Quotes about performance (1726 quotes, page 7)

“Suddenly, immediately, things took a certain shape a very brilliant creation was worked out in extraordinary detail, with marvellous experiences, contact with divine beings, and all kinds of manifestations which are considered miraculous; … One day, I went as usual to relate to Sri Aurobindo what had been happening — we had come to something really very interesting, and perhaps I showed a little enthusiasm in my account of what had taken place — then Sri Aurobindo looked at me... and said: 'Yes, this is an Overmind creation. It is very interesting, very well done. You will perform miracles which will make you famous throughout the world, you will be able to turn events on earth topsy-turvy, indeed, … ' and then he smiled and said: 'It will be a great success. But it is an Overmind creation. And it is not success that we want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

Quoted in "Pondicherry", and also in The Mother: The Story of Her Life by Georges Van Vrekhem (2004) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=8hgG8aweqncC&pg=RA1-PT107, p. 107

World , Smile , Success

“Every time I fire a linguist, the performance of our speech recognition system goes up.”

Fred Jelinek (1932–2010) Czech linguist

Although its fame and iconic status are undisputed, the quip's context is unknown and its specific wording and dating are unclear. According to Daniel Jurafsky and James H. Martin, Jelinek himself recalled the quote as "Anytime a linguist leaves the group the recognition rate goes up" and dated it to December 1988 (Wayne, Pennsylvania), further noting that the quote did not appear in the published proceeding, whereas Roger K. Moore gave the wording as "Every time we fire a phonetician/linguist, the performance of our system goes up" and dated it to an IEEE Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding workshop held in 1985.
Source: [Jurafsky, Daniel, James H. Martin, 2009, Speech and language processing: an introduction to natural language processing, computational linguistics, and speech recognition, 2nd, Prentice Hall series in artificial intelligence, Upper Saddle, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 0-13-187321-0, 83]
Source: [Palmer, Martha, Tim Finin, 1990, Report on the Workshop on the Evaluation of Natural Language Processing Systems, Computational Linguistics, 16, 1, 171–185, http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~finin//papers/acl90.pdf]
Source: [Moore, Roger K., 2005, Results from a Survey of Attendees at ASRU 1997 and 2003, INTERSPEECH-2005, Lisbon, September 4-8, 2005, http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/R.Moore/publications/Results%20from%20a%20Survey%20of%20Attendees%20at%20ASRU%201997%20and%202003.pdf]

Time

“Everybody uses mime and gesture in real life, though we don’t realize it. It’s very useful as a performance technique, though it can be boring to watch on its own. As for radio, I had a wonderful teacher. I was hugely lucky. I didn’t want to play a robot, but the situation was an object lesson in fate taking over.”

Anthony Daniels (1946) English actor

A Q&A with Anthony Daniels (C3PO), touring with “Star Wars: In Concert” https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/a-qa-with-anthony-daniels-c3po-touring-with-star-wars-in-concert/ (October 9, 2009)

Life , Fate , Teachers

“Lady Cannon's gone to a matinée at the St. James's. We had tickets for the first night, but of course she wouldn't use them then. She preferred to go alone in the afternoon, because she detests the theatre, anyhow, and afternoon performances give her a headache. If she does a thing that's disagreeable to her, she likes to do it in the most painful possible way. She has a beautiful nature.”

Ada Leverson (1862–1933) British writer

Source: Love's Shadow (1908), Chapter ii.

Pain , Beauty , Way , Nature

“So here’s the puzzle: Realist advice has performed better than its main rivals over the past two-and-a-half decades, yet realists are largely absent from prominent mainstream publications.”

Stephen M. Walt (1955) American political scientist

"What Would a Realist World Have Looked Like?", Foreign Policy (January 8, 2016)

Past

“I'm better suited to doing this because I enjoy dancing and performing, so I can incorporate a whole bunch of different elements of my personality into the performance component of Vitamin C and it turns out, without trying, there was a certain positive spirit and strong point of view [in the songs] that fairly well represented my personality. So it all came together quite nicely.”

Colleen Fitzpatrick (1972) American singer and actress

About the Vitamin C project
Attributed

Strong , Dance , Personality

“Machines as simple as thermostats can be said to have beliefs, and having beliefs seems to be a characteristic of most machines capable of problem solving performance. However, the machines mankind has so far found it useful to construct rarely have beliefs about beliefs, although such beliefs will be needed by computer programs that reason about what knowledge they lack and where to get it. Mental qualities peculiar to human-like motivational structures, such as love and hate, will not be required for intelligent behavior, but we could probably program computers to exhibit them if we wanted to, because our common sense notions about them translate readily into certain program and data structures. Still other mental qualities, e. g. humor and appreciation of beauty, seem much harder to model.”

John McCarthy (1927–2011) American computer scientist and cognitive scientist

" Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/ascribing.html" (1979) Sect. 1: Introduction. Reprinted in Formalizing Common Sense: Papers By John McCarthy, 1990, ISBN 0893915351
1970s

Love , Hate , Beauty , Behavior

“It is much easier to prejudge than to judge. It saves a lot of work to write about all the intellectual baggage one brings to the work. It is harder, even somewhat daunting, to start from scratch with what one is actually hearing. Actually it is not easy at all to make judgements in this field without falling back on preconceived categories. Comparisons often come to the rescue. Stokowski’s Scheherazade is without question an extremely effective, almost magical, performance. If I’m reviewing that work I must know outstanding performances like Stokowski’s. And I must know why it’s outstanding—I must know it by listening to it, not merely by reputation. I must compare the newcomer to it to see if he manages to make as much of the music.”

Donald Vroon (1942) American music critic

Music , Question

“Jerry Springer: What would you have been if you would have not been a performer?”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

On The Jerry Springer Show

“Hewson: I ask the Prime Minister: if you are so confident about your view of Fightback, why will you not call an early election?
Keating: The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm out of this load of rubbish over a number of months. There will be no easy execution for you. You have perpetrated one of the great mischiefs on the Australian public with this thing, trying to rip away our social wage, trying to rip away the Australian values which we built in our society for over a century.”

