Quotes about other
page 99

William T. Sherman photo
Barend Cornelis Koekkoek photo

“The pursuit of perfection in art must always be a noble duty to the artist, but... Here [at the Drachenfels ] he feels, more than in any other place, too vividly his inability... Stop it, painter! Just please yourself with the impression it makes on your soul; try, if you can, to keep this impression pure, it will teach you how to create …”

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands

(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) Het streven naar volmaaktheid in den kunst moet den kunstenaar steeds een edelen pligt zijn, maar hier.. .Hier [bij de Drachenfels] gevoelt hij, meer dan op eenige andere plek, te levendig zijn onvermogen.. .Laat af, schilder! Vergenoeg u met den indruk dien het op uwe ziel maak; tracht, zo ge kunt, dezen rein te bewaren, het zal u leren scheppen..
Source: Herinneringen aan en Mededeelingen van…' (1841), p. 121

Jonathan Stroud photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Maurice Wilkes photo
Alex Salmond photo
George Klir photo
John Woolman photo

“I find that to be a fool as to worldly wisdom, and to commit my cause to God, not fearing to offend men, who take offence at the simplicity of truth, is the only way to remain unmoved at the sentiments of others.”

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 36; as cited in: Ruth Marie Griffith (2008) American Religions: A Documentary History. p. 137

Pat Murphy photo
Jean Sibelius photo

“Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.”

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Finnish composer of the late Romantic period

Cecil Gray Sibelius: The Symphonies (London: Oxford University Press, 1935) p. 56.
Of his Symphony No. 6 (1923).

James A. Garfield photo

“The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.”

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

Statement that he is reported to have first made at an Alumni Dinner in Delmonico's Restaurant in New York. (28 December 1871). Hopkins was a personal friend and the president of Williams College.
1870s

Patrick Swift photo
Billy Collins photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“In the work of Ts'ui Pên, all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings. Sometimes, the paths of this labyrinth converge: for example, you arrive at this house, but in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another, my friend.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths

André Breton photo
Frank B. Jewett photo

“There is no moral authority for government other than to enforce the Universal Ethic.”

Fred E. Foldvary (1946) American economist

Source: The Soul of Liberty (1980), p. 103

Dexter S. Kimball photo
Ward Cunningham photo

“Accept that you've got a common goal that we're all working towards and that we're working towards the same goal. In other words, align and self-organize.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

Podcast Interview with Ward Cunningham (2006)

Howard S. Becker photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“That others know: science. That others choose: politics.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

Aphorism #112
Interglacial (2004)

Edward R. Murrow photo
Dennis Prager photo
J. B. S. Haldane photo

“I had it for about fifteen years until I read Lenin and other writers, who showed me what was wrong with our society and how to cure it… Since then I have needed no magnesia.”

J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) Geneticist and evolutionary biologist

On being cured of his gastritis, as quoted in TIME magazine (24 June 1940) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764097,00.html

John Calvin photo
Vernor Vinge photo

“We've watched the Homo Sapiens interest group since the first appearance of the Blight. Where is this "Earth" the humans claim to be from? "Half way around the galaxy," they say, and deep in the Slow Zone. Even their proximate origin, Nyjora, is conveniently in the Slowness. We see an alternative theory: Sometime, maybe further back than the last consistent archives, there was a battle between Powers. The blueprint for this "human race" was written, complete with communication interfaces. Long after the original contestants and their stories had vanished, this race happened to get in position where it could Transcend. And that Transcending was tailor-made, too, re-establishing the Power that had set the trap to begin with.We're not sure of the details, but a scenario such as this is inevitable. What we must do is also clear. Straumli Realm is at the heart of the Blight, obviously beyond all attack. But there are other human colonies. We ask the Net to help in identifying all of them. We ourselves are not a large civilization, but we would be happy to coordinate the information gathering, and the military action that is required to prevent the Blight's spread in the Middle Beyond. For nearly seventeen weeks, we've been calling for action. Had you listened in the beginning, a concerted strike might have been sufficient to destroy the Straumli Realm. Isn't the Fall of Relay enough to wake you up? Friends, if we act together we still have a chance.Death to vermin.”

Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), p. 245.

Elbert Hubbard photo

“Literary people of the opposite sex do not really love each other. All they really desire is to read their manuscript aloud to a receptive listener.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 11.

Adi Da Samraj photo
Bernard Lewis photo

“There are other difficulties in the way of accepting imperialism as an explanation of Muslim hostility, even if we define imperialism narrowly and specifically, as the invasion and domination of Muslim countries by non-Muslims. If the hostility is directed against imperialism in that sense, why has it been so much stronger against Western Europe, which has relinquished all its Muslim possessions and dependencies, than against Russia, which still rules, with no light hand, over many millions of reluctant Muslim subjects and over ancient Muslim cities and countries? And why should it include the United States, which, apart from a brief interlude in the Muslim-minority area of the Philippines, has never ruled any Muslim population? The last surviving European empire with Muslim subjects, that of the Soviet Union, far from being the target of criticism and attack, has been almost exempt. Even the most recent repressions of Muslim revolts in the southern and central Asian republics of the USSR incurred no more than relatively mild words of expostulation, coupled with a disclaimer of any desire to interfere in what are quaintly called the "internal affairs" of the USSR and a request for the preservation of order and tranquillity on the frontier.
One reason for this somewhat surprising restraint is to be found in the nature of events in Soviet Azerbaijan. Islam is obviously an important and potentially a growing element in the Azerbaijani sense of identity, but it is not at present a dominant element, and the Azerbaijani movement has more in common with the liberal patriotism of Europe than with Islamic fundamentalism. Such a movement would not arouse the sympathy of the rulers of the Islamic Republic. It might even alarm them, since a genuinely democratic national state run by the people of Soviet Azerbaijan would exercise a powerful attraction on their kinsmen immediately to the south, in Iranian Azerbaijan.
Another reason for this relative lack of concern for the 50 million or more Muslims under Soviet rule may be a calculation of risk and advantage. The Soviet Union is near, along the northern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan; America and even Western Europe are far away. More to the point, it has not hitherto been the practice of the Soviets to quell disturbances with water cannon and rubber bullets, with TV cameras in attendance, or to release arrested persons on bail and allow them access to domestic and foreign media. The Soviets do not interview their harshest critics on prime time, or tempt them with teaching, lecturing, and writing engagements. On the contrary, their ways of indicating displeasure with criticism can often be quite disagreeable.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

David Graeber photo
Rudy Rucker photo
Clarence Darrow photo
James Jeans photo
Mao Zedong photo

“All contradictory things are interconnected; not only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full meaning of the identity of opposites. This is what Lenin meant when he discussed "how they happen to be (how they become) identical--under what conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another."”

Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung, pp. 121
On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 一切矛盾着的东西,互相联系着,不但在一定条件之下共处于一个统一体中,而且在一定条件之下互相转化,这就是矛盾的同一性的全部意义。列宁所谓“怎样成为同一的(怎样变成同一的),——在怎样的条件之下它们互相转化,成为同一的”,就是这个意思。

Phil Brown (footballer) photo

“They will carry us over the finishing line every so often, and we’ll carry them over the line other times. It’s a mutual respect at the moment.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

Oct-2011, Lancashire Evening Post
That nearly makes sense.

Stanislaw Ulam photo
George Grosz photo
Harry Harrison photo
Gerhard Richter photo

“Since there is no such thing as absolute rightness and truth, we always pursue the artificial, leading, human truth. We judge and make a truth that excludes other truths. Art plays a formative part in this manufacture of truth.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Notes, 1962; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Art' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/art-1
1960's

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo
Donald Barthelme photo
Democritus photo

“The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Freeman (1948), p. 166
Variant: Envy is the cause of political division.

