Quotes about note
page 5

“The votaries of Pythagoras of Samos have this story to tell of him, that he was not an Ionian at all, but that, once on a time in Troy, he had been Euphorbus, and that he had come to life after death, but had died as the songs of Homer relate. And they say that he declined to wear apparel made from dead animal products and, to guard his purity, abstained from all flesh diet, and from the offering of animals in sacrifice. For that he would not stain the altars with blood; nay, rather the honey-cake and frankincense and the hymn of praise, these they say were the offerings made to the Gods by this man, who realized that they welcome such tribute more than they do the hecatombs note and the knife laid upon the sacrificial basket.”

Philostratus book Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Book 1, § 1.
Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Life, Death, God, Time

“The acceptance of the legitimacy of the overt use of power comes hard in some segments of our citizenship. In some of the expressions of concern over our behavior in Vietnam, we are seeing curious aspects of our national character in this regard. They often contain a note of reluctance or of regret over the use of the vast power represented by the resources of the United States at home and abroad. In some quarters there seems to even be what amounts to a certain feeling of guilt arising from our possession of this power and an uneasiness about the morality of our conduct. One consequence of this attitude in the Vietnam situation is that our government must constantly defend its actions to critics and, in so doing, is often obliged to disclose its plans and purposes to a degree which must be vastly helpful to our opponents. Inevitably in a situation such as Vietnam, where we are using limited means to gain limited ends, it is essential to keep the adversary in doubt with regard to the full scope of our intentions.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Responsibility and Response (1967), p. 79

Behavior, Feeling, Home, Help

“Two features of QT are commonly taken to be fundamentally non-classical: the absolute randomness of single events in the atomic regime, and the need for a permanent record of the experiment obtained using a macroscopic experimental arrangement…QT can also be applied to the larger system consisting of the original atomic system plus the macroscopic experimental arrangement. In this case, however, the larger system needs to interact with another stage of macroscopic recording. Since this procedure can continue ad infinitum, and is decisively terminated only when the result of an experiment is interpreted by a conscious observer, some noted quantum theorists have promoted the view that the quantum theory has some nexus with the consciousness of the observer…”

Ravi Gomatam (1950) Indian academic

Ravi Gomatam's paper "How do Classical and Quantum Probabilities Differ?" http://www.bvinst.edu/gomatam1/pub-2011-01.pdf, delivered at the conference on Foundations of Probabilities and Physics - 6 (FPP-6), Vaxjo, Sweden, June 13-17, 2011.

Decision

“I must try to live austerely, as Plato did... I need to live a more solitary life... Valuable ideas beyond number miscarry because I have no continuity in my thoughts.... The things which we experience for ourselves when we are on our own are stronger by far, and fresher… [his painting 'The Massacre at Chios' was half done when he wrote this note].”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

autobiographical note in Delacroix' Journal, March 1824; as quoted in Eugene Delacroix – selected letters 1813 – 1863, ed. and translation Jean Stewart, art Works MFA publications, Museum of Fine Art Boston, 2001, p. 9
1815 - 1830

Life, Idea, Painting

“My dear Wormwood,
I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naive? It sounds as if you suppose that argument was the way to keep him out of the enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Screwtape Letters

Letter I
The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Way, Reading

“All of us forget more than we remember, and therefore it hath been my constant Custom to note down and record whatever I thought of myself, or receiv'd from Men, or Books worth preserving. Among other things, I wrote out Apothegms, Maxims, Proverbs, acute Expressions, vulgar Sayings, &c. And having at length collected more than ever any Englishman has before me, I have ventur'd to send them forth, to try their Fortune among the People.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Excerpt from Gnomologia, To the Reader (Prefatory Remarks).
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Men, People, Books, Forgetting

“To make psychology into experimental epistemology is to attempt to understand the embodiment of mind. Here we are confronted by what seem to be three questions, although they may ultimately be only one. The three exist as categorically disperate desiderata.
The first is at the logical level: We lack an adequate, appropriate calculus for triadic relations.
The second is the psychological level: We do not know how we generate hypotheses that are natural and simple.
The third is that the physiological level: we have no circuit theory for the reticular formation that marshals our abductions.
Logically, the problem is far from simple. To be exact, no proposed theory of relations yields a calculus to handle our problem. When I was growing up, only the Aristotelian logic of classes was ever taught, and that badly. The Organon itself contains only a clumsy description of the apagoge - perhaps from the notes of some students who have not understand his master…”

Warren S. McCulloch (1898–1969) American neuroscientist

Source: Embodiments of Mind, (1965), p. 389, Chapter " What's in the brain that ink may character http://vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/mcculloch_whats-in-the-brain.pdf"

Understanding, Question, Nature, Problem

“Received your letter and, almost at the same time, the long text at which I was overjoyed. You no doubt know that you are the only person in the world to have put together the gestation of the glass [ The Large Glass, circa 1923] in all its detail, including even the numerous intentions which were never executed [by Duchamp]. Your patient work has enabled me to relive a period of long years during which the notes were written for the 'Green Box' [the second of the three Boxes Duchamp created and this one was full of written notes] at the same time as the Glass [= The Large Glass] was taking shape. And I confess to you that, not having read these notes for a very long time, I had completely lost all recollection of numerous points not illustrated on the glass and which are a delight to me now”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

c. 25 years later
Quote from Duchamp's letter to fr:Jean Suquet (art historian), New York 25 December 1949; as cited in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 p. 163
1921 - 1950

World, Time, Reading, Personality

“The vanity of the passing world and love are the two fundamental and heart-penetrating notes of true poetry. And they are two notes of which neither can be sounded without causing the other to vibrate. The feeling of the vanity of the passing world kindles love in us, the only thing that triumphs over the vain and transitory, the only thing that fills life again and eternalizes it.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality

Love, Life, World, Feeling

“Traffic in marijuana is increasing to such an extent that it has come to the be cause for the greatest national concern.
This drug is as old as civilization itself. Homer wrote about, as a drug that made men forget their homes, and that turned them into swine. In Persia, a thousand years before Christ, there was a religious and military order founded which was called the Assassins and they derived their name from the drug called hashish which is now known in this country as marihuana. They were noted for their acts of cruelty, and the word "assassin" very aptly describes the drug.”

Harry J. Anslinger (1892–1975) 1st Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics

Hearing on H.R. 6385 (April 1937) http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/hemp/taxact/anslng1.htm

Men, Home, Swine, Christ

“I have noted, too, that when it comes to matters of security the laws are considerably relaxed.”

