Quotes about news (10000 quotes, page 77)

“Why did his interest in the concept of spontaneous order and the history of the doctrine of unintended social consequences undergo very little development after the 1960s? All of his political writings are in fact amazingly repetitious, exploring a small number of big themes which, however, are not further refined or extended in new contexts. As organizing concepts, they held, I am convinced, enormous potentialities but nevertheless Hayek himself failed to realize them.”

Mark Blaug (1927–2011) British economist

Hayek revisited (1993)

History

“In the machine for a new use of gunpowder, which is described in the 'Acta Eruditorum' for the month of September, 1688, the first desideratum was, that the gunpowder fired in the bottom of the tube AA should fill the whole cavity with flame, so that the air might be entirely expelled from it, and the tube remain a perfect vacuum beneath the piston BB. But there it was mentioned, that the desired effect could not be sufficiently attained… But hitherto such attempts have been in vain; and always, after the flame of the gunpowder is extinguished, about a fifth part of the air remains in the tube AA.”

Denis Papin (1647–1713) French physicist, mathematician and inventor

"A New Method of Obtaining Very Great Moving Powers at Small Cost" (1690)

Parting , Perfection

“My notes always grow longer if I shorten them. I mean the process of compression makes them more pregnant and they breed new notes.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Making Notes
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

“Outsiders act as employees, employees act as outsiders. New relationships blur the roles of employees and customers to the point of unity. They reveal the customer and the company as one.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

“Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

God , People , Faith , Religion

“Sir John Mandeville [was] an encyclopedist whose mostly invented stories still ring true, thanks to his gift for writing the first realistic Western fiction since Petronius. We do not know who this man was or even what language he wrote in, but modern textual analysis suggests that he rarely left his study. Rather than travel, he scavenged and plagiarized the works of others, improving their prose as he claimed their discoveries. In a period of continental isolation, Mandeville satisfied Europe's appetite for news by making up an East that sounded real. In expanding editions and translations, his Voyages and Travels became the most popular prose book of the Middle Ages.”

John Mandeville (1300–1372) writer

Michael Wolfe One Thousand Roads to Mecca (New York: Grove Press, 1999) p. 75.
Criticism

Books , Age , Travel , Study

“To find new light that old ties cannot give.”

Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Light

“The work of Dr. Nares has filled us with astonishment similar to that which Captain Lemuel Gulliver felt when first he landed in Brobdingnag, and saw corn as high as the oaks in the New Forest, thimbles as large as buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. The title is as long as an ordinary preface: the prefatory matter would furnish out an ordinary book; and the book contains as much reading as an ordinary library. We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. Such a book might, before the deluge, have been considered as light reading by Hilpa and Shallum. But unhappily the life of man is now three-score years and ten; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand from us so large a portion of so short an existence. Compared with the labour of reading through these volumes, all other labour, the labour of thieves on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar plantations, is an agreeable recreation.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Review of a life of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley by Edward Nares, Edinburgh Review, 1832)
Attributed

Life , Children , Books , Thinking

“The advent of the new political economy marked a decisive moment in the demise of the republican strand of American politics and the rise of contemporary liberalism. According to this liberalism, government should be neutral as to conceptions of the good life, in order to respect persons as free and independent selves, capable of choosing their own ends. Keynesian fiscal policy both reflected this liberalism and deepened its hold on American public life. Although those who practiced Keynesian economics did not defend it in precisely these terms, the new political economy displayed two features of the liberalism that defines the procedural republic.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

1. America's Search for a Public Philosophy
Public Philosophy (2005)

Life , Decision , Personality

“Lenin’ s often-quoted speech to the Komsomol Congress on 2 October 1920 deals with ethical questions on similar lines, "We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat’ s class struggle. Morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, a communist society … To a Communist all morality lies in this united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in an eternal morality, and we expose the falseness of all the fables about morality" (Works, vol. 31, pp. 291-4). It would be hard to interpret these words in any other sense than that everything which serves or injures the party’ s aims is morally good or bad respectively, and nothing else is morally good or bad. After the seizure of power, the maintenance and strengthening of Soviet rule becomes the sole criterion of morality as well as of all cultural values. No criteria can avail against any action that may seem conducive to the maintenance of power, and no values can be recognized on any other basis. All cultural questions thus become technical questions and must be judged by the one unvarying standard; the "good of society" becomes completely alienated from the good of its individual members. It is bourgeois sentimentalism, for instance, to condemn aggression and annexation if it can be shown that they help to maintain Soviet power; it is illogical and hypocritical to condemn torture if it serves the ends of the power which, by definition, is devoted to the "liberation of the working masses". Utilitarian morality and utilitarian judgements of social and cultural phenomena transform the original basis of socialism into its opposite. All phenomena that arouse moral indignation if they occur in bourgeois society are turned to gold, as if by a Midas touch, if they serve the interests of the new power: the armed invasion of a foreign state is liberation, aggression is defence, tortures represent the people’ s noble rage against the exploiters. There is absolutely nothing in the worst excesses of the worst years of Stalinism that cannot be justified on Leninist principles, if only it can be shown that Soviet power was increased thereby.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age, pp. 515-6

People , Quotes , Question , Sense

“The effect of three things - the new laws, the revision of the tax system, and the elimination of the zaibatsu conglomerates - was to make Japan an egalitarian society for the first time.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 135.

