Quotes about point
page 39

“I've never met Ai Weiwei but he's a colleague, an artist. In a very simple way he is heroically recording human existence. All he's done is to record death by administration, death by corruption, inefficiency. I don't even think he's pointing that sharp a finger, frankly.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

Anish Kapoor dedicates Leviathan sculpture to Ai Weiwei

Death, Way, Thinking

“If the CIA is the emperor, you're asking us to say the emperor has clothes when the emperor's bosses say that the emperor doesn't. I mean, how can you ask the court to say that at this point?”

Merrick Garland (1952) American judge

[2012, ACLU v. CIA, Merrick Garland, Oral arguments, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]; quote then excerpted in:
[Mike Scarcella, http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/03/dc-circuit-revives-public-records-suit-over-drone-documents.html, March 18, 2016, D.C. Circuit Revives Public Records Suit Over Drone Documents, March 15, 2013, The BLT]; quote then cited from this source subsequently in:
[March 18, 2016, The Quotable Merrick Garland: A Collection of Writings and Remarks, http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202752327128/The-Quotable-Merrick-Garland-A-Collection-of-Writings-and-Remarks, Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal, March 16, 2016, 0162-7325]
Court opinions and media comments

Clothes

“The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. Either God is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes God's experience, or God is a God of racism. … The blackness of God means that God has made the oppressed condition God's own condition. This is the essence of the Biblical revelation. By electing Israelite slaves as the people of God and by becoming the Oppressed One in Jesus Christ, the human race is made to understand that God is known where human beings experience humiliation and suffering…Liberation is not an afterthought, but the very essence of divine activity.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), pp. 63-64

God, People, Understanding, Suffering

“Except for the demented orphan, the living will is quite beside the point. The one time it really is essential is if you think your fractious family will be only too happy to hasten your demise to get your money. That’s what the law is good at — protecting you from murder and theft. But that is a far cry from assuring a peaceful and willed death, which is what most people imagine living wills are about.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, August 14, 2009, "The Truth About Death Counseling" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer082109.php3#.U4GtOcJOWUk at jewishworldreview.com. 2000s, 2009

Death, Money, Happiness, People

“There is usually no ressentiment just where a superficial view would look for it first: in the criminal. The criminal is essentially an active type. Instead of repressing hatred, revenge, envy, and greed, he releases them in crime. Ressentiment is a basic impulse only in the crimes of spite. These are crimes which require only a minimum of action and risk and from which the criminal draws no advantage, since they are inspired by nothing but the desire to do harm. The arsonist is the purest type in point, provided that he is not motivated by the pathological urge of watching fire (a rare case) or by the wish to collect insurance. Criminals of this type strangely resemble each other. Usually they are quiet, taciturn, shy, quite settled and hostile to all alcoholic or other excesses. Their criminal act is nearly always a sudden outburst of impulses of revenge or envy which have been repressed for years. A typical cause would be the continual deflation of one's ego by the constant sight of the neighbor's rich and beautiful farm. Certain expressions of class ressentiment, which have lately been on the increase, also fall under this heading. I mention a crime committed near Berlin in 1912: in the darkness, the criminal stretched a wire between two trees across the road, so that the heads of passing automobilists would be shorn off. This is a typical case of ressentiment, for any car driver or passenger at all could be the victim, and there is no interested motive. Also in cases of slander and defamation of character, ressentiment often plays a major role...”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Hostility, Alcohol, Beauty, Cars

“According to the current doctrines of mysticoscientism, we human animals are really and actually nothing but "organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional coordinates of the space-time continuum." I'll have to think about that. Sometime. Meantime, I'm going to gnaw on this sparerib, drink my Blatz beer, and contemplate the a posteriori coordinates of that young blonde over yonder, the one in the tennis skirt, tying her shoelaces.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

Drink, Beer, Thinking, Time

“It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a piece of propaganda … Superman punched out Hitler. So did Captain America. That's one of the things they're there for.”

Frank Miller (1957) American writer, artist, film director

On Holy Terror, a story where Batman takes on Al-Qaeda, as quoted in "Comic book hero takes on al-Qaeda" BBC News (15 February 2006) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4717696.stm

“Governments tend to expand their power to the point that they do harm. In SurvivalBlog, I often warn of the insidious tyranny of the Nanny State… …If the state where you live becomes oppressive, then don’t hesitate to relocate. Vote with your feet!”

James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

Source: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, Plume, New York (2009), p. 14.

“The Machine Age’s commitment to cause and effect was the source of many dilemmas, including the one involving free will. At the turn of the century the American philosopher E. A. Singer, Jr., showed that science had, in effect, been cheating. It was using two different relationships but calling both cause and effect. He pointed out, for example, that acorns do not cause oaks because they are not sufficient, even though they are necessary, for oaks. An acorn thrown into the ocean, or planted in the desert or an Arctic ice cap does not yield an oak. To call the relationship between an acorn and an oak ‘probabilistic’ or ‘non deterministic causality,’ as many scientists did, was cheating because it is not possible to have a probability other than 1.0 associated with a cause; a cause completely determines its effect. Therefore, Singer chose to call this relationship ‘producer-product’ and to differentiate it from cause-effect.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1980s, Creating the Corporate Future, 1981, p. 224-225 as cited in: David Ing (2010) "The producer-product relation, and coproducers in systems theory". in the Coevolving blog, September 02, 2010.

Age, Science, Cheating

“I have now reached the point where I can look over the great art of antiquity and its Renaissance. But, for myself, I cannot find any artistic connection with our own times. And to want to create something outside of one's own age strikes me as suspect. Great perplexity. This is why I am again all on the side of satire. Am I to be completely absorbed by it once more? For the time being it is my only creed. Perhaps I shall never become positive? In any case, I will defend myself like a wild beast.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1901), # 294, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1895 - 1902

Age, Art, Time

“I had been taking Prevacid for about four years and my body built up a resistance to it, to the point where it wasn't doing anything anymore… I had a night of drinking in London followed by a full day and night of drinking on a day off in Dublin, because what else is there to do in Ireland but drink? That, coupled with a show where I had monitor problems, and I pretty much trashed my voice.”