Paul Keating (1944) Australian politician, 24th Prime Minister of Australia

Question Time, Australian House of Representatives, 1992, Labor in Power (w:Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1993), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_CHXDBq9Ps

Confidence , Sport

“The Greeks used to put a lot of bodily functions in their plays, and a lot of graphic sexual material, because they believed, that in performing that way it released the demons of shame from the audience, which is what I believe. Cuz I think we’re all pretty much the same, and we all have grown up with that shame-based thing that America deals with, right? And to sit there and hear someone talk about their love of having sex, whatever, makes you feel like you’re not alone, with what you think maybe are dark, twisted thoughts, cuz they’re not. We all share these thoughts. So that’s why I talk like I do, or did, before I retired tonight.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

Love , Sex , Way , Feeling

“While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.”

Margaret Sanger book Woman and the New Race

Source: Woman and the New Race, (1922), Chapter 10, "Contraceptives or Abortion?"

Law

“The landlord, qua landlord, performs no function in the economy of industry or of food production. He is a rent receiver; that, and nothing more. Were the landlord to be abolished, the soil and the people who till it would still remain, and the disappearance of the landowner would pass almost unnoticed. So too with the capitalist.”

Keir Hardie (1856–1915) Scottish socialist and labour leader

Source: From Serfdom to Socialism (1907), p. 11

People , Food

“The finance conception of the modern corporation, which currently dominates, emphasizes control through the use of financial tools which measure performance according to profit rates. Product lines are evaluated on their short-run profitability and important management decisions are based on the potential profitability of each line. Firms are viewed as collections of assets earning differing rates of return, not as producers of given goods. The firm is not seen as being a member of only one industry. Consequently if the prospect of an industry in which it participates declines, the firm disinvests. The problem for management from this perspective is to maximize short-run rates of return by altering product mix, thereby increasing shareholder equity and keeping the stock price high”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 15

Problem , Decision

“(On performing in Costa Rica for the first time) It was like finding some weird tribe in the middle of the jungle and, you know, they all come out and go: "Fear of the Dark. Favorite Album."”

Bruce Dickinson (1958) English musician, airline pilot, and broadcaster

What?!?
Iron Maiden: Flight 666

Fear , Time

“Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections

Men , People , Parting

“Audiences and critics acknowledge that a play or concerto gains force in great rendition. A good play may overcome bad staging. A great concerto may survive a poor soloist. But it is naturally assumed that a more accomplished performance intensifies the impact of the work. The play's text or concerto's score does not change, but the right actors and musicians help realize its full potential. Among contemporary literary critics, however, one never encounters this notion in regard to books and printing. To recognize the sensual contributions of the physical elements of a book is somehow assumed to demean the spiritual purity of the text. To notice the book itself smacks of philistinism, and to make distinctions based on paper, binding, and typography brings accusations of elitism or decadence.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"Designing Literature: Creative Collaboration" http://www.danagioia.net/essays/ecreative.htm (1992)
Essays

Books , Nature , Change , Help

“"You hear your fate," said the Sphere to me, while the Council was passing for the third time the formal resolution. "Death or imprisonment awaits the Apostle of the Gospel of Three Dimensions." "Not so," replied I, "the matter is now so clear to me, the nature of real space so palpable, that methinks I could make a child understand it. Permit me but to descend at this moment and enlighten them." "Not yet," said my Guide, "the time will come for that. Meantime I must perform my mission. Stay thou there in thy place." Saying these words, he leaped with great dexterity into the sea (if I may so call it) of Flatland, right in the midst of the ring of Counsellors. "I come," cried he, "to proclaim that there is a land of Three Dimensions."”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

Death , Fate , Understanding , Nature

“The first article in the foregoing quotation brings to my recollection the extraordinary performances of a professed fire-eater, whose name was Powel, well known in different parts of the kingdom about forty years ago. Among other wonderful feats, I saw him do the following: He ate the burning coals from the fire; he put a large bunch of matches lighted into his mouth, and blew the smoke of the sulphur through his nostrils; he carried a red-hot heater round the room in his teeth; and broiled a piece of beef-steak upon his tongue. To perform this, he lighted a piece of charcoal, which he put into his mouth beneath his tongue, the beef was laid upon the top; and one of the spectators blew upon the charcoal, to prevent the heat decreasing, till the meat was sufficiently broiled. By way of conclusion, he made a composition of pitch, brimstone, and other compustibles, to which he added several pieces of lead; the whole was melted in an iron ladle, and then set on fire; this he called his soup; and, taking it out of the ladle with a spoon of the same metal, he ate it in its state of liquefaction, and blazing furiously, without appearing to sustain the least injury.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 237
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

Way , Light , Appearance , Parting

“I got a phone call from Ricky Martin's management asking me if I'd like to do something with him in Florida around the winter music conference. My answer is as follows: 'I would consider doing something with Ricky Martin if and only if he publicly apologizes for performing at George W's inauguration and if he confirms that when he danced next to George W. Bush at the inauguration he could smell brimstone and that George W. Bush is in fact the spawn of Satan. So if Ricky Martin goes on national television to confirm that George W. is the spawn of Satan then I will perform with him. Otherwise no deal. And only if we can do a cover of 'In a Gadda-da-vida', but The Simpsons version, 'In the garden of Eden' (to which reverend Lovejoy responds ""that sounds like rock and or roll""). And, by the way, I'm a pretty easygoing young-ish person, so if you ever see me walking down the street just stop me and say hello. We're all in the same boat, right? of course you'll have to make it past my phalanx of security guards who are all ex-NFL linebackers, and the cadre of dobermans, and the perma-moat that I wear that's filled with electric eels and vicious sea monkeys. So if you see me just come and say hi. I'm normal.”

Moby (1965) Activist, American musician, DJ and photographer

"predictions" http://www.moby.com/journal/2001-02-15/predictions.html, journal entry (15 February 2001) at Moby's website, moby.com http://www.moby.com/

Music , Way , Winter , Past

“When we read how one mediæval saint stood erect in his cell for a week without sleep or food, merely chewing a plantain-leaf out of humility, so as not to be too perfect; how another remained all night up to his neck in a pond that was freezing over; and how others still performed for the glory of God feats no less tasking to their energies, we are inclined to think, that, with the gods of yore, the men, too, have departed, and that the earth is handed over to a race whose will has become as feeble as its faith.”

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) German psychologist

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885), "Experiments in Memory," in Science http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16792/16792-h/16792-h.htm Vol. 6, 1885, p. 198

Men , God , Faith , Food

“Polybius is not less express than Thucydides in asserting the principle that accurate representation of facts was the fundamental duty of the historian. He lays down that three things are requisite for performing such a task as his: the study and criticism of sources; autopsy, that is, personal knowledge of lands and places; and thirdly, political experience.”