James Martineau photo
George Dantzig photo

“One of the first applications of the simplex algorithm was to the determination of an adequate diet that was of least cost. In the fall of 1947, Jack Laderman of the Mathematical Tables Project of the National Bureau of Standards undertook, as a test of the newly proposed simplex method, the first large-scale computation in this field. It was a system with nine equations in seventy-seven unknowns. Using hand-operated desk calculators, approximately 120 man-days were required to obtain a solution. … The particular problem solved was one which had been studied earlier by George Stigler (who later became a Nobel Laureate) who proposed a solution based on the substitution of certain foods by others which gave more nutrition per dollar. He then examined a "handful" of the possible 510 ways to combine the selected foods. He did not claim the solution to be the cheapest but gave his reasons for believing that the cost per annum could not be reduced by more than a few dollars. Indeed, it turned out that Stigler's solution (expressed in 1945 dollars) was only 24 cents higher than the true minimum per year $39.69.”

George Dantzig (1914–2005) American mathematician

cited in: John J. O'Connor & Edmund F.; Robertson (2003) " George Dantzig http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Dantzig_George.html". in: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
Linear programming and extensions (1963)

Murasaki Shikibu photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

““I can’t afford it.” The other dad forbade those words to be used. He insisted I say, “How can I afford it?” One is a statement, and the other is a question.”

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

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

Henry Hazlitt photo
Ralph Ellison photo
Ted Hughes photo
Niklas Luhmann photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo
Terry McAuliffe photo
Brian K. Vaughan photo
Jane Roberts photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Charles Sanders Peirce photo
Luigi Russolo photo
James Kenneth Stephen photo
David McNally photo

“Under NAFTA, in other words, the right of corporations to bring thousands of tons of hazardous waste into local communities overrides the right of residents to protect their health.”

David McNally (1953) Canadian political scientist

Source: Another World Is Possible : Globalization and Anti-capitalism (2002), Chapter 2, Globalization - It's Not About Free Trade, p. 41

Frida Kahlo photo
George Eliot photo
Arthur Ponsonby photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Richard Stallman photo

“Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition.
The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally — but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

nasal sex with dead plants
Stallman archives (28 June 2003) https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html
2000s

John Dryden photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Charles Baudelaire photo

“It is by universal misunderstanding that we agree with each other.

If, by some misfortune, we understood each other, we would never agree.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

<p>C'est par le malentendu universel que tout le monde s'accorde.</p><p>Car si, par malheur, on se comprenait, on ne pourrait jamais s'accorder.</p>
Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Mon cœur mis à nu (1864)

“The problem is that this 'being identified with the victim' can come to be used as an arm with which to club others. The victims become the group of the 'righteous just' in order to exclude the poor Pharisees, who are never in short supply as the butts of easy mockery.”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), " The man blind from birth and the Creator's subversion of sin http://girardianlectionary.net/res/fbr_ch-1_john9.htm", p. 18.

Jaani Peuhu photo
Arthur Stanley Eddington photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“The first duty of a government is to be true to itself. This does not mean perfection, it means a plan to strive for perfection. It means loyalty to ideals. The ideals of America were set out in the Declaration of Independence and adopted in the Constitution. They did not represent perfection at hand, but perfection found. The fundamental principle was freedom. The fathers knew that this was not yet apprehended. They formed a government firm in the faith that it was ever to press toward this high mark. In selfishness, in greed, in lust for gain, it turned aside. Enslaving others, it became itself enslaved. Bondage in one part consumed freedom in all parts. The government of the fathers, ceasing to be true to itself, was perishing. Five score and ten years ago, that divine providence which infinite repetition has made only the more a miracle, sent into the world a new life destined to save a nation. No star, no sign foretold his coming. About his cradle all was poor and mean, save only the source of all great men, the love of a wonderful woman. When she faded away in his tender years from her deathbed in humble poverty, she endowed her son with greatness. There can be no proper observance of a birthday which forgets the mother. Into his origin, as into his life, men long have looked and wondered. In wisdom great, but in humility greater, in justice strong, but in compassion stronger, he became a leader of men by being a follower of the truth. He overcame evil with good. His presence filled the nation. He broke the might of oppression. He restored a race to its birthright.”

