Quotes about meaning
page 89

“We will argue that the long-run value of a related diversification lies not so much in the exploitation of economies of scope (asset amortization) - where the benefit is primarily short-term - but in allowing corporations to more cost efficiently expand their stocks of strategic assets. Relatedness, which opens the way for asset improvement, asset creation and asset fission, holds the key to the long-run competitive advantages of diversification. This means that in most cases, similarities in the processes by which strategic assets are expanded and new assets are created are more important than static similarities between the strategic assets that are the outcome of these processes.”

Constantinos C. Markides (1960) Cypriot business theorist

Source: "Related diversification, core competences and corporate performance", 1994, p. 150

Way

“The celebrated physicist and mathematician A. M. Ampere coined the word cybernetique to mean the science of civil government (Part II of "Essai sur la philosophic des sciences", 1845, Paris). Ampere's grandiose scheme of political sciences has not, and perhaps never will, come to fruition. In the meantime, conflict between governments with the use of force greatly accelerated the development of another branch of science, the science of control and guidance of mechanical and electrical systems. It is thus perhaps ironical that Ampere's word should be borrowed by N. Wiener to name this new science, so important to modern warfare. The "cybernetics" of Wiener ("Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the animal and the Machine," John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1948) is the science of organization of mechanical and electrical components for stability and purposeful actions. A distinguishing feature of this new science is the total absence of considerations of energy, heat, and efficiency, which are so important in other natural sciences. In fact, the primary concern of cybernetics is on the qualitative aspects of the interrelations among the various components of a system and the synthetic behavior of the complete mechanism.”

Qian Xuesen (1911–2009) Chinese rocket scientist

Source: Engineering cybernetics, (1954), p. vii. About the origin of the word Cybernetics

Behavior, Communication, Nature, Science

“Haiti is a purely Negro Republic, and offers a good illustration of what the Negro accomplishes if left to himself, even though given all the advantages of easy access to European civilization. The republic of Santo Domingo occupies the other part of the same island; its hybrid population has more Spanish and less Negro blood but it is not by any means civilized.”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

Parting

“And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favour the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity—beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds, and a growing body of knowledge—and to check the procreation of base and servile types, of fear-driven and cowardly souls, of all that is mean and ugly and bestial in the souls, bodies, or habits of men. To do the latter is to do the former; the two things are inseparable. And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness, and cowardice and feebleness were saved from the accomplishment of their desires, the method that has only one alternative, the method that must in some cases still be called in to the help of man, is death. In the new vision death is no inexplicable horror, no pointless terminal terror to the miseries of life, it is the end of all the pain of life, the end of the bitterness of failure, the merciful obliteration of weak and silly and pointless things.”

H. G. Wells book Anticipations

Anticipations (1902)

Life, Death, Men, Pain

“[interpersonal meaning] embodies all use of language to express social and personal relations, including all forms of the speaker's intrusion into the speech situation and the speech act.”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Source: 1970s and later, Explorations in the functions of language, 1973, p. 41 cited in: Sin-wai Chan (2004) A dictionary of translation technology. p. 113.

Personality

“Evolution actually involves much more than life arising from non-life by natural means. Evolution really does away with God, and thus allows people to explain their existence without any supernatural being involved.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Eve really have an Extra Rib?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2002)

Life, God, People, Nature

“Evolutionary psychology was the organizing framework—the source of “explanatory adequacy” or a “theory of the computation”—that the science of psychology had been missing. Like vision and language, our emotions and cognitive faculties are complex, useful, and nonrandomly organized, which means that they must be a product of the only physical process capable of generating complex, useful, nonrandom organization, namely, natural selection. An appeal to evolution was already implicit in the metatheoretical directives of Marr and Chomsky, with their appeal to the function of a mental faculty, and evolutionary psychology simply shows how to apply that logic to the rest of the mind.”

Steven Pinker (1954) psychologist, linguist, author

Steven Pinker, "Foreword" in: Buss, David M., ed. The handbook of evolutionary psychology. John Wiley & Sons, 2005. p. xiv

Nature, Science

“Merz paintings are abstract works of art. The word 'Merz' essentially means the totality of all imaginable materials that can be used for artistic purposes and technically the principle that all of these individual materials have equal value. Merz art makes use not just of paint and canvas, brush and palette, but all the materials visible to the eye and all tools needed.... the wheel off a pram, wire mesh, string and cotton balls – these are factors of equal value to paints. The artist creates by choosing, distributing and reshaping the materials.”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

1910s
Source: 'Merz Painting' (1919); as quoted in I is Style, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 91.

Art, Imagination, Painting

“The defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the Christian world to be sacred. Yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the truth, and by truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Truth, World, Sincerity

“By words one transmits thoughts to another, by means of art, one transmits feelings.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What is Art? (1897)

Art, Feeling

“Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about women's rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country — balanced, of course, with this: "Issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam." Example? "The struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life." Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women's softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds — while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays as well — but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who's to judge?”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, June 12, 2009, "Obama hovers from on High" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer061209.php3 at jewishworldreview.com. <br class="br">2000s, 2009

Life, Death, Women, Education

“Conservatives believe that our identities and values are formed through our relations with other people, and not through our relation with the state. The state is not an end but a means. Civil society is the end, and the state is the means to protect it. The social world emerges through free association, rooted in friendship and community life. And the customs and institutions that we cherish have grown from below, by the ‘invisible hand’ of co-operation. They have rarely been imposed from above by the work of politics, the role of which, for a conservative, is to reconcile our many aims, and not to dictate or control them.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Stand up for the real meaning of freedom," http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/01/the-right-way/ The Spectator (January 2014).