J. B. Bury (1861–1927) Irish historian and freethinker

p. 197 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t2g73zj2z;view=1up;seq=215
The Ancient Greek Historians (1909)

Knowledge , Study , Personality

“However you envisage your role in life, all you can do is perform it as best you can.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 203)

Life

“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

“My mum went and married a really horrible horrible man, who drove a taxi at night and had a sticky-fingered son and he smoked cigars in the toilet. Smelled terrible! Again, there's no therapy, there's no counseling over the whole situation! Just married the maniac. And there was a new person in her bed now, and I couldn't do my nightly performance anymore. I was nine years old and my show had been canceled!”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

Tracey Ullman: Live and Exposed (2005)

Personality , Night

“This kitschie performance without dynamism is deeply against my taste.”

Róbert Puzsér (1974) hungarian publicist

Quotes from him, Csillag születik (talent show between 2011-2012)

“When we study the habits of animals in a truly sympathetic way and become thoroughly acquainted with them and with the work that each one is performing, we shall see that each one has its place in the economy of God's world, that each has its part to play, and that even so far as the animal world is concerned we are all related and inter-related. If we destroy or permit to be destroyed that marvellous balance which the Divine Power has instituted in the Universe, we do it at our own peril. Instead, then, of being the enemies of the animal world, instead of being its persecutors and its destroyers, we should be its friends and helpers.”

Ralph Waldo Trine (1866–1958) American author

Source: Every Living Creature (1899), p. 64

God , World , Way , Study

“If we except the great name of Newton (and the exception is one that the great Gauss himself would have been delighted to make) it is probable that no mathematician of any age or country has ever surpassed Gauss in the combination of an abundant fertility of invention with an absolute vigorousness in demonstration, which the ancient Greeks themselves might have envied. It may be admitted, without any disparagement to the eminence of such great mathematicians as Euler and Cauchy that they were so overwhelmed with the exuberant wealth of their own creations, and so fascinated by the interest attaching to the results at which they arrived, that they did not greatly care to expend their time in arranging their ideas in a strictly logical order, or even in establishing by irrefragable proof propositions which they instinctively felt, and could almost see to be true. With Gauss the case was otherwise. It may seem paradoxical, but it is probably nevertheless true that it is precisely the effort after a logical perfection of form which has rendered the writings of Gauss open to the charge of obscurity and unnecessary difficulty. The fact is that there is neither obscurity nor difficulty in his writings, as long as we read them in the submissive spirit in which an intelligent schoolboy is made to read his Euclid. Every assertion that is made is fully proved, and the assertions succeed one another in a perfectly just analogical order… But when we have finished the perusal, we soon begin to feel that our work is but begun, that we are still standing on the threshold of the temple, and that there is a secret which lies behind the veil and is as yet concealed from us. No vestige appears of the process by which the result itself was obtained, perhaps not even a trace of the considerations which suggested the successive steps of the demonstration. Gauss says more than once that for brevity, he gives only the synthesis, and suppresses the analysis of his propositions. Pauca sed matura—few but well matured… If, on the other hand, we turn to a memoir of Euler's, there is a sort of free and luxuriant gracefulness about the whole performance, which tells of the quiet pleasure which Euler must have taken in each step of his work; but we are conscious nevertheless that we are at an immense distance from the severe grandeur of design which is characteristic of all Gauss's greater efforts.”

Henry John Stephen Smith (1826–1883) mathematician

As quoted by Alexander Macfarlane, Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century (1916) p. 95, https://books.google.com/books?id=43SBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA95 "Henry John Stephen Smith (1826-1883) A Lecture delivered March 15, 1902"

Pleasure , Secret , Age , Feeling

“Muslim historians credit all their heroes with many expeditions each of which “laid waste” this or that province or region or city or countryside. The foremost heroes of the imperial line at Delhi and Agra such as Qutbu’d-Dîn Aibak (1192-1210 A. D.), Shamsu’d-Dîn Iltutmish (1210-36 A. D.), Ghiyãsu’d-Dîn Balban (1246-66 A D.), Alãu’d-Dîn Khaljî (1296-1316 A. D.), Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-51 A. D.), Fîruz Shãh Tughlaq (135188 A. D.) Sikandar Lodî (1489-1519 A. D.), Bãbar (1519-26 A. D.) and Aurangzeb (1658-1707 A. D.) have been specially hailed for “hunting the peasantry like wild beasts”, or for seeing to it that “no lamp is lighted for hundreds of miles”, or for “destroying the dens of idolatry and God-pluralism” wherever their writ ran. The sultans of the provincial Muslim dynasties-Malwa, Gujarat, Sindh, Deccan, Jaunpur, Bengal-were not far behind, if not ahead, of what the imperial pioneers had done or were doing; quite often their performance put the imperial pioneers to shame. No study has yet been made of how much the human population declined due to repeated genocides committed by the swordsmen of Islam. But the count of cities and towns and villages which simply disappeared during the Muslim rule leaves little doubt that the loss of life suffered by the cradle of Hindu culture was colossal.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Life , God , Study , Light

“I congratulate you, also, upon the very favorable circumstances in which we meet today. They are high, inspiring, and uncommon. They lend grace, glory, and significance to the object for which we have met. Nowhere else in this great country, with its uncounted towns and cities, unlimited wealth, and immeasurable territory extending from sea to sea, could conditions be found more favorable to the success of this occasion than here. We stand today at the national center to perform something like a national act, an act which is to go into history; and we are here where every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt, and reciprocated. A thousand wires, fed with thought and winged with lightning, put us in instantaneous communication with the loyal and true men all over the country.”

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

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Men , History , Communication , Success

“This book is begun by God’s gift and His grace, but it is not yet performed, as to my sight.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 86

God , Books

“Overload could be regarded as a kind of inter-sender conflict in which various role senders may hold quite legitimate expectations that a person perform a wide variety of tasks, all of which are mutually compatible in the abstract. But it may be virtually impossible for the focal person to complete all of them within given time limits. He [sic] is likely to experience overload as a conflict of priorities; he must decide which pressures to comply with and which to hold off. If it is impossible to deny any of the pressures, he may be taxed beyond the limits of his abilities. Thus overload involves a kind of person-role conflict and is perhaps best regarded as a complex, emergent type combining aspects of inter-sender and person-role conflicts.”

