Quotes about point
page 22

“The point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes in the history of music…. The point is not to hold up Beethoven as exceptionally monstrous. The Ninth Symphony is probably our most compelling articulation in music of the contradictory impulses that have organized patriarchal culture since the Enlightenment. Moreover, within the parameters of his own musical compositions, he may be heard as enacting a critique of narrative obligations that is…devestating.”

Susan McClary (1946) American musicologist

McClary, Susan (1991). Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality, p. 128-129. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816618984.

Music, History

“Nothing can be more untrue than to pretend that the general religious mind of India has not at all grasped the higher spiritual or metaphysical truths of Indian religion. It is a sheer falsehood or a wilful misunderstanding to say that it has lived always in the externals only of rite and creed and shibboleth. On the contrary, the main metaphysical truths of Indian religious philosophy in their broad idea-aspects or in an intensely poetic and dynamic representation have been stamped on the general mind of the people. The ideas of Maya, Lila, divine Immanence are as familiar to the man in the street and the worshipper in the temple as to the philosopher in his seclusion, the monk in his monastery and the saint in his hermitage. The spiritual reality which they reflect, the profound experience to which they point, has permeated the religion, the literature, the art, even the popular religious songs of a whole people.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Indian Spirituality and Life (1919)

People, Truth, Religion, Art

“We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view…”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Tangled Up In Blue

Feeling

“An "empty world," i. e., a homogeneous manifold at all points at which equations (1) are satisfied, has, according to the theory, a constant Riemann curvature, and any deviation from this fundamental solution is to be directly attributed to the influence of matter or energy.”

Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

"On Relativistic Cosmology" (1928)

World

“Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

To a Skylark, st. 2 (1825).

Home

“One of the issues with animals that I'm really concerned about is people who get animals as pets and maybe aren't prepared to take care of them and haven't really thought it through. I've seen a lot of people I know who get dogs and they can't handle them two days later … [Fur] is a really easy thing to avoid, you don't need fur and if you want the look of fur, I mean, there’s faux fur. There's just no reason for it. I just make a point of telling people that I don't buy products that are fur … I have a fragrance line and one of the things I really love about is the manufacturer assured me that nothing's tested on animals … I mean, how many years have we been selling cosmetics in this country? We should be able to figure out what we can use on humans safely and what no.”

Holly Madison (1979) American author, model, showgirl, and television personality

“Holly Madison Naked Video,” video interview with PETA (8 February 2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDBAPh_28O4.

Love, People, Dogs, Animals

“The achievement of such a change of register through a sequential progression is a familiar procedure in the music of the "common practice." The significant distinction is that where Berg subdivides the registral span into equal, i. e., cyclic, intervals, his tonal predecessors subdivide it, in changing register through sequential transference, into the unequal intervals of the diatonic scale. As I pointed out in my last lecture, however, the qualitative transformation in the language of music which we have experienced in our century has a long prehistory. Beginning with Schubert, we occasionally find normal diatonic functions questioned in changes of key that progress along the intervals of the whole-tone scale, or the diminished-7th chord, or the augmented triad. An even more radical example of a cyclic progression in a tonal composition is…from Wagner”

George Perle (1915–2009) American composer

Die Walkure, Act III
Page 96
The Listening Composer

Music, Question, Change

“The crucial and monumental development in the art music of our century has been the qualitative change in the foundational premises of our musical language--the change from a highly chromaticized tonality whose principle functions and operations are still based on a limited selection, the seven notes of the diatonic scale, from the universal set of twelve pitch classes to a scale that comprehends the total pitch-class content of that universal set. We can point to the moment of that change with some precision. It occurs most obviously in the music of Scriabin and the Vienna circle, Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, in 1909-1910, and very soon afterwards, though less obviously, in the music of Bartok and Stravinsky. I think it is safe to say that nothing of comparable significance for music has ever occurred, because the closing of the circle of fifths gives us a symmetrical collection of all twelve pitch classes that eliminates the special structural function of the perfect fifth itself, which has been the basis of every real musical system that we have hitherto known.”

George Perle (1915–2009) American composer

Pages 42-43
The Listening Composer

Art, Music, Thinking, Universe

“They [laboratory groups] bypass such questions as how one comes to know that a problem exists, what it does to solution adequacy to be working on several different things concurrently with problem solving, what it's like to go about solving a felt, intuited problem rather than an explicitly stated consensually validated problem which was made visible to all members at a specific point in time.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Karl E. Weick (1971, p. 9), as cited in: Harry L. Davis. " Decision Making within the Household http://www.unternehmenssteuertag.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Redaktion/Seco@home/nachhaltiger_Energiekonsum/Literatur/entscheidungen_haushalte/Decision_Making_within_the_Household.pdf," The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 2, No. 4. (Mar., 1976), pp. 241-260. 1970s

Question, Problem, Time

“There is another side to the theory of relativity. We have pointed out in the beginning how the development of science is in the direction to make it less subjective, to separate more and more in the observed facts that which belongs to the reality behind the phenomena, the absolute, from the subjective element, which is introduced by the observer, the relative. Einstein's theory is a great step in that direction. We can say that the theory of relativity is intended to remove entirely the relative and exhibit the pure absolute.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

Reality, Science

“The elder culture that is being improvised all around us day by day… promises to be the road toward a saner, more compassionate, more sustainable world—altogether, a more important turning point than ever presented itself in the 1960s… This, at last, is what the dissenting idealism of the 1960s was, in its highest and brightest expression, all about: a transformation of values that may finally reveal the goal of industrialization… In raising that possibility I cling to one hope. They grew up… reveling in their willingness to search beyond the limits of convention. …What Boomers left undone in their youth, they will return to take up in their maturity… we have won years back from death. That gives us the grand project of using those extra years to build a culture that is morally remarkable.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

The Making of an Elder Culture (2009)

Death, Youth, World, Hope

“Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the extraordinary father of modern conjuring, made the salient point that ‘a magician is an actor playing the part of a magician’. This is a very good description. However, an actor takes for granted how to create drama in every word, movement and look. The average magician is barely aware of its existence.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Parting

“Unfortunately, before his mission could be completed, Burlinghame died in St Petersburg. His mission was important from two points of view. In the first place he was able to secure assurances both from America and England that they would deal only with the Central Government at Peking, and the danger that existed at one time of the Powers directly negotiating with viceroys and thus securing a dissolution of the central authority on which British mercantile opinion was insistent was avoided. The Shanghai merchants' refrain at this time was `when will the Foreign Office realize that China was a confederation of many States?”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