David Draiman (1973) American singer and songwriter

Life Is Sweet For Disturbed — Apart From A Little Acid Reflux http://www.webcitation.org/64qCyHxIX, Jon Wiederhorn di MTV, 16 November 2005)

Drink, Problem, Night

“The Elements has been considered as offering models of scrupulously rigorous demonstrations. It is certainly true that in point of rigour it compares favourably with its modern rivals; but when examined in the light of strict mathematical logic, it has been pronounced by C. S. Peirce to be "riddled with fallacies." The results are correct only because the writer's experience keeps him on his guard.”

Florian Cajori book A History of Mathematics

Source: A History of Mathematics (1893), p. 37. Reported in Moritz (1914)

Mathematics, Light

“Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, "Love your enemy." This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.”

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

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Context: The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape. …agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen. And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, "Love your enemy." And it’s significant that he does not say, "Like your enemy." Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, "Love your enemy." This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.

Love, Men, God, Hate

“Unfortunately, the public is all gaga over the idea of replacing a card swipe with an NFC pass-over using a smartphone. Go ahead and believe that. But if you think it is also hacker-proof, you'll be in for a surprise. It's no safer than using the mattress to stash cash. At some point, you can expect to be robbed blind.”

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

Apple Pay: What's the Big Deal? http://pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470828,00.asp in PC Magazine (22 October 2014) 2010s

Idea, Thinking

“The performance of Reliance shows an amazing trend when mapped against time. The inflection point was 1991. We grew exponentially, eventually becoming India’s biggest private enterprise, on the basis of freedom to compete against the best in the world.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Reimaging India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

World, Freedom, Time

“In reality, a person questioning the existence of the Satanic conspiracy is merely pointing out that the emperor is wearing no clothes. In that case, one can understand why the emperor's tailors get upset and suggest the person doing the pointing is a tool of the devil. Then the question comes down to one of whether the crowd will believe the evidence they have before them, or if they will buy into the tailors' fantasies.”

Michael A. Stackpole (1957) science fiction author

[Stackpole, http://members.tripod.com/~limsk/pulling.htm, "The Pulling Report", 2007-05-27]

Understanding, Question, Reality, Personality

“I spent the rest of the night pondering over what was in store for me at that point in life. I was no longer a teenager, and I’ll never be able to experience having sex as a teenager.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Inceldom

Life, Sex, Night

“I think a highly rational person would have high moral uncertainty at this point and not necessarily be described as "altruistic."”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In a discussion thread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/p4Gd8pRcbnKo46hus/building-toward-a-friendly-ai-team#s5uoQrSoFeKke29dm on LessWrong, June 2012

Thinking, Personality

“I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favor it. For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Epistle Dedicatory, Paris, April 15-25, 1651
Leviathan (1651)

World, Way

“At what point in our lives do we stop blurring? When do we become crisp individuals? What must we do in order to end these fuzzy identities - to clarify just who it is we really are?”

Douglas Coupland book Girlfriend in a Coma

Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)

“Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying”

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

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Fools, Business, Suicide

“When an individual appears before others, he wittingly and unwittingly projects a definition of the situation, of which a conception of himself is an important part. When an event occurs which is expressively incompatible with this fostered impression, significant consequences are simultaneously felt in three levels of social reality, each of which involves a different point of reference and a different order of fact.
First, the social interaction, treated here as a dialogue between two teams, may come to an embarrassed and confused halt; the situation may cease to be defined, previous positions may become no longer tenable, and participants may find themselves without a charted course of action…
Secondly, in addition to these disorganizing consequences for action at the moment, performance disruptions may have consequences of a more far-reaching kind. Audiences tend to accept the self projected by the individual performer during any current performance as a responsible representative of his colleague-grouping, of his team, and of his social establishment…
Finally, we often find that the individual may deeply involve his ego in his identification with a particular role, establishment, and group and in his self-conception as someone who does not disrupt social interaction or let down the social units which depend upon that interaction.”

Erving Goffman book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Source: 1950s-1960s, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959, p. 155-6

Reality, Appearance, Parting, Dependency

“I don't know if our current classification system matches the Biblical KIND at any points but I would guess the Biblical KIND is close to the Class or Family level.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 80

Family

“Must Bantu and European in future develop as intermixed communities, or as communities separated from one another in so far as this is practically possible? If the reply is ‘intermingled communities’, then the following must be understood. There will be competition and conflict everywhere. So long as the points of contact are still comparatively few, as is the case now, friction and conflict will be few and less evident. The more this intermixing develops, however, the stronger the conflict will become. In such a conflict, the Europeans will, at least for a long time, hold the stronger position, and the Bantu be the defeated party in every phase of the struggle. This must cause to rise in him an increasing sense of resentment and revenge.”

Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966) Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966

Speech as Minister of Native Affairs on 5 December 1950, 10 quotes by Hendrik Verwoerd (Politics Web) https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/hendrik-verwoerd-10-quotes-hendrik-verwoerd-politics-web-20-september-2016, sahistory.org.za (20 September 2016)

Communication, Revenge, Sense, Time

“Regarding my childhood, my grandmother could play by ear and she loved to hear me practice and would say after every piece, "That was pretty. Play that one again." She was a booster. I had two women piano teachers who encouraged me to compose--Margie Murphy and Helen Lipscomb. Helen was also a composer and we used part of my lessons for composition.
When I was in high school, I read John Cage's books and fell in love with the ideas and the excitement of the avant garde. My music, as a result, moved over to what has been called post-Cagian, non-academic. That lasted until about 1979 at which point I changed. My music is now quite lyrical, sometimes called neo-Romantic, and full of cut-ups/collage of newly composed materials. Since 1985 I have been composing mostly swales for various instrumental combinations.
A swale is a meadow or a marsh where there is nourishment and moisture and therefore, a rich diversity of plant life. My work, since 1984, has been made from swatches (of newly composed music, rather than found music) which are reminiscent of this diversity…”