Roger Zelazny book Jack of Shadows

Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 8 (p. 85)

Law

“The commentators have fixed the month for me, they have chosen the date and the day. But I advise them: "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched." Remember what happened to Marie Lloyd. She fixed the day and the date, and she told us what happened. As far as I remember it went like this: 'There was I, waiting at the church–' (laughter). Perhaps you recall how it went on. 'All at once he sent me round a note. Here's the very note. This is what he wrote: "Can't get away to marry you today, my wife won't let me."' Now let me just make clear that I have promised nobody that I shall be at the altar in October? Nobody at all.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

"Mr Callaghan renews plea for 5% pay guideline", The Times, 6 September 1978, p. 4.
Speech at the Trades Union Congress, 5 September 1978. Callaghan was teasing the audience about the date for the impending general election. Although his message was intended to convey that he may not call an election in October, many people interpreted him as saying that the opposition would be caught unprepared by an October election.
Callaghan deliberately misattributed the music hall song "Waiting at the Church" to Marie Lloyd rather than to its real singer, Vesta Victoria, knowing that Vesta Victoria was too obscure for the audience to recognise.

Laughter, Waiting

“It has also been said that your Education has been a failure no matter how much it has done for you, if it has failed to open your heart. Dr. Zakir Hussain, when Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh University, said, that the aim of Education was that students should become responsible citizens and not merely bundles of styles and sophistication like articles in a furniture shop – the product now being churned out lacks even that saving grace….. The old system may have produced 'snobs' what is being spewed out now are 'slobs'. The young student in Indian Schools is being smothered under a dead weight of books and notes dealing with a host of subjects imaginable and unimaginable. Busy cramming from morning till night and repeating parrot-like that he does not understand, he is fast becoming a literate moron. Initiative, leadership and education in the real sense of the term are encouraged only in a few public Schools.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Teachers & Education

Books, Education, School, Imagination

“If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it;
A chield's aman you takin' notes,
And faith he'll prent it.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

On the Late Captain Grose's Peregrinations Thro' Scotland, st. 1 (1793)

Faith

“Though Govind Singh is considered as the founder of the Khalsa order (1699) who 'gave his Sikhs an outward form distinct from the Hindus', he too did things which Sikh separatists would dismiss as 'brahminical'. As Khushwant Singh notes, 'Gobind selected five of the most scholarly of his disciples and sent them to Benares to learn Sanskrit and the Hindu religious texts, to be better able to interpret the writings of the gurus, which were full of allusions to Hindu mythology and philosophy.”

Guru Govind Singh (1666–1708) The tenth and last human Guru of Sikhism

Khushwant Singh, K. Elst, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743

Learning

“Rap — so many words, so little said. What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there. All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they're happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can't tell one note from another.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Reported in Jon Blistein, " Keith Richards: Rap Is for 'Tone-Deaf People' http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/keith-richards-rap-is-for-tone-deaf-people-20150903", Rolling Stone (September 3, 2015).

Happiness, People

“The well known elevation of the pitch of wind instruments, in the course of playing, sometimes amounting to half a note, is not, as is commonly supposed, owing to any expansion of the instrument, for this should produce a contrary effect, but to the increased warmth of the air in the tube.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

"Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries Respecting Sound and Light" (1800)

“One source of misunderstanding is that many of the commentators have been economists who have looked at the Moral Sentiments simply in order to find some relevance for The Wealth of Nations. This gave rise to the so-called Adam Smith problem, a supposed inconsistency between the psychological assumptions of the two books. Another source of error has been a failure to note whether a particular passage was written for the first or for the sixth edition.”

D. D. Raphael (1916–2015) Philosopher

The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy (2007), Ch. 1: Two Versions

Books, Error, Failure, Problem

“Tranvestism is far more common among men, I noted, because it originates in the primary relation of mother and son.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 508

Men

“Those who are skeptical about carbon dioxide greenhouse warming might profitably note the massive greenhouse effect on Venus. No one proposes that Venus's greenhouse effect derives from imprudent Venusians who burned too much coal, drove fuel-inefficient autos, and cut down their forests. My point is different. The climatological history of our planetary neighbor, an otherwise Earthlike planet on which the surface became hot enough to melt tin or lead, is worth considering — especially by those who say that the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth will be self-correcting, that we don't really have to worry about it, or (you can see this in the publications of some groups that call themselves conservative) that the greenhouse effect is a "hoax."”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 227

History

“See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

Source: Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=oopv (1754), Line 41

Pain, Sun

“The idea that work is something apportioned out by men leaves people discontent with their portion and dubious about whether work is a good thing at all. … The ancient injunction to labor fades when we regard our work as cut out for us by men, who, by present dogma, are no better than ourselves. That curious modern hypostatization “service” is often called in to substitute for the now incomprehensible doctrine of vocation. It tries to secure subordination by hypothesizing something larger than the self, which turns out, however, to be only a multitude of selfish selves. The familiar change from quality to quantity may again be noted; one serves not the higher part of the self (this entails hierarchy) … but merely consumer demand. And who admires those at the top of a hierarchy of consumption? Man as a consuming animal is thus seen to be not enough.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 77.

Men, People, Idea, Change

“Please note that in Kabbalistic terms "Israel" refers to a spiritual nation, rather than a religious faith or a nation-state.”

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

Selected Articles

Faith

“Sudden and near the trumpet's notes out-spread,
And soon his eyes could see the metal flower,
Shining upturned, out on the morning pour
Its incense audible; could see a train
From out the street slow-winding on the plain
With lyres and cymbals, flutes and psalteries,
While men, youths, maids, in concert sang to these
With various throat, or in succession poured,
Or in full volume mingled. But one word
Ruled each recurrent rise and answering fall,
As when the multitudes adoring call
On some great name divine, their common soul,
The common need, love, joy, that knits them in one whole.
The word was "Jubal!"… "Jubal" filled the air,
And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there,
Creator of the choir, the full-fraught strain
That grateful rolled itself to him again.
The aged man adust upon the bank
— Whom no eye saw — at first with rapture drank
The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart,
Felt, this was his own being's greater part,
The universal joy once born in him.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

The Legend of Jubal (1869)

Love, Men, Youth, Age

“I was too busy doing my job and living my life to spend time keeping notes for some future volume of memoirs.”