Time

“The notion of the "axis of evil" has an interesting provenance. In early drafts of the President's speech the "axis of evil" was the "axis of hatred", "axis" having been settled on for its associations with the enemy in the second world war. The "axis of hatred" at this point consisted of only two countries, Iran and Iraq. whereas of course the original axis consisted of three (Germany, Italy, Japan). It was additionally noticed that Iran and Iraq, while not both Arab, were both Muslim. So they brought in North Korea.
We may notice, in this embarras of the inapposite, that the Axis was an alliance, whereas Iran and Iraq are blood-bespattered enemies, and the zombie nation of North Korea is, in truth, so mortally ashamed of itself that it can hardly bear to show its face.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"The Palace of the End" (2003)

War, Truth, World, Evil

“There is nothing wrong with being a Marxist. Their point of view is essential to a democratic debate”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

The Daily Telegraph, 1977
1970s

“At first to prescription medication and then to pretty much everything. I’d had several years of being in control of my alcoholism. I was pretty reliable; I took care of business. And then when my personal life got out of hand, I just got loaded. So I went through a couple of years of depression again. I didn’t eat, I drank a lot, I started taking pills, and at some point you just get sick of it. I was pretty sure that nothing like that would ever happen to me. Then I ended up having as bad a problem as anyone’s going to have and still be alive. So I realized I’m not special. I’m just like everybody else.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

When asked what did alcohol lead him to ** Chris Cornell’s 2006 Interview on Audioslave, Addiction, and Reinventing Rock, Spin, 17 May 2017, 31 May 2017 http://www.spin.com/2017/05/chris-cornell-audioslave-interview/, Audioslave Era

Life, Alcohol, Business, Problem

“I called Anna Freud in London to tell her what was about to happen. It was a strange, honest conversation.
"Miss Freud, I am sure you have heard that Dr. Eissler is going to fire me from the Archives."
"Yes. And I disagree with him. I did not like that second article in the New York Times. And I think you are wrong in your views. But I do not see why you should be so severely punished for holding them. On one point, however, I feel that I was deceived by Dr. Eissler. He never told me that you were going to live in my house. My understanding was that you were to be in charge of the library and of the research, but not actually live in the house." I never did find out why Eissler never explained this to Anna Freud. Perhaps he was being discreet, not wanting to bring up the matter of her death, or perhaps he knew she would not like the idea of my living in the house. Of course, as things turned out, I never did live in the Freud house.
"Did the idea of my living in your house upset you?"
"Frankly, yes it did."
"Why?"
"Because my father would not have wanted it."
"You mean he would not have liked me?"
"I am not saying that. But he would not have wanted somebody like you living in the house. He would have wanted somebody quiet, modest, unobtrusive. You would have been everywhere, searching for everything, going through boxes, drawers, closets, bringing people in, opening things up. My father would not have wanted this." She was right.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: Final Analysis (1990), pp. 196-197

Death, People, Feeling, Search

““We’re fools!” said Harrison. “Morons! Idiots!”
“If you speak of my altruism,” said Pepe cheerfully, “I agree. But if you speak of your interest in a very pretty girl, then I point out that nobody is ever as happy as while he is making a fool of himself over a woman.”

Murray Leinster (1896–1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Time Tunnel (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 24).

Happiness, Fools, Girl

“All I can do is turn a phrase until it catches the light. There was a time when I got hot under the collar if the critics said I had nothing new to say. Now I realise that they had a point. My field is the self-evident. Everything I say is obvious, although I like to think that some of the obvious things I have said were not so obvious until I said them.”

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

Source: Memoirs, May Week Was in June (1990), p. 241

Thinking, Light, Time

“The geometric line is an invisible thing. It is the track made by the moving point; that is, its product. It is created by movement – specifically through the destruction of the intense self-contained repose of the point. Here, the leap out of the static to the dynamic occurs. […] The forces coming from without which transform the point into a line, can be very diverse. The variation in lines depends upon the number of these forces and upon their combinations.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

1920 - 1930, Point and line to plane, 1926

Dependency

“People have different professions, different points of view. They are like observers looking at the world through the narrow windows of an otherwise closed structure. Occasionally they assemble at the center and discuss what they have seen; then one observer will talk about a beautiful landscape with red trees, a red sky, and a red lake in the middle; the next one about an infinite blue plane without articulation; and the third about an impressive, five-floor-high building; they will quarrel. The observer on top of the structure (me) can only laugh at their quarrels-but for them the quarrels will be real and he (the observer on top) will be an unworldly dreamer. Real life… is exactly like that. Every person has his own well-defined opinions, which color the section of the world he percieves. And when people come together, when they try to discover the nature of the whole which they belong, they are bound to talk past each other; they will understand neither themselves nor their companions.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Killing Time

Pg 48.
Killing Time (1995)

Life, People, World, Beauty

“Maia lifted her gaze to watch low clouds briefly occult a brightly speckled, placid sea, its green shoals aflicker with silver schools of fish and the flapping shadows of hovering swoop-birds. The variegated colors were lush, voluptuous. Mixing with scents carried by the moist, heavy wind, they made a stew for the senses, spiced with fecund exudates of life.
The beauty was heavy-handed, adamantly consoling. She got the point—that life goes on.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 4 (p. 80)

Life, School, Beauty, Color

“At this point in history when all things which concern man and the structure and elements of history itself are suddenly revealed to us in a new light, it behooves us in our scientific thinking to become masters of the situation, for it is not inconceivable that sooner than we suspect, as has often been the case before in history, this vision may disappear, the opportunity may be lost, and the world will once again present a static, uniform, and inflexible countenance.”