Beth Anderson (1950) American neo-romantic composer

Anderson (1996-2011) "Beth Anderson, Composer, Miscellany From The Dark Past" at beand.com http://www.beand.com/, Last Updated January 3, 2011

Love, Life, Women, Books

“So-called instincts are instructive, Felix. They point to survival values.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 7, “Burn him down at once—”, p. 76

“One cannot reduce to concepts the distinction between two systems of three straight lines each (directed lines, of which the one system points forward, upward to the right, the other forward, upward to the left) but one can only demonstrate by holding to actually present spatial things. Two minds cannot reach agreement about it unless their views connect up with one and the same system present in the real world”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

In a letter to Gerling on June 23, 1846. As quoted in Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (1955) by Guy Waldo Dunnington. p. 364

World

“There is a point at which a transformation has to take place.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 3, p. 640

“Second, we make no distinction between man and nature: the human essence of nature and the natural essence of man become one within nature in the form of production or industry, just as they do within the life of man as a species. Industry is then no longer considered from the extrinsic point of view of utility, but rather from the point of view of its fundamental identity with nature as production of man and by man.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

The Desiring Machine
Anti-Oedipus Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1977)

Life, Nature

“The idea that the Biblical stories are symbolic is charitable to the point of absurdity. What would we think of a university professor who, happening upon unambiguous errors in a favourite student’s work, concluded that the student was speaking symbolically and awarded top marks?”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 63

Error, Idea, Thinking, Universe

“It is important to state here -- though evidence will be considered in detail later on -- that all three women have either had "dreams" or normal recollections of having been shown, at later times, tiny offspring whose appearance suggests they are something other than completely human... that they are in fact hybrids, partly human and partly what we must call, for want of a better term, alien. It is unthinkable and unbelievable -- yet the evidence points in that direction. An ongoing and systematic breeding experiment must be considered one of the central purposes of UFO abductions.”

Budd Hopkins (1931–2011) American UFO researcher, painter and sculptor

Source: Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods (1987), p. 130

Women, Dreams, Appearance, Time

“Almost every messianic movement in the world came into being as a result of hallucinatory visions of a prophet. One point must be emphasized about the prophet of a messianic movement: He is not a schizophrenic, as was so long assumed. A schizophrenic with religious paranoia will state that he is God, Jesus, the Great Spirit, or some other supernatural being. The prophet, on the other hand, never states that he is supernatural—only that he has been in contact with supernatural powers.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Of course, after his death, his disciples tend to deify him or at least give him saintly status.
Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

Death, God, World

“The more I learnt about this cheeky – almost rebellious – company, the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had reason for being that wasn't just about making money.”

Jonathan Ive (1967) English designer and VP of Design at Apple

On how he felt when he used a Mac for the first time at college, in an interview at the Design Museum (2003)[citation needed]

Money

“What is the internally free man free from? First of all - he or she is free from fear of people and life; from conventional opinion. He or she is independent from the crowd, from stereotypical thinking. He or she is able to have their own personal point of view; free from prejudices. He or she is free from envy, selfishness and from aggressive personal drives.”

Simon Soloveychik (1930–1996) Russia writer and philosopher

Talent of Freedom. What Is Internal Freedom? http://parentingforeveryone.com/freedom/ Chelovek Svobodny (Free Man) (1994)

Life, People, Fear, Thinking

“Juggling is such a white thing, as well, when you think about it. No, just the whole concept. You have so much stuff that, at some point, you are like: "I can't even hold all of this stuff! I'll have to throw some of it in the air!" That's probably how juggling started. Someone was like: "Wow, you have three things, but you only have two hands. Would you like to share something with me?" "No, no, I'll figure this out."”

Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian

9 marzo 2017 The Daily Show Source: Visible at 01:00 White People Are Having a Good Time in America http://www.cc.com/video-clips/sb2sj5/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-white-people-are-having-a-good-time-in-america, CC.com, 9 March 2017.

Thinking

“There is a theory of learning and teaching together and that is all. Results from many studies support this point of view as, also, does the evidence of commonsense. So, to be dogmatic (but with confidence) learning implies teaching and teaching implies learning. Sometimes the teacher and learner responsible for th joint process are obvious (a student at a desk and another person wearing an academic cap and gown). Sometimes, the teacher and learner are not so obviously distinct and turn out to be unexpected but, once-indicated, intuitively plausible entities.”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

p 33 as cited in: D. Psillos (2003) Science Education Research in the Knowledge-Based Society. p. 44.
Conversation, Cognition and Learning (1975)

Confidence, Support, Study, Learning

“Mother Teresa is a true daughter of the Church in having her mind and heart closed to the religions of the countries of her labour, even adoption. Sometime back, some European Vedantists learning that she was at the Vatican went there to pay their respects. She rebuked them for "betraying Christ". Let me clarify the point a little further by bringing in Sister Nivedita. She is a lady Hindus are proud of. She helped India by helping it to rediscover itself. No higher service could be rendered to a nation in the grip of self-forgetfulness. She stood for national justice for India and she helped us by giving us national pride. This explains why Sister Nivedita is Hindu India's hero. This also explains why Western nations shower praise and money on Mother Teresa while Sister Nivedita remained unsung in the West and there were no contributions from that quarter even for her purely humanitarian work, like education and child care and relief work which she did with no less dedication, sympathy and loving care.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Quoted from Catholic Ashrams by S.R. Goel, Appendix V.

Love, Money, Education, Religion

“It may well be, that the future historian, asked to point to the most characteristic expression of the English temper in the period between the two wars will reply without hesitation, "Colonel Blimp."”