Robert L. Kahn (1918–2019) American psychologist

Source: Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity, 1964, p. 20

Time , Personality

“For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system, less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel - a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance - and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in de facto way for some psychological or physiological cause, related to no moral or aesthetic principle. This last lead lives, perform acts and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal; their thought is scattered or difused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects; for they are themselves, consciously or unconsciously seeking to fit them into or exclude them from any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete at times fanatical, military inner vision. The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes.”

Isaiah Berlin book The Hedgehog and the Fox

The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953). Editor Henry Hardy. Collaborator Michael Ignatieff. Editorial Princeton University Press, 2013. ISBN 1400846633, p. 2.

Way , Feeling , Idea , Understanding

“Knowledge and wonder are the dyad of our worthy lives as intellectual beings. Voyager did wonders for our knowledge, but performed just as mightily in the service of wonder—and the two elements are complementary, not independent or opposed. The thought fills me with awe—a mechanical contraption that could fit in the back of a pickup truck, traveling through space for twelve years, dodging around four giant bodies and their associated moons, and finally sending exquisite photos across more than four light-hours of space from the farthest planet in our solar system.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"The Horn of Triton", pp. 508–509
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

Travel , Photo , Knowledge , Light

“We, therefore, having directed our inquiry toward a cause that is manifest, sensible, and comprehended by all men, do know that the earth rotates on its own poles, proved by many magnetical demonstrations to exist. For not in virtue only of its stability and its fixed permanent position does the earth posses poles and verticity; it might have had another direction, as eastward or westward, or toward any other quarter. By the wonderful wisdom of the Creator, therefore, forces were implanted in the earth, forces primarily animate, to the end the globe might, with steadfastness, take direction, and that the poles might be opposite, so that on them, as at the extremities of an axis, the movement of diurnal rotation might be performed.”

William Gilbert (astronomer) book De Magnete

As quoted in Gilbert, William. 2013 ed. De Magnete https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=QsLDAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Courier Corporation, pp. 328-329.
De Magnete (1600)

Wisdom , Men , Animals

“In a word, CLEANTHES, a man who follows your hypothesis is able perhaps to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something like design: but beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance; and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance: it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity; and is the object of derision to his superiors: it is the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity; and ever since his death, has run on at adventures, from the first impulse and active force which it received from him. You justly give signs of horror, DEMEA, at these strange suppositions; but these, and a thousand more of the same kind, are CLEANTHES’s suppositions, not mine. From the moment the attributes of the Deity are supposed finite, all these have place. And I cannot, for my part, think that so wild and unsettled a system of theology is, in any respect, preferable to none at all.”

David Hume book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Philo to Demea, Part V
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)

Death , Age , World , Thinking

“The term division of labor has, from long usage, become associated in the public mind with manual processes. But productive labor is, in general, both manual and mental and just as there may be division of manual labor so there may be division of mental labor or division of thought. Modern productive methods tend constantly to separate mental labor from manual labor and then to subdivide each into smaller and smaller parts. The subdivision of manual labor is greatly furthered, as has been seen, by the extended use of tools. Subdivision of mental labor on the other hand is hastened by an increase in the amount of knowledge and mental development necessary to successfully perform the work in hand. Thus the mental labor of designing machinery is performed largely apart from the actual production; and this mental labor has become very closely specialized as the scientific basis of engineering has grown. This process of subdivision is greatly hastened in both manual and mental operations by increased quantity since this, of itself, enables the manager to avail himself of the inherent advantages of division of labor already discussed.”

Dexter S. Kimball (1865–1952) American engineer

Source: Principles of industrial organization, 1913, p. 48

Knowledge , Parting

“Oh, there's no such thing as my favorite performance. I can't sit here today and look back, and say, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others. I just don't look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say 'all right, that's that. What's next?”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Fred Astaire, interviewed by Dan Navarro for American Classic Screen Magazine, September/October 1978.

“One of the many services performed by Professor Smith's book is to show that Nuremberg was not a kangaroo court. Even the Russian and the French judges were able to act with some independence from their governments. It is true that some of the defendants were arbitrarily chosen, true that the indictment was questionably framed, and true again that some of the verdicts were anomalous. But by and large justice was done. The idea that at Nuremberg the victors tried the vanquished is a false one.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Only Human: On Nuremberg'
Essays and reviews, From the Land of Shadows (1982)

Books , Justice , Idea , Question

“That’s the only thing I would say that I wanted from all my players: to have that philosophy of hard work when we haven’t got it and perform when we have got it.”

George Graham (1944) Scottish footballer

Interview, Sport.co.uk, 14 January 2011

“As tasks become more varied and require greater training and skill, the relationship (between job attitudes and performance) appears to change progressively from the negative to positive.”

Rensis Likert (1903–1981) American statistician

Source: New patterns of management, (1961), p. 16

Appearance , Change , Training

“Somebody will ask those of us who compose with the aid of computers: 'So you make all these decisions for the computer or the electronic medium but wouldn't you like to have a performer who makes certain other decisions?' Many composers don't mind collaborating with the performer with regards to decisions of tempo, or rhythm, or dynamics, or timbre, but ask them if they would allow the performer to make decisions with regard to pitch and the answer will be 'Pitches you don't change.' Some of us feel the same way in regard to the other musical aspects that are traditionally considered secondary, but which we consider fundamental. As for the future of electronic music, it seems quite obvious to me that its unique resources guarantee its use, because it has shifted the boundaries of music away from the limitations of the acoustical instrument, of the performer's coordinating capabilities, to the almost infinite limitations of the electronic instrument. The new limitations are the human ones of perception.”

Milton Babbitt (1916–2011) American composer

Quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.

Music , Way , Feeling , Quotes

“The present estimated margin between public receipts and expenditures for this fiscal year is very small. Perhaps the most important work that this session of the Congress can do is to continue a policy of economy and further reduce the cost of government, in order that we may have a reduction of taxes for the next fiscal year. Nothing is more likely to produce that public confidence which is the forerunner and the mainstay of prosperity, encourage and enlarge business opportunity with ample opportunity for employment at good wages, provide a larger market for agricultural products, and put our country in a stronger position to be able to meet the world competition in trade, than a continuing policy of economy. Of course necessary costs must be met, proper functions of the Government performed, and constant investments for capital account and reproductive effort must be carried on by our various departments. But the people must know that their Government is placing upon them no unnecessary burden.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

People , World , Confidence , Business

“Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the immanent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is the object of the transcendentalist cult. In that address of the graduating class at Divinity College in 1838 which made Emerson famous, the frank expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

God , Law , Universe , Personality

“It filled me with dread – she had a reputation for being difficult. She had been headlining on the Royal Command performance the night before we were due to start. She arrived and swept through reception looking like thunder and disappeared into the studio. I thought, ‘I’m the first here, I’d better go in and introduce myself’. I walked in and I said: ‘Morning Miss Bassey, my name is Martin Rushent and I’m going to be your new engineer and co-producer’. She threw a mic stand at me. She told me to get out. She apologised afterwards, I hasten to add.”