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) Hungarian sociologist

Ideology and Utopia (1929)

World, History, Thinking, Light

“In its most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internal, affectively apprehended, aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre. This is how it has been understood by the great philosophers from Plato, the poet, to Nicolas of Cusa and other representatives of frigid scholasticism. Once this definition has been accepted, it gives rise to a series of important consequences. Love is power of producing inter-centric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all the natural centres, living and pre-living, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that it is possible to conceive between those centres. Love, in fact, is the expression and the agent of universal synthesis.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

pp. 70–71 https://archive.org/stream/ActivationOfEnergy/Activation_of_Energy#page/n65/mode/2up Activation of Energy (1976)

Love, World, Nature, Universe

“Freudian concepts exposed the fraud of the existence of the “individual.” To be absolutely clear here: the Freudian concepts expose the fraud, not so as to perpetuate it, but undo it. That is, unlike the mechanical behaviorists, the point was not to prove that the individual was an illusion; rather it was to show to what extent the individual did not yet exist. To critical theory, psychoanalysis demonstrates the degree to which the individual is de-individualized by society.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 30

Fraud

“When you buy a song file what you are buying is not a stamped product, but permission. Permission to copy a track from a sanctioned vendor. But it is just as easy if not easier from people to copy from one another. Who needs a middle man unless they offer an added value and do it at a motivating price point?”

Richard Menta American journalist

Source Record Industry Digital Growth Doomed by Mechanical Rates http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/8002/mechanicals.htm - 10/05/2008 Quotes from the MP3 Newswire

People, Motivation

“I tell you, brother, I am not good from a clergyman's point of view. I know full well that, frankly speaking, prostitutes are bad, but I feel something human in them which makes me feel not the least scruple to associate with them; I see nothing very wrong in them... And now, as in other periods of decline of civilization, the corruption of society has turned upside down all relations of good and evil, and one falls back logically on the old saying: "The first shall be last and the last shall be first."”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Sept. 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 326) p. 38 Vincent is referring to his former relation with Sien, in The Hague 1880s, 1883

Feeling, Evil

“I should point out that I don’t condone gambling of any sort unless you can cheat very effectively and stack the odds at least ninety percent on your favour, which is essentially what I’m doing here.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Other TV and web appearances, E4 Mind Control Night

Cheating

“A very eminent writer has observed, that "the conversion of the Gentile world, whether we consider the difficulties attending it, the opposition made to it, the wonderful work wrought to accomplish it, or the happy effects and consequences of it, may be considered as a more illustrious evidence of God's power, than even our Saviour's miracles of casting out devils, healing the sick, and raising the dead." Indeed, a miracle said to have been wrought without any attending circumstances to justify such an exertion of divine power, could not easily be rendered credible; and our author's argument proves no more. If it were related, that about 1700 years ago, a man was raised from the dead, without its answering any other end than that of restoring him to life, Iconfess that no degree of evidence could induce me tobelieve it; but if the moral government of God appeared in that event, and there were circumstances attending it which could not be accounted for by any human means, the fact becomes credible. When two extraordinary events are thus connected, the proof of one established the truth of the other. Our author has reasoned upon the fact as standing alone, in which case it would not be easy to disprove some of his reasoning; but the fact should be considered in a moral view - as connected with the establishment of a pure religion, and it then becomes credible. In the proof of any circumstance, we must consider every principle which tends to establish it; whereas our author, by considering the case of a man said to have been raised from the dead, simpli in a physical point of view, without any reference to a moral end, endavours to show that it cannot be rendered credible; and, from such principles, we may admit his conclusions without affecting the credibility of Christianity. The general principle on which he establishes his argument, is not the great foundation upon which the evidence of Christianity rests. He says, "Notestimony can be sufficient to establish a miracle, unless it be of such a kind, that the falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endavours to prove." Now this reasoning, at furthest, can only be admitted in those cases where the fact has nothing but testimony to establish it. But the proofs of Christianity do not rest simply upon the testimony of its first promulgators, and that of those who were affterwards the instruments of communicating it; but they rest principally upon the acknowledged and very extraordinary affects which were produced by the preaching of a few unlearned, obscure persons, who taught "Christ crucified;" and it is upon these indisuptable matters of ffact which we reason; and when the effects are totally unaccountable upon any principle which we can collect from the operation of human means, we must either admit miracles, or admit an effect without an adequate cause. Also, when the proof of any position depends upon arguments drawn from various sources, all concutring to establish its turh, to select some one circumstance, and atrempt to show that that alone is not sufficient to render the fact credible, and thence infer that it is not ture, is a conclusion not to be admitted. But it is thus that our author has endavoured to destroy the credibiliry of Christianity, the evidences of which depend upon a great variety of circumstances and facts which are indisputably true, all cooperating to confirm its truth; but an examination of these falls not whithin the plan here proposed. He rests all his arguments upon the extraordinary nature of the fact, considered alone by itself; for a common fact, with the same evidence, would immediately be admitted. I have endavoured to show, that the extraordinary nature, as much as the mosst common events are necessary to fulfill the usual dispensations of Providence, and therefore the Deity was then direted by the same motive as in a more ordinary case, that of affording us such assitance as our moral condition renders necessary. In the establishment of a pur religion, the proof of its divine origin may require some very extraordinary circumstances which may never afterwards be requisite, and accordingly we find that they have not happened. Here is therefore a perfect concistencty in the operation of the Deity, in his moral government, and not a violation of the laws of nature: Secondly, the fact is immediately connected with others which are indisputably true, and which, without the supossition of the truth of that fact, would be, at least, equally miraculous. Thus I conceive the reasoning of our author to be totally inconclusive; and the argumentss which have been employed to prove the fallacy of his conclusions, appear at the same time, fully to justify our belief in, and prove the moral certainty of, our holy religion.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 27; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA262," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 262-263

Life, God, Happiness, Truth

“The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it. By playing at Chess then, we may learn: 1st, Foresight, which looks a little into futurity, and considers the consequences that may attend an action … 2nd, Circumspection, which surveys the whole Chess-board, or scene of action: — the relation of the several Pieces, and their situations; … 3rd, Caution, not to make our moves too hastily…”

Benjamin Franklin book The Morals of Chess

"The Morals of Chess" (article) (1750).
1750s

Life, Game, Learning, Future

“Superman couldn't keep that pointing in the right direction.”

Martin Brundle (1959) British racecar driver

“The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a “mouse”. There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

In a review of the Macintosh in The San Francisco Examiner (19 February 1984)
1980s & 1990s

People, Nature, Thinking, Personality

“A lot of people who are in the movie business don't really know much about movies, and they certainly don't know movie history. You have to even find a code when you're talking to these people—you can't use the references that you would use when talking to somebody who knows movie history. When you go in to pitch something, it depends what you invoke. You can't invoke anything really before 1980 with these people because they don't know what you're talking about. It's limiting. They get annoyed. They get offended that you are somehow trying to expose the fact that they don't know things, and make them feel inadequate. Which is of course not the point, or why you do it.”