David Low (cartoonist) (1891–1963) British cartoonist

C. S. Lewis "Blimpophobia", in Time and Tide September 9, 1944.
Criticism

War, Future

“The method applied by Newton to the grounding of the Infinitesimal Calculus, and which since the beginning of this century has been recognised by the best mathematicians as the only one that furnishes sure results, is the method of limits. The method consists in this, viz., instead of considering a continuous transition from one value of a quantity to another, from one position to another, or, speaking generally, from one determination of a concept to another, one considers in the first place a transition through a finite number of intervals and then allows the number of these intervals to increase so that the distances of two successive points of division all decrease infinitely.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

General Relation of the Concept System of Thesis and Antithesis
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Success

“There comes a point when a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream.”

Frances Farmer (1913–1970) American actress

As quoted in "True Frances Farmer story remains elusive" by Rita Rose in The Indianapolis Star (23 January 1983)

Dreams, Reality

“The second point which must be part of the national goal, is caste less society. The constitution very clearly differentiates between Schedule Castes and Backward Classes. Why did out our Constitution makers make this distinction? They had something in their mind. Why have we lost that distinction today? I agree with you that reality is that caste accounts for a tremendous amount in this country. I do not disagree with that. But what is our goal? Is our goal a castless society? If out goal, is a casteless society, surely every step that we take must be towards that objective.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

In Parliamemt in 1992, p. 31
Quote, Memorable Quotes from Rajiv Gandhi and on Rajiv Gandhi

Reality, Parting, Country

“The leading Nazis were divided as a rule between the three normal German points of view in regard to external policy. Some wanted an accommodation with France, some wanted to come to terms with Great Britain at the expense of France, and the third and most active group were trying to get an alliance with Soviet Russia against the whole of the West. I knew that [Eric] Koch was the chief advocate of this last policy. He took pains to keep in personal touch with Russian emissaries. He wanted to go to Russia himself. Assuming that I had Hitler's ear on questions of eastern policy, he repeatedly asked me to put forward his ideas in talking to Hitler.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: Men in Chaos (1942), p. 247

Pain, Idea, Question, Personality

“The PC police are out in force at all times. … We've reached the point where people are afraid to actually talk about what they want to say.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Introduction
One Nation (2014)

People, Time

“There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed.”

Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989) English philosopher

Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (1982) p. 133.

Success

“How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Speech delivered at the Yad Vashem Museum at Jerusalem, Israel - March 23, 2000 http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/yad_vashem.htm

God

“I could give you a list a mile long of the homosexuals in the arts but there's no point in making a big tzimis about a relatively harmless and cool state of affairs — Each man to his own tastes.”

Jack Kerouac book Desolation Angels

Desolation Angels (1965)

Art

“The planet is fine. The people are [bleeped out]. Because everyone is trying to save the planet. The planet doesn’t need that. The planet will take care of itself. People are selfish. And that's what they're doing is trying to save the planet for themselves to have a nicer place to live. They don't care about the planet in theory. They just care about having a comfortable place. And these people with the fires and the floods and everything, they overbuild, they put nature to the test and they get what's coming to them. That's what I say. That's what's happening, and I can't wait for the sea levels to rise. I can't wait for some of these cities to disappear. There are places that are going to go away. The map is going to change and that's because -- people think nature is outside of them. They don't take into them the idea that we are part of it. They say, "oh, we're going for a nature walk. We're going to the country because we like nature." Nature is in here. [points to chest] And if you're in tune with it, like the Indians, the Hopis, especially, the balance of life, the balance, the harmony of nature, if you understand that, you don't overbuild. You don’t do all this moron stuff.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

The View, 24 October 2007 http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2007/10/24/george-carlins-view-wildfire-victims-get-whats-coming-them Interviews, Television Appearances

Life, People, Idea, Understanding

“The Ninja, as you know, operates by stealth. And so, case in point: I put out records… no one hears them! I make videos… (whispers) no one sees! I go on tour…. (whispers) no one knows! NINJA! I was never here!”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Talk Is Cheap Volume 2 (2003)

“O ye unto whom the Bayán is given! Be ye vigilant lest in the days of Him Whom God shall make manifest, while ye consider yourselves as seeking God’s pleasure, in reality ye persist in that which would only displease Him, even as did those who lived in the days of the Primal Point, to whom it never occurred that they were seeking things which ran counter to that which God had purposed.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

XVI, 13
The Kitáb-I-Asmá

God, Pleasure, Reality

“… the pattern of embarrassment behind the contemporary ideal of a language that will best promote good action by entirely eliminating the element of exhortation or command. Insofar as such a project succeeded, its terms would involve a narrowing of circumference to a point where the principle of personal action is eliminated from language, so that an act would follow from it only as a non-sequitur, a kind of humanitarian after-thought.”

Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) American philosopher

Source: A Grammar of Motives (1945), p. 90

Personality

“Has our reader ever heard about the parallel strands of time, in two-track time? Yes, such branch stretches of time do exist, a little illegal, to be sure, and problematic, but when carrying such contraband as ours, such supernumerary, unclassifiable events, one cannot be too particular. And so, at some point in our story, we shall attempt to take such a branch turning, a siding, and shunt this illegal history into it.”

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“The Brilliant Epoch” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/sanatorium/epoch1.htm His father, Time

History, Time

“Neither force, nor argument, nor opinion," said Merlyn with the deepest sincerity, "are thinking. Argument is only a display of mental force, a sort of fencing with points in order to gain a victory, not for truth. Opinions are the blind alleys of lazy or of stupid men, who are unable to think. If ever a true politician really thinks a subject out dispassionately, even Homo stultus will be compelled to accept his findings in the end. Opinion can never stand beside truth. At present, however, Homo impoliticus is content either to argue with opinions or to fight with his fists, instead of waiting for the truth in his head. It will take a million years, before the mass of men can be called political animals.”