Life, Friendship, People, World

“To speak of 'limits to growth' under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing. Attempts to 'green' capitalism, to make it 'ecological', are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.”

Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher

Remaking Society (1990).

Nature

“In our modern world, we look unkindly on mistakes and imperfection. But this is far from the samurai ideal. Mistakes are part of the learning process and if you haven't made them then you are, indeed, dangerous because it means you have never learned anything. Mistakes, to a samurai, are the proof of your learning.”

Alexei Maxim Russell (1976) Canadian writer

from Instruction Manual for the 21st Century Samurai.

World, Learning, Parting

“He exists, not only inconceivably as God, but also conceivably as a man; not only above the world, but also in the world, and of the world; not only in a heavenly and invisible, but in an earthly and visible form. He becomes and is, He exists—we cannot avoid this statement; to do so would be the worst kind of Docetism—with objective actuality. Does this mean, then, that He exists as one thing amongst others, and that as such He can be perceived and may be known like other things? Well, we cannot deny that He is a thing like this, and can be perceived and knovra as such, if He was and is a man in the world, with an earthly and visible form. But, of course, a man is not merely a thing or object. As a man among men he is a human Thou, and as such distinct from all mere things.”

Karl Barth book Church Dogmatics

4:2
Church Dogmatics (1932–1968)

Men, God, World

“The last consequence of a dying Christianity is a dying people. Not one post-Christian nation has a birth rate sufficient to keep it alive…. The death of European Christianity means the disappearance of the European tribe, a prospect visible in the demographic statistics of every Western nation.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2010s, Suicide of a Superpower (2011)

Death, People, Birth

“To know oneself means, among other things, to know oneself qua non-sage: that is, not as a sophos, but as a philo-sophos, someone on the way toward wisdom.”

Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) French historian and philosopher

trans. Michael Chase (1995), p. 90
La Philosophie comme manière de vivre (2001)

Wisdom, Way

“I believe in you and me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life – in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don't believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice.”

Frank Sinatra (1915–1998) American singer and film actor

Playboy interview (1963)

Life, God, Nature, Bird

“Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean all the collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals, and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end.”

Errico Malatesta book Anarchy

Anarchy (1891)

People, Law, Confidence, Communication

“Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship in the present period of technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. Through technical means like the radio and the loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

1946. Quoted in "Nuremberg: The War Crimes Trial" by Richard Norton-Taylor, Nicolas Kent - Drama - (1997)

People, History, Country

“The farther West we drove [to California, Fall of 1963, with Gerard Malanga, Wynn Chamberlain, and Taylor Mead for an opening of Warhol's 'Liz & Elvis paintings' at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles], the more Pop everything looked on the highways. Suddenly we all felt like insiders because even though Pop was everywhere – that was the thing about it, most people still took it for granted, whereas we were dazzled by it – to us, it was the new Art. Once you 'got' Pop, you could never see a sign the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again. The moment you label something, you take a step – I mean, you can never go back again to seeing it unlabeled. We were seeing the future and we knew it for sure.... the mystery was gone, but the amazement was just starting.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

quote in 1963
Quote in Warhol in his own words – Untitled Statements ( 1963 – 1987), selected by Neil Printz; as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467
1963 - 1967

People, Art, Angels, Way

“Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.”

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

NewsHour interview http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june07/bush_01-16.html with Jim Lehrer in response to the question “Why have you not asked more Americans to sacrifice something?” regarding the Iraq War (January 16, 2007) <br class="br">2000s, 2007

People, Peace, Thinking, Fight

“The masses on the contrary, have just reached the point where the ancestors of today's scientists were standing two generations back. They are convinced that the scientific picture of an arbitrary abstraction from reality is a picture of reality as a whole and that therefore the world is without meaning or value. But nobody likes living in such a world. To satisfy their hunger for meaning and value, they turn to such doctrines as nationalism, fascism and revolutionary communism. Philosophically and scientifically, these doctrines are absurd; but for the masses in every community, they have this great merit: they attribute the meaning and value that have been taken away from the world as a whole to the particular part of the world in which the believers happen to be living.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

Ends and Means (1937)

Hunger, World, Communication, Reality

“I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny -- "The sky is falling." I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot —one thing after another.
From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been.
Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

DOD news briefing following the fall of Baghdad (11 April 2003) http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030411-secdef0090.html

People, Food, Freedom, Water

“If you should have visits here from those professing to be Christians, and they intimate a desire to preach to you, by all means invite them to do so. Accord to every reputable person who may visit you, and who may wish to occupy the stands of your meeting houses to preach to you, the privilege of doing so, no matter whether he be a Catholic, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, Free-will Baptist, Methodist, or whatever he may be; and if he wishes to speak to your children let him do so. Of course you have the power to correct whatever false teachings or impressions, if any, your children may hear or receive.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 14:195 (June 3, 1871)
1870s

Children, Housing, Personality, Falseness

“A country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom – or one where that freedom doesn’t apply to our bodies and our voices.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

2012 Democratic National Convention

Freedom, Personality, Country

“Unitary man escapes these confusions through his recognition that one factor is of supreme importance: the maturity proper to man can only come through the experience of adult unity. This experience may come in many ways, but it means that the individual has, for the moment, outgrown the sense of any division, either within himself of from others, through a mature relations to at least one other person. Tension is inherent in the process, but tension does not become frustrating conflict if the overriding unity is realized.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Source: The Next Development in Man (1948), p. 255