Joe Dante (1946) film director

"Fun, Yes, But By No Means Civilized": Interview with Joe Dante (Part 2) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/fun-yes-but-by-no-means-civilized-interview-with-joe-dante-part-2 (July 8 2009)

People, Feeling, History, Business

“Now that all the distractions of the material life had been removed, Macrina persuaded her mother to give up her ordinary life and all showy style of living and the services of domestics to which she had been accustomed before, and bring her point of view down to that of the masses, and to share the life of the maids, treating all her slave girls as if they were sisters and belonged to the same rank as herself.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Life of Macrina

Life, Girl, Sister

“The threat of the Christians in the early days of Rome and subsequently was enormous; they were a bare handful and they were shaking up the entire Roman empire, to the point that Rome was concerned for about three centuries with this problem of the Christians. How in the world were they to deal with these people? Because they were threatening to take over the empire simply by their governmental ways. They were creating a higher obedience. Just as the apostles had said at the beginning "we must obey God rather than men" so again and again men in one area of Roman life after another were exercising dominion. Asserting the priority of their Allegiance to God.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Dominion (n. d.)

Life, Men, God, People

“O, my Russia! O, wife! The long road is clear to us to the point of pain. Our road – like a Tatar arrow of ancient will has pierced our breast.”

Alexander Blok (1880–1921) poet

"On Kulikovo Field" (1908); translation from Sarah Pratt Nikolai Zabolotsky (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000) p. 53.

Pain

“We're in this strange age where we can't say ‘I love you,’ at least not sincerely. … It's something where, if you simplify it, the whole point of trying to capture it would sort of make it dead. The fragmented thing can create a situation where the holes between the pieces of the puzzle can be filled with meaning, and thereby you get a greater sense of complexity or feeling.”

Christoffer Boe (1974) Danish filmmaker

Quoted in Fade to Black: Christoffer Boe, interview with Darroch Greer, Millimeter (September 1, 2004)

Love, Age, Feeling, Sense

“What really got under Londa’s skin, I soon learned, was not the Messiah’s sermon per se but the discontinuity between its sublime directives and the ignominious course of Western history, a spectacle that, the more we thought about it, increasingly struck Londa and me as largely a fancy-dress danse macabre, Titus Andronicus on a hemispheric and ultimately global scale, though I hastened to point out that the chronicles of other civilizations were likewise awash in blood. What had gone wrong? She wanted to know. When and why had the teachings of Jesus Christ become an optional component of Christianity?”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 6 (pp. 128-129)

History, Learning, Christ

“Bach really cannot be seen, understood, and interpreted from an isolated point. Bach has to be explored as part of something complete, unique, of an universe - an aspect of human reality.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Reality, Universe, Parting

“We can rarely see things from the point of view of another person because we look at the facts through the screen of an impression or an interest which distorts our view; and then there are accusations, quarrels and misunderstanding.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

Personality

“In point of fact, Western philosophy has never set itself free of Christianity: wherever Christianity did not have a hand in the construction of modern philosophy it served instead as a stumbling block.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

An Essay on Christian Philosophy (1955), p. 51.

“To shoot a grouse exacts something from the thinking man. It requires principle, which like good manners is not old-fashioned and never has been. It is something in your heart and in your head. The perceptive gunner is immersed in the style and charm of his dog’s work and in the shot, but with it all, he is one with what happens to the bird. His shooting is not vindictive, a getting-even because the grouse is so hard to hit. To regret a miss is normal animal response to temporary failure, not to be confused with sentient “the bastard got away.” Emotions are drawn to such thin threads they reach the breaking point, but when finely-honed tensions balance, shooting becomes a spiritual thing between you and the grouse.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

An Affair with Grouse (1982)

Dogs, Fashion, Failure, Bird

“The icing on the cake is where I had to take second fiddle to Yaxeni Oriquen Garcia 2005 Ms Olympia that was a big stab in the back at the time we were instructed to reduce 20% in the muscularity round.. I normally compete at 160-162 that year being the embassador of the sport I must lead by example, which I did. I competed at 155lbs still same conditioning, shape etc…. Lord behold second fiddle to Yaxeni.. It looked as if Yaxeni had did the opposite of what the current ruling stated and she was being rewarded.. Come on we have two different body types! I have a small tapered waist line, fine detail flowing through out my body, nice harmony and she's displaying nothing but BIG. When someone refers to Yaxeni body they say she's a big girl.. She has great confidence about herself on stage, which is an EXCELLENT tool and having that can always gain you a few points, but to flat out win is RIDICULOUS and not possible… Anyhow, Yaxeni was more surprised then I when hearing her name announced victoriously. And believe it or not annoucing the winner that year was Lenda Murray, so she was probably soaking up every second of me losing as a mild way of payback. I was always told when going after the champ you have to completely knock the champ "OUT."”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

Anything close should not cause you a win.
2012-02-05
An Exclusive Interview With the Ms. Olympia Champion Iris Kyle
RX Muscle
Internet
http://www.rxmuscle.com/rx-girl-articles/female-bodybuilding/4986-an-exclusive-interview-with-the-ms-olympia-champion-iris-kyle.html
Sourced quotes, 2012

Way, Confidence, Girl, Sport

“Think about some of the highest status men in modern societies: sports stars, rock stars, politicians. At first glance, it might seem that these individuals provide further proof of men’s polygynous nature: They are often notorious for their sexual antics and infidelities (the famous scandal with Tiger Woods is a case in point)… However, the picture is not so simple. Many of these men are in the position where they have essentially an unlimited supply of potential sexual partners. Do all of them or even most of them eschew long-term relationships and opt instead for as many one-night stands and brief love affairs as possible? Sometimes, perhaps, but often they do not. These men — the most eligible bachelors, the highest status males in our species — often do what male chimpanzees never do: They fall in love and form long-term pair bonds.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013), pp. 156-157

Love, Men, Star, Nature

“Duchamp realized that there was something false in art, but his limitation was that, rather than demystifying, he amplified it. By taking a manufactured object and placing it out of context, he quite simply symbolized art. His actions tended to “represent” and not “present” the object. Duchamp, like all artists, could not “present” anything at all without “re-presenting” it. And if he symbolized art in this way, it was because as soon as he exhibited a bottle rack, a shovel, or a urinal, he was really stating that anything was art as soon as you pointed at it. By extension, and this is very important, that means that a cow in a field becomes art in a painting, a tree by Courbet becomes art, and a woman by Rubens becomes art; now this cow, this tree, and this woman exist in another way. Duchamp dismantled this process supposedly to take away its sanctity, but he went about it in such a way that by being against art, he was in art. Let’s clarify an important point right away: Duchamp is not anti-art. He belongs to art. The art of extolling the consumer society.”