T. H. White book The Book of Merlyn

The Book of Merlyn (1977)

Men, Truth, Stupidity, Thinking

“He saw the light gradually approaching him until it rested upon the tops of the trees. He beheld that the leaves of the trees were not consumed by it, although its brightness, apparently, was sufficient, as he at first thought, to consume everything before it. But the trees were not consumed by it, and it continued to descend until it rested upon him and enveloped him in its glorious rays. When he was thus encircled about with this pillar of fire his mind was caught away from every object that surrounded him, and he was filled with the visions of the Almighty, and he saw, in the midst of this glorious pillar of fire, two glorious personages, whose countenances shone with an exceeding great lustre. One of them spoke to him, saying, while pointing in the other, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him."”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 12:354 (February 24, 1869).
Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision

Tree, Light

“Some persons in Europe carry their notions about cruelty to animals so far as not to allow themselves to eat animal food. Many very intelligent men have, at different times of their lives, abstained wholly from flesh; and this too with very considerable advantage to their health. … The most attentive research which I have been able to make into the health of all these persons induces me to believe that vegetable food is the natural diet of man; I tried it once with very considerable advantage: my strength became greater, my intellect clearer, my power of continued exertion protracted, and my spirits much higher than they were when I lived on a mixed diet. I am inclined to think that the inconvenience which some persons experience from vegetable food is only temporary; a few repeated trials would soon render it not only safe but agreeable, and a disgust to the taste of flesh, under any disguise, would be the result of the experiment. The Carmelites and other religious orders, who subsist only on the productions of the vegetable world, live to a greater age than those who feed on meat, and in general herbivorous persons are milder in their dispositions than other people. The same quantity of ground has been proved to be capable of sustaining a larger and stronger population on a vegetable than on a meat diet; and experience has shewn that the juices of the body are more pure and the viscera much more free from disease in those who live in this simple way. All these facts, taken collectively, point to a period, in the progress of civilization, when men will cease to slay their fellow mortals in the animal world for food, and will tend thereby to realize the fictions of antiquity and the Sybilline oracles respecting the millennium or golden age.”

Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster (1789–1860) British astronomer

Philozoia; or Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of the Animal Kingdom, and on the Means of Improving the same, Brussels: Deltombe and W. Todd, 1839, pp. 42 https://books.google.it/books?id=hdVq93Ypgu0C&pg=PA42-43.

Men, People, Health, Age

“As you become more awake you actually find yourself with less and less choice about what you do in any given situation. And you have less choice because you see more clearly. This is a very important point. Clarity doesn’t create more options. It eliminates options because you see that they aren’t appropriate or they don’t work.”

Ken McLeod (1948) Canadian lama

Then and Now http://www.unfetteredmind.org/jewel-ornament-buddhahood#sect12. Unfettered Mind http://www.unfetteredmind.org. (2008-07-08) (Topic: Awareness)

“Fifteen years ago, there was this country called the Soviet Union that had over 10,000 nuclear warheads pointed at us… they're not there anymore. That's a good thing. And when people talk about how the world is more dangerous now than it was because we had these terrorists running around, my reply is, you know, a terrorist is like a buzzing mosquito. About 15 years ago, there was a great, big vampire bat; that's several orders of magnitude different from a mosquito. So the world is much safer — a lot safer than it was. It's not perfectly safe, but it's a heck of a lot safer than it was.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

People, World, Country

“It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Life

“He and she become selective at different points; she can be selective when he wants his primary fantasy — sex; he can be selective when she wants her primary fantasy — commitment.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 105.

Sex

“It is important at this point to make clear that every coöperative purpose has in the view of each coöperating person two aspects which we will call (a) the coöperative and (b) the subjective aspect, respectively.”

Chester Barnard book The Functions of the Executive

Source: The Functions of the Executive (1938), p.86

Personality

“I do truly treasure this story. It proves my point that the Los Angeles Times -- along with the big East Coast dailies -- should all be called U. S. OFFICIALS SAY.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

March 21, 2006: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/263664_fisk21.html, March 21, 2006 2006

Angels, Time

“In all cases, wherein the mind feels itself in danger of being confounded by variety, it is sure to rest upon a few strong points, or perhaps upon a single instance. Amongst a multitude of proofs, it is one that does the business. If we observe in any argument, that hardly two minds fix upon the same instance, the diversity of choice shows the strength of the argument, because it shows the number and competition of the examples. There is no subject in which the tendency to dwell upon select or single topics is so usual, because there is no subject, of which, in its full extent, the latitude is so great, as that of natural history applied to the proof of an intelligent Creator.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 27 : Conclusion.

Feeling, History, Intelligence, Business

““I think that I will not answer that question,” he said at last. “I would create as many false images as there were ears to hear me.”
“Half as many,” Clissum pointed out delicately.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 4, section 2, "The Caravan"

Question, Thinking, Falseness

“I was attracted to Romanesque sculptures, to the complete re-invented figures and the freedom with which the Romanesque artist constructed them. He does not copy, he creates in a totally anti-Renaissance fashion can say that in Romanesque sculpture I have found a starting point for distortion.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Kunst und Zeugnis, Dora Vallier, Zürich 1967, p. 67
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1960's

Fashion, Freedom

“That is why I say the nation needs a leader. Dr. Manmohan Singh has not even visited all the states in the five years of his prime ministership, while Advaniji is a leader who has, at some point in time, spent a night in our 400 districts.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2009, "The nation is waiting for a strong, experienced leader", 2009

Time, Night

“Non-Fijian and perhaps a western interpretation could spark insensitivity from various points of view.”

Hafiz Khan Fijian politician

Maiden speech to the Senate, 24 August 2005 (excerpts)

“The contrast between man's ideological capacity to move at random through material and metaphysical spaces and his physical limitations, is Uneven lengths and uneven angle-degrees of the point-rudder result in a deviating course. the origin of all human tragedy. It is this contrast between power and prostration that implies the duality of human existence. Half winged-half imprisoned, this is man!”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

IIII.37, The Arrow. p. 54
1921 - 1930, Pedagogical Sketch Book, (1925)

“The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, forever, and forever!
Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto III, line 153.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“What I have discovered in 20 years of studying the universe, from here to there to everywhere, is that the universe is complicated, and when things happen, it is almost never like ‘A happened and therefore B’. No, A happened and therefore B, C, D and E, but then there is this thing F, and that had a 10% effect, and that prompted G to go back and tip over A, and it is always like this – everything is interconnected. And so a lot of these far-right fundamentalist religion people, and a lot of these people who are anti-global warming, anti-evolution, anti-science, what they do is they take advantage of the fact that things are complicated, and their lives are based on things being simple – if we do this, then this will happen – if we invade Iraq, we will be treated as liberators, if we pray, then good things will happen, and this stuff is wrong. But we have a culture where people are brought up to believe in simplicity, and if A then B. And so when you point out that scientists say the earth is warming, but we had a really devastating winter this year, then these people will say “oh, obviously global warming is wrong.””