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

Preface, p. ix
Memoirs (1993)

Life, Business, Time, Future

“I've made my best notes sitting outside cafes on busy streets, or in murky bars in foreign cities. I sorted out a big series of problems in the novel I'm just finishing while sitting drinking a long line of solitary beers in a bar in a small coastal town. The hangover was pretty brutal, but I'm not sure I'd have found the solutions any other way. Part of the job of being a writer is learning how your head works - when to push it, when to step back. This kind of self-management is actually far harder, I think, than learning how to write decent prose.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Associated Content Interview (October 23, 2006)

Way, Drink, Beer, Business

“Another discipline began to intrude upon the confident work and increasingly elaborate models of the human relations theorists (largely social psychologists) and the uneasy toying with bureaucracy of the "structionalists" (largely sociologists). Both tended to study economic organizations. A few, like Philip Selznick, were noting conflict and differences in goals (perhaps because he was studying a public agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority), but most ignored conflict or treated it as a pathological manifestation of breakdowns in communication or the ego trips of unreconstructed managers.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, "The short and glorious history of organizational theory", 1973, p. 7

Confidence, Communication, Study

“Since the time of Plato and Aristotle philosophers have had an interest in taking note of common fallacies in reasoning.”

Randal Marlin (1938) Canadian academic

Source: Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002), Chapter Three, Propaganda Technique, p. 110

Time

“What was crucial to the partnership, it should be noted, is that Flavor Flav was a clown — in the tradition of the best black comics — yet he was a clown with consciousness, empowered with knowledge of self, an entirely different persona from the "Stepin Fetchit" and "Sambo" stereotypes of subservient and uncouth black Americans. Flavor Flav was and is a fool, but a fool on a mission. On the cover of Nation of Millions, he wears a gigantic clock as a medallion — a preposterous getup — yet it is designed to illustrate, through a comic medium, that time is indeed running out.”

Flavor Flav (1959) American rapper

Rickey Vincent, Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One (1996), p. 309.
About

Fools, Knowledge, Time, Partnership

“I didn't skip the smut. The author went to the trouble of writing it, after all. I did not feel to make notes for possible application later on but I also never wondered if the author was a virgin raised in an abandoned hentai warehouse, which is always a possibility for modern pornographers and erotica writers.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

LiveJournal post (review of 'The Russians Came Knocking' by K.B. Spangler), 2014) http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/5086498.html?thread=95347746#t95347746 2010s

Feeling

“Goodkind is noted for subtle allegories the same way Mt Kilimanjaro is known for floating weightlessly.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[d1kr2s$m90$1@reader1.panix.com, 2005]
2000s

Way

“It is not certain whether Pāṇini used writing for the composition of his work, though it is generally agreed that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as "script" and "scribe" in his Ashtadhyayi. These must have referred to Aramaic or early Kharosthi writing. It is believed by some that a work of such complexity would have been difficult to compile without written notes, though others have argued that he might have composed it with the help of a group of students whose memories served him as 'notepads' (as is typical in Vedic learning). Writing first reappears in India in the form of the Brāhmī script from the 3rd century BC in the Ashokan inscriptions.”

Pāṇini ancient Sanskrit grammarian

An Analytical Study of 'Sanskrit' and 'Panini' as Foundation of Speech Communication in India and the World

Learning, Memory, Help

“Because information is often biased, outdated, or inadequate, command-based systems rely on obtuse information to produce blunt solutions. Wielding force like drunken revelers, political systems gamble on the singularity of direction to fix a multiplicity of problems, woefully ignorant that one size does not fit all. Blinded by political ideologies, they rarely act to solve underlying problems. Karl Hess (1923-1994), a former presidential speech writer, noted this condition, observing, ‘Politicians occasionally do the right thing—but only after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 17

Problem

“After all we [have] each of us only eight notes to work upon.”

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) English composer of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Quoted in Thomas F. Dunhill Sullivan's Comic Operas: A Critical Appreciation (London: Edward Arnold, 1928) p. 182.
On being accused of plagiarism.

“[W]hile Apple has slowed its design cadence, its rivals have sped up. … Over the course of a few months, Samsung put out several design refinements, culminating in the Note 7, a big phone that has been universally praised by critics.”

Farhad Manjoo (1978) American journalist

What's Really Missing From the New iPhone: Cutting-Edge Design http://nytimes.com/2016/09/08/technology/whats-really-missing-from-the-new-iphone-dazzle.html in The New York Times (7 September 2016)

Universe

“The rain eased off, but the streets were greasily wet, rainbowed with oil. I went to the bank for more five-pound notes, stood like a pauper in the public library reading the Christian Science Monitor, then went for the first drinks of the day to a dive-bar popular with merchants. Hungarian refugees waited on at the tables and a West Indian negro collected dirty glasses – we were all exiles together.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

Drink, Science, Waiting, Reading

“Perhaps a suitable analogy to explain the short-falls of Dawkins's account of evolution is to think of an oil painting. In this analogy Dawkins has explained the nature and range of pigments; how the extraordinary azure colour was obtained, what effect cobalt has, and so on. But the description is quite unable to account for the picture itself. This view of evolution is incomplete and therefore fails in its side-stepping of how information (the genetic code) gives rise to phenotype, and by what mechanisms. Organisms are more than the sum of their parts, and we may also note in passing that the world depicted by Dawkins has lost all sense of transcendence.”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

p9.
The Crucible of Creation (1998)

World, Nature, Thinking, Sense

“On this note, Mr. President, distinguish colleagues, it is my distinct honor and privilege to nominate Senator Ralph Recto as our President Pro Tempore.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Speech: Nomination of Senator Ralph Recto as Senate Pro Tempore (2013 July 22) http://www.chizescudero.com/index.php/media-room/item/716-nomination-of-senator-ralph-recto-as-senate-pro-tempore 2013, Speech: Nomination of Senator Ralph Recto as Senate Pro Tempore

“One of the big things about being a man, she'd noted, was that being good, doing the work, wasn't enough. It had to be generally acknowledged that here you were, damn well seeing to business.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 6

Business

“This is a proposal for a show, in which I imagine a Newly Born Limb, the Ghost of A Flea, and an Endless Note Petrified in Stone. I picture two prosthetic arms, one ancient, one modern, reaching out as far as they can, to grasp all that there is in the world.”

Mark Leckey (1964) British artist

"Prop4aShw" (2013)

World, Imagination

“[Boucher admits that the use of slavery in the British colonies is better regulated than in other countries, but notes that:] "it is surely worse in this, that here, in one sense, it never can end. An African slave, even when made free, supposing him to be possessed even of talents and of virtue, can never, in these colonies, be quite on terms of equality with a free white man."”

Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804) English minister

"A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution" (London, Robinson, 1797)

Sense, Country

“This naturally leads us to the subject to Continence. Our soi-disant manly man with a false sneer of bravado and utter lack of stability considers that Continence is not possible, and like the ostrich tries to hide from the truth. For not only is Continence possible but it is practiced with brilliant success, voluntarily, by hundreds and hundreds of men and women in all walks of life and by all castes and creeds. (Please note the stress on the word voluntarily.) But its attainment needs courage and determination of the highest degree and which is naturally out of the reach of our flabby indolent moderns, who succumb to the slightest temptation and want to drag everyone down to their own low moral levels.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Promiscuity & Continence

Life, Women, Men, Truth

“Indians in Southeast-Asia were never known as 'Hindu', but the Arabs, Turks, Mongolians and other northern and western foreigners adopted the Persian name as their own word for 'India' and 'Indians', e. g. Arabic Hind, Turkish Hindistan. Xuan Zang … notes in so many words that the name Xin-du (regular Chinese rendering of Persian Hindu)1 or, as he corrects it, Yin-du, is used outside India but is unknown within the country, because the natives call it Aryadesh or Brahmarashtra.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Who is a Hindu, (2001)

Country

“I'm not really a collage artist like Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson. I'm not like those other guys, Spike Jonze, too, guys who watch things and take notes. I'm trapped in my own stubborn world over-and-over, looking for a similar insight, a similar aesthetic, a similar point of view.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Film Freak Central Interview

World, Guy

“The image that creates this thinking gives rise to a feeling of evidence and a conviction that it is not based on reason. This kind of thinking explains the reaction we so often note among our contemporaries: when someone asks them to give the reason for their opinions, they answer: "It’s evident." This thinking, which creates prejudices and stereotypes, is the domain of the unquestionable. Obviously you cannot dispute with an image, and you cannot challenge the hero of a film. But this extends to the mental images produced by the film: there is no criticism or debate possible, because these involve differing methods of thought. What produces immediate assent cannot bear the discussion process. The conviction acquired in this way can only be attacked on its own ground: by other images.”

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

J. Hanks, trans. (1985), p. 213
The Humiliation of the Word (1981)

Way, Feeling, Thinking

“On a personal note: I have contracted an outstanding case of breast cancer, from which I intend to recover. I don’t need get-well cards, but I would like the beloved women readers to do something for me: Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done.”

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American journalist

Dec. 14, 1999 syndicated column

Women, Personality

“[The waiters'] eyes sparkled and their pencils flew as she proceeded to eviscerate my wallet – paté, Whitstable oysters, a sole, and a favorite salad of the Nizam of Hyderabad made of shredded five-pound notes.”

S.J. Perelman (1904–1979) American humorist, author, and screenwriter

The Rising Gorge (1961) p. 13

“The notes of this music were the last thing I heard before I went off the poop and felt myself going headlong into the icy water with the engines and machinery buzzing in my ears.”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), pp. 151-152

Music, Water

“Though the ideas and opinions themselves are not necessarily illegitimate if held by non-black individuals, they, and the person enunciating them, are illegitimate if that person happens to be black. Thus, there's a subset of criticism that must of necessity be reserved for me, even if every non-black member of the court agrees with the idea or the opinion. You see, they are exempt from this kind of criticism, precisely because they are not black. As noted earlier, they are more often than not subjected to the whites-only sophisticated analysis.”

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

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

Idea, Personality

“There's no doubt that my forehand and backhand can match anyone, it's about the place that they're put in. I can hit the ball as hard as anyone can, but I think it's more about where I'm hitting the ball. Instead of 90 mph it can just be a 50 mph forehand, but the placement is more important. So I've been working on that a lot more. When you're working on things, maybe your performance drops a little bit or you're trying new things in every tournament you're going in so that's just a process of being an athlete because you're learning, you're adding new things to your game. When I sit with my notes, for instance, instead of hitting a hard forehand return, I would like to hit an angled forehand return instead.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Source: Tennis Week The Tennis Week Interview: Sania Mirza http://www.tennisforum.com/showthread.php?t=148586&page=98

Game, Thinking, Learning

“When I was fourteen or fifteen […] the Yom Kippur service ended in an unforgettable way, for Schechter, who always put great effort into the blowing of the shofar—he would go red in the face with exertion—produced a long, seemingly endless note of unearthly beauty, and then dropped dead before us on the bema, the raised platform where he would sing. I had the feeling that God had killed Schechter, sent a thunderbolt, stricken him. The shock of this for everyone was tempered by the reflection that if there was ever a moment in which a soul was pure, forgiven, relieved of all sin, it was at this moment, when the shofar was blown in conclusion of the fast […].”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), p. 177

God, Beauty, Way, Feeling

“As regards my paintings of similar compositions I cannot give you any indication [about possible 'variants' in his works] because I'm afraid I've never made a note of where my paintings have ended up... I am always at work and work is my sole passion. And unfortunately I've become aware that I must always start from the beginning, and ought to burn what I've done in the past.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

Quote in his letter of 2 Aug. 1954; as cited in Morandi 1894 – 1964, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco, Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2008; p. 42
1945 - 1964

Passion, Past, Painting

“I agree completely with your remark that in the struggle against nature lies already a part of art, and really pleasant is for me already the feeling of returning as a victor from small skirmishes, although in the great battle one always feels still defeated. As you advised me, I have made sketches of skies, indicating the effect in them, and making a note for the important colors; I also did better in making a small sky; at least people think so.”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch / citaat van Gerard Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands: Uwe opmerking, dat in den strijd tegen de natuur reeds een gedeelte der kunst ligt, vind ik volkomen juist, en regt aangenaam is reeds het gevoel, waarmede men als overwinnaar terugkeert uit kleine schermutselingen, hoewel men zich in den grooten slag toch steeds als verslagen gevoelt. Zoo als u mij aanraadt, heb ik schetsen van luchten gemaakt, het effect er in aangeduid en de voornaamste kleuren er bij geschreven; ik ben dan nu ook in een klein luchtje wat beter geslaagd; men vindt het ten minste. Quote of Gerard Bilders, in a letter to his maecenas Johannes Kneppelhout, 5 Feb. 1858; from an excerpt of this letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/526, in the RKD-Archive, The Hague 1850's

People, Art, Color, Feeling

“But do you know that every day there are people that are literally leaving their children at the doors of the Greek Orthodox Church, with notes around their necks saying, ‘We cannot afford to feed or look after these children, please take them from us.’ Can you imagine that?”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

Segment from an article on the UKIP website, 31 May 2012. On the edge of social breakdown http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/2681-on-the-edge-of-social-breakdown 2012

Children, People, Imagination

“Sweden is the country a good reputation in the world around us. It is something that the Queen and I often experience during our state visit. Both the country and the people are perceived very positively. Our services and products are something we should be proud of. Sweden respected as a nation and it is with pleasure and pride that I represent our country. For example, noted Nobel Prize much and it helps to show up Sweden as a nation that promotes education and science.”

Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (1946) King of Sweden

royalcorrespondent.com http://royalcorrespondent.com/2013/02/15/an-interview-with-his-majesty-king-carl-xvi-gustaf-of-sweden/

People, Pleasure, World, Education

“In his autobiography, former President Bill Clinton credits [Andrew] Vachss with [writing the National Child Protection Act] and notes how important it was to him and wife Hillary. But there's a catch, according to Vachss: 'It's never been funded.”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

July 14, 2005, in Ohio's ThisWeek

“The human mind can no more produce an original thought than a tree can bear an original fruit. As well might one cry for an original note in music as expect an original idea from a human brain.
One wishes our friends, the critics, would grasp this simple truth, and leave off clamoring for the impossible, and being shocked because they do not get it.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dreams http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/jjdrm10.txt

Truth, Music, Idea, Tree

“Pissarro wants to achieve delicacy by means of adjustments of nearly like tones; he keeps from juxtaposing two distant tones and does without the vibrant note which such contrast gives, but strives on the contrary to diminish the distance between two tints by introducing into each one of them intermediate elements which he calls 'passage'. But the neo-impressionist technique is based precisely on this type of contrast, for which he feels no need, and on the violent purity of tints which hurts his eye. He has kept of divisionism only the technique, the little dot, whose raison d'etre is exactly that it enables the transcription of this contrast and the conservation of this purity. So it is easy to understand why he [Pissarro] gave up this means, insufficient as it is by itself.”

Paul Signac (1863–1935) French painter

As quoted by John Rewald, in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 135
Signac, in his book De Delacroix au Neo-impressionnisme, tried to explain in this way Camille Pissarro's desertion from Neo-Impressionism around 1890
From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, 1899

Feeling, Understanding, Distant, Hurt

“They [mathematicians] only take those things into consideration, of which they have clear and distinct ideas, designating them by proper, adequate, and invariable names, and premising only a few axioms which are most noted and certain to investigate their affections and draw conclusions from them, and agreeably laying down a very few hypotheses, such as are in the highest degree consonant with reason and not to be denied by anyone in his right mind. In like manner they assign generations or causes easy to be understood and readily admitted by all, they preserve a most accurate order, every proposition immediately following from what is supposed and proved before, and reject all things howsoever specious and probable which can not be inferred and deduced after the same manner.—Barrow, Isaac.”

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

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 66

Idea, Drawing

“I don't want to be conducting Mahler with my head stuffed full of 10 million notes from other composers.”

Lorin Maazel (1930–2014) French-American conductor

As quoted in BBC News http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28287217

“I'm trained quite classically but quite freely by my mum, so even when I was little, I had this rather freewheeling approach. When I trained more seriously in my late teens at college, it was: here are the notes, here is what is expected of you. I didn't mind because you need technique, particularly on the piano, which requires a lot of stamina. And it was natural that once I had done that, I would want to go beyond classical music. How can you be yourself if all you do is reproduce someone else's notes?”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Guardian - 05/10/2001
Childhood

Music, Nature, Training

“Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate — he has little success in this — but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different (and more) things than do the others; after all, dead as he is in his own lifetime, he is the real survivor. This assumes that he does not need both hands, or more hands than he has, in his struggle against despair.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

19 October 1921
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)

Life, Fate, Success, Despair

“Bills to create three new states have finally been passed by Parliament. Of these, only the formation of Jharkhand out of Bihar can be said to be the outcome of a long, long struggle. Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal, for instance, do not find any mention in the report of the States Reorganisation Commission that was submitted 45 years ago. What is intriguing about Uttaranchal is that it has given three great chief ministers to Uttar Pradesh in the past 50 years - Govind Ballabh Pant, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna and Narain Dutt Tiwari - and yet the region felt neglected. Similarly, Chhattisgarh produced many noted political leaders, three of whom - Ravi Shankar Shukla, Shyama Charan Shukla and Motilal Vora - became chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh. Two other chief ministers, D. P. Mishra and Arjun Singh, contested from Chhattisgarh. Yet this region too felt unwanted. New voices are being heard. Fresh demands for Bodoland out of Assam, Vidarbha out of Maharashtra, Gorkhaland out of West Bengal and Telengana out of Andhra Pradesh are being made. And since Uttaranchal does not solve the problem of Uttar Pradesh's simply ungovernable size, some cries for a further break-up of India's most populous state are also being raised.”

Jairam Ramesh (1954) Indian politician

[Jairam Ramesh, Kautilya Today: Jairam Ramesh on a Globalizing India, https://books.google.com/books?id=1kDQthPkFJkC&pg=PA212, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/formation-of-jharkhand-out-of-bihar-can-be-said-to-be-the-outcome-of-a-long-long-struggle/1/246915.html, 2002, India Research Press, 978-81-87943-37-2, 212]

Problem, Past

“He fixed his definition thus: reflection is the possibility of the relation, consciousness is the relation, the first form of which is contradiction. He soon noted that, as a result, the categories of reflection are always dichotomous. For example ideality and reality, soul and body, to recognize – the true, to will – the good, to love – the beautiful, God and the world, and so on, these are categories of reflection. In reflection, these touch each other in such a way that a relation becomes possible. The categories of consciousness, on the other hand, are trichotomous, as language itself indicates, for when I say I am conscious of this, I mention a trinity. Consciousness is mind and spirit, and the remarkable thing is that when in the world of mind or spirit one is divided, it always becomes three and never two. Consciousness, therefore, presupposes reflection. If this were not true it would be impossible to explain doubt. True, language seems to contest this, since in most languages, as far as he knew, the word ‘doubt’ is etymologically related to the word ‘two’. Yet in his opinion this only indicated the presupposition of doubt, especially because it was clear to him that as soon as I, as spirit, become two, I am eo ipso three. If there were nothing but dichotomies, doubt would not exist, for the possibility of doubt lies precisely in that third which places the two in relation to each other. One cannot therefore say that reflection produces doubt, unless one expressed oneself backwards; one must say that doubt presupposes reflection, though not in a temporal sense. Doubt arises through a relation between two, but for this to take place the two must exist, although doubt, as a higher expression, comes before rather than afterwards.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Johannes Climacus (1841) p. 80-81
1840s, Johannes Climacus (1841)