Martin Rushent (1948–2011) English record producer

[Serck, Linda, Legendary producer Martin Rushent, 2009, http://www.getreading.co.uk/entertainment/music/s/2061462_legendary_producer_martin_rushent, Get Reading, 6 June 2011]

Night

“Delegation means that he will concern himself with the results of their activities and not with the details of their day-to-day performance. This requires a degree of confidence in them which enables him to accept certain risks. Unless he takes these risks there will be no delegation.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 220 (in 2006 edition)

Confidence

“Broca’s famous observation was in itself very simple. There had in 1831 been admitted at the Bicêtre, an insane hospital near Paris, a man whose sole defect seemed to be that he could not talk. He communicated intelligently by signs and was otherwise mentally normal. He remained at the Bicêtre for thirty years with this defect and on April 12, 1861, was put under the care of Broca, the surgeon, because of a gangrenous infection. Broca for five days subjected him to a careful examination, in which he satisfied himself that the musculature of the larynx and articulatory organs was not hindered in normal movements, that there was no other paralysis that could interfere with speech, and that the man was intelligent enough to speak. On April 17 the patient— fortunately, it must have seemed, for science—died; and within a day Broca had performed an autopsy, discovering a lesion in the third frontal convolution of the left cerebral hemisphere, and had presented the brain in alcohol to the Société d’Anthropologie.”

Edwin Boring (1886–1968) American psychologist

Source: A History of Experimental Psychology, 1929, p. 71: As cited in: Hergenhahn (2008;248)

Alcohol , Intelligence , Communication , Science

“Art, if it is successful in the task of questioning reality, if it is good painting and not merely a performance of dexterity, will be an affirmation of God.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

Italian Report (1955).
Italian Report (1955)

God , Art , Question , Reality

“Young people growing up with pressure to perform in every aspect of their lives find themselves aping a robotic capitalist eroticism that has little to do with their own legitimate desires.”

Laurie Penny book Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism

Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2010)

People

“The greater the task uncertainty, the greater the amount of information that must be processed among decision makers during task execution in order to achieve a given level of performance.”

Jay R. Galbraith (1939–2014) American business theorist

Source: Designing complex organizations, 1973, p. 4

Decision

“The validity of g is most conspicuous in scholastic performance, not because g-loaded tests measure specifically what is taught in school, but because g is intrinsic to learning novel material, grasping concepts, distinctions, and meanings… The most critical tool for scholastic learning beyond the primary grades— reading comprehension—is probably the most highly g-loaded attainment in the course of elementary education.”

Arthur Jensen (1923–2012) professor of educational psychology

Source: The g factor: The science of mental ability (1998), p. 270; As cited in: Melissa A. Bray, Thomas J. Kehle (2011) The Oxford Handbook of School Psychology. p. 65

Education , School , Learning , Reading

“You and I can have a tremendous impact on the job performance of the people around us—but more importantly, we can have an impact on their entire lives. It could happen during a five-minute conversation, with just a few words of encouragement delivered at the right time and in the right way.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 74.
On Treating Everyone with Respect

People , Way , Time

“When we started in 1947, I think 18% or something was the literacy rate in India. Now it is 52%. It is not a disastrous performance but it is not sufficient, certainly. But some parts of India have done better, my own State of Kerala has done remarkably well. Tamil Nadu is achieving greater success in literacy, so is Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The State of Himachal, is more or less reaching 100% literacy. Some of the states of the North-East have full literacy today. So, the movement of literacy has been uneven, but progressive.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

Thinking , Success , Parting

“With me, sir, there is no alternative. Painfully convinced of the unutterable wrongs and woes of slavery; profoundly believing that, according to the true spirit of the Constitution and the sentiments of the fathers, it can find no place under our National Government — that it is in every respect sectional, and in no respect national — that it is always and everywhere the creature and dependent of the States, and never anywhere the creature or dependent of the Nation, and that the Nation can never, by legislative or other act, impart to it any support, under the Constitution of the United States; with these convictions, I could not allow this session to reach its close, without making or seizing an- opportunity to declare myself openly against the usurpation, injustice, and cruelty, of the late enactment by Congress for the recovery of fugitive slaves. Full well I know, sir, the difficulties of this discussion, arising from prejudices of opinion and from adverse conclusions, strong and sincere as my own. Full well I know that I am in a small minority, with few here to whom I may look for sympathy or support. Full well I know that I must utter things unwelcome to many in this body, which I cannot do without pain. Full well I know that the institution of slavery in our country, which I now proceed to consider, is as sensitive as it is powerful — possessing a power to shake the whole land with a sensitiveness that shrinks and trembles at the touch. But, while these things may properly prompt me to caution and reserve, they cannot change my duty, or my determination to perform it. For this I willingly forget myself, and all personal consequences. The favor and good-will of my fellow-citizens, of my brethren of the Senate, sir, — grateful to me as it justly is — I am ready, if required, to sacrifice. All that I am or may be, I freely offer to this cause.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

"Freedom National, Slavery Sectional," speech in the Senate (July 27, 1852).

Pain , Support , Strong , Change

“Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer: the revealing of self. Here I be. Not for long, but here I be. In sensing her mortality, we sensed our own.”

Studs Terkel (1912–2008) American author, historian and broadcaster

On seeing a 1956 performance by Billie Holiday, Talking to Myself Bk. 4 (1973) Ch. 4

Sense

“The distinction, between what is done by labour, and what is done by nature, is not always observed.
Labour produces its effects only by conspiring with the laws of nature.
It is found that the agency of man can be traced to very simple elements. He does nothing but produce motion. He can move things towards one another, and he can separate them from one another. The properties of matter perform the rest.”