Philip Plait (1964) astronomer, skeptic

No, global warming can cause worse winters locally. It’s complicated. But people don’t want to hear “it’s complicated”, and boy, the conspiracy theorists and anti-scientists take full advantage of that. Skepticality http://www.skepticality.com/index.php ep. 52 http://www.skepticality.com/notes/sn_Ep52.php (15 May 2007) 23:11 - 24:46 Interviews

People, Religion, Boy, Study

““We do not have a belief, in my way of looking at religion, that says we have to discriminate against anybody,” he said, noting that Jesus Christ reached out to the social outcasts of his time. “If you were to apply those standards to the teaching of Jesus, I don’t think they fit."
A passage in the Gospel of John about Jesus’ outreach makes the point, he said, “that we have a belief in forgiveness and that we do not have to discriminate unduly against anyone on the basis of our own religious beliefs.””

Nathan Deal (1942) American politician

reported by Trudy Ring, "Georgia Governor: 'License to Discriminate' Bill Isn't Christian," The Advocate, March 3, 2016 http://www.advocate.com/politics/2016/3/03/georgia-governor-license-discriminate-bill-isnt-christian?team=social

Religion, Way, Forgiveness, Thinking

“The point now before us is a settled case, and therefore there is no need to enter into arguments about it.”

Thomas Denison (1699–1765) British judge (1699–1765)

Rex v. Jarvis (1756), 1 Burr. Part IV. 154.

“But to get back to the point: did you ever imagine that your dad, who lives so far away from the bustle and intrigue of the world, working on his prints day after day like a hermit, would some day be drawn into the sickening scene of vain officialdom, despite himself?... But what on earth can I do about it? Luckily I can swear by God and all his angels that I never moved a finger to get the decoration or licked the boots of any bigwigs.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

Quote from Escher's letter to his son, 30 April 1955; as cited in 'Gaining Popularity', in Biography of M.C. Escher http://im-possible.info/english/articles/escher/escher.html - condensed mostly from the biography written by Bruno Ernst M.C. Escher - His Life and Complete Graphic Work, © 1981 27 April 1955 Escher was decorated (in the name of the Dutch Queen) in the 'Knighthood of the Order of Oranje Nassau' 1950's

God, World, Angels, Imagination

“The further we move our main force to the westward, and still be within supporting distance of this garrison, the better, both for the preservation of the provision and forage of this State, as well as to les sen the general expense of transportation. And the greater stock of provision and forage we can leave in this State, and upon the communications, the less difficulty we shall find in giving support to this place, should the enemy approach it. I should re commend, therefore, to quarter the army as far wesir ward as Morristown or Baskingridge. The country is strong, secure from a surprise, happily situated to receive supplies of provisions and forage, and not very inconvenient for giving protection and cover to the inhabitants. It is true, it is considerably removed from this place. But were we to take a position at Suffern's or Pompton, the consumption of forage would be so great that it would destroy the possibility of keeping up a communication with the Western States, however pressing the necessity, before the grass sea son. Suppose the enemy should move up, early in the spring, and lay siege to West Point, and the supplies of this State prove unequal to our support, should we not be obliged to abandon it to its fate?”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (November 1779)

Fate, Spring, Communication, Support

“You hear people in restaurants competing with each other "I love you". "No, I love you". "Yeah, but I REALLY love you. I love pencils that you have sucked and thrown away ten years ago. I love your eyebrows and your ancestry and EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU! Just eat your food and let me love you, don't speak!" But what they don’t know, of course, at the time is that that dialogue is actually from a really bad science fiction film written by nature - really, what they're saying to one another is: "The race must continue, the race must continue! My vadudium is pointing at your phenungulator, the race must continue!"”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

Like, Totally (2006)

Love, People, Food, Nature

“The survival of journalism in the digital age rests on its unique selling point: serving this public interest. Fail or forget to do that, and it has no future.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Press Gazette http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/8235 - "Harold Evans, Guido Fawkes, Heather Brookes and Bild on journalism and the public interest", 27 September 2011. Attributed, In the Media

Age, Future, Forgetting

“…the French are on the point of making a great effort in Portugal…which Lord Wellington…will find himself unable to resist. But even if such an effort could not take place or should not succeed, I am convinced the period when we shall be obliged to give up the contest from an absolute inability to support the expense, is fast approaching.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lord Grenville (1 September 1811), quoted in Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 (Yale University Press, 1996), p. 157.
1810s

Support, Effort

“You can't blame me sure the killer was my son
but I didn't teach him to pull the trigger of the gun
It's the killing on this tv screen
you can't blame me it's those images he's seen.
Well you can't blame me says the media man
Well I wasn't the one who came up with the plan
And I just point my camera at what the people want to see
Man it's a two way mirror and you can't blame me.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Cookie Jar.
Song lyrics, On and On (2003)

People, Way

“From a religious point of view the triadic classification of being as nature, spirit, and God has no validity. There is only the dyad: nature, which includes the human spirit, and God. The only way man can break the bonds of nature is by cleaving to God; by acting in compliance with the divine will rather than in accordance with the human will.”

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) israeli intellectual

"Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State" (1995)

God, Way, Nature

“You will know that in our most recent skirmishes, I won some debating points and he won another general election.”