Law , Time

“Empire is emerging today as the center that supports the globalization of productive networks and casts its widely inclusive net to try to envelop all power relations within its world order — and yet at the same time it deploys a powerful police function against the new barbarians and the rebellious slaves who threaten its order.”

Antonio Negri book Empire

20
Empire

Support , Time

“Firstly for the design I decided that the two joined figures should be depicted upright [in Zadkine's first attempt the two brothers were sitting shoulder to shoulder].... two or three days later I was able to send him a photo of my new attempt, in which the two brothers are not only standing, but where the bond – the main idea is projected onto the statue in a hollow, in the heart of the composition the viewer can see a knot of hands, a symbol of the double inspiration.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

Source: 1940 - 1960, Les frères Van Gogh, origine et justification', c. 1955, pp. 67-69

Photo , Idea , Heart

“It is curious to observe how the Cross is regaining its old place in this country. A hundred years ago our Protestant females would have been shocked at the idea of wearing a cross. Now they all have crosses dangling from their necks; and our priests generally prevail to have it elevated on the tops of our new churches. They say it is not an object of adoration. True : but all in its proper time. It will not be elevated on the church and the altar for nothing. A prudent Pope, availing himself of the powers given to him by the Council of Trent, would not find it difficult to effect a reconciliation between the Papal See and the Protestant Church of England. The extremes are beginning to bend to the circular form.”

Godfrey Higgins (1772–1833) British archaeologist

Celtic Druids (1827), p. 131.

Idea , Time , Country

“If I may be allowed just three wishes, they would be these.
Firstly, I would like to see some evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe. But we are still waiting for ETs to call us — or give us some kind of a sign. We have no way of guessing when this might happen — I hope sooner rather than later!
Secondly, I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources. … Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can't allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet…
The third wish is one closer to home. I’ve been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years — and half that time, I’ve been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country.
I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

Life , Sadness , Peace , Hope

“I have a rule that I don't drink in New York because I don't want to wake up with a hangover and not be able to work.”

Colm Tóibín (1955) Irish novelist and writer

World of Colm Tóibín, writer http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/9108553/World-of-Colm-Toibin-writer.html, The Daily Telegraph (27 February 2012)

Drink

“Gylfie looked at Soren gravely. "That is why we must learn how to fly before the next newing."
"But I won't be ready. I won't have enough feathers," Soren said.
"Almost, though."
"Almost? There's a difference, Gylfie, between almost and enough."”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

"Yes. The difference is belief, Soren. Belief."
Source: The Capture (2003), Chapter Nineteen: "To Believe", p. 139

Learning , Flying

“All new states are invested, more or less, by a class of noisy, second-rate men who are always in favor of rash and extreme measures, but Texas was absolutely overrun by such men.”

Sam Houston (1793–1863) nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier, namesake of Houston, Texas

As quoted in the Sam Houston Memorial Museum http://www.shsu.edu/~smm_www/History/quotes.shtml.

Men

“Major parties have lived more for patronage than for principles; their goal has been to bind together a sufficiently large coalition of diverse interests to get into power; and once in power, to arrange sufficiently satisfactory compromises of interests to remain there. Minor parties have been attached to some special idea or interest, and they have generally expressed their positions through firm and identifiable programs and principles. Their function has not been to win or govern, but to agitate, educate, generate new ideas, and supply the dynamic element in our political life. When a third party's demands become popular enough, they are appropriated by one or both of the major parties and the third party disappears. Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter III, part I, p. 97

Life , Education , Idea , Bee

“He who will please the crowd and for the sake of the most ephemeral renown will either proclaim those things which nature does not display or even will publish genuine miracles of nature without regard to deeper causes is a spiritually corrupt person… With the best of intentions I publicly speak to the crowd (which is eager for things new) on the subject of what is to come.”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Translation by an unknown person, from De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus, ibid., from the foreword

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Johannes Kepler / Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596) / De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus (1601)

Nature , Personality

“I tell you the first and last time. Together with a nuclear suitcase the president has a folder, which is top secret and devoted entirely to the report by the Russian secret service which handles the control of extraterrestrials in our country. After the term, the two folders and a small nuclear suitcase are transferred to the new president. How many of them are among us I cannot say because panic might begin.”

Dmitry Medvedev (1965) Russian Prime Minister and former president

collective-evolution.com http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/09/13/russian-prime-minister-confirms-the-existence-of-intelligent-extraterrestrial-life/

Secret , Time , Country

“My friends, as we enter a new decade, it should be clear to all of us that there is an unfinished agenda, that we have miles to go before we reach the promised land.
The men who rule this country today never learned the lessons of Dr. King, they never learned that non-violence is the only way to peace and justice.
Our nation continues to wage war upon its neighbors, and upon itself.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

Lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1990)

Men , War , Peace , Justice

“In these discussions we are not asking you to accept anything on blind faith. We are definitely asking that you not immediately reject anything either. We suggest that you do some research for yourself. Just ponder the basic points, investigate them and, most importantly, try to know better how to protect yourself against subtle forces so that you will not become a casualty. If you take these simple steps, you will be one of those who helps to bring about a new era for humankind.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 3: Angels and Demigods, p. 55