Daniel Buren (1938) sculptor from France

Source: Art is no longer justifiable or setting the record straight, 2000, p. 66

Art, Way, Tree, Painting

“One of the most popular superstitions consists in the belief that every man is endowed with definite qualities—that some men are kind, some wicked; some wise, some foolish; some energetic, some apathetic, etc. This is not true. We may say of a man that he is oftener kind than wicked; oftener wise than foolish; oftener energetic than apathetic, and vice versa. But it would not be true to say of one man that he is always kind or wise, and of another that he is always wicked or foolish. And yet we thus divide people. This is erroneous. Men are like rivers—the water in all of them, and at every point, is the same, but every one of them is now narrow, now swift, now wide, now calm, now clear, now cold, now muddy, now warm. So it is with men. Every man bears within him the germs of all human qualities, sometimes manifesting one quality, sometimes another; and often does not resemble himself at all, manifesting no change. With some people these changes are particularly sharp. And to this class Nekhludoff belonged.”

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 57

Men, People, Water, Change

“"The edge of evening … the long curve of people all wishing on the first star…. Always remember those men and women along the thousands of miles of land and sea. The true moment of shadow is the moment in which you see the point of light in the sky. The single point, and the Shadow that has just gathered you in its sweep …"
Always remember.
The first star hangs between his feet.
Now”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

Women, Men, People, Star

“Science Of Energetics. Although the mechanical hypothesis just mentioned may be useful and interesting as a means of anticipating laws, and connecting the science of thermodynamics with that of ordinary mechanics, still it is to be remembered that the science of thermodynamics is by no means dependent for its certainty on that or any other hypothesis, having been now reduced, to a system of principles, or general facts, expressing strictly the results of experiment as to the relations between heat and motive power. In this point of view the laws of thermodynamics may be regarded as particular cases of more general laws, applicable to all such states of matter as constitute Energy, or the capacity to perform work, which more general laws form the basis of the science of energetics, — a science comprehending, as special branches, the theories of motion, heat, light, electricity, and all other physical phenomena.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

Source: A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers (1859), p. 31

Law, Motivation, Light, Science

“It seems like people my age are over-protected today, even to the point where a lot of parents refuse to put their kids in the position to make important decisions, to aspire to great things, because they don’t want to put them in a position to fail.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 92

People, Age, Parent, Decision

“Being up on something is a way of dismissing it. To espouse any point of view is a danger — it might leave us stuck with last year's cause. Prized for their novelty alone, ideas, gimmicks, trends become equivalent, interchangeable.”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

New York City (p. 260).
States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980)

Way, Idea

““In the end Humankind destroyed the heaven and the earth,” Soapstone began…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let there be security,’ and there was security. And Humankind tested the security, that it would detonate. And Humankind divided the U-235 from the U-238. And the evening and the morning were the first strike.” Soapstone looked up from the book. “Some commentators feel that the author should have inserted, ‘And Humankind saw the security, that it was evil.’ Others point out that such a view was not universally shared.”…
Casting his eyes heavenward, Soapstone continued. “And Humankind said, ‘Let there be a holocaust in the midst of the dry land.’ And Humankind poisoned the aquifers that were below the dry land and scorched the ozone that was above the dry land. And the evening and the morning were the second strike.”…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let the ultraviolet light destroy the food chains that bring forth the moving creature!’ And the evening and the morning—”…
“And Humankind said, ‘Let there be rays in the firmament to fall upon the survivors!’ And Humankind made two great rays, the greater gamma radiation to give penetrating whole-body doses, and the lesser beta radiation to burn the plants and the bowels of animals! And Humankind sterilized each living creature, saying, ‘Be fruitless, and barren, and cease to—’””

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: This Is the Way the World Ends (1986), Chapter 9, “In Which by Taking a Step Backward the City of New York Brings Our Hero a Step Forward” (pp. 115-116; ellipses not in the original)

Books, Food, Feeling, Light

“I once had to dispense with a literary agent because she drank too much. She was very surprised but I pointed out to her, quite logically I thought, that one of us had to be sober and it certainly wan't going to be me.”

Jeffrey Bernard (1932–1997) British journalist

Ibid. (29.10.88)

“Zend-Avesta, a truly life giving word creating new life in knowledge as in faith! …As Fechner in his Nanna sought to show that plants have souls, so the point of departure of his contemplations in the Zend-Avesta is the doctrine that the stars have souls. The method he employs is not that of the abstraction of general laws by induction and the application and testing of these in the explanation of nature, it is analogy. He compares the earth with our own organism, which we know to be endowed with a soul. He searches out not merely in a one-sided way the similarities, but does equal justice to the dissimilarities, too, and so arrives at the conclusion that all the former show the earth to be a being with a soul, and that all the latter indicate that it is a being with a soul far higher than our own.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Life, Faith, Justice, Law

“I am only able to do what stirs me. I want to perceive with my senses things which at the moment are not generally perceived. I do not share, as yet, Beuys' consciousness or hope that all people are moving to a certain point where they all become artists. I am of the opinion that there are artists and non-artists. I think that this is the way it always was and always will be. I do not believe that we are in the center of the world. It is possible that there are gods who do not relate to human. As an artist, I believe that it is possible to depict these forces. I know it sounds absurd when I say that man can perceive some things and adumbrate powers, which do not relate to him. But perhaps the artist, unlike the non-artist, is able to do just that.”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

(1986) n.p.
Structures are no longer valid', in "Ein Gespräch..."

God, People, World, Hope

“The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.”

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

Hazel Grace Lancaster, p. 139
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Housing

“The absence from the Dead Sea Scrolls of historical texts proper should not surprise us. Neither in the inter-Testamental period, nor in earlier biblical times, was the recording of history as we understand it a strong point among the Jews.”