Way, Sense, Personality

“Sex is too easy for women to get, and too hard for men. I mean, honestly, for a man to walk into someplace and have every woman ready to take him home, he'd have to rule the world. A woman would have to do her hair.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

The Golden Goose Special (1997)

Women, Men, World, Sex

“Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means that you've become a comfortable, trusted element in another person's life.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

As quoted in On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes (2004) by Paula Munier, p. 69

Life, Personality

“The third big idea is that we confess our sins to someone close to us--a friend or our spouse. I don't mean a public declaration of our shortcomings; I mean confession in the security of a trusted and living friend.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

[Haggard, Ted, Simple Prayers for a Powerful Life, Regal Books, September 2002, p. 110, ISBN 0830730559]

Idea

“Practice does not mean that whatever you do, even lying down, is zazen. When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice….
When you sit, you will sit. When you eat, you will eat…. If you say,”It doesn’t matter,” it means that you are making some excuse to do something in your own way with your small mind. It means that you are to some particular thing or way. That is not what we mean when we say, “Just to sit is enough,” or “Whatever you do is zazen.””

Shunryu Suzuki book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Of course, everything you do is zazen, but if so, there is no need to say it.
Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1973), p. 41

Way, Lying

“"Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment to diversity, apart from the ends it may serve, is absurd.”

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

2000s, Is Diversity Good? (2003)

“Winning means being unafraid to lose.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

“I can conceive no punishment so dreadful as keeping perpetual watch on our words, lest they betray what they mean to conceal; to know no unguarded moment — no careless gaiety — to pine for the confidence which yet we dare not bestow — to tremble, lest that some hidden meaning lurk in a phrase which only our own sickly fancy could torture into bearing such — to have suspicion become a second nature — and to shrink every morning from the glad sunshine, for we know not what a day may bring forth : the wheel of Ixion were a tender mercy compared to such a state.”

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

No.12. The Heart of Mid Lothian — EFFIE DEANS.
Literary Remains

Confidence, Nature

“Whether some people like it or not, Fiji is already a multiracial society. We have different races, but that does not mean we should only work for the good of our own race. We have to truly understand one another, learn each other’s languages, and truly work together. There is huge potential in Fiji, and we would be amazed to see what we will achieve, if we work together.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

NAPF convention, 17 December 2005

People, Understanding, Learning

“The Intentionality of the mind not only creates the possibility of meaning, but limits its forms.”

John Rogers Searle (1932) American philosopher

Source: Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983), P. 166.

“Mary Parker Follett was a prominent business philosopher of the period, who agreed with Sheldon about the need to emphasize human factors in management, but placing greater stress on the need to develop a science of cooperation. According to Follett, what she called her 'Law of the Situation' could be a means for bridging the gap between an ideal of scientific management and the unilateral position that it seemed to involve in practice. In effect she was proposing the same collaboration between leaders and subordinates that was usually to be found between leaders of the same rank.”

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

Book abstract
Dynamic administration, 1942

Law, Business, Science

“What does success mean to you? What kind of success would you like in your life?”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Life, Success

“Not stopping to really catch up (Weekly Review, GTDers!) means trying to catch up constantly & never getting there.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

9 August 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/20673625150 <br class="br"> Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“Instructing in cures, therapists always recommend that “each case be individualized.” If this advice is followed, one becomes persuaded that those means recommended in textbooks as the best, means perfectly appropriate for the template case, turn out to be completely unsuitable in individual cases.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

A Dreary Story or A Tedious Story (1889)

“Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

As quoted in Artifacts : An Archaeologist's Year in Silicon Valley (2001) by Christine Finn. p. 90.
Date unknown

Business

“The phrase "contempt of court" often misleads persons not lawyers, and causes them to misapprehend its meaning, and to suppose that a proceeding for contempt of court amounts to some process taken for the purpose of vindicating the personal dignity of the Judges, and protecting them from personal insults as individuals. Very often it happens that contempt is committed by a personal attack on a Judge or an insult offered to him; but as far as their dignity as individuals is concerned, it is of very subordinate importance compared with the vindication of the dignity of the Court itself; and there would be scarcely a case, I think, in which any Judge would consider that, as far as his personal dignity goes, it would be worth while to take any steps.”

Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn (1813–1896) British judge

Skipworth's Case (1873), L. R. 9 Q. B. Ca. 232.

Thinking, Personality

“I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've done, I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot. … I think they're sacrifices. I think when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things, even in military. I mean, I was very responsible, along with a group of people, for getting the Vietnam Memorial built in downtown Manhattan, which to this day people thank me for.”

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

2010s, 2016, July, This Week Interview (July 30, 2016)

People, Education, Thinking, Memory

“Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.”

Henry Vaughan (1621–1695) Welsh author, physician and metaphysical poet

Preface.
Silex Scintillans (1655)

Perfection

“The stations of uncensored expression are closing down; the lights are going out; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Winston Churchill, in "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938) http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/524-the-defence-of-freedom-and-peace. <br class="br">The 1930s

Truth, Freedom, Light, Time

“Mean songs are still better than going postal”

Sara Bareilles (1979) American pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

"Sweet As Whole"
Lyrics, Once Upon Another Time (2012)

“Sceptical rational inquiry is always the best approach. […] we can think independently, be truly open-minded. That means asking questions, being open to real corroborated evidence. Reason has liberated us form superstition and given us centuries of progress. We abandon it at our peril.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Enemies of Reason, "The Irrational Health Service"
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)

Question, Thinking

“I was arguing with Father Sebastian the other day,” she said thoughtfully. “I quoted the thing about giving all you have to the poor. He said that was all very well but you had to come to terms with the Scriptures and realize there had to be teachers and leaders for the people’s own good. It seemed an awful get-out to me, and I couldn’t help saying so. I told him if the Church would sell half her altar plate she could by shoes for everybody in the country, and a lot else besides; and that if the Pope would make a start in Rome I’d see about getting rid of a few job lots of furniture down in Corfe. I’m afraid he didn’t take very kindly to it. I know it was wrong of me but he annoys me sometimes; he’s so pious, and it seems to mean so very little. He’d walk miles in the snow to pray for a sick child, he’s a very good man; but if there was more money about to start with, maybe the child wouldn’t have been taken ill. It all seems so unnecessary….”

