Quotes about position
page 25

“At this point, then, a junction is effected between the previously developed train of thought on countervailing passions and the doctrine of interest. Both doctrines originated in Machiavelli; yet the final outcome—the promotion of avarice to the position of the privileged passion given the job of taming the wild ones and of making in this fashion a crucial contribution to statecraft—would have greatly surprised and outraged him.”

Albert O. Hirschman (1915–2012) German-American economist; member of the French Resistance

The Passions and the Interests (1977) Part I. "How the Interests were Called Upon to Counteract the Passions".

Fashion, Passion, Training

“At 13, I was fearless. I looked at everything so positive. When you're older and been through it all, you know how bad it can get. There is a fear of failing.”

Michelle Kwan (1980) American figure skater

http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Kwan_Michelle.html

Fear

“When we were first playing, even though it was derivative, playing music was the best, there was nothing better. And then by the second album (Freak Show) we were like, playing music makes me angry, and by the third album (Neon Ballroom) I was like, I need to play music cos life sucks. And now all of a sudden there's this really youthful enthusiasm in the band, everyone around us, there's this real positivity and everyone's vibing off the music.”

Daniel Johns (1979) Australian musician

Kerrang! magazine, April 2002
Interviews

Life, Youth, Music

“The bizarre but all too common transformation of the woman artist from a producer in her own right into a subject for representation forms a leitmotif in the history of art. Confounding subject and object, it undermines the speaking position of the individual woman artist by generalizing her. Denied her individuality, she is displaced from being a producer and becomes instead a sign for male creativity.”

Whitney Chadwick (1943)

Women, Art, and Society: Fourth Edition (2007) ISBN 0-500-20393-8

Art, History

“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 1, “Don’t Try” (p. 9)

“Changing the world is like trying to straighten a dog's tail. However much you may try, you won't succeed. But although the tail won't straighten, if you keep trying every day, at least you will put on some muscle. Similarly, even though it is difficult to make a change, our effort to do so in itself brings positive results. It will help us change. Without waiting for others to change, if we change ourselves first, that will make a difference. Instead of worrying about results, focus on doing our best in what we are engaged in.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Conversation in Helsinki (2000)

World, Dogs, Effort, Change

“Nobody is suggesting that the NHS doesn't have to reform, nobody is suggesting that it doesn't have to become more efficient, that productivity growth doesn't have to become positive … The only difference is that in health, because of the demographic pressure, the savings will all – and more – have to be reinvested in delivering more healthcare.”

Philip Hammond (1955) British Conservative politician

Guardian interview (2009)

Health

“We need to send the message that anyone who orders suicide bombings against Americans, or protects those who do, commits suicide himself. And U. S. marines will search every cave in Afghanistan to make that principle stick. You order, you die — absolutely, positively, you die.”

Thomas Friedman (1953) American journalist and author

New York Times (6 January 2002) "Someone Tell the Kids".

Search, Suicide

“I have often been amused by our vulgar tendency to take complex issues, with solutions at neither extreme of a continuum of possibilities, and break them into dichotomies, assigning one group to one pole and the other to an opposite end, with no acknowledgment of subtleties and intermediate positions—and nearly always with moral opprobrium attached to opponents.”

Stephen Jay Gould book The Flamingo's Smile

"Just in the Middle", p. 378
The Flamingo's Smile (1985)

“Always use positive words, and never use negative or evil words. Cultivate good thoughts, not bad thoughts. Make sure your intentions are constructive intentions. Never be jealous; be grateful. Be tolerant, peaceful, and honest instead of vengeful. Always be compassionate, never proud and arrogant. Praise God, because God is the Deserving One. You need these in your life. If you can teach yourself to follow these suggestions, you will have a very good life.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

God's Psychology: A Sufi Explanation (2007)

Life, God, Peace, Evil

“Man is a synthesis of psyche and body, but he is also a synthesis of the temporal and the eternal. In the former, the two factors are psyche and body, and spirit is the third, yet in such a way that one can speak of a synthesis only when the spirit is posited. The latter synthesis has only two factors, the temporal and the eternal. Where is the third factor? And if there is no third factor, there really is no synthesis, for a synthesis that is a contradiction cannot be completed as a synthesis without a third factor, because the fact that the synthesis is a contradiction asserts that it is not. What, then, is the temporal?”

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

Source: 1840s, The Concept of Anxiety (1844), p. 85

Way

“In the administration of justice, whether by a recognised legal Court or by persons who, although not a legal public Court, are acting in a similar capacity, public policy requires that, in order that there should be no doubt about the purity of the administration, any person who is to take part in it should not be in such a position that he might be suspected of being biassed.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Allinson v. General Council of Medical Education and Registration (1894), L. R. [1894], 1 Q. B. p. 758.

