Quotes about meaning
page 66

“The basic principal of this government is the will of the people. A system was devised by its founders which seemed to insure the means of ascertaining that will and of enacting it into legislation and supporting it through the administration of the law. This was to be accomplished by electing men to make, and men to execute the laws, who, would represent in the laws so made and executed the will of the people. This was the establishment of a representative government, where every man had equal voice, equal rights, and equal responsibilities. Have we such a government today? Or is this country fast coming to be dominated by forces that threaten the true principle of representative government?”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

“The Danger Threatening Representative Government” Speech (1897) http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/pdfs/lessons/EDU-SpeechTranscript-SpeechesLaFollette-DangerThreatening.pdf

Men, People, Law, Support

“A man with taste is the same as a woman with taste. Man invents his home, woman - her dress. Being an artist means having an individual, distinct from all other people's perception and concept of every single thing. Being an artist does not mean possessing a faculty of combining lines and paints, being artful in this or that sort of art, but having a world inside oneself and individual forms to express it.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

1895 - 1905
Source: Lettres à un Inconnu, (Notebook II, p. 8) - Aux sources de l'expressionnisme. Presentation par Gabrielle Dufour-Kowalska. Klincksieck, 1999. p. 106

People, World, Art, Home

“Becoming a nationalist is not a matter of decision; it means one has locked one’s mind forever. No reason or practical advice or evidence is strong enough to unlock it.”

Neamat Imam book The Black Coat

The Black Coat (2013)

Decision, Strong

“I want to stress that rationality is not a property of the individual alone, although it is usually presented that way. Rather, it gathers not only its force but also its very meaning from the social context in which it is embedded.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

1970s-1980s, "Rationality of Self and Others in an Economic System", 1986

Way

“(After Houston asks the audience in Central Park to sing along to a new, un-aired song) And the poor gays with the signs are like "We don't know that song yet…. it's not even (on the radio)…go Diva…. I mean, we don't know that song. I would like to…I don't…??"”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Balls of Steel (2009)

Singing

“My family means more to me than the artificial trappings of my career. If ever I had to choose between my career and my family, the wife and kids would definitely come out on top.”

Mel Gibson (1956) American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter

Excerpted from Wensley Clarkson's "Mel Gibson; Living Dangerously", page 300.

Family

“I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

An Englishman Abroad (1983).

“The new "ambiguity" means, in a way adjudged favorable to literary, poetic, intellectually and psychologically well-devised and praiseworthily executed linguistic performance, uncertainty of meaning, or difficulty for the interpreter in identifying just what the meaning in question is: it means the old meanings of ambiguity with a difference. It means uncertainty of meaning (of a word or combination of words) purposefully incorporated in a literary composition for the attainment of the utmost possible variety of meaning-play compressible within the verbal limits of the composition.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

"On Ambiguity" in Rational Meaning and Supplementary Essays (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997).

Way, Question

“Remember, just because Microsoft can do something, doesn't mean you can. Microsoft makes their own gravity. Normal rules don't apply to them.”

Joel Spolsky (1965) American blogger

"Our .NET Strategy" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Our.NetStrategy.html

““[Thanksgiving is] my favorite holiday, I think. It's without a doubt my favorite American Holiday. I love Christmastime, Chanuka etc. But Thanksgiving is as close as we get to a nationalist holiday in America (a country where nationalism as a concept doesn't really fit). Thanksgiving's roots are pre-founding, which means its not a political holiday in any conventional sense. We are giving thanks for the soil, the land, for the gifts of providence which were bequeathed to us long before we figured out our political system. Moreover, because there are no gifts, the holiday isn't nearly so vulnerable to materialism and commercialism. It's about things -- primarily family and private accomplishments and blessings -- that don't overlap very much with politics of any kind. We are thankful for the truly important things: our children and their health, for our friends, for the things which make life rich and joyful. As for all the stuff about killing Indians and whatnot, I can certainly understand why Indians might have some ambivalence about the holiday (though I suspect many do not). The sad -- and fortunate -- truth is that the European conquest of North America was an unremarkable old world event (one tribe defeating another tribe and taking their land; happened all the time) which ushered in a gloriously hopeful new age for humanity. America remains the last best hope for mankind. Still, I think it would be silly to deny how America came to be, but the truth makes me no less grateful that America did come to be. Also, I really, really like the food.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

"Thanksgiving" http://web.archive.org/web/20041126231505/http://www.nationalreview.com:80/thecorner/04_11_24_corner-archive.asp (24 November 2004), The Corner, National Review 2000s, 2004

Love, Life, Children, Health

“We seem never to know what any thing means or is worth until we have lost it.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 190

“I really do, I like Ted Cruz a lot, I would say that we would certainly have things in mind for Ted, to be honest with you. I mean, he's somebody that I could certainly say that [about] because I like him.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Donald Trump, during a rally in Iowa. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/11/donald-trump-questions-ted-cruzs-ties-to-major-oil-companies/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/in-iowa-donald-trump-hits-ted-cruz-on-ethanol-and-religion/ http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/2015/12/12/donald-trump-and-ted-cruz-are-best-of-frenemies/ (December 11, 2015) 2010s, 2015

“A philosophical problem of no importance or meaning,” Joe said. “And incapable of being proved one way or the other.”