Love, God, World, Beauty

“I have applied for a pass and I am going to travel through Western Europe for 5 days. [I] start in Cologne and will probably end in Paris. Who cares. In Cologne there is a large exhibition of German painters [especially Die Brücke-artists]. Jan W. [= Jan Wiegers, who knew Kirchner very well since 1920] has been there and animated so much that I'm going there for a while.... it seems that Jan wants to come with me. He was so enthusiastic that I suspect to be able to note him as my traveling companion.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Ik heb een pas aangevraagd en ga West-Europa in 5 dagen afreizen. Begin in Keulen en eindig vermoedelijk in Parijs. Wie doet je wat. In Keulen is een groote tentoonstelling van Duitse schilders [met name van Die Brücke]. Jan W. [= nl:Jan Wiegers] is er geweest en animeerde zoodanig dat ik er even heen ga.. ..'t schijnt dat Jan met me mee wil. Hij was zo enthousiast dat ik vermoed hem als reisgezel te kunnen noteren.
Quote van Werkman, in his letter to Cor Spruit, 14 August, 1929; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 110
After this trip Werkman made a series of prints from the Paris' metro: 'D-67' and 'D-69'
1920's

Travel, Animals

“When the Sachar Committee members met and asked me, “Mr. Modi what have you done for Muslims in Gujarat?” I told them: Nothing, I have done nothing for Muslims. But please go on to note that I have done nothing for Hindus or Jains or Sikhs either. I am responsible for 5.5 crore Gujaratis and whatever I do, is aimed at serving the interests of all these 5.5 crore people of my state. When the pure waters of Narmada flow into Sabarmati on account of our river linking project, do you expect me to measure how many litres are consumed by Hindus and how much water goes to Muslim households? My job is to ensure that every person, every household gets adequate supplies of clean drinking water. Please don’t expect me to adopt your divisive terminology and vision.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi in interview, 2013, p75, quoted in Kishwar, Madhu (2014). Modi, Muslims and media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat. p.75
2013

People, Drink, Water, Personality

“(on his inability to read music) "If someone lays the notes on a page in front of me, it's meaningless…because to me you can't express the rhythms properly like that. It's a very ineffective way of doing it, so I've never really bothered picking it up."”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

source http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/9346/RAAmain.html

Music, Way, Reading

“Muslims still take their religion too seriously, whereas we have the good sense to blow it off. Catholics don’t follow the Pope. In overwhelming numbers they divorce, they have pre-marital sex, they masturbate. And unlike the Koran, no one here seriously considers following the Bible literally. Guys don't look over their fence on Sunday morning and see a neighbor mowing the lawn and think, "Working on Sunday? I really should kill him."… But, before I conclude, it should in fairness be noted that, in speaking of Muslims, we realize that of course the vast majority are law-abiding, loving people who just want to be left alone to subjugate their women in peace.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

"The South Park Mohammad controversy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUEaMA4gRIk Real Time with Bill Maher

Love, Women, People, Peace

“God cannot be compared to anything. Note this.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.7

God

“Recently I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.
How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter’s sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Three Days to See (1933)

Feeling, Search, Spring, Flowers

“Some people feel concerned about the commercialism of the press. They note that great newspapers are great business enterprises earning large profits and controlled by men of wealth. So they fear that in such control the press may tend to support the private interests of those who own the papers, rather than the general interest of the whole people. It seems to me, however, that the real test is not whether the newspapers are controlled by men of wealth, but whether they are sincerely trying to serve the public interests. There will be little occasion for worry about who owns a newspaper, so long as its attitudes on public questions are such as to promote the general welfare. A press which is actuated by the purpose of genuine usefulness to the public interest can never be too strong financially, so long as its strength is used for the support of popular government.”

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

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

Men, People, Fear, Feeling

“At the beginning of each semester, I tell students that my economic theory course will deal with positive, non-normative economic theory. I also tell them that if they hear me making a normative statement without first saying, "In my opinion," they are to raise their hands and say, "Professor Williams, we didn't take this class to be indoctrinated with your personal opinions passed off as economic theory; that's academic dishonesty." I also tell them that as soon as they hear me say, "In my opinion," they can stop taking notes because my opinion is irrelevant to the subject of the class -- economic theory. Another part of this particular lecture to my students is that by no means do I suggest that they purge their vocabulary of normative or subjective statements. Such statements are useful tools for tricking people into doing what you want them to do. You tell your father that you need a cell phone and he should buy you one. There's no evidence whatsoever that you need a cell phone. After all, George Washington managed to lead our nation to defeat Great Britain, the mightiest nation on Earth at the time, without owning a cell phone.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

1970s, Economics for the Citizen (1978)

People, Time, Parting, Personality

“Like most inventors, Pound did not create out of the void. The "Image" he took from T. E. Hulme's table talk. The "ism" was suggested to him by the notes on contemporary French poetry which I wrote for Harold Monro's Poetry Review. The collacation of 'image' and 'ism' came to Pound after I had told him about Divoire's essays on stratégie littéraire.”

F. S. Flint (1885–1960) English Imagist poet

Verse Chronicle, article, The Criterion, 1932
Other Quotes

“You can lose yourself or disappear in a big city. You can even change your identity and live a new life. You can indulge in a very long investigation to find a trace of malice, starting only with one or two addresses in an isolated neighbourhood. I have always been fascinated by the short note that sometimes appears on search records: Last known address. Themes of disappearance, identity and the passing of time are closely bound up with the topography of cities. That is why since the 19th century, cities have been the territory of novelists, and some of the greatest of them are linked to a single city: Balzac and Paris, Dickens and London, Dostoyevsky and Saint Petersburg, Tokyo and Nagai Kafū, Stockholm and Hjalmar Söderberg.”

Patrick Modiano (1945) French writer

From Nobel Lecture (2014)

Life, Search, Appearance, Change

“Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows.”

