola, Ser un joven comunista, por Karol Cariola, Oceansur.com, November 2011, 2013-10-03 http://www.oceansur.com/media/uploads/documents/files/prologo-karol.pdf, Original: La educación en Chile ha sido modelada como un “bien de consumo”, hecho que fue aceptado por un amplio sector de la sociedad, con mucha resignación durante años, ellos creyeron que la Educación y la Salud debían ser tratados como cualquier otro tema.... Por esto no podemos dejar de reconocer el gran acierto del movimiento estudiantil al intervenir en las conciencias de miles de chilenos que hoy , ya no se conforman con la realidad del actual modelo de educación, que le hace sentido el cambio de esta añeja constitución, que entendieron necesaria una reforma tributaria, que ya no aguantan la sobre explotación de nuestros recursos naturales en beneficio de capitales extranjeros, es decir, Chile despertó y volvió a creer en la posibilidad de construir un país distinto, un país más justo, un país donde la educación y la salud estén garantizadas, un país donde los trabajadores tengan condiciones laborales dignas, donde los jóvenes no sean explotados ni mal tratados en su fuente laboral, donde las mujeres sean integradas con igualdad de derechos y oportunidades, un país donde se proteja el medio ambiente, en que los recursos naturales sean explotados para mejorar las condiciones de su pueblo, un país donde la cultura se desarrolle libremente, un país en el que haya acceso a la literatura, un país donde los niños no sufran la discriminación desde que nacen por no tener dinero, un país donde caminar por las calles no sean un temor constante de ser asaltados, un país donde los jóvenes más desposeídos no tengan que recurrir a las drogas y la delincuencia para dar sentido a sus vidas, un país donde los abuelos no se sientan un estorbo, un país donde el desarrollo del conocimiento sea una tarea de la sociedad en su conjunto, un país donde el avance de la ciencia se ponga al servicio del pueblo, ese hermoso país es el que hoy estamos volviendo a soñar, porque con emoción lo vuelvo a mencionar, Chile está cambiando, hoy no somos los mismos que hace un año atrás, las esperanzas han resurgido a pesar del esmero de aquellos que propician la ideología neoliberal y que pretenden eternizar el capitalismo en un proceso de auto reproducción permanente, excluyendo toda posibilidad de una revolución social.

Women, Money, Children, People

“And now, at the end of the twentieth century, with the pressure of modern information and the advances of data processing, graphics is passing through a new and fundamental stage. The great difference between the graphic representation of yesterday, which was poorly dissociated from the figurative image, and the graphics of tomorrow, is the disappearance of the congential fixity of the image.
When one can superimpose, juxtapose, transpose, and permute graphic images in ways that lead to groupings and classings, the graphic image passes from the dead image, the 'illustration,' to the living image, the widely accessible research instrument it is now becoming. The graphic is no longer only the 'representation' of a final simplification, it is a point of departure for the discovery of these simplifications and the means for their justification. The graphic has become, by its manageability, an instrument for information processing.”

Jacques Bertin (1918–2010) French geographer and cartographer

Source: Semiology of graphics (1967/83), p. 4

Way, Departure, Dead

“To neglect your own mind, that's like to neglect your consciousness. That’s like to give up all hope of joy and happiness, really. You're the only one that can discover for you the meaning of anything. What it means to you. By that, I don't mean intellectual meaning. I mean, what it means, how it makes you feel. You have to see whether you really are happy or not. Whether you really are sad or not. And you have to investigate what goes through your mind.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

1974
1970's, interview, K. Horsfield & L. Blumenthal

Sadness, Hope, Feeling, Joy

“You have to think not about what you mean but about what people hear.”

Chris Murphy (1973) American politician

2016 Could Be Pivotal in the Battle Over Guns" http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/guns-senator-chris-murphy/"How, Mother Jones, 8 September 2016.

People, Thinking

“Each footstep taken in this society bristles with privileges, and is marked with a bloodstain; each turn of the government machinery grinds the tumbling, gasping flesh of the poor; and tears are running from everywhere in the impenetrable night of suffering. Facing these endless murders and continuous tortures, what's the meaning of society, this crumbling wall, this collapsing staircase?”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

Tear, Suffering, Night

“The great commandment of the narratives is that your life must be meaningful,” said Charon. “If knowing the truth strips the meaning away, then the truth must be suppressed.”