Philip K. Dick book Ubik

Source: Ubik (1969), Chapter 9 (p. 115)

Way, Problem

“I chose to paint because the medium as such has a particular meaning. It is almost synonymous with what is popularly viewed as Art - art with a capital A-with all the glory, the piety, and the authority that it commands.”

Hans Haacke (1936) conceptual political artist

1980s Source: Bois,Yve-Alain, Douglas Crimp, and Rosalind Krauss. " A Conversation with Hans Haacke http://www.kim-cohen.com/artmusictheoryassets/artmusictheorytexts/Haacke_Interview.PDF." in: October : The First Decade 30 (fall 1984): 23-48

Art, Painting

“I want to talk about love. Loving someone…I mean really loving someone…means you are willing to admit that the person you love is not what you first fell in love with, not the image you first had; and you must be able to like them still for being as close to that image as they are, and avoid disliking them for being so far away.”

Samuel R. Delany (1942) American author, professor and literary critic

The Star Pit (1967)

Love, Personality

“Blade muttered, “Makes as much sense as the story of any other god. Meaning it don’t.””

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter 10 (p. 261)

God, Sense

“Inclusive. It’s one of those ghastly, politically correct words that have survived the demise of New Labour. Schools have got to be ‘inclusive’ these days. That means wheelchair ramps, the complete works of Alice Walker in the school library (though no Mark Twain) and a Special Educational Needs Department that can cope with everything from dyslexia to Münchausen syndrome by proxy. If [then education secretary, Michael] Gove is serious about wanting to bring back O-levels, the government will have to repeal the Equalities Act because any exam that isn’t ‘accessible’ to a functionally illiterate troglodyte with a mental age of six will be judged to be ‘elitist’ and therefore forbidden by Harman’s Law.”

Toby Young (1963) British journalist

Spectator magazine (2012)

Age, Education, School, Law

“The free enterprise policies that produce solely for waste and for profit and that promote a consumerist mentality rather than one of need are damaging to the environment. I am in no sense defending the centralised economies of eastern Europe. They have polluted the north sea and rivers just as industries in Britain and North America have destroyed rivers, wasted natural resources and ruined people's lives by their form of pollution. It is not good enough to promote an economic system that produces for waste and to promote environmental controls in western Europe and North America to look after our environment if at the same time we transfer that destruction of the environment to poorer Third-world countries, either by exporting toxic waste and letting those countries get rid of it by whatever means they can, because they are desperate for foreign currency, or by promoting the destruction of the rain forests, through raping those countries to collect debt payments, when they can make them only by destroying all their natural resources. We live in an age when we have an opportunity to improve our environment and save ourselves from mass destruction through climatic change and environmental disasters.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/jan/15/environmental-protection-bill in the House of Commons (15 January 1990). 1990s

People, Age, World, Nature

“Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Attributed

Learning

“If man had been created solely for the sake of this world, he would have had no need of being inspired with a soul so precious and exalted as to be greater than the angels themselves, especially so in that it derives no satisfaction whatsoever from all of the pleasures of this world. … "What is this analogous to? To the case of a city dweller who married a princess. If he brought her all that the world possessed, it would mean nothing to her, by virtue of her being a king's daughter. So is it with the soul. If it were to be brought all the delights of the world, they would be as nothing to it."”

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto book Mesillat Yesharim

quote is from Koheleth Rabbah
Mesillat Yesharim (1738), Chapter 1

Pleasure, World, Angels, Soul

“White: You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesnt mean anything. You've become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left.”

Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited

The Sunset Limited (2006)

World, Courage

“I renew my call for the occupier (the United States) to leave our land. The departure of the occupier will mean stability for Iraq, victory for Islam and peace and defeat for terrorism and infidels.”

Muqtada Sadr (1973) Iraqi politician

Radical Cleric Blames U.S. for Iraq Woes http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/03/30/ap3567801.html 30 March 2007

Peace, Departure, Victory

“With all that’s been written about Temple of the Dog recently, it’s reminded me of the original meanings of those songs. Say Hello 2 Heaven, for example, was one of the songs I wrote directly for Andy Wood and the amount of times someone has requested I play that song for someone else who’s died have been numerous. That’s great that it’s become this anthem that makes somebody feel some comfort when they’ve lost someone, but recently I’ve become a little more possessive of the idea that this song was actually written for a specific guy and I haven’t forgotten that person. So I’ve been reminding myself and those in the audience where that song came from.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Chris Cornell Interview: ‘There’s always been a desire in me to keep the attention of a room full of people with just one stupid guitar and nothing else’, The Independent, 20 May 2016 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/chris-cornell-interview-there-s-always-been-a-desire-in-me-to-keep-the-attention-of-a-room-full-of-a7039831.html, Temple of the Dog Era

Dogs, Guy, Feeling, Idea

“Scientology, the word means study of life, study of knowledge, and that's where it is. It takes up all areas of life itself, things that are integral and maxims that are related to life and very existence. Let me give you an example. It's better if I take that, because it is such a broad-ranging subject covering so many different areas, the subject of communication. This is something that major breakthroughs exist in Scientology, being able to communicate in the world around you. And I think everybody would agree that this is an important subject. Well, there's an actual formula for communication which can be understood.”