James Mill (1773–1836) Scottish historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher

Ch 1 : Production https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/mill-james/ch01.htm 
Elements of Political Economy (1821)

Law , Nature

“I think my performances did keep getting better. I also think that I managed to give Godzilla a distinct character. I'm very proud of that.”

Kenpachiro Satsuma (1947) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Kenpachiro Satsuma Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/satsum3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Thinking

“The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an obligation I cheerfully fulfill—to accompany the first and solemn act of my public trust with an avowal of the principles that will guide me in performing it and an expression of my feelings on assuming a charge so responsible and vast.”

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) American politician, 8th President of the United States (in office from 1837 to 1841)

Inaugural address (1837)

Feeling

“This what you performed picks up thirty cliques on the Youtube. And those are your friends and parents.”

Róbert Puzsér (1974) hungarian publicist

Quotes from him, Csillag születik (talent show between 2011-2012)

Parent

“Beware of Methodologies. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them.”

Joel Spolsky (1965) American blogger

"Big Macs vs. The Naked Chef" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html

People , Way , Time

“These selfish professors of religion [monks] grudged every act of munificence that was not applied to themselves, or their monasteries; and could not behold the good fortune of the minstrels without expressing their indignation; which they often did in terms of scurrilous abuse, calling them janglers, mimics, buffoons, monsters of men, and comtemptible scoffers. They also severely censured the nobility for patronizing and rewarding such a shameless set of sordid flatterers, and the populace for frequenting their exhibitions, and being delighted with their performances, which diverted them from more serious pursuits, and corrupted their morals. On the other hand, the minstrels appear to have been ready enough to give them ample occasion for censure; and, indeed, I apprehend that their own immorality and insolence contributed more to their downfal, than all the defamatory declamations of their opponents.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 192
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Minstrels

Men , Religion , Appearance , Selfishness

“I was interested in being present for its first, and I trust only, performance.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

After hearing a new choral work at Gloucester Cathedral, 1975.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“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

“Thanks to technology, what almost anybody can do has been multiplied a thousandfold, and our moral understanding about what we ought to do hasn't kept pace. … You can have a test-tube baby or take a morning-after pill to keep from having a baby; you can satisfy your sexual urges in the privacy of your room by downloading Internet pornography, and you can keep your favorite music for free instead of buying it; you can keep your money in secret offshore bank accounts and purchase stock in cigarette companies that are exploiting impoverished Third World countries; and you can lay minefields, smuggle nuclear weapons in suitcases, make nerve gas, and drop "smart bombs" with pinpoint accuracy. Also, you can arrange to have a hundred dollars a month automatically sent from your bank account to provide education for ten girls in an Islamic country who otherwise would not learn to read and write, or to benefit a hundred malnourished people, or provide medical care for AIDS sufferers in Africa. You can use the Internet to organize citizen monitoring of environmental hazards, or to check the honesty and performance of government officials — or to spy on your neighbors. Now, what ought we to do?”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Money , People , Secret , World

“On a live performance: "If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing."”

Art Blakey (1919–1990) American jazz drummer and bandleader

Source At the Jazz Corner of the World, Blue Note, 1959.

Shoe , Feeling

“I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead ofnearer to it — at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Love , Men , People , Dreams

“Nor is it enough to refrain from personally performing an injustice, for in order to be good one must seek out and rectify injustices performed by others.”

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

Source: 1980s, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism (1986), p. 43

Personality

“Ultimately, knowledge worker performance comes down to the behaviors of individual knowledge workers.”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

Source: Thinking for a Living, 2005, p. 111

Behavior , Knowledge

“My dream is to perform in a big, celebratory concert in a free Cuba, but I don't think they'd even let me into the country. And if they did, I'd have to speak against what is going on, which the government fears. I don't know how much change toward democracy we'll see as long as one of the Castro brothers is around, but I do believe there is a future with a new leader someday. But this leader will also love Cuba and really want to take her forward. When that day comes, Emilio and I will be there in any way that we can be of service.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Latina Magazine (September, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love , Fear , Dreams , Way

“It is often said that if slaughterhouses were made of glass, most people would be vegetarians. If the general public knew what went on inside animal experimentation laboratories, they would be abolished. However, the parallel is not exact. Slaughterhouses are invisible because the public wants them that way. Everyone knows what goes on inside them; they simply do not want to be confronted with it. Most people do not know what goes on with animal experimentation. Slaughterhouses allow visits. Laboratories where animal experiments are performed are secretive. Perhaps those who conduct the experiments know they would be stopped if what they do were known even by other scientists. Perhaps they are ashamed.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson book When Elephants Weep

Conclusion, pp. 216-217
When Elephants Weep (1994)

People , Secret , Way , Animals

“Fellow-citizens, being fully invested with that high office to which the partiality of my countrymen has called me, I now take an affectionate leave of you. You will bear with you to your homes the remembrance of the pledge I have this day given to discharge all the high duties of my exalted station according to the best of my ability, and I shall enter upon their performance with entire confidence in the support of a just and generous peeps.”

William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (in office in 1841)

Inaugural address (March 4, 1841)

Home , Confidence , Support

“George Bernard Shaw is said to have told W. S. C.:
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.
W. S. C. to G. B. S.:
Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Version given in Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill’s Wit by Kay Halle, 1966
Apocryphal, from 1946. See discussion at Winston Churchill#Misattributed, and detailed discussion at “ Here are Two Tickets for the Opening of My Play. Bring a Friend—If You Have One http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/25/two-tickets-shaw/”, Garson O’Toole, Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/, (March 25, 2012)
Misattributed

“In spite of the fact that this is merely a childish fancy, there is a particle of truth in it and I only mentioned it because now, with my tremendous teaching experience, I know too well how often even talented pupils, able to cope with their task, fail to realize with what tremendous manifestation of the human spirit they are dealing. Obviously this does not make for an artistic performance; in the best of cases they stagnate at the level of good workmanship.”

Heinrich Neuhaus (1888–1964) Soviet musician

The Art of Piano Playing (1958), In Lieu of a Preface

Truth

“Parallelism: Propositions about the behavior of individuals and the performance of institutions that have been tested in laboratory microeconomies apply also to nonlaboratory environments where similar ceteris paribus conditions prevail.”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Source: "Relevance of laboratory experiments to testing resource allocation theory," 1980, p. 349.