Charles Reade book The Cloister and the Hearth

Source: The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), CHAPTER I

Women, Men, Suffering

“I mentioned the caffeine. I should also note that if coffee does not prevent or inhibit sleep, it will stimulate dream projections, and also aid you in bringing the critical faculties into the dream state.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 290, Page 70
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 7

Dreams, Coffee, Sleep

“What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded by death?”

Alphonse de Lamartine book Méditations poétiques

Méditations Poétiques (1820), Second series, Sermon 15

Life, Death, Success

“The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated again and again by her controversialists and historians.
In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions.
The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther's version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness. But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art").
He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,
The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther's New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation. It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17). The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.
There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand in hand with the progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome's Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in accuracy and Latinity; the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon the Vulgate, in spirit and in idiomatic reproduction; the revisions of the nineteenth century are an advance upon the versions of the sixteenth, in philological and historical accuracy and consistency. A future generation will make a still nearer approach to the original text in its purity and integrity. If the Holy Spirit of God shall raise the Church to a higher plane of faith and love, and melt the antagonisms of human creeds into the one creed of Christ, then, and not before then, may we expect perfect versions of the oracles of God.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

How Luther's theology may have influenced his translating

Love, God, Books, Faith

“Let him not boast who puts his armor on
As he who puts it off, the battle done.
Study yourselves; and most of all note well
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

St. 11. Morituri Salutamus http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/longfellow/19229 (1875)

Nature, Study

“I'll tell you what the most important and enjoyable thing for me is: getting notes. A director that enhances my performance by seeing things onscreen and then telling me, "Why don't we do that? Why don't we do this?" Directors who understand a little bit more of the psyche of what he's looking for and can put that in words. I work great with notes. I really am able to elevate with getting notes from other people and hearing other people's opinion and I think that's for me the best thing about working with a great director.”

Oded Fehr (1970) Israeli-American actor

Interview: Oded Fehr http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/15/interview-oded-fehr?page=2 (August 15, 2007)

People, Understanding, Thinking

“It was in November 1919 that I made my first contact with The Tibetan… I heard what I thought was a clear note of music which sounded from the sky, through the hill and in me. Then I heard a voice which said, "There are some books which it is desired should be written for the public. You can write them. Will you do so?" Without a moment's notice I said, "Certainly not. I'm not a darned psychic and I don't want to be drawn into anything like that." I was startled to hear myself speaking out loud. The voice went on to say that wise people did not make snap judgments, that I had a peculiar gift for the higher telepathy and that what I was being asked to do embodied no aspect of the lower psychism. I replied that I didn't care, that I wasn't interested in any work of a psychic nature at all. The unseen person who was speaking so clearly and directly to me then said that he would give me time for consideration; that he would not take my answer then and that he would come back in three weeks' time exactly, to find out what I intended to do.”

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

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter IV - Part 2

People, Books, Music, Nature

“I can pass days
Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees,
Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,—
The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs,—
Each tree a natural harp,— each different leaf
A different note, blent in one vast thanks-giving.”

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

The Ancestress (Spoken by Jaromir)
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Music, Nature, Tree

“The soft complaining flute,
In dying notes, discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

St. 4. A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687)

Lovers

“He was referring, of course, to the gentleman employed by Henry Luce and you will note, at once, the slightly unpleasant and combative tone of the salesman but there is also so much glee contained in it, an anticipation of the joys of a difficult battle, that even a person of fine scruples, sensitive to the vulgarity of the salesman type (such as yourself, Professor) need not be offended but rather challenged by the contradiction contained herein, i. e. that this crass aggression can co-exist with an ability to draw very fine moral distinctions and to see, very objectively, the damage his father's business was doing to the fauna of the country he loved and that, further - like real estate for instance - it was one of those great Australian enterprises that generate wealth while making nothing new.”

Peter Carey book Illywhacker

Page 561.
Illywhacker (1985)

Love, Business, Joy, Drawing

“Listening to as many guitar solos as possible is the best method for someone in the early stages. But saxophone solos can be helpful. They're interesting because they're all single notes, and therefore can be repeated on the guitar. If you can copy a sax solo you're playing very well, because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist.”

Ritchie Blackmore (1945) British guitarist and songwriter

Ritchie Blackmore, in: Guitar Player. Vol. 7. (1973). p. 235:
Answer to the question Does listening to solos performed on other instruments than the guitar help the beginning guitarist develop a personal style?

Help

“A doctrine which, because of its little-circumspect idealism, offends not just faith, but reason itself (KANT): it would be useful to show the dangerous errors, to Religion as much as to Moral, of that French psychologist, who seduced minds (COUSIN), by showing how his bold and audacious philosophy breaks the barrier of the holy Theology, placing his own authority before any other: he profanes the mysteries, declaring them partly devoid of meaning, and partly reducing them to vulgar allusions and pure metaphors; forces, as a learned Critic noted, the revelation to swap places with instinctive thought and assertion without reflection without and places reason outside man, declaring man a fragment of God, introducing a sort of spiritual pandeism, which is absurd to us and insulting to the Supreme Being, which gravely offends freedom itself, etc, etc.”

Luigi Ferrarese (1795–1855) Italian physician

Dottrina, che pel suo idealismo poco circospetto , non solo la fede, ma la stessa ragione offende (il sistema di KANT) : farebbe mestieri far aperto gli errori pericolosi, cosi alla Religione, come alla Morale, di quel psicologo franzese , il quale ha sedotte le menti (COUSIN), con far osservare come la di lui filosofia intraprendente ed audace sforza le barriere della sacra Teologia, ponendo innanzi ad ogn' altra autorità la propria : profana i misteri , dichiarandoli in parte vacui di senso, ed in parte riducendoli a volgari allusioni, ed a prette metafore ; costringe , come faceva osservare un dotto Critico, la rivelazione a cambiare il suo posto con quello del pensiero istintivo e dell' affermazione senza riflessione e colloca la ragione fuori della persona dell'uomo dichiarandolo un frammento di Dio, una spezie di pandeismo spirituale introducendo, assurdo per noi, ed al Supremo Ente ingiurioso, il quale reca onda grave alla libertà del medesimo, ec, ec.
Ferrarese describing pandeism in Memorie Risguardanti la Dottrina Frenologica ("Thoughts Regarding the Doctrine of Phrenology", 1838), p. 16.

God, Faith, Religion, Error

“It is also worth noting that it is extremely difficult to be a great buyer of complementary competencies if you do not have any knowledge about the stuff you are acquiring. Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out that a man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access. We need knowledge to be able to outsource knowledge.”