Karl Schroeder (1962) Author. Technology consultant

Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 16 (p. 179).

Life, Truth

“The usage of the words “public" and “public sphere” betrays a multiplicity of concurrent meanings. Their origins go back to various historical phases and, when applied synchronically to the conditions of a bourgeois society that is industrially advanced and constituted as a social-welfare state, they fuse into a clouded amalgam. Yet the very conditions that make the inherited language seem inappropriate appear to require these words, however confused their employment.”

Jürgen Habermas book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Source: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 1963/1991, p. 1 as cited in: Gandy, M (1997) "Ecology, modernity and the intellectual legacy of the Frankfurt School". In: Light, A and Smith, JM, (eds.) Space, Place and Environmental Ethics. p. 240

Appearance

“I’m your apprentice!” Simon protested. “When are you going to teach me something?”
“Idiot boy! What do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to teach you to read and to write. That’s the most important thing. What do you want to learn?”
“Magic!” Simon said immediately. Morgenes stared at him.
“And what about reading…?” the doctor asked ominously.
Simon was cross. As usual, people seemed determined to balk him at every turn. “I don’t know,” he said. What’s so important about reading and letters, anyway? Books are just stories about things. Why should I want to read books?”
Morgenes grinned, an old stoat finding a hole in the henyard fence. “Ah, boy, how can I be mad at you…what a wonderful, charming, perfectly stupid thing to say!” The doctor chuckled appreciatively, deep in his throat.
“What do you mean?” Simon’s eyebrows moved together as he frowned. “Why is it wonderful and stupid?”
“Wonderful because I have such a wonderful answer,” Morgenes laughed. Stupid because…because young people are made stupid, I suppose—as tortoises are made with shells, and wasps with stings—it is their protection against life’s unkindnesses.”
“Begging your pardon?” Simon was totally flummoxed now.
“Books,” Morgenes said grandly, leaning back on his precarious stool, “—books are magic. That is the simple answer. And books are traps as well.”
“Magic? Traps?”
“Books are a form of magic—” the doctor lifted the volume he had just laid on the stack, “—because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm. What did so-and-so think about such-and-such two hundred years agone? Can you fly back through the ages and ask him? No—or at least, probably not.
But, ah! If he wrote down his thoughts, if somewhere there exists a scroll, or a book of his logical discourses…he speaks to you! Across centuries! And if you wish to visit far Nascadu or lost Khandia, you have also but to open a book….”
“Yes, yes, I suppose I understand all that.” Simon did not try to hide his disappointment. This was not what he had meant by the word “magic.” “What about traps, then? Why ‘traps’?”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Morgenes leaned forward, waggling the leather-bound volume under Simon’s nose. “A piece of writing is a trap,” he said cheerily, “and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive—which is knowledge—alive forever. The more books you have,” the doctor waved an all-encompassing hand about the room, “the more traps, then the better chance of capturing some particular, elusive, shining beast—one that might otherwise die unseen.”
Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 7, “The Conqueror Star” (pp. 92-93).

Life, People, Books, Age

“For to pass by those Ancients, the wonderful Pythagoras, the sagacious Democritus, the divine Plato, the most subtle and very learned Aristotle, Men whom every Age has hitherto acknowledged as deservedly honored, as the greatest Philosophers, the Ring-leaders of Arts; in whose Judgments how much these Studies [mathematics] were esteemed, is abundantly proclaimed in History and confirmed by their famous Monuments, which are everywhere interspersed and bespangled with Mathematical Reasonings and Examples, as with so many Stars; and consequently anyone not in some Degree conversant in these Studies will in vain expect to understand, or unlock their hidden Meanings, without the Help of a Mathematical Key: For who can play well on Aristotle’s Instrument but with a Mathematical Quill; or not be altogether deaf to the Lessons of natural Philosophy, while ignorant of Geometry? Who void of (Geometry shall I say, or) Arithmetic can comprehend Plato’s 218 Socrates lisping with Children concerning Square Numbers; or can conceive Plato himself treating not only of the Universe, but the Polity of Commonwealths regulated by the Laws of Geometry, and formed according to a Mathematical Plan?”