Behavior

“I'm a writer. I've written most of the music we've performed. Most people don't know that because no one cares who writes the music. But, that's who I am. I've written poetry since I was a little girl. Music was an evolution of that.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

greenbaypressgazette.com (October 5, 2005)
2007, 2008

People , Music , Girl

“The toughest thing about performing here is, where do you go from here? Next week, I'm at the Fort Lauderdale Performing Arts Center.”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

The Carnegie Hall Performance (2006)

Art

“I immediately adored performing. It really empowers you when everyone's laughing. It gives you an immense buzz. You just feel on top of the world.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Paddy Hoey (April 6, 2007) "Football's loss was definitely stand-up's gain", Daily Post.

World , Feeling

“It is difficult to describe how it feels to gaze at living human beings whom you’ve seen perform in hard-core porn. To shake the hand of a man whose precise erectile size, angle, and vasculature are known to you. That strange I-think-we’ve-met-before sensation one feels upon seeing any celebrity in the flesh is here both intensified and twisted. It feels intensely twisted to see reigning industry queen Jenna Jameson chilling out at the Vivid booth in Jordaches and a latex bustier and to know already that she has a tattoo of a sundered valentine with the tagline HEART BREAKER on her right buttock and a tiny hairless mole just left of her anus.”

David Foster Wallace book Consider the Lobster

Big Red Son, p. 16
Consider the Lobster (2007)

Feeling , Thinking , Heart , Tattoo

“More and more film scores are being recorded the way television scores are recorded. The performers are not shown any footage. I personally don't like working that way because if you do not allow the members of the orchestra to see footage on a big screen, they will tend to perform as if they are in a concert hall. They will try not to stand out. They will try to perform as members of an orchestra. What is needed when scoring a movie such as GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA is playing that is much more aggressive. No matter how much you explain the character of Godzilla to the performers and urge them to play aggressively, they still will play as if they are in a concert hall. However, if you show the performers footage of Godzilla, their playing will dramatically change. That is why I insisted on being allowed to show footage to the performers before I agreed to score GODZILLA VS. GHIDRAH.”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview II" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub2.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1993)

Way , Change , Personality

“Routine tasks… are well-established techniques which are sure to work, and these are applied to essentially similar raw materials, That is, there is little uncertainty about methods and little variety or change in the tasks that must be performed.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 75

Change

“We may have an excellent Ear in Musick, without being able to perform in any kind. We may judg well of Poetry, without being Poets, or possessing the least of a Poetick Vein: But we can have no tolerable Notion of Goodness, without being tolerably good.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 1, p. 26; "A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

“I have never had great expectations of my performance or of a film. I try not to think about the outcome. If you look that far ahead, it sort of taints your choices as an actor. I try as hard as I can to believe that no one is ever going to see it and that it's not even a movie. Then you can allow yourself to bare more. Then, once a project is done, I tend to forget about it until it comes out.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Interview remarks quoted by Honie Stevens, "Squaring the Ledger" https://archive.is/20121206021747/www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22763328-5006011,00.html, The Daily Telegraph, November 18, 2007.

Thinking , Forgetting

“Like any great performer, Rosa pulls you in, and I found myself leaning forward, and really paying attention…but most of all, trying to figure out what the HELL she was saying”

Colleen Fitzpatrick (1972) American singer and actress

Discussing Rosa, a contestant on The Wb's Superstar USA
Attributed

Hell

“It takes a little more time to get into the role, but not very much more. In making a record you don't have the sense of projection over a distance as in an opera house. We have this microphone and this magnifies all details of a performance, all exaggerations. In the theater, you can get away with a very large, very grand phrase. For the microphone, you have to tone it down. It's the same as making a film, your gestures will be seen in close-up, so they cannot be exaggerated as they would be in a theater.”

Maria Callas (1923–1977) American-born Greek operatic soprano

On making studio recordings
Callas : The Art and the Life (1974)

Sense , Time , Housing

“All religions are ultimately cargo cults.
Adherents perform required rituals, follow
specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally
gifted with desired rewards—long life,
honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth,
victory over opponents, immortality after
death, any desired rewards.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 19 (p. 357)

Life , Death , Wisdom , Children

“Would you like the oldest, most historically significant athletic competition the world has ever known, attracting athletes from every known nation on the face of the planet to come here and perform at the peak of their abilities, in the very city where you live? Most British people go, "Where will we park?!"”

Marcus Brigstocke (1973) comedian

Live At The Apollo (2006)

People , World

“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

“Jesus, when he was on Earth, he was out there helping people, right? Why did he perform those miracles? To call attention to his profession. Why do you think I do these incredible feats? To call attention to my profession!”

Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) American exercise instructor

In "Jack LaLanne dies at 96; spiritual father of U.S. fitness movement, LosAngeles Times"

People , Thinking , Help

“It's a Cuban thing. But he ate very well — lots of organic steak. When he was diagnosed, the doctors told him he'd had cancer for six years. This dated back to around the time of Chernobyl, when he was in Wales doing a gig and it was raining. He got absolutely soaked to the skin. He then drove five hours up to the north of Scotland, still wearing the wet jacket. Later, he read in a newspaper that the sheep in the part of Wales where he had been performing had been killed because the rain contained fallout from the disaster. His cancer was right across the back of his shoulders, where the rain had first hit him. He reckoned it was that which caused it.”

Sienna Guillory (1975) British actress

An uphill challenge fit for two Article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/05/05/hsien05.xml. telegraph.co.uk. May 5, 2004.
Guillory speaks about her father, Cuban guitarist Isaac Guillory.

Time , Reading , Parting

“It must be admitted that among a certain number of advanced mathematical physicists whose work has lain mainly in the twentieth century, the ether is regarded with suspicion, or even with contempt. And some of the opponents go so far as to as to say that the nineteenth century idea of the ether has failed to establish itself, and that in consequence the whole idea of the ether is under a cloud, and that it is only upheld by a few antiquated supporters, who, though are willing to admit many modifications in the original nineteenth century notions of an ether, feel the need of a medium capable of performing the functions attributed to it.”