Justice, Parting, Personality

“It is the positive practice of freedom, not the negative struggle against particular oppression, that has lifted me above a mutilated existence.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: On Nietzsche (1945), p. xxvii

Freedom

“Like men in his position throughout history, Kingsley Pryor did nothing as events swept him to their conclusion; simply waiting and praying that a magical third option would spring from nowhere.”

Peter F. Hamilton (1960) English novelist

The Night's Dawn Trilogy (1996-1999), The Naked God (1999)

Men, History, Spring, Waiting

“The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history, which – just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part – has the fine habit of always producing along with any real social need the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution. However, if such is the case, then it is clear that socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force – against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Source: The Russian Revolution (1918), Chapter Six, "The Problem of Dictatorship"

School, Way, History, Nature

“[A] paradox arises at the level of the subject's relationship to the community to which he belongs: the situation of the forced choice consists in the fact that the subject must freely choose the community to which he already belongs, independent of his choice - he must choose what is already given to him… The subject who thinks he can avoid this paradox and really have a free choice is a psychotic subject, one who retains a kind of distance from the symbolic order - who is not really caught in the signifying network. The totalitarian subject is closer to this psychotic position: the proof would be the status of the enemy in totalitarian distance (the Jew in Fascism, the traitor in Stalinism) - precisely the subject supposed to have made a free choice and to have freely chosen the wrong side. This is also the basic paradox of love: not only of one's country, but also of a woman or a man. If I am directly ordered to love a woman, it is clear that this does not work: in a way, love must be free. But on the other hand, if I proceed as if I really have a free choice, if I start to look around and say to myself 'Let's choose which of these women I will fall in love with,' it is clear that this also does not work, that it is not real love. The paradox of love is that it is a free choice, but a choice which never arrives in the present - it is always already made …I can only state retroactively that I've already chosen … [Stated by Kant], 'Wickedness does not simply depend upon circumstances but is an integral part of his eternal nature.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

In other words, wickedness appears to be something which is irreducibly given: the person in question can never change it, outgrow it via his ultimate moral development.
186-187
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Love, Women, Way, Communication

“So vast has been the change in the claim and position of slavery! So entirely has it reversed the classic story, and the blind, begging Belisarius has become the imperial general! So proudly, in such long and dazzling and magnificent array, stands Xerxes at the fiery pass of war! And where is Leonidas? Where is liberty?”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

War, Change

“There are several huge monasteries—of which Khang Phi is the greatest—dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. The monks do not sort it into good and evil knowledge, nor do they make moral judgments. They take the position that no knowledge is evil until someone chooses to do evil with it.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 10, “An Abode of Ravens: Recovery” (p. 397)

Knowledge, Evil

“With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black, and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious, and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.”

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) 7th Vice President of the United States

Speech in the U.S. Senate https://web.archive.org/web/20070123074414/http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.667/pub_detail.asp (12 August 1849) 1840s

“The-the-the criticism people have of your position, Reverend, is— you want God out of everything!”

Megyn Kelly (1970) American reporter

2010-04-16
America Live w/Megyn Kelly
Fox News
regarding interviewee Barry W. Lynn's position that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional

God, People

“On the positive side, at least we know now what to stock up with in case of a nuclear war. Also filmstars might consider injecting liquidized McD into their faces to halt the ageing process.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

Supporting the claims that fast food is slow to decompose, as quoted in "Real foods spoil very quickly, fast foods not" http://www.bihartimes.in/Maneka/Real_foods_spoil_very_quicklY,_fast_foods_not.html, The Bihar Times (27 October 2010) 2001-2010

War, Age

“what is called the flexibility of the labor market means that no job is secure. There is no longer a clear division but rather a large gray area in which all workers hover precariously between employment and unemployment. Second there is no "reserve" in the sense that no labor power is outside the process of social production. The poor, the unemployed, and the underemployed in our societies are in fact active in social production even when they do not have a waged position.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

131
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Sense

“I am not really suggesting that we should construct cybernetic cigarette boxes, merely that the situation described contains all the elements which would have to be taken into account in a design of a practical cognitive system. These can be described as:
1. The actual physical system (the box), whose construction is such that conditions hazardous to it can be identified;
2. A disordered and changing environment containing such hazards;
3. A motor ability capable of removing the system from the vicinity of danger;
4. Means of perceiving these aspects of the environment, capable of signalling the danger in advance,
5. A brain or a mechanism for deciding what to do on the basis of the perceived information.
The inclusion of complementary positive elements such as advantageous situations and the desire to seek them, would not affect the general scheme in any essential way.”