David Miscavige (1960) leader of the Church of Scientology

Scientology Leader Gave ABC First-Ever Interview: David Miscavige, Scientology Leader and Best Man at Tom Cruise's Wedding, Spoke to ABC News' 'Nightline' in 1992, ABC News, November 18, 2006, 2010-07-03 http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2664713,.

Life, World, Communication, Knowledge

“…I suspect that pain means little to you as your life--but both your life and your pain are very important to me.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

(XII.2) Del Rey, p. 412
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

Life, Pain

“Goebbels…now made an applauded entrance. He was no man to improvise a word or two of greeting; he had typewritten sheets…. He spoke of the cinema as the popular voice of the state…those products, themselves a means of cleansing the world film market through their purity and excellence of the regrettable decadent ordures excreted by international Jewry….”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

World

“That ear - I mean, Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

In reference to Brian Wilson, Newsweek (1997)

“They held up to admiration all those women who from time to time have arrested the victorious progress of conquerors, made of their bodies a field of battle, a means of ruling, a weapon; who have vanquished by their heroic caresses hideous or detested beings, and sacrificed their chastity to vengeance and devotion.
All was said with due restraint and regard for propriety, the effect heightened now and then by an outburst of forced enthusiasm calculated to excite emulation.
A listener would have thought at last that the one role of woman on earth was a perpetual sacrifice of her person, a continual abandonment of herself to the caprices of a hostile soldiery.
The two nuns seemed to hear nothing, and to be lost in thought. Boule de Suif also was silent.”

Guy De Maupassant book Boule de Suif

Boule de Suif (1880)

Women, Hostility, Time, Victory

“There is no absolute virtue in iambic pentameter as such.. however well they may be done. There is no immediate virtue to rhythm even. These things are merely a means to an end.”

Edward Storer (1880–1944) British writer

'Essay on Imagism' (appended to 'Mirrors of Illusion', Sisley, London) 1909

“Some claim that life, the universe, and mind are miraculous. My conclusion is that these things are really, really amazing, but that they’re not miraculous (unless by miraculous, you just mean ‘really, really amazing’).”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

(p. 74)
Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010)

Life, Universe

“If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Address, "Renewing American Civilization," Reinhardt College (7 January 1995)
1990s

Men, Problem, Time

“But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that, and watch him (her husband, former president George H. W. Bush) suffer?”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Addressing the question of how much television news she'd recently been watching, in light of the enormous media attention given to likely outcomes in a U.S. war with Iraq. The interview took place two days prior to the start of the Iraq War, Good Morning America (18 March 2003)

Death, Beauty, Suffering

“But what has happened is that the Indian State actively patronizes the exercise aimed at making all religions mean the same things, and persecutes those who defy the exercise. A whole army of 'secularist' scribes in the media and the academia has been employed and paid handsomely for whitewashing Islam and Christianity so that whatever is bigoted in the scriptures and blood-soaked histories of these creeds, is carefully exorcised. On the other hand, whatever is liberal and large-hearted, humane and civilized in the pluralistic spirituality of India is remorseless pruned to the prescribed and proper size. In the process, Christianity has been made to mean only the Sermon on the Mount, and Islam equated with two Quranic sentences torn out of context - "Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion" and "There is no compulsion in religion."”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Freedom of expression - Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy (1998)

Religion, Exercises, History, Heart

“When I lived in Cookham I was disturbed by a feeling of everything being meaningless. But quite suddenly I became aware that everything was full of special meaning and this made everything holy… I observed this sacred quality in most unexpected quarters.”

Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) English painter

As quoted in Sermon by Artists (1934) Golden Cockerel Press

Feeling

“The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff. Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision. It’s just a means to an end. We’re talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that’s not going to happen with people blogging on the internet. I mean, get out there, communicate. Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet. Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging. I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span. There’s too much technology available. I’m sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Elton John, blaming the internet for destroying good music http://www.gigwise.com/news/35721/elton-john-wants-to-tear-down-the-internet (2 August 2007)

People, World, Art, Music

“The only word I will accept on the word 'conservative', for me anyway, is 'unapologetic'. Because, I for one, am not sorry that we won the Cold War. I am not sorry that we reduced tax rates and created economic opportunities for millions. I am not sorry that we reformed welfare and put millions of people back to work. And I will never, ever apologize for America. It is the last best hope for Western civilization. Let's face it- no one flees for a better life from the United States, to say, Pakistan or anywhere for that matter. Why is it so hard for us, why is it so difficult for us to take pride in the fact of who we are, what we have created, what Western civilization really means.”