Faith , Help

“Every day I talk with the enemy. But I do not see an embodiment of "him who opposes goodness." If we approach the war on terrorism with the fervor of a Christian jihad against Islam, our battle is already lost, for we have become what we opposed and we are now the fundamentalists. Our battle is not one of flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers and principalities which rule this present darkness. We cannot allow ourselves to be caught up in "war mode" against a fleshly enemy, or the true enemy is already within us, and we have failed to believe in the power of a redemption which (we say) we believe has saved us. … My comfort and liberty must not be won by the sacrifices of a new and foreign poor now paying the price for our moral failings of diplomacy,. economy and statesmanship, turning our Republic into an Empire.”

Joshua Casteel (1979–2012) US Army soldier, lecturer, and writer

Source: Letters from Abu Ghraib (2008), pp. 71-72.

War

““Organization theory,” a term that appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, has multiple meanings. When it first emerged, the term expressed faith in scientific research as a way to gain understanding of human beings and their interactions. Although scientific research had been occurring for several centuries, the idea that scientific research might enhance understanding of human behavior was considerably newer and rather few people appreciated it. Simon (1950, 1952-3, 1952) was a leading proponent for the creation of “organization theory”, which he imagined as including scientific management, industrial engineering, industrial psychology, the psychology of small groups, human-resources management, and strategy. The term “organization theory” also indicated an aspiration to state generalized, abstract propositions about a category of social systems called “organizations,” which was a very new concept. Before and during the 1800s, people had regarded armies, schools, churches, government agencies, and social clubs as belonging to distinct categories, and they had no name for the union of these categories. During the 1920s, some people began to perceive that diverse kinds of medium-sized social systems might share enough similarities to form a single, unified category. They adopted the term “organization” for this unified category.”

William H. Starbuck (1934) American academic

William H. Starbuck and Philippe Baumard (2009). "The seeds, blossoming, and scant yield of organization theory," in: Jacques Rojot et. al (eds.) Comportement organisationnel - Volume 3 De Boeck Supérieur. p. 15

People , School , Faith , Way

“It's a Rocket-raising: a festival new to this country. Soon it will come to the folk-attention how close Wernher von Braun's birthday is to the Spring Equinox, and the same German impulse that once rolled flower-boats through the towns and staged mock battles between young Spring and deathwhite old Winter will be erecting strange floral towers out in the clearings and meadows, and the young scientist-surrogate will be going round and round with Gravity or some such buffoon, and the children will be tickled, and laugh….”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

Children , Spring , Flowers , Birthday

“Consider an opening musical number set in a maternity ward, where Tommy Pickles and his friends Chuckie Finster and Phil and Lil DeVille are hoping for a look at Tommy's new kid brother, Dilbert. (Dil Pickles — get it? For Rugrats fans, this is humor of the highest order.) They wake up the babies, who do a number that seems inspired by Bubsy Berkeley, except that the Berkeley girls never had to supply their own dancing waters, if you get my drift.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-rugrats-movie-1998 of The Rugrats Movie (20 November 1998)
Reviews, Two star reviews

Hope , Music , Girl , Water

“Asia is a region with great potential, and the TPP would create a new relationship with great potential for trade among the countries signing the agreement. These two instruments, if they materialize, will create great opportunities for Mexico. Mexico hasn’t been the obstacle to finalizing the TPP.”

Enrique Peña Nieto (1966) 57th President of Mexico

Foreign Affairs interview (January 2014)

Country

“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1960s, Farewell address (1961)

Money , Idea , Fashion , Universe

“Here am I, the often sat on
Dancing don; my name is T-TT-N;
Like old wine in a new bottle
Is my talk on Aristotle.”

Henry Charles Beeching (1859–1919) English clergyman, author and poet

The Masque of Balliol http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2735.html (1880)

Wine , Dance

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

World , Law , Problem , Sun

“He began to think about semblance, as Ansky had discussed it in his notebook, and he began to think about himself. He felt free, as he never had in his life, and although malnourished and weak, he also felt the strength to prolong as far as possible this impulse toward freedom, toward sovereignty. And yet the possibility that it was all nothing but semblance troubled him. Semblance was an occupying force of reality, he said to himself, even the most extreme, borderline reality. It lived in people's souls and their actions, in willpower and in pain, in the way memories and priorities were ordered. Semblance proliferated in the salons of the industrialists and in the underworld. It set the rules, it rebelled against its own rules…it set new rules.”

Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) Chilean author

2666: A Novel (2008)

Life , Pain , People , Way

“… as the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

"Of Choice in Reading", The Enquirer (1797)

Education , Thinking , Reading , Training

“The transformation of the automobile market was essentially complete in 1929. If Mr. Ford, in that pivotal year in the modern economy, still held stubbornly to his old concept in his new Model A, he was counterbalanced by Mr. Chrysler, who had come up from nowhere with tremendous vitality and with a market policy similar to General Motors'. The fact that Mr. Ford built nearly two million of the five million U. S.-produced cars and trucks sold that year was only incidental from the long-term point of view. it was a splurge, not the sign of a trend.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: My Years with General Motors, 1963, p. 169

Cars

“No debts. I have very little debt to anybody. I don't need debt. You know, it's very interesting, I'm so liquid, I don't need debt. And if I need debt, if I want debt, I can get it from banks in New York City very easily.”