Joe Clark (1939) 16th Prime Minister of Canada

Clark salutes Jean Chrétien in the House of Commons, November 6, 2003. Clark was deemed by most polls to have "won" the Federal leaders' English-language debate in 2000. ( http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/prime_ministers/topics/1062/)

“Sian Lloyd – what was she doing there? Why did you cast and pay for a kind of celebrity for your advert? You know, I could understand if your advert was based on weather, I could understand if your advert was based on her being upset because her boyfriend blew her out for a cheeky girl, right and she's crying, but I can't understand this. She's not even a mother, what's the point?”

Alan Sugar (1947) British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor

Episode 9
The Apprentice, Series 4

Girl, Understanding, Cry, Weather

“What's the point anyway — Of suffering, dying? It teaches us to live, boy. A man who does not struggle does not live, he survives.”

Oriana Fallaci book A Man

A Man (1979)

Boy, Suffering

“It doesn't just say Christians. It also says persecuted Muslims get priority as well. So, this is not a Muslim ban…. And the reason we chose those seven countries was, those were the seven countries that both the Congress and the Obama administration identified as being the seven countries that were most identifiable with dangerous terrorism taking place in their country…. Now, you can point to other countries that have similar problems, like Pakistan and others. Perhaps we need to take it further. But for now, immediate steps, pulling the Band-Aid off, is to do further vetting for people traveling in and out of those countries.”

Reince Priebus (1972) American attorney and politician; White House Chief of Staff, January – July 2017

Discussing bill to bar entry to U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen), "Priebus and Conway Echo Trump: ‘This Is Not a Muslim Ban’ http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/priebus-and-conway-echo-trump-not-muslim-ban (January 30, 2017)

People, Travel, Problem, Country

“[A]fter I got evicted from the Republican Party, I began reading considerably more of the works of American anarchists, thanks largely to Murray Rothbard…and I was just amazed.When I read Emma Goldman, it was as though everything I had hoped that the Republican Party would stand for suddenly came out crystallised. It was a magnificently clear statement. And another interesting things about reading Emma Goldman is that you immediately see that, consciously or not, she's the source of the best in Ayn Rand. She has the essential points that the Ayn Rand philosophy thinks, but without any of this sort of crazy solipsism that Rand is so fond of, the notion that people accomplish everything all in isolation. Emma Goldman understands that there’s a social element to even science, but she also writes that all history is a struggle of the individual against the institutions, which of course is what I’d always thought Republicans were saying, and so it goes.In other words, in the Old Right, there were a lot of statements that seemed correct, and they appeal to you emotionally, as well; it was why I was a Republican—isolationist, anti-authoritarian positions, but they’re not illuminated by anything more than statement. They just are good statements. But in the writings of the anarchists the same statements are made, but with this long illumination out of experience, analysis, comparison…it's rock-solid, and so I immediately realised that I'd been stumbling around inventing parts of a tradition that was old and thoughtful and already existed, and that's very nice to discover that—I don't think it's necessary to invent everything.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Anarchism in America http://alexpeak.com/art/films/aia/ (15 January 1983)

People, Hope, History, Understanding

“Returning home on leave following my second year at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who had joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen and had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee at Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of my grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in that order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, he was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence to the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt and stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to the inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to that same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Military Academy at West Point, New York."”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Uncle White was silent for what seemed like a long time. "That's all right, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too."
Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 12.

Hate, War, Age, School

“This Spring of 1911 Marianne von Werefkin [his former study-mate in Russia and in fact his life-comapnion for many years, but never married] Andrei, Helene and I went to Prerow on the Baltic [coast]. For me that summer meant a great step forward in my art. I painted my finest landscapes there as well as large figure paintings in powerful, glowing colours and not at all naturalistic or objective. I used a great deal of red, blue, orange, cadmium yellow and chromium-oxide green. My forms were very strongly contoured in Prussian blue, and came with tremendous power from an inner ecstasy. 'Der Buckel', 'Violetter Turban', 'Selbstporträt'.... were created in this way. It was a turning-point in my art. It was in these years, up to 1914, just before the war [World War 1. ], that I painted my most powerful works, referred to as the pré-war works.”

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter

Quote c. 1911; in 'Lebenserinnerungen', 1938; as cited in Alexej von Jawlensky, Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam; exhibition catalog 25/9 – 27/11-1994 (a. o. his life quotes from ['Life Memories'] he dictated late in his life, in 1938)
1900 - 1935

Life, War, World, Art

“A little apish hat, couched fast to the pate, like an oyster;
French cambric ruffs, deep with a witness, starched to the purpose:
Delicate in speech; quaint in array; conceited in all points;
In courtly guiles, a passing singular odd man.”

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era

Source: About, Lines attributed to Gabriel Harvey by Thomas Nashe, said to have been written to ridicule Oxford.

“There is no difficulty in securing enough agreement for action on the point that education should serve the needs of the people. But all hinges on the interpretation of needs; if the primary need of man is to perfect his spiritual being … then education of the mind and the passions will take precedence over all else. The growth of materialism, however, has made this a consideration remote and even incomprehensible to the majority.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 49.

People, Education, Passion, Perfection

“For a year and a half, we've been waiting for phase two. You know there comes a point where we'll be in next year, it'll be too close to an election and this will once again just slip through our hands. I think we owe the American people some straight answers. We certainly owe the troops who are risking their lives every day straight answers.”

Richard Durbin (1944) U.S. senior senator from Illinois

People, Thinking, Waiting

“At times those who do not want to have their inconsistencies pointed out say in a super-sweet voice to me "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I reply "O. K., judge me, then."”