Tom Tancredo (1945) American politician

CPAC Afternoon Session http://video.c-span.org/archive/c08/c08_030207_cpac2.rm (March 2, 2007).

Life, War, People, Hope

“I learnt the true meaning of what was euphemistically described as close-quarters combat. No line-of-sight particle-beam weapons now; no delayed-detonation nano-munitions. What close-quarters combat meant was something which would have been infinitely more recognisable to a soldier of a thousand years earlier: the screaming fury of human beings packed so close together that the only effective way to kill each other was with sharpened metal weapons: bayonets and daggers, or with hands around each other’s throats; fingers pressed into each other’s eye-sockets. The only way to survive was to disengage all higher brain-functions and regress to an animal state of mind.
So I did. And in doing so, I learned a deeper truth about war. She punished those who flirted with her by making them like herself. Once you opened the door to the animal, there was no shutting it.”

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City

Source: Chasm City (2001), Chapter 7 (p. 108).

War, Truth, Way, Learning

“I believe that the situation has now gone so far that it is impossible to conceive of an effective long-term solution in which the agenda at least does not include consideration of, and which is not in some way directed to finding a means of achieving, the aspirations envisaged half a century ago, of progress towards a united Ireland…A substantial term of years will be required before any concept of unification could become a reality, but the dream must be there. If men of moderation have nothing to hope for, men of violence will have something to shoot for.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1971/nov/25/northern-ireland-1 in the House of Commons (25 November 1971) Leader of the Opposition

Men, Dreams, Hope, Way

“People are fulfilled only to the extent that they create their world (which is a human world), and create it with their transforming labor. The fulfillment of humankind as human beings lies, then, in the fulfillment of the world. If for a person to be in the world of work is to be totally dependent, insecure, and permanently threatened--if their work does not belong to them--the person cannot be fulfilled. Work that is not free ceases to be a fulfilling pursuit and becomes an effective means of dehumanization.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 4, Divide and Rule

People, World, Dependency, Personality

“The control of the remnants of the State by a party (‘the Party commands the State’) may be regarded as a phase in the process of the dissolution of the old forces of order by the revolution. This process ends with the absorption of the State and its functions by the ‘organization for rule by violent means.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: The Revolution of Nihilism: Warning to the West (1939), p. 27

“Any cipher can be broken, any code can be compromised. But the most exact academic knowledge of a language gives no clue to its slang, its colloquial allusions, its half statements, over statements, and inverted meanings.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 9 (p. 113)

Knowledge

“It is not easy to phrase the proposition so that it shall mean precisely what we wish to argue; so that it shall include the whole matter at issue, nothing more and nothing less; so that there shall be no possible ambiguity. Yet, unless the proposition is so phrased, a debate may degenerate into a lifeless quibble concerning the meaning of the terms, under which the living heart of the question is buried.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 2; as cited in: Robert James Branham (2013). Debate and Critical Analysis: The Harmony of Conflict. p. 31

Question, Heart

“Do you know who I like? No, you don't. So I'm gonna tell you. Because if you all just did know who I like, then that would have been really weird, because it means you're in my head.”

Ed Byrne (1972) Irish comedian

Pedantic & Whimsical (2006)

“The Nicomachean Ethics is only intended as a guide for politicians, and they are only concerned to know what is good, not what goodness means…and in any case one can know what things are good without knowing the analysis of 'good”

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

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 22.

“There is a pressing need to understand our technological destiny from principles more comprehensive than its own. This need lifts us up to ask about the great western experiment in a more than piecemeal way. It pushes us to try to understand its meaning in terms of some openness to the whole which is not simply sustenance for the further realisation of that experiment. But the exigency of our need for understanding must not blind us to the tightening circle in which we find ourselves. We are called to understand technological civilisation just when its very realisation has radically put in question the possibility that there could be any such understanding.”

George Grant (1918–1988) Canadian philosopher

Technology and Justice (Notre Dame: 1986), p. 34

Way, Understanding, Question

“Belief is not a merely intellectual process, belief is not a mere persuasion of the mind, belief is something that is in our heart, and what you believe, you must do, because belief is from God. It is to the heart that God speaks, it is in the heart that God resides…. Here is a work that you have undertaken, a work so gigantic, so stupendous, the means for which are so poor, the resistance to which will be so strong, so organised … and what means have you with which to carry out this tremendous work of yours? If you look at it intellectually, it is hopeless…. This intellectual process, if it is used honestly, if it is followed to the very end, leads you to despair. It leads you to death.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

January 19, 1908
India's Rebirth

Death, God, Strong, Heart

“And I don't want to mean anything to you,
I don't want to tempt you to be true.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Echo
Lyrics, Echo (1999)

“Being blonde now doesn't mean Marilyn Monroe vulnerability. Blonde in the Eighties means being in control.”