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

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

“Yes, so it is that knowledge itself must die in order to blossom forth again in death as will; the freedom of thought, belief, and conscience, these wonderful flowers of three centuries will sink back into the lap of mother earth so that a new freedom, the freedom will, will be nourished with its most noble juices.”

Max Stirner book The False Principle of our Education

Source: The False Principle of our Education (1842), p. 19

Death , Flowers , Knowledge , Freedom

“I tell you this morning, my friends, there’s no way to get rid of Him. And all of our new knowledge will not diminish God's being one iota. Neither the microcosmic compass of the atom nor the vast interstellar ranges of interstellar space can make God irrelevant for living in a universe, where stellar distance must be measured in light years, where stars are five hundred million million miles from the earth, where heavenly bodies travel at incredible speeds. Modern man still has to cry out with the Psalmist, "When I behold the heavens, the work of thy hands and all that thou hast created; what is man, that thou is mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou hast remembered him?"”

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

1960s, Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool (1967)

God , Way , Travel , Star

“[Information] science and technology are now so closely linked that analysis and experiment lead quickly on to invention, to the introduction of new channels”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

and documents
Source: Meeting the challenge (2009), p. xxiii.

Science

“The future announces itself from afar. But most people are not listening. The noisy clatter of the present drowns out the tentative sound of things to come. The sound of the new does not fit old perceptual patterns and goes unnoticed by most people. And of the few who do perceive something coming, most lack the energy, initiative, courage or will to do anything about it. Leaders who have the wit to perceive and the courage to act will be credited with a gift of prophecy that they do not necessarily have.”

John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician

On Leadership (1981) p. 131

People , Courage , Future

“He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced,
As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed
And opened new fountains in the human heart.”

Robert Pollok book The Course of Time

Book iv, line 684.
The Course of Time (published 1827)

Heart

“About this time, I heard of a well known Hindu having been converted to Christianity. It was the talk of the town that, when he was baptized, he had to eat beef and drink liquor, that he also had to change his clothes, and that thenceforth he began to go about in European costume including a hat. These things got on my nerves. Surely, thought I, a religion that compelled one to eat beef, drink liquor, and change one's own clothes did not deserve the name. I also heard that the new convert had already begun abusing the religion of his ancestors, their customs and their country. All these things created in me a dislike for Christianity.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Part I, Chapter 10, Glimpses of Religion
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)

Religion , Drink , Change , Time

“The Japanese have a term called Ikigai. Ikigai is the Japanese translation of the French 'raison d’etre' or 'reason for being.' When Plato wrote about government, what Plato said was that the most preferred form of governor was what we know as the true statesman. -- The philosopher king who knows his place and his task. My purpose is to be a builder of new ideas and companies. I live to put new ideas together and advance the conversation. It is my Ikigai. I simply love to do it. There is nothing more exciting to me than helping new ideas spring up out of the ground.”

Robert Agresta (1983)

Public Release May, 2011, Politicker NJ

Love , Spring , Idea , Help

“The performance of business leaders during the next decade will play a major role in determining not only business but political and social trends for a long time to come. Here are some of the principal reasons:
- Business leaders control the economic well-being of and stockholder.
- The course of business shapes public opinion.
- Business leaders shape public opinion.
So, in addition to his or her prime responsibility of managing his or her enterprise at a profit, the business leader of today is faced with new and larger responsibilities. And, at the same time, the job of managing his or her enterprise at a profit is increasing in complexity. Consequently, the imposition of additional responsibilities makes the nation’s task of developing an adequate number of properly equipped executive leaders a staggering one indeed.”

Marvin Bower (1903–2003) American business theorist

Marvin Bower (1949) The development of executive leadership. Harvard University. Graduate School of Business Administration. p. v

Business , Time

“The Independent Expert believes that a fundamental rethink is necessary and should result in an explicit definition of new priorities that puts the interests of billions of human beings who are deprived of the necessities of life ahead of those of foreign investors.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the adverse impact of World Bank policies on human rights and the realisation of a democratic and equitable international order
2017, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

Life

“Don't be deceived
when our Revolution has been finally stamped out
and they tell you
things are better now
Even if there's no poverty to be seen
because the poverty's been hidden
even if you ever got more wages
and could afford to buy
more of these new and useless goods
which these new industries foist on you
and even if it seems to you
that you never had so much
that is only the slogan of those
who still have much more than you”

Peter Weiss Marat/Sade

Marat, act 1, scene 23 (p. 55)
Marat/Sade (1963)

“The man that owned the company that I worked for called me into the office and said how can you be on our payroll and have your own New York Times ad! This has to stop! And I said but it can't I have orders to ship. And he said well you're fired. And that's how I started my business.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

CNN Interview (July 31, 2004)