Géza Vermès (1924–2013) British scholar

Source: The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Chapter 3: The History of the Community, p. 49

History, Understanding, Strong, Time

“As an advocate of birth control I wish … to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation…. On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

"The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda", October 1921, page 5.
Birth Control Review, 1918-32

Birth, Problem

“Being someone who has been the frontman and the songwriter for a band that has been together since I was 12 years old, you do get to that point where you think: 'If I keep doing this for too long it's going to be all I can do' … which is why in Silverchair I kept changing.”

Daniel Johns (1979) Australian musician

The Australian, "Pop goes sad boy of rock" June 2004
Interviews

Thinking, Change

“The sixteenth century transformed Middle English into modern English. Grammar was up for grabs. People made up vocabulary and syntax as they went along. Not until the eighteenth century would rules of English usage appear. Shakespearean language is a bizarre super-tongue, alien and plastic, twisting, turning, and forever escaping. It is untranslatable, since it knocks Anglo-Saxon root words against Norman and Greco-Roman importations sweetly or harshly, kicking us up and down rhetorical levels with witty abruptness. No one in real life ever spoke like Shakespeare’s characters. His language does not “make sense,” especially in the greatest plays. Anywhere from a third to a half of every Shakespearean play, I conservatively estimate, will always remain under an interpretive cloud. Unfortunately, this fact is obscured by the encrustations of footnotes in modern texts, which imply to the poor cowed student that if only he knew what the savants do, all would be as clear as day. Every time I open Hamlet, I am stunned by its hostile virtuosity, its elusiveness and impenetrability. Shakespeare uses language to darken. He suspends the traditional compass points of rhetoric, still quite firm in Marlowe, normally regarded as Shakespeare’s main influence. Shakespeare’s words have “aura.””

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

This he got from Spenser, not Marlowe.
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 195

Life, Hostility, People, Sense

“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

Departure, Past, Housing

“The truth is that the mathematical sciences are growing in complete security and harmony. The ideas of Dedekind, Poincare, and Hilbert have been systematically developed with great success, without any conflict in the results. It is only from the philosophical point of view that objections have been raised. They bear on certain ways of reasoning peculiar to analysis and set theory. These modes of reasoning were first systematically applied in giving a rigorous form to the methods of the calculus. [According to them, ] the objects of a theory are viewed as elements of a totality such that one can reason as follows: For each property expressible using the notions of the theory, it is [an] objectively determinate [fact] whether there is or there is not an element of the totality which possesses this property. Similarly, it follows from this point of view that either all the elements of a set possess a given property, or there is at least one element which does not possess it”

Paul Bernays (1888–1977) Swiss mathematician

Paul Bernays, Platonism in mathematics http://sites.google.com/site/ancientaroma2/book_platonism.pdf (1935)

Truth, Way, Mathematics, Idea

“Physiologic facts concerning the origin of species in nature were unknown in the time of Darwin... The experience of the breeders was quite inadequate to the use which Darwin made of it. It was neither scientific, nor critically accurate. Laws of variation were barely conjectured; the different types of variability were only imperfectly distinguished. The breeders' conception was fairly sufficient for practical purposes, but science needed a clear understanding of the factors in the general process of variation. Repeatedly Darwin tried to formulate these causes, but the evidence available did not meet his requirements.
Quetelet's law of variation had not yet been published. Mendel's claim of hereditary units for the explanation of certain laws of hybrids discovered by him, was not yet made. The clear distinction between spontaneous and sudden changes, as compared with the ever-present fluctuating variations, is only of late coming into recognition by agriculturists. Innumerable minor points which go to elucidate the breeders' experience, and with which we are now quite familiar, were unknown in Darwin's time. No wonder that he made mistakes, and laid stress on modes of descent, which have since been proved to be of minor importance or even of doubtful validity.”

Hugo De Vries (1848–1935) Dutch botanist

Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation (1904), The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, p. 5-6

Law, Understanding, Nature, Science

“My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic activism. I think that the ethico-political choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main danger.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

“On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress.” Afterword, in Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1983)

Thinking

“The Asana of Science — Science's anti-Spiritual, anti-religious, anti-psychic point of view, and its Victorian, archaic materialism, and its prejudices against other kinds of knowing — all of this is insidious, not merely nonsensical, because it has such a profoundly negative effect on human beings. Many scientists who adopt this dogmatic approach act as if they were super-intelligent people with their tweedy, pipe-smoking, complicated linguistic minds. This is the archetype of intelligence, is it not? This is the way you are supposed to be if you are intelligent. Well, this archetype does not necessarily represent intelligence. It is just a pose, or asana. Real intelligence must be fiercely capable of investigating every aspect of existence, including the very process of knowledge that is called "science."”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

http://www.aboutadidam.org/readings/index.html

People, Way, Intelligence, Knowledge

“The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction — a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory — who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

"The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics," Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html (11 December 1965)

Truth, Fashion, Chance

“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)

Hostility, People, Way, Exercises

“Stop any person on the street and they will tell you their own version of what it means to be an American, perhaps accurately, but mostly not. Some might say that being an American means wearing the US flag as a lapel pin. Others might say that in order to be defined as an American, one must attend the right church and be the right type of Christian. Still others will tell you that supporting the troops and, above that even, supporting the President is what makes one American.

Some might even venture that being born in this country or of parents who are citizens of this country is surely enough. On this last point there is some truth, but only in terms of rights, not responsibilities. As such, it presents only half of the equation.”

Larisa Alexandrovna (1971) Ukrainian-American journalist, essayist, poet

What is an American? in You Are An American http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/you-are-an-american_b_5928.html.