Kim Wilde (1960) English pop singer

Clothes Show magazine (March 1989) http://www.kimwilde.com/articles/1989/00443/ Interviews

“Sight, when used in the context of nature, creates direct communication with reality. It implies that one is involved in this particular reality and quickly leads a person to action. But when the image has become artificial and is purely a means of knowledge, the reaction persists. I feel directly involved in what I see, just as prehistoric people did. And if I am seeing objects or ideas, I am not truly independent; I cannot really take my distance from these objects. From the intellectual point of view, this means I cannot really exercise my critical faculties. The use of images to transmit knowledge leads to the progressive elimination of distance between a person and his knowledge, because of the way we are made to participate when this means is used (this is, of course, in perfect accord with technical civilization, and to be desired by its standards). The critical faculties and autonomy of the thinking person are also eliminated.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

J. Hanks, trans. (1985), p. 212
The Humiliation of the Word (1981)

People, Way, Feeling, Exercises

“Trees have their sap from water. Water fecundates all things made that are called "creature". We see by means of water. Water gives many souls a splendour not to be outshone by the Angels.”

Wolfram von Eschenbach book Parzival

Von wazzer boume sint gesaft.
wazzer früht al die geschaft,
der man für crêatiure giht.
mit dem wazzere man gesiht.
wazzer gît maneger sêle schîn,
daz die engl niht liehter dorften sîn.
Bk. 16, section 817, line 25; p. 406.
Parzival

Angels, Soul, Tree, Water

“Legitimacy means more than a grudging acceptance of the inevitable.3 The word suggests at least confidence and respect and, at times, even warmth and affection.”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

Source: To run a constitution, 1986, p. x

Confidence, Time

“I mean, the Nazis did terrible evil but they had a sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Tony Abbott's Nazi reference shows his penchant for alienating voters http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-nazi-reference-shows-his-penchant-for-alienating-voters-20150903-gjeccu.html#ixzz3liz6US8O, September 4, 2015. 2015

Sense, Evil

“Kala was the youngest mate of a male called Tublat, meaning broken nose, and the child she had seen dashed to death was her first; for she was but nine or ten years old.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 4 : The Apes

Death

“I am sometimes also asked whether the October Crisis taught me anything about the art of governing, or about the means that were at my disposal for defusing the crisis. First of all, it taught me that you can be the prescient futurologist in the world, you can lay out the best-made plans and define your priorities with the utmost care, but if you show yourself to be incapable of managing a crisis when it arises, you will lose your right to govern and the whole thing will blow up in your face.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Part 2, 1968 - 1974 Power And Responsibility, p. 149-150
Memoirs (1993)

World, Art

“During the next 10 years about 1.2 billion young 15-to-30-year-olds will be entering the job market and with the means now at our disposal about 300 million will get a job. What will we offer these young, about a billion of them? — or will we leave them to be recruited by criminal leagues and terrorists? … I think this is one of the greatest challenges if we want to achieve peaceful development and hope for these young.”

Martti Ahtisaari (1937) Finnish politician and former President of Finland

Interview with Finnish YLE TV, quoted in "Nobel Peace Prize winner wants jobs for the young" in International Herald Tribune (11 October 2008) http://web.archive.org/web/20081012063102/http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/11/europe/EU-Finland-Nobel-Peace.php

Peace, Hope, Thinking

“No regulation of commerce can increase the quantity of industry in any society beyond what its capital can maintain. It can only divert a part of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone; and it is by no means certain that this artificial direction is likely to be more advantageous to the society than that into which it would have gone of its own accord. Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in his view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II, p. 486.

Nature, Study, Parting

“I mean, we're tough but we don't kill our opponents and eat them.”

AnnMaria De Mars (1958) American judoka

Asked how a vegan lifestyle, embraced by her daughter Ronda, would square with such a violent sport as judo, as quoted in "Rousey Is 1st U.S. Woman to Earn A Medal in Judo", in The Washington Post (14 August 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303517.html

“Laws creates male dominance, and maintain it, as a social environment. Male dominance is the environment we know, in which we must live. It is our air, water, earth. Laws shape our perceptions and knowledge of what male dominance is, of how it works, of what it means to us. Laws shape the experiences the experiences we have before we have them Laws significantly predetermine how we will feel, will understand, what will happen to us in life. Laws establish or humans the terms of our symbiosis with male dominance: what it takes from us to sustain itself as an overall environmental system.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter Eight

Life, Law, Feeling, Understanding

“I mean, sure, like all prophecy the wording is vague.”

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 2, “Possibilities and Myths” (p. 27)

“I remember sitting down once, [at] three in the morning and probably the only person awake in Stevens Point […] *imitates typing with his fingers* And I stop, and I think: "This is crap! I've spent years of my life writing crap. This will never be published - it isn't good… I've wasted years of my life!" *shrugs and types on* You do it because you like the process. I mean… you write because you like to write.”

Patrick Rothfuss (1973) American fantasy writer

Suvudu interview with Shawn Speakman, June 2010 http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2011/01/video-interview-patrick-rothfuss.html

Life, Thinking, Personality

“The previous regime — armed with its arrogant and intolerant ideology — reduced man to a force of production, and nature to a tool of production. In this it attacked both their very substance and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people, skillfully working in their own country, to the nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine, whose real meaning was not clear to anyone.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

People, Nature, Country

“Privatization: Disposing of public sector assets at low prices and high sales commissions to powerful groups and individuals who generously supported the ruling party’s last election campaign. It provides short-run cash windfalls to the government, while weakening its power and its cash flows in the years to come. In the Third World, a means of making valuable assets available to First World creditors and investors at fire sale prices in a situation of virtual state bankruptcy.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Source: Beyond Hypocrisy, 1992, Doublespeak Dictionary (within Beyond Hypocrisy), p. 166.