Business , Time

“Just as the managers of a public company have a responsibility to the existing stockholders not to diminish the value of their shares by selling new ones too cheaply to outsiders, our politicians have a moral obligation to the current citizens and their descendents to preserve the scarcity value of their right to live in America.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

Americans First http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americans-first/, The American Conservative, February 13, 2006

“This new philosophy, however, was far from giving the temporal an inherent position and function in the constitution of things. Change was acting on the side of man but only because of fixed laws which governed the changes that take place. There was hope in change just because the laws that govern it do not change.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Law , Hope , Change

“How is technology changing the hierarchical nature of our world? History reveals an overall trend toward ever more coordination over ever-larger distances, which is easy to understand: new transportation technology makes coordination more valuable (by enabling mutual benefit from moving materials and life forms over larger distances) and new communication technology makes coordination easier. When cells learned to signal to neighbors, small multicellular organisms became possible, adding a new hierarchical level. When evolution invented circulatory systems and nervous systems for transportation and communication, large animals became possible. Further improving communication by inventing language allowed humans to coordinate well enough to form further hierarchical levels such as villages, and additional breakthroughs in communication, transportation and other technology enabled the empires of antiquity. Globalization is merely the latest example of this multi-billion-year trend of hierarchical growth.”

Max Tegmark (1967) Swedish-American cosmologist

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2017)

Life , World , History , Communication

“After nearly a quarter of a century of prosperity under the Constitution, the spirit of slavery so far triumphed over the early principles and practices of the government that, in 1812, South Carolina and her followers in Congress succeeded in inserting the word 'white' in the suffrage clause of the act establishing a territorial government for Missouri. One by one the Slave States, and many of the free States, gave way before the crusade of slavery against negro citizenship. In 1817, Connecticut caught the infection, and in her constitution she excluded the negro from the ballot-box. In every other New England State his ancient right of suffrage has remained and still remains undisturbed. Free negroes voted in Maryland till 1833; in North Carolina, till 1835; in ennsylvania, till 1838. It was the boast of Cave Johnson of Tennessee that he owed his election to Congress in 1828 to the free negroes who worked in his mills. They were denied the suffrage in 1834, under the new constitution of Tennessee, by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-three. As new States were formed, their constitutions for the most part excluded the negro from citizenship. Then followed the shameful catalogue of black laws; expatriation and ostracism in every form, which have so deeply disgraced the record of legislation in many of the States.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

Law , Way , Parting , Box

“Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Another fairy tale to give men hope. The old religions have been discredited — although some refuse to face even that fact — so new ones must be invented.””

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Source: The Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), Chapter 23 (p. 179)

Men , Religion , Hope , Change

“Politics and strategy are one. Nations should live in an atmosphere of self-criticism because it is healthy, but always with one heart and one mind. Stoop to the unhappy, and lift them up in your arms! Thaw out frozen America with the fire of your hearts! Make the natural blood of the nations´ course vigorously through their veins! The new American are on their feet, saluting each other from nation to nation, the eyes of the laborers shining with joy. The natural statesman arises, schooled in the direct study of Nature. He reads to apply his knowledge, not to imitate.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Our America (1881)

School , Nature , Knowledge , Study

“We are at an extraordinary moment in human history: never before has the possibility of true democracy been so close to realisation. At the cost of publishing and duplication has dropped to near zero, a truly free press, and a truly informed public, becomes a reality. A new Information Enlightment is dawning where knowledge flows freely, beyond national boundaries. Technology is breaking down traditional social barriers of status, class, power, wealth and geography, replacing them with an ethos of collaboration and transparency. In this new Enlightenment it isn't just scientific truths that are the goal, but discovering truths about the way we live, about politics and power.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page ix.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

Truth , Way , Democracy , History

“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, 1932 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois (2 July 1932)
1930s

People

“In many cases, ignorance is a good thing : the mind retains its freedom of investigation and does not stray along roads that lead nowhither, suggested by one's reading. I have experienced this once again. … Yes, ignorance can have its advantages; the new is found far from the beaten track.”

Jean Henri Fabre (1823–1915) French entomologist and author

In 'The Languedocian Scorpion'

Freedom , Reading

“In imaginative thought there is no real knowledge of anything but similarities (ultimately identities): knowledge of differences is merely a transition to a new knowledge of similarities.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 215

Imagination , Knowledge

“What about [my] books? How do I feel about them?
I enjoyed writing all of them. But I think that if I could only choose a few, which, for example, might escape World War Three, I would choose, first, Eye in the Sky. Then The Man in the High Castle. Martian Time-Slip (published by Ballantine). Dr. Bloodmoney (a recent Ace novel). Then The Zap Gun and The Penultimate Truth, both of which I wrote at the same time. And finally another Ace book, The Simulacra.
But this list leaves out the most vital of them all: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I am afraid of that book; it deals with absolute evil, and I wrote it during a great crisis in my religious beliefs. I decided to write a novel dealing with absolute evil as personified in the form of a "human." When the galleys came from Doubleday I couldn't correct them because I could not bear to read the text, and this is still true.
Two other books should perhaps be on this list, both very new Doubleday novels: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and another as yet untitled Ubik]. Do Androids has sold very well and has been eyed intently by a film company who has in fact purchased an option on it. My wife thinks it's a good book. I like it for one thing: It deals with a society in which animals are adored and rare, and a man who owns a real sheep is Somebody… and feels for that sheep a vast bond of love and empathy. Willis, my tomcat, strides silently over the pages of that book, being important as he is, with his long golden twitching tail. Make them understand, he says to me, that animals are really that important right now. He says this, and then eats up all the food we had been warming for our baby. Some cats are far too pushy. The next thing he'll want to do is write SF novels. I hope he does. None of them will sell.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"Self Portrait" (1968), reprinted in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995), ed. Lawrence Sutin