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

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), pp. 26-27

Men, Children, Age, Law

“Nowadays people seem to imagine that impartiality means readiness to treat lies and truth the same, readiness to hold white as bad as black and black as good as white. I, on the contrary, believe that without integrity a man had much better not approach a problem at all. I came here with an open mind and I testify that I have seen. I believe that righteousness exalteth a nation and righteousness does not mean playing off one side against the other while you guard your own interests.”

Orde Charles Wingate (1903–1944) British Army General

Quoted in Christopher Sykes Orde Wingate, (1959), p. 166.

People, Truth, Imagination, Problem

“Poetry photographs parts of life and humanity that can’t be captured visually, at least in a literal sense. It dissects the hopelessness of being alive and makes it seem to develop meaning momentarily, even if it never actually does.”

Robbie Coburn (1994) Australian writer

in 2014, Going Down Swinging

Life, Sense, Parting

“You hold the pen like a needle in a seismic observatory, and in fact it is not we who write, but rather we are written. Writing means to read oneself”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Sketchbook 1946-1949

Reading

““Ritual” might be an acceptable term, if shorn of its overtly religious connotations. For me, breaking taboos became nothing less than a stylistic means. I allowed my body, my self, to be pushed into such extreme situations that certain norms of social behaviour could only appear utterly absurd to me.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 163 (1984)

Appearance

“Our country must be strong enough to solve problems, and that means we must learn how to work together again.”

Gabrielle Giffords (1970) American politician

Comment after winning re-election — [Giffords wins re-election to U.S. House; Kelly says voters have spoken, Sierra Vista Herald, Arizona, November 6, 2010, Bill Hess]

Problem, Strong, Learning, Country

“[T]o teach virtue we must educate the emotions, and this means learning "what to feel" in the various circumstances that prompt them.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Knowledge and Feeling" (p. 37)
Culture Counts (2007)

Education, Feeling, Learning

“These effects of mescalin are the sort of effects you could expect to follow the administration of a drug having the power to impair the efficiency of the cerebral reducing valve. When the brain runs out of sugar, the undernourished ego grows weak, can't be bothered to undertake the necessary chores, and loses all interest in those spatial and temporal relationships which mean so much to an organism bent on getting on in the world. As Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve, all kinds of biologically useless things start to happen. … Other persons discover a world of visionary beauty. To others again is revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence, of the given, unconceptualized event.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

describing his experiment with mescaline, p. 26
The Doors of Perception (1954)

World, Beauty, Past, Personality

“Tax reduction has an almost irresistible appeal to the politician, and it is no doubt also gratifying to the citizen. It means more dollars in his pocket, dollars that he can spend if inflation doesn't consume them first. But dollars in his pocket won't buy him clean streets or an adequate police force or good schools or clear air and water. Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery.”

John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician

The Recovery of Confidence (1970), p. 152.

Money, School, Communication, Water

“The sculptor must learn to reproduce the surface, which means all that vibrates on the surface: spirit, soul, love, passion — life. … Sculpture is thus the art of hollows and mounds, not of smoothness, or even polished planes.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

In; Victor Frisch, ‎Joseph Twadell Shipley (1939). Auguste Rodin. p. 203: About the act of creation.
1900s-1940s

Love, Life, Art, Soul

“My religion is truth, love and service to God and humanity. Every religion that has come into the world has brought the message of love and brotherhood. Those who are indifferent to the welfare of their fellowmen, whose hearts are empty of love, they do not know the meaning of religion.”

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890–1988) Indian independence activist

Quoted from the Progressive February 2002

Love, God, Truth, World

“I hate polite conversation. I hate it when people stand around and go, 'Hi, how are you?' I hate words that don't have any reason or meaning. Also I hate it when people smoke in elevators and closed in places. It's just so rude.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/madonna_2.htm.