Keith Roberts book Pavane

Sixth measure “Corfe Gate” (p. 223)
Pavane (1968)

Money, People, Shoe, Quotes

“The social game has a deeper double meaning—that it is played not only in a society as its outward bearer but that with its help people actually "play" "society."”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

"Sociability" (1910) in On Individuality and Social Forms (1971), p. 134

People, Game, Help

“If … we meet a man of acknowledged mental superiority, whether generally or in his special department, it is our social duty by intelligent questioning, by an anxiety to learn from him, to force him to condescend to our ignorance, or join in our fun, till his broader sympathies are awakened, and he plays with us as if we were children. Indeed this very metaphor points out one of the very remarkable instances of social equality asserted by an inferior—I mean the outspoken freedom of the child—which possesses a peculiar charm, and often thaws the dignity or dissipates the reserve of the great man and woman whose superiority is a perpetual obstacle to them in ordinary society.”

John Pentland Mahaffy (1839–1919) Irish classicist and polymathic scholar

Conversation (1896), p. 104 http://books.google.com/books?id=1yEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA104

Children, Intelligence, Question, Freedom

“A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that’s a problem because privacy matters; privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsa-revelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html 2013 Christmas Message

26 December 2013

Problem

“I am very much obliged to my dear little George for his message - for his love at least; his duty, I suppose, was only in consequence of some hint of my favourable intentions towards him from his father or mother. I am sincerely rejoiced, however, that I ever was born, since it has been the means of procuring him a dish of tea.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-18) about her nephew George [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Love, Tea, Sincerity

“I mean, did you think I was just a fake person here, that they picked out of, you know, that they picked out of a supermarket? Didn't you think that I had any legal experience at all, sir?”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Being cocky
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37tcUYWijiw

Thinking, Personality

“Oh, yes, that is a good way to do up the so-called bosses, but have you ever thought what would become of the country if the bosses were put out of business, and their places were taken by a lot of cart-tail orators and college graduates? It would mean chaos. p. 81”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 20, Bosses Preserve the Nation

Way, Business, Country

“That conversation may answer the ends for which it was designed, the parties who are to join in it must come together with a determined resolution to please and to be pleased. If a man feels that an east wind has rendered him dull and sulky, he should by all means stay at home till the wind changes, and not be troublesome to his friends: for dulness is infectious, and one sour face will make many, as one cheerful countenance is productive of others. If two gentlemen desire to quarrel, it should not be done in a company met to enjoy the pleasures of conversation.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

George Horne " On Conversation http://books.google.com/books?id=ZEwEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA183" in: The Orthodox churchman's magazine; or, A Treasury of divine and useful knowledge, 1804, p. 183; As quoted in Allibone (1880)

Pleasure, Feeling, Home, Change

“To change the subject, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot.”
“What about?”
“Free will.”
“Free will?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying not to fidget, a weird feeling in his head. “I reckon free will is bullshit.”
“You need to get some sleep, Spider.”
“No, no, I feel okay, more or less.”
“Free will,” she said, shaking her head.
“It’s an illusion. That’s all it is. Everything is already sorted out, every decision, every possibility, it’s all determined, scripted, whatever.”
Iris was looking at him as if she was worried. “Where’d all this come from?”
“I’ve been to the End of bloody Time, Iris. From that perspective, everything is done and settled. Basically, everything that could happen has happened. It’s all mapped out, documented, diagrammed, written up in great big books, and ignored.”
“You’re a crazy bastard, you know that, Spider?”
“Maybe not crazy enough,” he said.
Iris was still struggling for traction on the conversation. “You think everything is predetermined? Is that it? But what about—”
“No. You just think you have free will.”
“So, according to you,” Iris said, looking bewildered, “a guy who kills his wife was always going to kill her. She was always going to die.”
“From his point of view, he doesn’t know that, and neither does she, but yeah. She was always a goner, so to speak.”
“There is no way I can accept this,” she said. “It’s intolerable. It robs individual people of moral agency. According to you nobody chooses to do anything; they’re just following a script. That means nobody’s responsible for anything.”
“I said free will is an illusion. We think we’ve got moral agency, we think we make choices. It’s a perfect illusion. It just depends on your point of view.”
“It’s a bloody pathway to madness, I reckon,” Iris said.
“I dunno,” he said. “Right now, sitting here, thinking about everything, I think it makes a lot of sense. Kinda, anyway.””

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

“Think you’ll find that’s just an illusion,” she said, and flashed a tiny smile.
Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 22 (pp. 271-272)

People, Books, Smile, Way

“Piety is not an end but a means to attain by the greatest peace of mind the highest degree of culture.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Maxim 519, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Peace

“The overall agenda here is quite simply the ruling classes, or the classes of Europe intend to stride on to the world stage as a powerful economic entity. And they want to be as powerful as the US, meaning they want a stronger foreign policy and a military wing to back them up. But I can assure the Government that the debate will be a very intensive debate, a very vigorous debate and I think the benefit perhaps this time is that certain distractions that were raised the last time would be set aside, and therefore we can concentrate on the more fundamental issues. […] Take for example this notion that Irish youth would be conscripted into an army. The only people I heard that from was Government ministers in the course of the campaign who said this is being said. Nobody here raised any such red herring. These were the so-called concerns that were being addressed. But the major concerns as to what the Treaty was really about has not been changed one iota.”