World, Support

“Because there are no truths that can be taken possession of without a struggle, and because all knowledge must choose a place in the configuration of hegemonic and oppositional forces, the means of establishing knowledge seem to be almost more important than the knowledge itself. … The demand to universalize the rational draws it into the vortex of politics, pedagogy, and propaganda. With this, enlightenment consciously represses the harsh realism of older precepts of wisdom, for which there was no question that the masses are foolish and that reason is to be found only among the few. Modern elitism has to encode itself democratically.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 11

Wisdom, Truth, Question, Knowledge

“You can only say Darwinian causes -- random mutation, natural selection -- even gravity is supposed to be done by that! And I would say to these people, well, how did life begin? We don't know, but it had to be by Darwinian means. Well, how did gravity begin? We don't know, but it had to be by Darwinian means. Why did it have to be that way? Why couldn't there have been an intelligent designer?”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

YouTube -- Ben Stein discusses the "Expelled" documentary, Fox News: Intelligent Journey -- Stein's New Documentary, 14 April 2008, 2008-04-23 http://youtube.com/watch?v=ck3AgSAXIgo,

Life, People, Way, Intelligence

“Why you exist, says Nietzsche with Søren Kierkegaard, nobody in the world can tell you in advance; but since you do exist, try to give your existence a meaning by setting up for yourself as lofty and noble a goal as you can.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 19

World

“It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

“I just heard what was said, it isn't strictly accurate by any means, I'm a man who's just been lucky on having wonderful partners, Schoedsack alot more than I did on Grass and Chang, and right down the line I've only had John Ford as a partner, Thomas is a great friend on technicolor, and for cinerama, Fred Waller invented it, Thomas picked up the ball and ran with it, and there's a young man in this audience, Bob Bendick, that most of you have never heard, that did far more of the production then I did. I want to thank all the great partners I've had in my life, thank you. I just want to add I'm still John Ford's partner.”

Merian C. Cooper (1893–1973) American aviator, actor, director and producer

Speech after receiving an Honorary Academy Award at the 25th Academy Awards (March 19, 1953)

Life, Grass, Change

“To depend on others for salvation is negative, but to depend on oneself is positive. Dependence on others means surrendering one's intelligence and efforts.”

K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera (1919–2006) Sri Lankan Buddhist monk

"No Self Surrender"
What Buddhists Believe (1993)

Intelligence, Effort, Dependency

“Being black in America has little to do with skin color. Being black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: Black Theology and Black Power (1969), p. 151

Color, Soul, Heart

“…what is the constitutional bearing of these stipulations? …It is perfectly monstrous…It means that we abandon our fiscal independence, together with our free-trade ways; that we subside into the tenth part of a Vehmgericht which is to direct us what sugar is to be countervailed, at what rate per cent. we are to countervail it, how much is to be put on for the bounty, and how much for the tariff being in excess of the convention tariff; and this being the established order of things, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in his robes obeys the orders that he receives from this foreign convention, in which the Britisher is only one out of ten, and the House of Commons humbly submits to the whole transaction. ("Shame.") Sir, of all the insane schemes ever offered to a free country as a boon this is surely the maddest.”

Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Cheers.
Speech to the Cobden Club denouncing the Brussels sugar convention (28 November 1902), quoted in The Times (29 November 1902), p. 12
Leader of the Opposition

Way, Parting, Housing, Country

“At first it might seem that quantum mechanics (QM), which began with Einstein's photon as the explanation for the photoelectric effect in 1905, goes further in the direction of discreteness. But the wave-particle duality discovered by de Broglie in 1925 is at the heart of QM, which means that this theory is profoundly ambiguous regarding the question of discreteness vs. continuity. QM can have its cake and eat it too, because discreteness is modeled via standing waves (eigenfunctions) in a continuous medium.”

Gregory Chaitin (1947) Argentinian mathematician and computer scientist

How real are real numbers? https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0411418 arXiv:math/0411418v3 (2004). p. 12

Question, Heart

“The reason why so few persons are agreeable in conversation is that each thinks more of what he desires to say, than of what the others say, and that we make bad listeners when we want to speak. Yet it is necessary to listen to those who talk, we should give them the time they want, and let them say even senseless things; never contradict or interrupt them; on the contrary, we should enter into their mind and taste, illustrate their meaning, praise anything they say that deserves praise, and let them see we praise more from our choice than from agreement with them. To please others we should talk on subjects they like and that interest them, avoid disputes upon indifferent matters, seldom ask questions, and never let them see that we pretend to be better informed than they are.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), V. On Conversation

Question, Thinking, Time, Personality

“The organization of economic activity through voluntary exchange presumes that we have provided, through government, for the maintenance of law and order to prevent coercion of one individual by another, the enforcement of contracts voluntarily entered into, the definition of the meaning of property rights, the interpretation and enforcement of such rights, and the provision of a monetary framework.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Source: (1962), Ch. 2 The Role of Government in a Free Society, p. 27

Law

“The successful managers know that the best way for their people to learn and grow is through experience and that means taking chances and making errors.”