Hate, People

“To receive the gift of eternal life, you must repent of your sins (turn from them), and put on the Lord Jesus Christ as you would put on a parachute— trusting in Him alone for your salvation. That means you forsake your own good works as a means of trying to please God (trying to bribe Him), and trust only in what Jesus has done for you. Simply throw yourself on the mercy of the Judge. The Bible says that He’s rich in mercy to all who call upon Him, so call upon Him right now. He will hear you if you approach Him with a humble and sorrowful heart. Do it right now because you don’t know when you will take that leap through the door of death. Confess your sins to God, put your trust in Jesus to save you, and you will pass from death to life. You have God’s promise on it.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)

Life, Death, God, Heart

“To get at the meaning of a statement the logical positivist asks, "What would the world be like if it were true?" The operationist asks, "What would we have to do to come to believe it?" For the pragmatist the question is, "What would we do if did believe it?"”

Abraham Kaplan (1918–1993) American philosopher

Source: "The Conduct of Inquiry", p. 43.

World, Question

“A major component of the western myth is the belief that myth is a primitive and mistaken way of thinking about the world that has been replaced by science. Commonly, the word “myth” is now used to mean an illusion or a lie… Enlightened moderns are accustomed to looking at the queer beliefs of the Mayas or the Tassaday and seeing them as mythical. But we look on our own belief systems as rational and rooted in the realities of politics and economics. As Joseph Campbell says: “Myth is other people’s religion.””

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 20

People, Lie, World, Religion

“Rolling Stone: Nevertheless, you've often talked about how technology can empower people, how it can change their lives. Do you still have as much faith in technology today as you did when you started out 20 years ago?
Jobs: Oh, sure. It's not a faith in technology. It's faith in people.
Rolling Stone: Explain that.
Jobs: Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them. It's not the tools that you have faith in — tools are just tools. They work, or they don't work. It's people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I'm still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

1990s

People, Faith, Change

“And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.”

Harvey Milk (1930–1978) American politician who became a martyr in the gay community

A version of his staple "Hope Speech," quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), p. 363

People, World, Hope, Feeling

“When Melinda filed for divorce, she wrote down only two words as her reason for seeking a dissolution of our two-year marriage: Incontrovertibly self-absorbed. Or is that three words? No matter. The question I have is: Did she mean me or her?”

Eric Garcia (1972) An amazing author who has written several wonderful books!

Source: The Repossession Mambo (2009), Chapter 2 (p. 16)

Marriage, Question

“The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

"The Crime against Kansas," speech in the Senate (May 18, 1856). The claims made against Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina so angered Butler's cousin, Democrat Representative Preston Brooks, that Brooks assaulted Sumner with a cane in the Senate chamber a few weeks later

Love, Books, World, Courage

“We are divided not only about political facts and social values, but also about what the Constitution itself means. The crusaders on this issue choose to ignore these problems and are proposing to deny the will of 64 million voters by appealing to five Supreme Court Justices (since no one is delusional enough to think that the four liberal justices are going to take the presidency away from Obama). What kind of conservatism is this?”

David Horowitz (1939) Neoconservative activist, writer

Horowitz speaks about Obama birth certificate doubters. [David, Horowitz, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/226474/obama-derangement-syndrome-david-horowitz, "Shut up about the birth certificate.", nationalreview.com, December 8, 2008, 2016-30-03]
2008

Justice, Problem, Thinking

“Fairly early in life, I noticed my brain was weird. By that I mean that I noticed it had a way of looking at normal things from a slightly twisted angle--just twisted enough that it often made me chuckle.”

Phil Vischer (1966) American puppeter

Source: Me, Myself, & Bob (2006), p. 9-10

Life, Way

“For in the end what is at issue in this idea of the cooperative is as clear as day. It is a means of preparing the daily bourgeois stew [pot-au-feu bourgeois] at all costs, divorced from any political thought, from any revolutionary struggle. It is the political and social abdication of the proletariat under the pretext of socialism; indeed it is not even that! Everyone is careful to insist and to prove that socialism has nothing to do with it, which is the truth.”

Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) French socialist and political activist

"Letter to Blanqui’s Supporters in Paris" (18 April 1866)

Truth, Idea

“Men for whom divorce means walking out of their children’s lives except when they choose to see the children are the male equivalent of the adolescent feminists: men who want options without obligations. Morally, they have no right to walk out. A law that allows that is similarly immoral. “Primary Parent” laws are just such laws.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 167.

Men, Children, Law, Parent

“Libraries are brothels for the mind. Which means that librarians are the madames, greeting the punters, understanding their strange tastes and needs and then pimping their books.”

Guy Browning (1964) British comedian

How to... use a Library, Never Push When It Says Pull: Small Rules for Little Problems (2005).

Books, Understanding

“"God blessed this guy's feet, but forgot about the rest, specially his mouth, because when he talks he only says crap, I mean: he only say shi*."”

Romário (1966) Brazilian association football player

Deus abençoou os pés desse cidadão, mas se esqueceu do resto e principalmente da boca, porque quando ele fala só sai besteira, ou melhor: só sai m...
Source: esportes.terra
Context: Referring to Pele, after the latter criticized him after the 1998 Gold Cup.

God, Guy

“We would wish to discover the Plan of the Universe, and the means employed by the Eternal Architect in the execution of his magnificent design. We will first contemplate the System of which we make a part, and of which our Sun is the center. Thence we will ascend towards those Suns and those innumerable Worlds which are scattered through the immensity of space.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) German mathematician, physicist and astronomer

Introduction, p. xxxix
The System of the World (1800)

World, Universe, Sun, Parting

“As we look to secure our ambitions for this nation's future, we must recognise that a vibrant Gaelic language and culture are central to what it means to be Scottish in the modern world.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Lecture (December 19, 2007)

World, Future

“From all the properties of man and of nature, from all the various branches of science, from all the deductions of human reason, the general corollary, admitted by Hindus, Arabs, and Tartars, by Persians, and by Chinese, is the supremacy of an all-creating and all-preserving spirit, infinitely wise, good, and powerful, but infinitely removed from the comprehension of his most exalted creatures; nor are there in any language (the ancient Hebrew always excepted) more pious and sublime addresses to the being of beings, more splendid enumerations of his attributes, or more beautiful descriptions of his visible works, than in Arabick, Persian, and Sanscrit, especially in the Koran, the introductions to the poems of Sadi', Niza'm'i and Firdaus'i, the four Védas, and many parts of the numerous Puránas: but supplication and praise would not satisfy the boundless imagination of the Vedánti and Sufi theologists, who blending uncertain metaphysicks with undoubted principles of religion, have presumed to reason confidently on the very nature and essence of the divine spirit, and asserted in a very remote age, what multitudes of Hindus and Muselmans assert… that all spirit is homogeneous, that the spirit of God is in kind the same with that of man, though differing from it infinitely in degree, and that, as material substance is mere illusion, there exists in this universe only one generick spiritual substance, the sole primary cause, efficient, substantial and formal of all secondary causes and of all appearances whatever, but endued in its highest degree, with a sublime providential wisdom, and proceeding by ways incomprehensible to the spirits which emane from it; an opinion which Gotama never taught, and which we have no authority to believe, but which, as it is grounded on the doctrine of an immaterial creator supremely wise, and a constant preserver supremely benevolent, differs as widely from the pantheism of Spinoza and Toland, as the affirmation of a proposition differs from the negation of it; though the last named professor of that insane philosophy had the baseness to conceal his meaning under the very words of Saint Paul, which are cited by Newton for a purpose totally different, and has even used a phrase, which occurs, indeed, in the Véda, but in a sense diametrically opposite to that, which he would have given it. The passage to which I allude is in a speech of Varuna to his son, where he says, "That spirit, from which these created beings proceed; through which having proceeded from it, they live; toward which they tend and in which they are ultimately absorbed, that spirit study to know; that spirit is the Great One."”