Joe Higgins (1949) Irish socialist politician

breakingnews.ie http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/eykfojojqlkf/

People, Youth, World, Thinking

“So there is no need to amend the Constitution, or to alter the historical understanding of what the Second Amendment meant. No new reasoning or tortured rereading is needed to reconcile the Constitution with common sense. All that is necessary for sanity to rule again, on the question of guns, is to restore the amendment to its commonly understood meaning as it was articulated by this wise Republican judge a scant few years ago. And all you need for that is one saner and, in the true sense, conservative Supreme Court vote. One Presidential election could make that happen.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control Amendment, The New Yorker (2015)

Understanding, Question, Sense

“Religions which depend upon arguments are failures. A religion, to be aggressive, must be experimental; men must be something and do something by means of it, which would be otherwise impossible; then they become both rhetoric and logic — persuasion and proof.”

Charles Henry Fowler (1837–1908) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 137.

Men, Religion, Failure, Dependency

“When a San Shaman goes into a trance, he harnesses that power, becomes part of the world beyond, becomes invisible to the singers and dancers around him, and draws images on the rock face. Ask the San who drew the images, and they say the spirits. And the rock face is more than a surface for the paint; it is the boundary of this world and the world beyond. …part of the meaning of it all, and the rock shelter itself assumes a special status, a place of veneration.”

Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician

Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human (1992)

World, Parting, Drawing, Painting

“Republicans say that sex is bad, because with them it always is. It is!…I'm sorry, but they're just doughy, asexual, wonky, white people, and if you had to have sex with them it would be over in an excruciating three minutes. It's just, — and from the headlines of the past year I gather the only sex they're really good at, is gay sex. Really. Jeff Gannon in the White House press room, Representative Mark Foley, the Reverend Ted Haggard. I mean, that's a lot of gay when you're running against it in every election.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

The Decider (21 July 2007)

People, Sex, Past, Housing

“Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. It means that an economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress. The loss of industry and skill in Africa was extremely small, if we measure it from the viewpoint of modern scientific achievements or even by standards of England in the late eighteenth century. However, it must be borne in mind that to be held back at one stage means that it is impossible to go on to a further stage. When a person was forced to leave school after only two years of primary school education, it is no reflection on him that he is academically and intellectually less developed than someone who had the opportunity to be schooled right through to university level. What Africa experienced in the early centuries of trade was precisely a loss of development opportunity, and this is of the greatest importance.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 159-160.

Education, School, Universe, Loss

“In some quarters it has often been thought wise to substitute the term "developing" for "underdeveloped". One of the reasons for so doing is to avoid any unpleasantness which may be attached to the second term, which might be interpreted as meaning underdeveloped mentally, physically, morally, or in any other respect. Actually, if “underdevelopment” were related to anything other than comparing economies, then the most underdeveloped country in the world would be the U. S. A., which practices external oppression on a massive scale, while internally there is a blend of exploitation, brutality, and psychiatric disorder.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 25.

World, Country

“If to state this case is not to decide it, the law has departed further from the meaning of language than is appropriate for a government that is supposed to rule (and to be restrained) through the written word.”

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

United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275 (1998) (Scalia, dissenting).
1990s

Law

“A conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.”

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

1940s, Science and Religion (1941)

Truth, Religion, Way, Error

“When I saw him, I was like, wow! He is different and so tall and dark and just handsome. I saw the package — and I mean the whole package, literally. I was like, "That is a man."”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

On her husband, Seal, during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, as quoted in "Heidi Klum's Risqué Story of Falling for Seal" by Mike Fleeman in People (24 October 2007) http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20153804,00.html

“Si, a lot of men make far greater sacrifices than he will. For the good of the country.”
“But he wouldn’t even be consulted about it!”
“Neither are they; they’re drafted into the army.”
“Well, maybe they should be asked, too.”
He genuinely didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe it’s wrong to force a man to join an army and kill other people against his own wishes.”

Jack Finney book Time and Again

They just looked at me. What I was saying was really incomprehensible to them.
Source: Time and Again (1970), Chapter 22 (p. 388)

Men, People, Understanding, Country

“I have this theory about words: There’s a thousand ways to say "Pass the salt." It could mean, you know, "Can I have some salt?" or it could mean, "I love you." It could mean "I’m very annoyed with you" – really, the list could go on and on. Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.”

Christopher Walken (1943) American actor

Shout Magazine, in the issue from August, in the article "Cookin' with Christopher Walken" (2001)

Love, Way

“[W]hen we examine the acts of an individual, we shall find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice. In a sense, he is like a stew cooking on a stove; it has no choice but to cook. And it must cook because Providence has harnessed life with two chains: pleasure and pain (…) there is no difference here between man and animal. And if that is the case, there is no free choice whatsoever, but a pulling force, drawing them toward any bypassing pleasure and rejecting them from painful circumstances. And Providence leads them to every place it chooses by means of these two forces [i. e. pleasure and pain], without asking their opinion in the matter.”

Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist

Assorted Themes, On Freedom

Life, Pain, Pleasure, Sense

“Creation exists for its Creator. Years of anthropocentrism have almost completely obscured this simple but fundamental point. What follows from this is that animals should not be seen simply as means to human ends. The key to grasping this theology is the abandoning of the common but deeply erroneous view that animals exist in a wholly instrumental relationship to human beings.”