Truth, Support, Parent, Personality

“The alien stood in shadow and he looked, Enoch thought, more than ever like the cruel clown. His lithe, flowing body had the look of smoked, tanned buckskin. The patchwork color of his hide seemed to shine with a faint luminescence and the sharp, hard angles of his face, the smooth baldness of his head, the flat, pointed ears pasted tight against the skull lent him a vicious fearsomeness.
If one did not know him for the gentle character that he was, Enoch told himself, he would be enough to scare a man out of seven years of growth.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 19

Color, Past

“I could hear the forces massing. I was very keen to make sure that I got our big reforms done before those forces could reach a critical point.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

The Killing Season, Episode three: The Long Shadow (2010–13)

“The main objection to the theory of pure visualization is our thesis that the non-Euclidean axioms can be visualized just as rigorously if we adjust the concept of congruence. This thesis is based on the discovery that the normative function of visualization is not of visual but of logical origin and that the intuitive acceptance of certain axioms is based on conditions from which they follow logically, and which have previously been smuggled into the images. The axiom that the straight line is the shortest distance is highly intuitive only because we have adapted the concept of straightness to the system of Eucidean concepts. It is therefore necessary merely to change these conditions to gain a correspondingly intuitive and clear insight into different sets of axioms; this recognition strikes at the root of the intuitive priority of Euclidean geometry. Our solution of the problem is a denial of pure visualization, inasmuch as it denies to visualization a special extralogical compulsion and points out the purely logical and nonintuitive origin of the normative function. Since it asserts, however, the possibility of a visual representation of all geometries, it could be understood as an extension of pure visualization to all geometries. In that case the predicate "pure" is but an empty addition, since it denotes only the difference between experienced and imagined pictures, and we shall therefore discard the term "pure visualization."”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

Instead we shall speak of the normative function of the thinking process, which can guide the pictorial elements of thinking into any logically permissible structure.
The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Imagination, Problem, Thinking, Change

“By Suprematism, I mean the supremacy of pure feeling in the pictorial arts. From the Suprematist point of view, the appearances of natural objects are in themselves meaningless; the essential thing is feeling – in itself and completely independent of the context in which it has been evoked. Academic naturalism, the naturalism of the impressionists, of Cézannism, of Cubism, etc., are all so to speak nothing but dialectic methods, which in themselves in no way determine the true value of the work of art.”

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

Quote of Malevich, 1927 in: Artists on Art; from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 451
Malevich valued Cezanne's art as a temporarily necessary but still 'provincial art' in the long developing line of modern art
1921 - 1930

Art, Way, Feeling, Nature

“You miss the point? The lady that spares her lover spares herself too little.”

Plautus Asinaria

Asinaria, Act I, scene 3.
Asinaria (The One With the Asses)

Lovers

“Critics of the war plans (including myself) have pointed to the disastrous political results that must be expected: Iraq would break into three parts (Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, Shi’ites in the south), the Middle East would be exposed to the onslaught of Iranian fanaticism, pro-Western Arab regimes would collapse. Israel would be surrounded by aggressive Islamic fundamentalism, like the Crusader kingdom with the advent of Saladin.”

Uri Avnery (1923–2018) Israeli writer

War Now! (September 9, 2002)

War, Parting

“Barack has lead by example. When we took our trip to Africa and visited his home country in Kenya, we took a public HIV test—for the very point of showing folks in Kenya that there is nothing to be embarrassed about in getting tested.”

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

Speech to the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee in New York City (June 2008), quoted in "Did Michelle say Barack born in Kenya?" http://www.wnd.com/2010/04/136769/ by Jerome R. Corsi, WND.com (5 April 2010). Michelle says Barack's Home country is Kenya https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBJihJBePcs (YouTube video) 2000s

Home, Country

“Theory in the social sciences should have three major functions. First, it should aid in the codification of our existing concrete knowledge. It can do so by providing generalized hypotheses for the systematic reformulation of existing facts and insights, by extending the range of implication of particular hypotheses, and by unifying discrete observations under general concepts. Through codification, general theory in the social sciences will help to promote the process of cumulative growth of our knowledge. In making us more aware of the interconnections among items of existing knowledge which are now available in a scattered, fragmentary form, it will help us fix our attention on the points where further work must be done.
Second, general theory in the social sciences should be a guide to research. By codification it enables us to locate and define more precisely the boundaries of our knowledge and of our ignorance. Codification facilitates the selection of problems, although it is not, of course, the only useful technique for the selection of problems for fruitful research. Further than this, general theory should provide hypotheses to be applied and tested by the investigation of these problems…
Third, general theory as a point of departure for specialized work in the social sciences will facilitate the control of the biases of observation and interpretation which are at present fostered by the departmentalization of education and research in the social sciences.”

Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) American sociologist

Source: Toward a general theory of action (1951), p. 3

Education, Departure, Knowledge, Problem

“I want to do kiddie movies now. I'm fed up with adult movies — most of them stink. At a certain point with movies it becomes all about mathematics: this has to lead up to this, this has to lead up to that — you're always bound by some kind of formula. But since having kids and watching lots of animated cartoons and all those great old Disney films, I think they're better, they're much better. They're more fun and they take more risks.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in Jessamy Calkin, "One That Got Away," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/telegraphmag.htm The Daily Telegraph Magazine (2002-08-03)

Mathematics, Thinking, Animals

“I have, perhaps, too professional a point of view where deaths are concerned. They are divided, in my mind, into two classes — deaths which are my affair and deaths which are not my affair — and though the latter class is infinitely more numerous — nevertheless whenever I come in contact with death I am like the dog who lifts his head and sniffs the scent.”

Agatha Christie book Death in the Clouds

Death in the Clouds (1935)

Death, Dogs

“I have definitely come to the conclusion that it is better to eat beefsteak and have a kind tongue than to be a strict vegetarian and, from a pedestal of superiority, look down upon this world. Again, I would point out that generalisations are inexact. I have known many vegetarians who were lovely and sweet and kind and good.”

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

The Unfinished Autobiography (1951)

Love, World

“Cellular automata are discrete dynamical systems with simple construction but complex self-organizing behaviour. Evidence is presented that all one-dimensional cellular automata fall into four distinct universality classes. Characterizations of the structures generated in these classes are discussed. Three classes exhibit behaviour analogous to limit points, limit cycles and chaotic attractors. The fourth class is probably capable of universal computation, so that properties of its infinite time behaviour are undecidable.”

Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman

[10, 1–2, January 1984, 1–35, Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, Universality and complexity in cellular automata, 10.1016/0167-2789(84)90245-8]

Universe, Time

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

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

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

World, Time, Reading, Personality

“I begin my work under the effect of shock, which I can sense and which gets me on the run from reality... In any case, I need a starting point, even if it’s just a speck of dust or a gleam of light.”

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist

1940 - 1960
Source: On the Readability of Signs; Miro's path from Mysterious to Comic Pictorial signs, Sylvia Martin; Düsseldorf 2002, p. 67

Reality, Sense, Light

“Cherie Blair can call herself a feminist all she likes, but any feminist worth her salt would have made a point of having a termination - on the NHS, naturally - when she got knocked up the last time... Famous women would rather admit to having been sexually abused as children than to having had a termination... Myself, I'd as soon weep over my taken tonsils or my absent appendix as snivel over those [five] abortions. I had a choice, and I chose life - mine.”