William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India

"On the Philosophy of the Asiatics" (1794)

Wisdom, God, Age, Religion

“Ours is not only a fortunate people, but a very commonsensical people, with vision high, but their feet on the earth, with belief in themselves and faith in God. Whether enemies threaten from without or menaces arise from within, there is some indefinable voice saying, '. Here is the sample of liberty no storms may shake. Here are the altars of freedom no factions shall destroy. It was American in conception, American in its building. It shall be American in the fulfillment. Factional once, we are all American now. And we mean to be all Americans to all the world.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

1920s, The American Soldier (1920)

God, People, World, Faith

“The simplest means are those which best enable an artist to express himself. His means of expression must derive almost all of necessity from his temperament.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

1905 - 1910, Notes of a Painter' (1908)

“"Urban problems" are increasingly becoming a political issue as the socialization of the means of production is accompanied by the increasing socialization of the means of consumption or, if one prefers, from the moment collective facilities begin to play a strategic role in the structure and rhythms of everyday life.”

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

Source: Urban renewal and social conflict in Paris, 1972, p. 93

Life, Problem

“I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of all I find that I love. In order to get some of it down I have to love. I sell you no phony forgiveness, I'm a desperate man—but too much of your life will be lost, its meaning lost, unless you approach it as much through love as through hate. So I approach it through division. So I denounce and I defend and I hate and I love.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Epilogue.
Invisible Man (1952)

Love, Life, Pain, Hate

““The situation on, on earth is complicated.”
“You mean politics?” Dakkar spat the word, with immeasurable contempt.”

Adam Roberts book Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea

Source: Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea (2014), Chapter 24, “Dakkar” (p. 228)

“Scott wants us each to talk about "the kind of society we'd like to live in." … From the start I am very nervous. Phil goes on about "the redistribution of wealth"; nearly everyone comes out for "socialism" of one kind or another; Brick even hints at "another revolution." When it is my time to speak I am moved to say, "I think people's tolerance is the main issue, even more than socialism. I mean, look at the people who are for the war. Look at the courthouse square."”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

I am afraid to go on and say what I don't like about socialism. ...
Pages 93–94. It's the spring of 1965. Satin had dropped out of college to become a volunteer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Holly Springs, Mississippi. The meeting above had been called by SNCC to explore SNCC workers' views.
Confessions of a Young Exile (1976)

War, People, Thinking, Time

“In fifty words: Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain.”

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935) British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat

The Evolution of A Revolt (1920)

Idea, Decision, Time, Victory

“Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. — We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favour towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.”

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

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775); Jefferson composed the first draft of this document, but the final work was done by John Dickinson, working with his original draft. Full text online http://www.nationalcenter.org/1775DeclarationofArms.html 1770s

God, World, Exercises, Heart

“Have you yet read Miss Martineau’s and Mr. Atkinson’s new work, Letters on the Nature and Development of Man? If you have not, it would be worth your while to do so. Of the impression this book has made on me, I will not now say much. It is the first exposition of avowed atheism and materialism I have ever read; the first unequivocal declaration of disbelief in the existence of a God or a future life I have ever seen. In judging of such exposition and declaration, one would wish entirely to put aside the sort of instinctive horror they awaken, and to consider them in an impartial spirit and collected mood. This I find difficult to do. The strangest thing is, that we are called on to rejoice over this hopeless blank — to receive this bitter bereavement as great gain — to welcome this unutterable desolation as a state of pleasant freedom. Who could do this if he would? Who would do this if he could? Sincerely, for my own part, do I wish to know and find the Truth; but if this be Truth, well may she guard herself with mysteries, and cover herself with a veil. If this be Truth, man or woman who beholds her can but curse the day he or she was born. I said however, I would not dwell on what I thought; rather, I wish to hear what some other person thinks,--someone whose feelings are unapt to bias his judgment. Read the book, then, in an unprejudiced spirit, and candidly say what you think of it. I mean, of course, if you have time — not otherwise.”

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) English novelist and poet

Charlotte Brontë, on Letters on the Nature and Development of Man (1851), by Harriet Martineau. Letter to James Taylor (11 February 1851) The life of Charlotte Brontë

Life, God, Truth, Books

“No little appetite or pain, no carelessness or meanness in him escaped her; no thought or dream or longing in him ever reached her. And yet several times in her life she had seen the stars.”

John Steinbeck book The Moon Is Down

The Moon Is Down (1942), p. 7

Life, Pain, Dreams, Star

Quotes about meaning page 38

Quotes about meaning
page 38