Love , War , Truth , Books

“I'm going to be real surprised if we go two more years. We are so close [to the New World Order]. All we need is one good disaster - which will be manufactured - they create their own disasters. Like the Twin Towers - they blew it up themselves - and they do that so they can bring in their solution. And what they want - if you look at what they want - they want a one world government - a New World Order - with Satan in charge. Period. That's the goal.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

1 May 2006
Truth Radio

World

“In disputes upon moral or scientific points, ever let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent: so you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

Truth , Loss

“A new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God's gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished-not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty - a new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption that deaden our souls and poison our relationships.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2008, Closing Mass (19 July 2008)

Love , Life , God , Age

“The author's conviction on this day of the New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Preface
ABC of Reading (1934)

Music , Dance

“It’s wonderful news from St Mary’s Paddington, and I’m sure that right across the country, and indeed right across the Commonwealth, people will be celebrating and wishing the Royal couple well.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Remarks on the Royal birth http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/kate-middleton/10196324/David-Camerons-statement-on-the-royal-birth.html (22 July 2013)
2010s, 2013

People , Country

“Our children grow up in a culture permeated with the idea that there are "smart people" and "dumb people". The social construction of the individual is as a bundle of aptitudes. There are people who are "good at math" and people who "can't do math." Everything is set up for children to attribute their first unsuccessful or unpleasant learning experiences to their own disabilities. As a result, children perceive failure as relegating them either to the group of "dumb people" or, more often, to a group of people "dumb at x" (where, as we have pointed out, x often equals mathematics). Within this framework children will define themselves in terms of their limitations, and this definition will be consolidated and reinforced throughout their lives. Only rarely does some exceptional event lead people to reorganize their intellectual self-image in such a way as to open up new perspectives on what is learnable.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

Children , People , Way , Mathematics

“All of them cite that toxic spew, even though there’s not a syllable of supporting evidence. Because the controversy itself became news. Save a country, save a world, save a child—it doesn’t matter. You don’t need proof or even evidence to burn down a man’s soul. All you need is accusation.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 8 “Unrequited Hate” (p. 239)

World , Soul , Support , Country

“God, Satan, Paradise, and Hell all vanished one day in my fifteenth year, when I quite abruptly lost my faith. … and afterwards, to prove my new-found atheism, I bought myself a rather tasteless ham sandwich, and so partook for the first time of the forbidden flesh of the swine. No thunderbolt arrived to strike me down. … From that day to this I have thought of myself as a wholly secular person.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

"In God We Trust" (1985)

God , Faith , Hell , Swine

“We must realize that today's Establishment is the New George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Points of Rebellion (1969)
Other speeches and writings

“One great mystery is why sexual reproduction became dominant for higher life-forms. Optimization theory says it should be otherwise.
Take a fish or lizard, ideally suited to her environment, with just the right internal chemistry, agility, camouflage—whatever it takes to be healthy, fecund, and successful in her world. Despite all this, she cannot pass on her perfect characteristics. After sex, her offspring will be jumbles, getting only half of their program from her and half their re-sorted genes somewhere else.
Sex inevitably ruins perfection. Parthenogenesis would seem to work better—at least theoretically. In simple, static environments, well-adapted lizards who produce duplicate daughters are known to have advantages over those using sex.
Yet, few complex animals are known to perform self-cloning. And those species exist in ancient, stable deserts, always in close company with a related sexual species.
Sex has flourished because environments are seldom static. Climate, competition, parasites—all make for shifting conditions. What was ideal in one generation may be fatal the next. With variability, your offspring get a fighting chance. Even in desperate times, one or more of them may have what it takes to meet new challenges and thrive.
Each style has its advantages, then. Cloning offers stability and preservation of excellence. Sex gives adaptability to changing times. In nature it is usually one or the other. Only lowly creatures such as aphids have the option of switching back and forth.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Introduction to Chapter 8 (pp. 123-124)
Glory Season (1993)

Life , World , Sex , Optimism

“One man, one vote: A legal doctrine requiring that, from time to time, old gerrymanders be replaced with new ones. The object of this is the achievement of genuine democracy.”