Jonas Ridderstråle (1966) Swedish business theorist

Source: Karaoke Capitalism, 2005, p. 233

Knowledge

“Antoine Meillet also noted that imperatives in European languages are typically the morphological root of the verb, and hypothesised that the imperative was the primitive form of a verb: “walk!” precedes “to walk” or “he walks”. This opens up the possibility of an alternative ontology, or pre-ontology, based on commandment rather than assertion, on “be!” rather than “is”. While philosophical or scientific statements would fall under the ordinary “is”-based ontology, fields like law, religion or magic would operate in the imperative mode: “let there be…””

Giorgio Agamben (1942) Italian philosopher

Giorgio Agamben, "What is a commandment?" http://bat020.com/2011/03/30/giorgio-agamben-what-is-a-commandment/ March 28, 2011

Religion, Law

“Projections actually involve a change of atomic structure. Consciousness simply changes its form. When projection is first accomplished, there is a strong charge of sexual hormones which are also utilized in projection. After projection is accomplished, however, there is a marked decline in chemical activity and hormone action, a drop in body temperature and a drop in blood pressure. The rapid eye movements noted by dream investigators cease entirely.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 347, quoting from Session 276

Dreams, Strong, Change

“Sometimes the mind may wonder about practice itself. For example, the mind may wander off into analyzing whether an object was noted effectly, or sequentially, or vividly. The mind may wander off into thinking about how one is going to note an object. Under these circumstances, insight concentration cannot arise.”

Mahasi Sayadaw (1904–1982) Burmese Buddhist philosopher

Source: Manual of Insight (1945), pp. 62-63

Thinking

“Let that ancient dragon, Cadalus, take note. Let this disturber of the Church, this destroyer of apostolic discipline, this enemy of man’s salvation understand. Let him beware, I say, this root of all sin, this herald of the devil, this apostle of Antichrist. And what else shall I call him? He is the arrow drawn from the quiver of Satan, the rod of the Assyrian, the son Belial, "the son of perdition, who rises in his pride against every god, so called, ever object of men’s worship" (2 Thess. 2:3-4), the whirlpool of lust, the shipwreck of chastity, the disgrace of Christianity, the ignominy of bishops, the progeny of vipers, the stench or the world, the filth of the ages, the shame of the universe. Still more epithets for Cadalus can be added, a list of darksome names: slippery snake, a twisting serpent, the dung of humanity, the latrine of crime, the dregs of vice, the abomination of heaven the expulsion from paradise, the fodder of hell, the stubble of eternal fire.”

Peter Damian (1007–1072) reformist monk

Letter 120:13. Damian to young King Henry IV, A. D. 1065 or 1066, wherein Damian exhorts Henry to use his sword against the disturber of the Church’s peace, Cadalus, the bishop of Parma, the antipope Honorius II (d. 1072): The Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, 1998, Letters 91-120, Owen J. Blum, Irven Michael Resnick, trs., Catholic University of America Press, ISBN 0813208165 ISBN 9780813208169, vol. 5, pp. 393-394. http://books.google.com/books?id=Vlspdtjmhd4C&pg=PA393&dq=%22Let+that+ancient+dragon,+Cadalus,+take+note%22&hl=en&ei=QVpiTIjeIIG88gaFq-SVCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Let%20that%20ancient%20dragon%2C%20Cadalus%2C%20take%20note%22&f=false

Men, God, Age, World

“I have tried to draw attention to South Korea’s dangerous state-loyalty deficit, by which I mean citizens’ lack of a sense of identification with their republic. In doing so I have noted the obvious parallels with South Vietnam, another state fatally weakened by nationalism. On this point too, I seem to be talking to the wall. Even Americans interested in the nuclear crisis feel no need to learn about party politics in South Korea. It’s a thriving, prosperous democracy, and that’s all that matters.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, On Some Counter-Arguments (October 2017)

Feeling, Democracy, Sense, Learning

“Chater: You insulted my wife in the gazebo yesterday evening!
Septimus: You are mistaken. I made love to your wife in the gazebo. She asked me to meet her there, I have her note somewhere, I dare say I could find it for you, and if someone is putting it about that I did not turn up, by God, sir, it is a slander.”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Act I
Arcadia (1993)

Love, God

“a written note of Nolde, 1903, on the island of Alsen; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 77”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

1900 - 1920

Quotes

“Just as other information should be available to those who want to learn and understand, program source code is the only means for programmers to learn the art from their predecessors. It would be unthinkable for playwrights not to allow other playwrights to read their plays, but only be present at theater performances where they would be barred even from taking notes. Likewise, any good author is well read, as every child who learns to write will read hundreds of times more than it writes. Programmers, however, are expected to invent the alphabet and learn to write long novels all on their own. Programming cannot grow and learn unless the next generation of programmers have access to the knowledge and information gathered by other programmers before them.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

" Programming http://naggum.no/erik/programming.html", cited in the preface of Physically Based Rendering (2004) by Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys.

Art, Understanding, Knowledge, Learning

“For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad of tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves…. I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in my hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

Death, Birth, Chance

“That night a little son was born in the tiny cabin beside the primeval forest, while a leopard screamed before the door, and the deep notes of a lion's roar sounded from beyond the ridge.
Lady Greystoke never recovered from the shock of the great ape's attack, and, though she lived for a year after her baby was born, she was never again outside the cabin, nor did she ever fully realize that she was not in England.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 3 : Life and Death

Baby, Night

“I will not end on a happy note, because there isn't one. But neither do I despair. One doesn't fight only when one is optimistic. One fights because it is the right thing to do and because America remains, as Lincoln said, 'the last best hope of earth.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

2010s, A Dark Time in America (2016)

Happiness, Hope, Fight, Despair

“There are three [Apple Watch] lineups that range in price from "just" $350 for an Apple Sport stripper model with low-end materials to an astonishing $17,000 for an 18 karat gold silly version. As I noted on Twitter, this isn't consumer electronics anymore. It's consumerism run amok.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Apple Event Recap: Apple Watch, MacBook, and Apple TV http://thurrott.com/mobile/1927/apple-event-recap-apple-watch-macbook-and-apple-tv in Thurrott - News & Analysis for Tech Enthusiasts (9 March 2015)

Sport

“"Vanitas vanitatum" has rung in the ears
Of gentle and simple for thousands of years;
The wail still is heard, yet its notes never scare
Either simple or gentle from Vanity Fair.”

Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821–1895) British poet

Vanity Fair; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Quotes about note page 5

Quotes about note
page 5