Robert W. Bly (1957) American writer

101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)

People, Way, Error, Learning

“Progress … has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

“In these great times,” Harry Zohn, trans., In These Great Times (Montreal: 1976), pp. 73-74

Life

“What kind of mind would sacrifice millions for the sake of a few thousands, especially when it's been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that victim disarmament can't save even those thousands?
What kind of mind wants a return to mean streets and ever-soaring crime rates?
What kind of mind collaborates with agents of mass murder and genocide?
Make no mistake: you victim disarmament types are sick, sick people, in the words of T. D. Melrose, who'd rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Murder by Gun Control".

People

“It is above all over the question of the State that socialists are divided. Two main currents can be discerned in the factions that exist among us which correspond to differences in temperament as well as in ways of thinking, but above all to the extent that one believes in the coming revolution.
There are those, on the one hand, who hope to achieve the social revolution through the State by preserving and even extending most of its powers to be used for the revolution. And there are those like ourselves who see the State, both in its present form, in its very essence, and in whatever guise it might appear, an obstacle to the social revolution, the greatest hindrance to the birth of a society based on equality and liberty, as well as the historic means designed to prevent this blossoming. The latter work to abolish the State and not to reform it.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Source: The State — Its Historic Role (1897), I

Hope, Way, Birth, Question

“Demonstrating is therefore only the means through which I strip my thought of the form of “mine-ness” so that the other person may recognize it as his own.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 66
Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy (1839)

Personality

“We want the happiness of the Philippines, but we want to obtain it through noble and just means. If I have to commit villainy to make her happy, I would refuse to do so, because I am sure that what is built on sand sooner or later would tumble down.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

Letter to Blumentritt, (31 January 1887)

Happiness

“Every day you must stay true to your purpose, despite snow or rain. When your purpose is clear, your life will have meaning.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

Life

“The reason I keep mentioning God is because I believe in God. A lot of people are surprised by that, what with it being 2014 and this being a technologically advanced secular culture. God is primarily regarded as the preserve of thick white people and angry brown people. Since Friedrich Nietzsche (deceased) declared, “God is dead,” we’ve been exploring the observation of British writer G. K. Chesterton, who said, “The death of God doesn’t mean man will believe in nothing but that he will believe in anything.” I’m a good example of that: at thirteen a believer in Lakeside, at eight a believer in biscuits, at seventeen a devoted wanker, at nineteen a fanatical drug user, before winding up in the monastery of celebrity.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Death, God, People, Dead

“Fresh pitsand, however, in spite of all its excellence in concrete structures, is not equally useful in stucco, the richness of which, when the lime and straw are mixed with such sand, will cause it to crack as it dries on account of the great strength of the mixture. But river sand, though useless in "signinum" on account of its thinness, becomes perfectly solid in stucco when thoroughly worked by means of polishing instruments.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IV, Sec. 3

“I will not be proposing a course which has been under some public discussion recently — deficit financing. It is wholly inappropriate to our economic situation. In its least extreme form it is based on the theory that additional money generated by a Government deficit (and given currency, as necessary, by use of the printing press) will stimulate consumption and thereby production, in time to match the excess money with goods before real inflationary harm is done. Unfortunately we don't, and can't, produce more than a small fraction of what we consume, and increased consumption would merely mean increased imports without matching exports; and a severe balance of payment crisis, which would destroy Hong Kong's credit and confidence in the Hong Kong dollar; and which we could not cure without coming close to ruining ourselves. Keynes was not writing with our situation in mind. In this hard world we have to earn before we spend.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

February 27, 1963, page 50.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Money, World, Confidence, Time

“Our sense of touch is a fundamental sensibility which comes into action at birth – our stereognostic sense – the ability to feel weight and form and assess its significance. The form which have had special meaning for me since childhood have been the standing form (which is the translation of my feelings towards the human being standing in the landscape) the two forms (which is the tender relation of one living thing besides another); and the closed form, such as the oval, spherical or pierced form (sometimes incorporating colour) which translates for me the association and meaning of gesture in landscape; in the repose of say a mother and child.... In all these shapes the translation of what one feels about man and nature must be conveyed by the sculptor in terms of mass, inner tension, and rhythm, scale in relation to our human size and the quality of surface which speaks through our hands and eyes.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Source: 1961 - 1975, Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography', 1970, p. 284

Feeling, Birth, Nature, Sense

“…in fact, the war against Iraq is continuing. And it's continuing now by the means which the administration described as contemptible and useless, when they were put forth as an alternative to an actual all-out aerial bombardment. Namely, economic sanctions, which do have the effect of slowly starving and crippling the population of Iraq, while leaving the military caste of Saddam Hussein and his criminal Baath Party in charge. I was asked the other day … why do you think the administration decided to spare Saddam Hussein … and I said I think because they thought they might need him again…”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

1992
NPR
Talk of the Nation with John Hockenberry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcXsync4bD8
1990s

War, Thinking

“Being married means I can break wind and eat ice cream in bed.”