Oliver Lodge (1851–1940) British physicist

My Philosophy: Representing My Views on the Many Functions of the Ether of Space, p. 109 https://books.google.com/books?id=pC28TnExGEEC&pg=PA109
My Philosophy (1933)

Feeling , Mathematics , Idea , Support

“This book undertakes the study of management by utilizing analysis of the basic managerial functions as a framework for organizing knowledge and techniques in the field. Managing is defined here as the creation and maintenance of an internal environment in an enterprise where individuals, working together in groups, can perform efficiently and effectively towards the attainment of group goals. Managing could, then, be called ""performance environment design."" Essentially, managing is the art of doing, and management is the body of organized knowledge which underlies the art.
Each of the managerial functions is analyzed and described in a systematic way. As this is done, both the distilled experience of practicing managers and the findings of scholars are presented., This is approached in such a way that the reader may grasp the relationships between each of the functions, obtain a clear view of the major principles underlying them, and be given the means of organizing existing knowledge in the field.
Part 1 is an introduction to the basis of management through a study of the nature and operation of management principles (Chapter 1), a description of the various schools and approaches of management theory (Chapter 2), the functions of the manager (Chapter 3), an analytical inquiry into the total environment in which a manager must work (Chapter 4), and an introduction to comparative management in which approaches are presented for separating external environmental forces and nonmanagerial enterprise functions from purely managerial knowledge (Chapter 5)…”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: Principles of management, 1968, p. 1 (1972 edition)

Books , School , Art , Way

“He was a versatile scholar who knew several languages, kept the company of learned Brahmins and composed excellent poetry on varied themes. He had been fascinated by the Puranic story of Goddess Durga particularly in her incarnation as Mahisamardini. He performed an elaborate Yajna presided over by pundits of the ancient lore and invoked the Devi for the protection of dharma. The Devi came to him in the shape of the sword which he now asked some of his followers to pick up and ply against bigotry and oppression…. Soon it became a hallowed tradition in many Hindu families, Sikh as well as non-Sikh, to dedicate their eldest sons to the Khalsa which rightly came to be regarded as the sword-arm of Hindu society.”

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

Swarup, Ram, & Goel, S. R. (1985). Hindu-Sikh relationship. (Introduction by S.R. Goel)

Family , Learning

“Music so wishes to be heard that sometimes it calls on unlikely characters to give it voice, and ears. This wishing-to-be heard calls into existence the Performance Event; where music, musician and audience may come together as one, in communion. This communion has six different forms of being and experiencing itself (plus an invisible seventh); and these forms, or principles, are simultaneously present within the Performance.
I - When people get together with music, something happens.
II - In a performance, things come together, mysteriously; and go better than we might anticipate; and better than we deserve.
III - A performance can take on a life and character of its own.
IV - Any one performance is a multiplicity of performances.
V - The possible is possible.
VI - The impossible is possible.
The Seventh Principle resides within Silence.
Trust the event.”

Robert Fripp (1946) English guitarist, composer and record producer

The Six Principles of the Performance Event

Life , People , Music , Silence

“The hearsay that lieutenant general Manvel Grigoryan and lieutenant general Gagik Melkonyan support Levon Ter-Petrosyan does not correspond to the truth. These statements are absolutely false. All Deputies to the Defense Minister are performing their duties. The army doesn't deal with politics. We obey the orders of the Supreme Commander. Dreams of the opposition will never come true.”

Mikael Harutyunyan (1946) Armenian general

Quoted in article "Mikael Harutyunyan: no one will involve army in political processes." panarmenian.net [February 23, 2008]

Truth , Dreams , Support , Falseness

“The connection of Islam to Arabism is not, therefore, similar to that of any religion to any nationalism. The Arab Christians, when their nationalism is fully awakened and when they restore their genuine character, will recognize that Islam for them is nationalist education in which they have to be absorbed in order to understand and love it to the extent that they become concerned about Islam as about the most precious thing in their Arabism. If the actual reality is still far from this wish, the new generation of Arab Christians has a task which it should perform with daring and detachment, sacrificing for it their pride and benefits, for there is nothing that equals Arabism and the honor of belonging to it.”

Michel Aflaq (1910–1989) Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist

In Memory of the Arab Prophet (1 April 1943)

Love , Education , Religion , Understanding

“There is no problem in all mathematics that cannot be solved by direct counting. But with the present implements of mathematics many operations can be performed in a few minutes which without mathematical methods would take a lifetime.”

Ernst Mach (1838–1916) Austrian physicist and university educator

Source: 19th century, Popular Scientific Lectures [McCormack] (Chicago, 1898), p. 197; On mathematics and counting.

Mathematics , Problem

“When asked why she thought there was deterioration in standards and expectations of art, she suggested it was the result of the fuss generated around young dancers, the pressures to perform at an early debut, and the indiscriminate acclaim given to young dancers before they had found their feet.”

Balasaraswati (1918–1984) Indian dancer

On her abhinaya (the art of expression'). Dance readings and musings Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life, 1 December 2013, Narthaki.com http://www.narthaki.com/info/bookrev/bkrev1a.html,
Quote

Art

“It is possible to regulate watercourses over any given distance without embankment works; to transport timber and other materials, even when heavier than water, for example ore, stones, etc., down the centre of such water-courses; to raise the height of the water table in the surrounding countryside and to endow the water with all those elements necessary for the prevailing vegetation. Furthermore it is possible in this way to render timber and other such materials non-inflammable and rot resistant; to produce drinking and spa-water for man, beast and soil of any desired composition and performance artificially, but in the way that it occurs in Nature; to raise water in a vertical pipe without pumping devices; to produce any amount of electricity and radiant energy almost without cost; to raise soil quality and to heal cancer, tuberculosis and a variety of nervous disorders… the practical implementation of this … would without doubt signify a complete reorientation in all areas of science and technology. By application of these new found laws, I have already constructed fairly large installations in the spheres of log-rafting and river regulation, which as is known, have functioned faultlessly for a decade, and which today still present insoluble enigmas to the various scientific disciplines concerned.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

Law , Way , Drink , Nature

“When you're Singapore and your existence depends on performance — extraordinary performance, better than your competitors — when that performance disappears because the system on which it's been based becomes eroded, then you've lost everything… I try to tell the younger generation that and they say the old man is playing the same record, we've heard it all before. I happen to know how we got here and I know how we can unscramble it.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

On one election result in Singapore, in Straits Times (26 June 2008), and "Opposition would ruin Singapore: Lee Kuan Yew" in AFP report at Google News (26 June 2008) http://web.archive.org/web/20080630100140/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hO5GOaqrgGNspmaeLjs7LFRH6Fsw
2000s

Dependency

“At Newfoundland, it is said, that dried cod performs the office of money”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XXI, Section II, p. 221

Money

Quotes about performance page 7

Quotes about performance
page 7