Poul Anderson book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 3 (p. 30)

Democracy , Time

“John Osborne spoke out in a vein of ebullient, free-wheeling rancour that betokened the arrival of something new in the theatre — a sophisticated, articulate lower-class. Most of the critics were offended by Jimmy Porter, but not on account of his anger; a working-class hero is expected to be angry. What nettled them was something quite different: his self-confidence. This was no envious inferior whose insecurity they could pity.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

"Decade in Retrospect: 1959" (1959), p. 13
Tynan Right and Left (1967)

Confidence , Self-confidence , Anger

“In the new order a Locke was free—with almost no danger of being interfered with—to think his sublime thoughts, to seek the first causes of all things, to understand the nature of things. He could talk with his friends and teach the young. And there was money enough. The academies and universities satisfied Socrates’ demand to be fed in the prytaneum.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician

“Commerce and Culture,” p. 289.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)

Money , Understanding , Nature , Thinking

“We keep a change in place by helping to create a new, supportive, and sufficiently strong organizational culture.”

John P. Kotter (1947) author of The heart of Change

Step 8, p. 161
The Heart of Change, (2002)

Support , Strong , Change , Help

“Another thing. This idea of "I'm offended". Well I've got news for you. I'm offended by a lot of things too. Where do I send my list? Life is offensive. You know what I mean? Just get in touch with your outer adult. And grow up. And move on. Reasonable people don't write letters because… A: They have lives and B, they understand it's just TV. C: If they see something they don't like, something they do like might be on later. I've seen many comics I've hated. I've seen many shows that have offended me. I've never written a letter. I just go about my life.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Interview with Howard Stern

Life , Hate , People , Idea

“Homosexuality is so much in fashion it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me. But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

As stated to Gary Carey in Brando's 1976 biography The Only Contender

Men , People , Lovers , Fashion

“But my reasons for taking this less-traveled road were many. One is the inevitable thrill of discovery when you wander into new areas. More importantly, you also avoid the danger of being too comfortable in too narrow a niche. I truly believe the sayings that there is no hope for the satisfied man and that without fear there is no learning. Entering a new field with a degree in another is not unlike Lewis and Clark walking into the camp of the Mandans. You are not one of them. They distrust you. Your degree means nothing and your name is not recognized. You have to learn it all from scratch, earn their respect, and learn a lot on your own. But I also think that many of the most significant discoveries in science will be found not in but between the rigid boundaries of the disciplines: the terra incognita where much remains to be learned. It's not a place that's hidebound by practice and ritual. I have always tried to keep moving between fields of study and it shows up, I think, in my vitae.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Fear , Hope , Travel , Thinking

“You know, friends, so many people have wished me congratulations on a 67-year career in baseball, and they've wished me a wonderful retirement with my family, and now, all I can do is tell you what I wish for you. May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow; for every tear, a smile; for every care, a promise; and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life seems, a faithful friend to share; for every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know, in my heart, I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me, and I'll miss our time together more than I can say. But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball. So, this is Vin Scully wishing you a pleasant good afternoon, wherever you may be.”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

Scully's final sign-off as a Dodger broadcaster.

Life , God , People , Family

“to start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Letter to Winifred Arnott, 7 October 1953

Feeling

“A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken. The seed-word is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it. Classical odes grow from and or because, romantic lyrics from but or if. Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb.”

Alasdair Gray (1934–2019) Scottish writer and artist

"Prometheus", pp. 208-9.
Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983)

Personality

“The good news is that marketing takes a day to learn. The bad news is that it takes a lifetime to master!”

Philip Kotler (1931) American marketing author, consultant and professor

Source: Marketing Insights from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know, 2011, p. xiv

Learning

“Arrival at break of dawn. Veiled giants stood sleepily in wet mist on Manhattan... Yes, New York is really grandiose. But it stinks of burned fat, just like the sacrificial meal of the slain enemies among the savages. But nevertheless – crazy, crazy, crazy! Babylon is a kindergarten compared with this, and the tower of Babel here becomes the mass erection of a monstrous and senseless will. I am sympathetic.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Beckmann's diary-notes, New York, 8 and 9 September 1947; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 89
1940s

“Opticks was out of harmony with the ideas of 19th-century physics. …an exposition of the "wrong" (i. e., corpuscular) theory of light,—even though it also contained many of the basic principles of the "correct" (i. e., wave) theory. Not only had Newton erred in his choice… but also he apparently had found no insuperable difficulty in simultaneously embracing features of two opposing theories. …by adopting a combination of the two theories at once, he had violated one of the major canons of 19th-century physics… Today our point of view is influenced by the theory of photons and matter waves, or the… complementarity of Niels Bohr; and we may read with a new interest Newtons ideas on the interaction of light and matter or his explanation of the corpuscular and undulatory aspects of light.”

I. Bernard Cohen (1914–2003) American historian of science

I. Bernard Cohen, Preface to Opticks by Sir Isaac Newton (1952)

Idea , Light , Reading

“My sister lives in New York and she was struck by how class-ridden the reviews were. Everyone had to mention that I'm posh. British people are obsessed by that. I said to John, 'I'm not posh.' Is my voice posh?”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

As quoted in "Say What You Like About Nigella Lawson" by Alex Bilmes in Q Magazine http://www.nigella.com/nigella/detail.asp?article=35&area=10 (January 2001)

People , Sister

“Where countries have been able to carry through on their reform commitments -- as in Korea, Thailand and the Philippines -- results are starting to come in the form of lower interest rates, new investment and increased growth.”