Andrew Linzey (1952) British theologian and divine

Source: Animal Theology (1994), p. 24

Animals

“On the bright side, however, it means I get to stay at home and stare at a computer screen all day as opposed to go to work and stare at a computer screen all day.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

On being sick, 15 May 2003
Fully Ramblomatic

Home

“The first charge against 'measurement', in the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, is that it anchors there the shifty split of the world into 'system' and 'apparatus'. A second charge is that the word comes loaded with meaning from everyday life, meaning which is entirely inappropriate in the quantum context.”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

Against 'measurement' (1990)

Life, World

“We learned about dignity and decency – that how hard you work matters more than how much you make…that helping others means more than just getting ahead yourself. We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters, that you don't take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules, and success doesn't count unless you earn it fair and square. We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean, and we were taught to value everyone's contribution and treat everyone with respect.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Democratic National Convention speech (2012)

People, Truth, School, Learning

“A free America, democratic in the sense that our forefathers intended it to be, means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call 'democracy' is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

The Future of Architecture (1953), p. 174

Democracy, Sense, Freedom

“When Galilei let balls of a particular weight, which he had determined himself, roll down an inclined plain, or Torricelli made the air carry a weight, which he had previously determined to be equal to that of a definite volume of water; or when, in later times, Stahl changed metal into lime, and lime again into metals, by withdrawing and restoring something, a new light flashed on all students of nature. They comprehended that reason has insight into that only, which she herself produces on her own plan, and that she must move forward with the principles of her judgments, according to fixed law, and compel nature to answer her questions, but not let herself be led by nature, as it were in leading strings, because otherwise accidental observations made on no previously fixed plan, will never converge towards a necessary law, which is the only thing that reason seeks and requires. Reason, holding in one hand its principles, according to which concordant phenomena alone can be admitted as laws of nature, and in the other hand the experiment, which it has devised according to those principles, must approach nature, in order to be taught by it: but not in the character of a pupil, who agrees to everything the master likes, but as an appointed judge, who compels the witnesses to answer the questions which he himself proposes. Therefore even the science of physics entirely owes the beneficial revolution in its character to the happy thought, that we ought to seek in nature (and not import into it by means of fiction) whatever reason must learn from nature, and could not know by itself, and that we must do this in accordance with what reason itself has originally placed into nature. Thus only has the study of nature entered on the secure method of a science, after having for many centuries done nothing but grope in the dark.”

Immanuel Kant book Critique of Pure Reason

Preface to 2nd edition, Tr. F. Max Müller (1905)
Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)

Law, Question, Nature, Study

“The average Christian confuses the Law of Rebirth with what he calls "the transmigration of souls", and frequently believes that the Law of Rebirth signifies the passing of human beings into the bodies of animals or of lower forms of life. Such is by no means the case.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ (1948), p. 324

Life, Law, Soul, Animals

“Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. Its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair. And if by despair one means as the Christians do – any attitude of unbelief, the despair of the existentialists is something different. Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only by self-deception, by confining their own despair with ours that Christians can describe us as without hope.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture (1946)

Men, God, Hope, Understanding

“Life has a meaning, a motive. There is nothing greater than life itself. Yet what is the purpose of life? What do we actually do with it? What have we understood? When we accomplish and realize who we are—not in theory, but in reality—it is gorgeous. Concepts stop. Our expressions are accurate. The love is real. It is as though the whole rose blooms-—not one petal, not two petals—but the whole rose opens up. All of a sudden, in the darkness there is light.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Denver, Colorado February 24, 1979
1970s

Love, Life, Motivation, Reality

“It is due to him that the Roman concepts of public duty and service are still a living force among us. Historians have denied him the name of genius which they grant readily to Alexander and Julius and Napoleon; but if it be not genius to re-make and re-direct the world by a courageous realism and supreme powers of character and mind, then the word has no meaning in human speech..”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Augustus (1937)

World, Courage

“The reader should understand that this book forms a small part of a larger intellectual program: a struggle against fate through thought, an effort to give new meaning and new life to projects of individual and social liberation that for the last two hundred years have shaken and aroused the whole world, a fight to imagine the forms that those projects can and should take if they are to have a future.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger book The Left Alternative

Source: The Left Alternative (2009), p. 187

Life, Fate, Books, World

“Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can direct human society. It denies that numbers can govern by means of periodical consultations: It asserts the unavoidable fruitful and beneficent inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device as universal suffrage.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

"The Doctrine of Fascism", June 1932. Quoted in Marco Piraino, Stefano Fiorito, Fascist identity : political project and doctrine of fascism. Lulu.com, 2009. (p. 107)
1930s

Men, Universe

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

John Gray book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

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

Life, Death, War, People

“I myself hate that old Hemingwayesque paradigm of the writer as prizefighter and I have tried hard to create an alternate one for myself. When Anne Sexton admonished me, "We are all writing God's poem," I took it to mean there should be no competition between writers because we are all involved in a common project, a common prayer. But to Gore's and Norman's generation, particularly those male writers who served in the second world war, the prizefighter paradigm remains.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

"Into the lion's den" in The Guardian (26 October 2000) http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2000/oct/26/features11.g2