Brad Pitt (1963) American actor and filmmaker

US Weekly (18 September 2000)

“If the women but have little virtue, the jealousy of their husbands is extreme, and their revenge deadly and almost certain. A few inches of cold steel have been the punishment of many an unwary man, who has been guilty, perhaps, of nothing more than indiscretion. The difficulties of the attempt [to copulate with a married woman] are numerous, and the consequences of discovery fatal, in the better classes. With the unmarried women, too, great watchfulness is used. The main object of the parents is to marry their daughters well, and to this a fair name is necessary. The sharp eyes of a duena, and the ready weapons to a father or brother, are a protection which the characters of most of them — men and women — render by no means useless; for the very men who would lay down their lives to avenge the dishonor of their own family would risk the same lives to complete the dishonor of another.”

Richard Henry Dana Jr. book Two Years Before the Mast

Referring to the Mexican residents of Santa Barbara in 1835 (p. 162)
Two Years Before the Mast (1840)

Women, Men, Jealousy, Family

“It is fashionable to suggest that cyberspace is some kind of _island of the blessed_ where people are free to indulge and express their Individuality…this is not true…. i have seen many people spill their guts on-line, and i did so myself until…i began to see that i had commodified myself. commodification means that you turn something into a product which has a money-value. in the nineteenth century, commodities were made in factories…by workers who were mostly exploited…. i created my interior thoughts as a means of production for the corporation that owned the board i was posting to…and that commodity was being sold to other commodity/consumer entities as entertainment… [Cyberspace] is a black hole. It absorbs energy and personality and then re-presents it as an emotional spectacle.”

Carmen Hermosillo Community manager, essayist, poet, research analyst

"Pandora's Vox", as cited in Curtis, Adam, 2011, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, BBC.

Money, People, Fashion, Personality

“Metaphysical fallacies contain the only clues we have to what thinking means to those who engage in it.”

Hannah Arendt book The Life of the Mind

Source: The Life of the Mind (1971/1978), p. 12.

Thinking

“No one component of a film can have any meaning in isolation: it is the film that is the work of art. And we can only talk about its components rather arbitrarily, dividing it up artificially or the sake of theoretical discussion.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 114

Art

“All meaning is for an observer.”

Carlos Gershenson (1978) Mexican researcher

Zire Notes (May 2004 - December 2006)

“People mistake it for a guy's name or a nick name. Gift is my real name and that is where I got the G in Muma Gee, forget the fact that I added double ‘e’ to it, just as it sounds Gee but the G is just the G in Gift. For the Muma, the Jamaicans will call mother Muma and papa Pupa. The Muma in my name means 'do good' in my language.”

Muma Gee (1978) Nigerian singer and songwriter

In " I am single, apply within – Muma Gee http://www.nigeriafilms.com/content.asp?contentid=3376&ContentTypeID=2" by Funmi Salome Johnson on nigeriafilms.com, October 25, 2008: On the meaning behind her stage name

People, Guy, Forgetting

“I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging…”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Letter to Walt Whitman, thanking him for a copy of Leaves of Grass (July 21, 1855)

Wisdom, Books, Courage, Nature

““Is he dead?” Irravel asked.
“Depends what you mean by dead.””

Alastair Reynolds book Galactic North

Galactic North (p. 366)
Short fiction, Galactic North (2006)

Dependency, Dead

“Forrest saw the war as a moral crusade, a fight for decency and order, and victory to the British would mean that the Almighty, who could not possibly be suspected of Republican sentiments, had blessed the British effort.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major Joseph Forrest, p. 162
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)

War, Effort, Victory, Fight

“What do you mean, why? Is it not obvious? What is life but a betrayal? We start out young, full of hope. The sun is good; the world awaits us. But every passing year shows how small you are, how insignificant against the power of the seasons. Then you age. Your strength fails, and the world laughs at you through the jeers of younger men. And you die. Alone. Unfulfilled. But sometimes … sometimes there will come a man who is not insignificant. He can change the world, rob the seasons of their power. He is the sun.”

David Gemmell book The King Beyond the Gate

Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 23

Life, Men, Age, World

“The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic. It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length. … Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae

Problema, numeros primos a compositis dignoscendi, hosque in factores suos primos resolvendi, ad gravissima ac utilissima totius arithmeticae pertinere, et geometrarum tum veterum tum recentiorum industriam ac sagacitatem occupavisse, tam notum est, ut de hac re copiose loqui superfluum foret. … [P]raetereaque scientiae dignitas requirere videtur, ut omnia subsidia ad solutionem problematis tam elegantis ac celebris sedulo excolantur.
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (1801): Article 329

Wisdom, Problem, Science