Lawrence H. Summers (1954) Former US Secretary of the Treasury

David Ignatius (April 12, 1999) "Clinton's Capitulation on China", The Washington Post, p. A23.
1990s

Country

“Painting has turned back from the non-objective way to the object, and the development of painting has returned to the figurative part of the way that had led to the destruction of the object. But on the way back, painting came across a new object that the proletarian revolution had brought to the fore and which had to be given form, which means that it had to be raised to the level of a work of art... I am utterly convinced that if you keep to the way of Constructivism, where you are now firmly stuck, which raises not one artistic issue except for pure utilitarianism and in theater simple agitation, which may be one hundred percent consistent ideologically but is completely castrated as regards artistic problems, and forfeits half its value... If you go on as you are.... then Stanislavski will emerge as the winner in the theater and the old forms will survive. And as to architecture, if the architects do not produce artistic architecture, the Greco-Roman style of Zyeltovski will prevail, together with the Repin style in painting..”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote of Malevich from his letter 8 April 1932, to Meyerhold, in 'Two Letters to Meyerhold', in Kunst & Museumjournaal 6, (1990), pp. 9-10; as quoted by Paul Wood in The great Utopia, - The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 24 – note 112
This quote clarifies Malevich's famous return to the figuration of the Russian peasant life, in the time of forced collectivization of Russian agriculture: 'for him [= Malevich] the return to figuration was not a break with the Revolution but a way of safeguarding it and preventing the return of Classicism and Naturalism' (Paul Wood in The great Utopia; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 24 – note 112)
1931 - 1935

Art , Way , Problem , Parting

“There are, roughly speaking, two kinds of mathematical creativity. One, akin to conquering a mountain peak, consists of solving a problem which has remained unsolved for a long time and has commanded the attention of many mathematicians. The other is exploring new territory.”

Mark Kac (1914–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Source: Enigmas Of Chance (1985), Chapter 2, Lwów, p. 39.

Mountain , Mathematics , Problem , Time

“She followed him around where he played his guitar
Till he got so popular they made him a star
Then she could only see him on a TV screen
And hoped someday that he'd come back to New Orleans
Everybody liked her and was knocking on wood
But soon there came a baby for Lady B. Goode”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Lady B. Goode" (2017)
Song lyrics

Hope , Star , Baby

“Eight days ago I left Paris and here I am at Honfleur, the place to which I return, as always, with new pleasure. It is a little seaport where there are ten or twenty ships of all nations; not counting the fishing vessels of the same nations. I tell you that this is very interesting for my studies.”

Johan Jongkind (1819–1891) Dutch painter and printmaker regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism

In a letter, August 1865, describing his visit to Honfleur; as quoted by Moreau-Nélaton, in Jongkind, raconté par lui-même, 1918, p 88
Jongkind visited Honfleur for the third time in his life, in the Summer of 1865 - staying at Isabey's farm at Sainte Adresse

Pleasure , Fish , Study

“No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing — NOTHING — to do with this!”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

[Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush, MichaelMoore.com, 2 September 2005, http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/vacation-is-over-an-open-letter-from-michael-moore-to-george-w-bush]
2005

People , Imagination

“When one read’s Kierkegaard’s profound analyses of anxiety and despair or Nietzsche’s amazingly acute insights into the dynamics of resentment and the guilt and hostility which accompany repressed emotional powers, one might pinch oneself to realize that one is reading works written in the last century and not some new contemporary psychological analysis.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Discovery of Being (1983), p. 53

Hostility , Reading , Despair

“Few are the beliefs, still fewer the superstitions of to-day. We pretend to account for everything, till we do not believe enough for that humility so essential to moral discipline. But the dark creed of the fatalist still holds its ground — there is that within us, which dares not deny what, in the still depths of the soul, we feel to have a mysterious predominance. To a certain degree we controul our own actions — we have the choice of right or wrong; but the consequences, the fearful consequences, lie not with us. Let any one look upon the most important epochs of his life; how little have they been of his own making — how one slight thing has led on to another, till the result has been the very reverse of our calculations. Our emotions, how little are they under our own controul! how often has the blanched lip, or the flushed cheek, betrayed what the will was strong to conceal! Of all our sensations, love is the one which has most the stamp of Fate. What a mere chance usually leads to our meeting the person destined to alter the whole current of our life. What a mystery even to ourselves the influence which they exercise over us. Why should we feel so differently towards them, to what we ever felt before? An attachment is an epoch in existence — it leads to casting off old ties, that, till then, had seemed our dearest; it begins new duties; often, in a woman especially, changes the whole character; and yet, whether in its beginning, its continuance or its end, love is as little within our power as the wind that passes, of which no man knows whither it goeth or whence it comes.”

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

No.14. The Bride of Lammermuir — LUCY ASHTON.
Literary Remains

Love , Life , Fate , Lie

“As a CEO, I am finding that I have to become a learning CEO. I have to go to school all the time because I am learning new skills that I need to run this company and I am realising that I am not equipped to just coast, I have to constantly renew my skills.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

Quoted in A Learning CEO Can Power Through Tough Times: Indra Nooyi, 5 December 2013, 18 December 2013, Forbes India http://forbesindia.com/article/real-issue/a-learning-ceo-can-power-through-tough-times-indra-nooyi/36641/1,

School , Learning , Time