God, Hate, War, World

“How about the judgment, on 9/11, to keep reading to schoolchildren, when you are told, "The country is under attack"? I mean, talk about being non-partisan; how much of a partisan pretzel do you have to twist yourself into to work backwards to, "Yes, when a president is told the country is under attack, the proper thing to do is to freeze. To choke. To sit there like Forrest Gump." Really. That takes a lot of working backwards to that. …I know Republicans pride themselves on being loyal, and they are, but loyal to what? To a person? Or to a principle? Because if you defend a president for sitting there for even one second after he's told "America is under attack", you are loyal to a person more than you are to the truth, to a principle, or to your country. If you defend that, you have drunk the Kool-Aid. You are part of a cult. Because any president of any party would have gotten up; Democrat, Republican, Whig -- doesn't matter. "President Van Buren, America is under attack." Would have gotten up. "President Reagan, America is under attack."”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Would have gotten up. FDR would have gotten up, he couldn't even get up!
I'm Swiss (2005)

Truth, Reading, Parting, Personality

“I have been to [gallery] Hagen, saw two Matisses, which enchanted me. A large collection of Japanese masks. Sublime! 'Neue [Künstler] Vereinigung' were hung in a bad light.... Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Bechteleff and Erbslöh have immense artistic sensibility. But the means of expression are to big for what they have to say. The sound of their voice is so good, so fine, that what is being said get lost. Consequently a human element is missing. They concentrate, too much, I think, on form. There is much to be learnt from their efforts. But early things by Kandinsky, and a few by Jawlensky too, seem a little empty to me. And Jawlensky's heads looked at me a little bit too much with colors. With blue and green. I hope you understand what I mean.”

August Macke (1887–1914) German painter of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter

in a letter to Franz Marc, 26 December 1910; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 137

Hope, Color, Understanding, Thinking

“Others … are in the habit of teaching that religion and philosophy are really the same thing. Such a statement, however, appears to be true only in the sense in which Francis I is supposed to have said in a very conciliatory tone with reference to Charles V: ‘what my brother Charles wants is also what I want’, namely Milan. Others again do not stand on such ceremony, but talk bluntly of a Christian philosophy, which is much the same as if we were to speak of a Christian arithmetic, and this would be stretching a point. Moreover, epithets taken from such dogmas are obviously unbecoming of philosophy, for it is devoted to the attempt of the faculty of reason to solve by its own means and independently of all authority the problem of existence.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Andere wieder, von diesen Wahrheitsforschern, schmelzen Philosophie und Religion zu einem Kentauren zusammen, den sie Religionsphilosophie nennen; Pflegen auch zu lehren, Religion und Philosophie seien eigentlich das Selbe;—welcher Sah jedoch nur in dem Sinne wahr zu seyn scheint, in welchem Franz I., in Beziehung auf Karl V., sehr versöhnlich gesagt haben soll: „was mein Bruder Karl will, das will ich auch,”—nämlich Mailand, Wieder andere machen nicht so viele Umstände, sondern reden geradezu von einer Christlichen Philosophie;—welches ungefähr so herauskommt, wie wenn man von einer Christlichen Arithmetik reden wollte, die fünf gerade seyn ließe. Dergleichen von Glaubenslehren entnommene Epitheta sind zudem der Philosophie offenbar unanständig, da sie sich für den Versuch der Vernunft giebt, aus eigenen Mitteln und unabhängig von aller Auktorität das Problem des Daseyns zu lösen.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 155, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 142-143
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

Religion, Problem, Sense, Appearance

“Poetry is the most bodliy of arts, the medium of poetry is the column of breath rising from the diaphragm in the individual's chest to be shaped into meaning sounds inside the mouth of whoever undertakes to say the poem.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

The Art of Poetry - interview 1995 with Downing & Kunitz

Art

“The law against witches does not prove there be any; but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives.”

John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law

Witches.
Table Talk (1689)

Men, People, Law

“I must give some attention to the delicate question of religion, on which I have touched already. In my father's generation this question still was discussed with passion. Since then a sort of truce has existed in the countries of the West, while in the communist states of the East atheism has been made into the State religion. It is not advisable to blow on the embers of such controversies. But as I am talking about the limitations of our physical world picture I cannot but say that I do not believe in transgressions of the laws of nature. As these laws are of a statistical nature, and therefore allow deviations from the norm, I must define more clearly what I mean. The statistical deviations themselves obey certain laws. The miraculous events of religious tradition, however, are of a different kind, they lie on a different plane altogether; they are meant to prove something lying entirely beyond scientific consideration, such as the power of prayer, the intervention of divine power for or against certain men or nations.”

Max Born (1882–1970) physicist

Men, Lie, World, Religion

“A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget…. As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: "Radio and Television Address to the Nation on the Test Ban Treaty and the Tax Reduction Bill" (18 September 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9413

Family, Way, Business

“What did this long-range goodwill mean, and what did it say about the social contract that allowed a rich man to free all of his descendents from the need to work over the course of almost two centuries?”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

At Last, Chapter 6

“Dairying as Instrument of Change Kurien said. True development must be such that it brings the modernization process to the service of our majority, namely the rural poor. It must bring to these people not only the pittance which they need for their humble diet but also the means where by they can act together to obtain for themselves the benefits of modern science and organization and in that process the means whereby they can build for themselves, in every village, a society which is at peace with itself, concerned with its neighbours and able to see a bright for all its children.”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul

In p. 81
Quote, Our Leaders

Children, People, Peace, Science

“We are told that we are a pack of Socialists and faddists, and that common sense is on the side of the Unionist party. Well, for my part, I am for going in for all progressive legislation step by step. I do not believe in the short cuts. If Socialism means the abolition of private property, if it means the assumption of land and capital by the State, if it means an equal distribution of products of labour by the State, then I say that Socialism of that stamp, communism of that stamp, is against human nature, and no sensible man will have anything to say to it. But if it means a wise use of the forces of all for the good of each, if it means a legal protection of the weak against the strong, if it means the performance by public bodies of things which individuals cannot perform so well, or cannot perform at all, then the principles of Socialism have been admitted in almost the whole field of social activity already, and all we have to ask when any proposition is made for the further extension of those principles is whether the proposal is in itself a prudent, just, and proper means to the desired end, and whether it is calculated to do good, and more good than harm.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Speech to the Home Counties Division of the National Liberal Federation (13 February 1889), quoted in 'Mr. J. Morley At Portsmouth.', The Times (14 February 1889), p. 6.