Ammon Hennacy (1893–1970) American Christian radical

The Book of Ammon

Time

“The significant point to be noted about the Syrian Christians, however, is their sudden change of colour as soon as the Portuguese arrived on the scene. They immediately rallied round the Portuguese and against their Hindu neighbours, and when the Portuguese started pressurizing the Hindu Rajas for extraterritorial rights so that their co-religionists could be “protected”, the Syrian Christians evinced great enthusiasm everywhere.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Change

“I'm dedicating my little story to you; doubtless you will be among the very few who will ever read it. It seems war stories aren't very well received at this point. I'm told they're out-dated, untimely and as might be expected - make some unpleasant reading. And, as you have no doubt already perceived, human beings don't like to remember unpleasant things. They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with a few exceptions, seem to accomplish their "forgetting" quite admirably. But you, my children, I don't want you to be among those who choose to forget. I want you to read my stories and a lot of others like them. I want you to fill your heads with Remarque and Tolstoy and Ernie Pyle. I want you to know what shrapnel, and "88's" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean. I want you to feel, no matter how vicariously, a semblance of the feeling of a torn limb, a burnt patch of flesh, the crippling, numbing sensation of fear, the hopeless emptiness of fatigue. All these things are complimentary to the province of war and they should be taught and demonstrated in classrooms along with the more heroic aspects of uniforms, and flags, and honor and patriotism. I have no idea what your generation will be like. In mine we were to enjoy "Peace in our time". A very well meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words… less than a year before the whole world went to war. But this gentleman was suffering the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing the rose colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the war that came before.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Excerpt from a dedication to an unpublished short story, "First Squad, First Platoon"; from Serling to his as yet unborn children.
Other

War, Children, World, Fear

“Nothing is more delightful than to confuse and upset people. People one doesn't like. What's the use of giving them explanations that are merely food for curiosity? The truth is that people love nothing but themselves and their little possessions, their income, their dog. This state of affairs derives from a false conception of property. If one is poor in spirit, one possesses a sure and indomitable intelligence, a savage logic, a point of view that can not be shaken. Try to be empty and fill your brain cells with a petty happiness. Always destroy what you have in you. On random walks..”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1920s, Lecture on Dada', 1922

Love, Happiness, People, Truth

“3890. Point not at other's Spots with a foul Finger.”

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

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1750) : Clean your Finger, before you point at my Spots.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

“The freedom of the seemingly false opinion and our tolerance of it and our willingness to meet with it in the open help test the validity of truth while keeping alive the critical sense which is the main spring of all advancement of human thought and is the vital point, the very soul, of all human progress.”

Boris Sidis The Source and Aim of Human Progress

The Source and Aim of Human Progress (1919)

Truth, Soul, Spring, Sense

“Many years ago I heard a paper read by a colleague who was very philosophically astute and informed. The paper was on ethics, and it was rigorously argued, proper distinctions were made, and the critique of other points of view was cogent. … When my colleague finished his paper the man chairing the meeting said, "That's not ethics. Ethics has to do with prophecy. I learned that from Rabbi Abraham Heschel."”

James Gustafson (1925) American academic

Source: "Varieties of Moral Discourse: Prophetic, Narrative, Ethical and Policy", p. 47

Learning, Reading

“It were doubtless to be wished, that the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves had not been postponed until the year 1808, or rather that it had been suffered to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to account, either for this restriction on the general government, or for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that period, it will receive a considerable discouragement from the federal government, and may be totally abolished, by a concurrence of the few States which continue the unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example which has been given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before them of being redeemed from the oppressions of their European brethren!”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Federalist No. 42 http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes/slavery.html 1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Happiness, Suffering

“As far as my own experience is concerned, I sometimes begin a drawing with no preconceived problem to solve, with only the desire to use pencil on paper, and make lines, tones, and shapes with no conscious aim; bur as my mind takes in what is so produced, a point arrives where some idea becomes conscious and crystallizes, and then a control and ordering begin to take place.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Source: 1925 - 1940, The sculptor speaks' (1937), p. 255

Idea, Problem, Drawing

“Our daily life is no longer cursed by fear of those pestilences, plagues, black deaths, which used to devastate Europe. The layman has abolished those plagues by using the medical expert's knowledge. The medical expert has said in effect, "There are not many things that we are agreed upon, but at least we are agreed upon this: that though we cannot cure bubonic plague or cholera, we can prevent them, for we know that they are caused by microorganisms transmitted through water and vermin. Keep sewage from your drinking water and vermin from your homes, and you will prevent these plagues." The layman has seen the point, applied appropriate measures, and these dreadful pestilences have disappeared.
Now, if our publics these last twenty years could have grasped certain social truths, not inherently more difficult to understand than the microbic theory of disease, a large part at least of the economic and political pestilences which have come upon us in our generation would not have arisen.”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Life, Death, Truth, Fear

“From the humanistic point of view every human achievement is unforgettable and immortal in its essence, even if it is replaced by a "better" one.”

George Sarton (1884–1956) American historian of science

Preface.
A History of Science Vol.1 Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece (1952)

“This is Bruno's fundamental idea. He says: ”To recognize this unity of form and matter in all things, is what reason is striving to attain to. But in order to penetrate to this unity, in order to investigate all the secrets of Nature, we must search into the opposed and contradictory extremes of things, the maximum and the minimum” It is in these very extremes that they are intelligible, and become united in the Notion; and this union of them is infinite Nature. “To find the point of union is not the greatest matter; but to develop from, the same its very opposite, this is the real and the deepest secret of the art” It is saying much if we speak of knowing the development of the Idea as a necessity of determinations; we shall see later how Bruno proceeded to do this. He represents the original principle, which is elsewhere known as the form, under the Notion of the minimum, which is at the same time the maximum One, which at the same time is All; the universe is this One in All.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History Vol 3 1837 translated by ES Haldane and Francis H. Simson) first translated 1896 P. 128
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 3

Secret, Art, Search, Intelligence

“At this point in the dreadful story I am writing, I must interrupt for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidoptrerist, a word which usually means "a person who studies butterflies." In this case, however, the word "lepidopterist" means "a man who was being pursued by angry government officials," and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were--four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right--and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured--he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life--but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years, eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens.”

Daniel Handler book The Hostile Hospital

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

Life, Secret, Food, Feeling

Quotes about point page 39

Quotes about point
page 39