Julie Burchill (1959) British writer

Julie Burchill (2005), British feminist and abortion advocate, from "Abortion: still a dirty word" in The Guardian (May 25, 2005) http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,720719,00.html.

Life, Women, Children, Nature

“The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of differing points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability.”

Donald Davidson (philosopher) (1917–2003) scriitor amator

Donald Davidson. "On the Very Idea," p. 184; as cited in: Johannes Brandl, Wolfgang Leopold Gombocz. The Mind of Donald Davidson. Rodopi, 1989, p. 152

Sense

“An aged Christian with the snow of time on his head may remind us that those points of earth are whitest that are nearest heaven.”

Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880) American priest

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 439.

Age, Time

“As for the piano, I was left to my own devices practically from the age of twelve. As is frequently the case in teachers' families, our parents were so busy with their pupils (literally from morning until late at night) that they hardly had any time for their own children. And that, in spite of the fact that with the favourable prejudice common to all parents, they had a very high opinion of my gifts. (I myself had a much more sober attitude. I was always aware of a great many faults although at times I felt that I had in me something "not quite usual".) But I won't speak of this. As a pianist, I am known. My good and bad points are known and nobody can be interested in my "prehistoric period". I will only say that because of this early "independence" I did a lot of silly things which I could have easily avoided if I had been under the vigilant eye of an experienced and intelligent teacher for another three or four years. I lacked what is known as a "school". I lacked discipline. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; my enforced independence compelled me, though sometimes by very devious ways, to achieve a great deal on my own and even my failures and errors subsequently proved more than once to be useful and educational, and in an occupation such as learning to master an art, where if not all, then almost all depends on individuality, the only sound foundation will always be the knowledge gained as the result of personal effort and personal experience.”

Heinrich Neuhaus (1888–1964) Soviet musician

The Art of Piano Playing (1958), Ch. 1. The Artistic Image of a Musical Composition

Children, Age, Education, School

“I no longer recommend dairy products after the age of two years. … Of course, there was a time when cow's milk was considered very desirable. But research, along with clinical experience, has forced doctors and nutritionists to rethink this recommendation. It is an area where there are still disagreements among scientists, but there are several points that most everyone agrees on. First of all, other calcium sources offer many advantages that dairy products do not have. Most green leafy vegetables and beans have a form of calcium that is absorbed as well as or even a bit better than that in milk. Along with this calcium come vitamins, iron, complex carbohydrates, and fiber. Calcium-enriched soy or rice drinks are just as tasty on cereal as cow's milk (once you get used to them), and they are free of animal proteins and cholesterol. These beverages, as well as calcium-enriched orange and other juices, provide as much calcium, ounce per ounce, as cow's milk. Vegetables and legumes can provide a healthy source of calcium, along with many other nutritional advantages.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Source: Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945), Seventh edition (1998), pp. 331-332

Age, Drink, Time, Animals

“I have always held those political opinions which point to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter in what rank of life he may have taken his origin”

Alexander Mackenzie (1822–1892) 2nd Prime Minister of Canada

Speech to Working Men of Dundee July 14, 1875 - Speeches of Alexander Mackenzie during his recent visit...page 43

Life, Universe

“The great importance of Wilbury House lies less in its appearance now than in its appearance as it was first built and illustrated in Vitruvius Britannicus. It was designed by and built for William Benson in 1710. He is notorious for having been made Wren’s successor in 1718, when George I dismissed Wren as a Tory and an old man, and for having failed so completely that he himself was replaced only one year later. But he is memorable as the designer of the first, not Neo-Palladian, but neo-Inigo-Jones house in England. For this is what Wilbury was, as Sir John Summerson was the first to point out. The house then had a four-column Corinthian portico of tall columns set well away from the wall.”

Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–1983) German-born British scholar

The Buildings of England

Appearance, Housing

“There is an inborn tendency to be Free. Every being is struggling to be Free. No one wants bondage. No one wants misery. The very idea of disease and death is appalling to all. Still, a being thinks that it will be happy by sense-pleasures. Can these sense-pleasures make one happy? No. Any amount of sense-pleasures will not make one really happy. Sense-pleasures will bring momentary satisfaction and then make one unhappy. Then comes the question: Where does this real happiness lie? It lies in knowing the True Nature. To know your True Nature, you have to control your mind. In order to control your mind, you have to live a true life. You must be a man of good character. That is why all the Scriptures ask their followers to be good, kind, gentle, noble, charitable, truthful, etc. In fact, moral and ethical codes of good conduct are the starting points of all Religions. They start with moral and ethical codes and end with God-realization or Self-realization.”

Swami Narayanananda (1902–1988) Indian guru

The Essence of Life (1980), also in Minor Works II (2001), p. 131f

Life, Death, God, Happiness

“Life at Papeete soon became a burden.It was Europe, the Europe which I had thought to shake off — and that under the aggravating circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization.Was I to have made this far journey, only to find the very thing which I had fled?”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Quote from Noa Noa ,(1893) [Dover, 1985, ISBN 0-486-24859-3], p. 2.
1890s - 1910s

Life, Fashion

“The following pages were written in the Concentration Camp in Dachau, in the midst of all kinds of cruelties. They were furtively scrawled in a hospital barrack where I stayed during my illness, in a time when Death grasped day by day after us, when we lost twelve thousand within four and a half months … “You asked me why I do not eat meat and you are wondering at the reasons of my behavior … I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own sufferings … I am not preaching … I am writing this letter to you, to an already awakened individual who rationally controls his impulses, who feels responsible, internally and externally, for his acts, who knows that our supreme court is sitting in our conscience … I have not the intention to point out with my finger … I think it is much more my duty to stir up my own conscience … That is the point: I want to grow up into a better world where a higher law grants more happiness, in a new world where God's commandment reigns: You shall love each other.””

Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz (1906–1991) German journalist, poet and prisoner in Dachau concentration camp

“Animals, My Brethren,” in The Dachau Diaries; as quoted in John Robbins, Diet for a New America, H J Kramer, 2011, chapter 5 https://books.google.it/books?id=h-9ARz2YAlgC&pg=PT83.

Love, Death, God, Pain