Communication, Nature, Sense, Strong

“Like children, they’re bored by complicated things. More than bored: they feel threatened. Give a child mashed potatoes and butter, and he’s happy. He doesn’t want to try the rich sauce with capers, in fact he’ll cry if he’s forced to taste it. You see what I mean?
But, listen, Joseph. A child is easy to control. Keep him happy, and he’ll believe what he’s told to believe.”

Kage Baker book Sky Coyote

Source: Sky Coyote (1999), Chapter 19 (p. 129)

Children, Feeling, Cry, Happiness

“"I know we've had our differences, Allie, and that we haven't seen eye to eye on everything. I'm not perfect, but I did the best I could with raising you. I'm your mother and I always will be. That means I'll always love you."
Allie was silent for a moment, then: "What should I do?"
"I don't know, Allie. That's up to you. But I would think about it. Think about what you really want."”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Anne Nelson and Allie Nelson, An Unexpected Visitor, p. 137
1990s, The Notebook (1996)

Love, Thinking, Perfection

“These words are being written in reply to the verbal message sent by you. I have been asked (by you) to tell (you) about suppression of the rebellion of Jats in the environs of Delhi.
The fact is that this recluse (meaning himself) has witnessed in the occult world the downfall of the Jats in the same way as that of the Marhatahs. I have also seen it in a dream that Muslims have taken possession of the forts and the country of the Jats, and that Muslims have become masters of those forts and that country as in the past. Most probably, the Ruhelas will occupy those Jat forts. This has been determined and decided in the most secret world. This recluse has not the shadow of a doubt about that. But the way that victory will be achieved is not yet clear. What is needed is prayers from those special servants of Allah who have been chosen for this purpose.
…But keep one thing in your mind, namely, that the Hindus who are apparently in your’s and your government’s employ, are inclined towards the enemies in their hearts. They do not want that the enemies be exterminated. They will try a thousand tricks in this matter, and endeavour in every way to show to your honour that the path of peace is more profitable.
Make up your mind not to listen to this group (the Hindu employees). If you disregard their advice, you will reach the height of fulfilment. This recluse knows of this (fulfilment) as if he is seeing it with his own eyes.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

To Najibuddaulah Translated from the Urdu version of K.A. Nizami, Shãh Walîullah Dehlvî ke Siyãsî Maktûbãt, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, pp. 106-07.
From his letters

Secret, World, Peace, Dreams

“For a long time one school of players favored the technique of stating side by side, developing in counterpoint, and finally harmoniously combining two hostile themes or ideas, such as law and freedom, individual and community. In such a Game the goal was to develop both themes or theses with complete equality and impartiality, to evolve out of thesis and antithesis the purest possible synthesis. In general, aside from certain brilliant exceptions, Games with discordant, negative, or skeptical conclusions were unpopular and at times actually forbidden. This followed directly from the meaning the Game had acquired at its height for the players. It represented an elite, symbolic form of seeking for perfection, a sublime alchemy, an approach to that Mind which beyond all images and multiplicities is one within itself — in other words, to God. Pious thinkers of earlier times had represented the life of creatures, say, as a mode of motion toward God, and had considered that the variety of the phenomenal world reached perfection and ultimate cognition only in the divine Unity. Similarly, the symbols and formulas of the Glass Bead Game combined structurally, musically, and philosophically within the framework of a universal language, were nourished by all the sciences and arts, and strove in play to achieve perfection, pure being, the fullness of reality. ”

Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Life, God, Hostility, World

“Bill Manders: I, too, am pro life but I'm also pro choice, do you understand what I say when I mean that.
Sharron Angle: I'm pro responsible choice. There is choice to abstain, choice to do contraception. There are all kinds of good choices.
Bill Manders: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?
Sharron Angle: Not in my book.
Bill Manders: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?
Sharron Angle: You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

interview with talk radio host Bill Manders, January 2010
Sharron Angle Opposes Abortion Even With Rape, Incest: 'God Has A Plan'
2010-06-29
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/sharron-angle-opposes-abo_n_629371.html

Life, God, Books, Faith

“The linga he raised was the stone of Somnath, for soma means the moon and natha means master, so that the whole word means master of the moon. The image was destroyed by the Prince Mahmud, may God be merciful to him! - AH 416. He ordered the upper part to be broken and the remainder to be transported to his residence, Ghaznin, with all its coverings and trappings of gold, jewels, and embroidered garments. Part of it has been thrown into the hippodrome of the town, together with the Cakrasvamin, an idol of bronze, that had been brought from Taneshar. Another part of the idol from Somanath lies before the door of the mosque of Ghaznin, on which people rub their feet to clean them from dirt and wet.”

Al-Biruni book Alberuni's India

E.C. Sachau (tr.), Alberuni's India, New Delhi Reprint, 1983
From Alberuni's India

God, People, Parting

Quotes about meaning page 89

Quotes about meaning
page 89