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

1920s, Duty of Government (1920)

Anaïs Nin photo
Paul A. Samuelson photo

“In the preface to the reissue of Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Frank Knight makes the penetrating observation that under the conditions envisaged above the velocity of circulation would become infinite and so would the price level. This is perhaps an over-dramatic way of saying that nobody would hold money, and it would become a free good to go into the category of shell and other things which once served as money. We should expect too that it would not only pass out of circulation, but it would cease to be used as a conventional numeraire in terms of which prices are expressed. Interest bearing money would emerge. Of course, the above does not happen in real life, precisely because uncertainty, contingency needs, non-synchronization of revenues and outlay, transaction frictions, etc., etc., all are with us. But the abstract special case analyzed above should warn us against the facile assumption that the average levels of the structure of interest rates are determined solely or primarily by these differential factors. At times they are primary, and at other times, such as the twenties in this country, they may not be. As a generalization I should hazard the hypothesis that they are likely to be of great importance in an economy in which there is a “quasi-zero" rate of interest. I think by this hypothesis one can explain many of the anomalies of the United States money market in the thirties.”

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 5 : Theory of Consumer’s Behavior

John Dryden photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo
Simone Weil photo

“If we want a love which will protect the soul from wounds we must love something other than God.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Love (1947), p. 62

John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Godfrey Higgins photo

“The peninsula of India would be one of the first peopled countries, and its inhabitants would have all the habits of the progenitors of man before the flood in as much perfection or more than any other nation… In short, whatever learning man possessed before his dispersion may be expected to be found here, and of this, Hindustan affords innumerable traces… notwithstanding … the fruitless efforts of our priests to disguise it.”

Godfrey Higgins (1772–1833) British archaeologist

Higgins, The Celtic Druids. (quoted in Niranjan Shah, India: The Birthplace of Human Speech, International Vedic Vision, Sands Point, N.Y., 2013, p. 66. Quoted from Stephen Knapp, Mysteries of the Ancient Vedic Empire https://stephenknapp.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/a-look-at-india-from-the-views-of-other-scholars/

Frederick Douglass photo

“At 8 o’clock, the [body] of the hall was nearly filled with an intelligent and respectable looking audience – The exercises commenced with a patriotic song by the Hutchinsons, which was received with great applause. The Rev. H. H. Garnett opened the meeting stating that the black man, a fugitive from Virginia, who was announced to speak would not appear, as a communication had been received yesterday from the South intimating that, for prudential reasons, it would not be proper for that person to appear, as his presence might affect the interests and safety of others in the South, both white persons and colored. He also stated that another fugitive slave, who was at the battle of Bull Run, proposed when the meeting was announced to be present, but for a similar reason he was absent; he had unwillingly fought on the side of Rebellion, but now he was, fortunately where he could raise his voice on the side of Union and universal liberty. The question which now seemed to be prominent in the nation was simply whether the services of black men shall be received in this war, and a speedy victory be accomplished. If the day should ever come when the flag of our country shall be the symbol of universal liberty, the black man should be able to look up to that glorious flag, and say that it was his flag, and his country’s flag; and if the services of the black men were wanted it would be found that they would rush into the ranks, and in a very short time sweep all the rebel party from the face of the country”

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

Douglass Monthly https://web.archive.org/web/20160309192511/http://deadconfederates.com/tag/black-confederates/#_edn2 (March 1862), p. 623
1860s

Halldór Laxness photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Charles Robert Leslie photo
Theodore G. Bilbo photo
Jean Dubuffet photo

“.. the wind of 'art brut' blows on writing as well as on other avenues of artistic creation.”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) sculptor from France

Quote in the text of Jean Dubuffet, 'Project pour un petit texte liminaire introduisant les publications de 'L'art brut dans l'écrire', 1969 (1969), published in Le Langage de la rupture', Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1978
1960-70's

Meher Baba photo
Mihira Bhoja I photo

“The king of Gurjars maintain numerous faces and no other Indian prince has so fine a cavalry. He has great riches and his camels and horses are numerous. There is no country in India more safe from robbers”

Mihira Bhoja I (836–885) Ruler of the Gurjara Pratihara dynasty

Words by Salaiman an arab invader who visited India during the emperor's reign.[History of Ancient India: Earliest Times to 1000 A. D., http://books.google.co.in/books?id=cWmsQQ2smXIC&pg=PA207&dq]
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