Edward Ihnatowicz (1926–1988) Cybernetic sculptor

Source: The Relevance of Manipulation to the Process of Perception, 1977, p. 134

Way, Change, Box

“The craze for power among elected representatives is the deathtrap of democracy. Once they get in to the positions of power, they become gluttons, like the hungry at the dining table.”

D. V. Gundappa (1887–1975) Indian writer

In page=20
D.V. Gundappa,Sahitya Akademi

Democracy

“The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst—for me, at least—is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.”

Stephen King book Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993), Introduction

Books, Fear, Faith, Way

“There is a saying that bad traders divorce their spouse sooner than abandon their positions. Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists - or anyone.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Fooled by Randomness

Source: Five: Survival of the Least Fit—Can Evolution be Fool by Randomness | A Review of Market Fools of Randomness Constants | The Traits They Shared
Fooled by Randomness (2001)

Loyalty, Idea

“Within a few days I will go to the papal Legate [Pucci], and if he shall open a conversation on the subject as he did before, I will urge him to warn the Pope not to issue an excommunication [against Luther], for which I think would be greatly against him [the Pope]. For if it be issued I believe the Germans will equally despise the Pope and the excommunication. But do you be of good cheer, for our day will not lack those who will teach Christ faithfully, and who will give up their lives for Him willingly, even though among men their names shall not be in good repute after this life…So far as I am concerned I look for all evil from all of them: I mean both ecclesiastics and laymen. I beseech Christ for this one thing only, that He will enable me to endure all things courageously, and that He break me as a potter's vessel or make me strong, as it pleased Him. If I be excommunicated I shall think of the learned and holy Hilary, who was exiled from France to Africa, and of Lucius, who though driven from his seat at Rome returned again with great honour. Not that I compare myself with them: for as they were better than i so they suffered what was a greater ignominy. And yet if it were good to flory I would rejoice to suffer insult for the name of Christ. But let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Lately I have read scarcely any thing of Luther's; but what I have seen of his hitherto does not seem to me to stray from gospel teaching. You know - if you rememeber - that what I have always spoken of in terms of the highest commendation in him is that he supports his position with authoritative witness.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

As cited in Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland, 1484-1531 by Samuel Macauley Jackson, John Martin Vincent, Frank Hugh Foster, p.148-149

Life, Men, Courage, Support

“I made the flames lick the surface of the painting in such a way that is recorded the spontaneous traces of the fire. But what is it that provokes in me this pursuit of the impression of fire? Why must I search for its traces? Because every work of creation, quite apart from its cosmic position, is the representation of pure phenomenology – every phenomenon manifests itself of its own accord. This manifestation is always distinct from form, and is the essence of the immediate, the trace of the immediate.”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

In 1961; p. 67
Klein's quote on making paintings with a flame-thrower
1960 -1964, "Yves Klein, 1928 – 1962, Selected Writings"

Way, Search, Painting

“The sheer decibel level of unreason surrounding the issue of abortion in academic writing about animal rights tells us something interesting. It suggests that, contrary to what the utilitarians and feminists working this terrain wish, the dots between sympathy for animals and sympathy for unborn humans are in fact quite easy to connect—so easy, you might say, that a child could do it. … Since ethical vegetarianism as a practice appears commonly rooted in an a priori aversion to violence against living creatures, so does it often appear to begin in the young. … A sudden insight, igniting empathy on a scale that did not exist before and perhaps even a life-transforming realization—this reaction should indeed be thought through with care. It is not only the most commonly cited feature of the decision to become a vegetarian. It is also the most commonly cited denominator of what brings people to their convictions about the desperate need to protect unborn, innocent human life. … Despite those who act and write in their name, actual vegetarians and vegans are far more likely to be motivated by positive feelings for animals than by negative feelings for human beings. As a matter of theory, the line connecting the dots between “we should respect animal life” and “we should respect human life” is far straighter than the line connecting vegetarianism to antilife feminism or antihumanist utilitarianism.”

Mary Eberstadt American writer

"Pro-Animal, Pro-Life" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/pro-animal-pro-life, in First Things (June 2009).

Life, People, Feeling, Motivation

“In ancient and respected monarchies the transmission of power is accomplished peacefully, and the hereditary leader enjoys, in the estimation of his subject, an added natural prestige of incalculable value. The high position occupied by the king of England is due to such prestige. Napoleon, who wished to found a dynasty, fully realized this; he knew that the king thought conquered, would still be king, but that a self-created emperor needed the support of continuous victories.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

Support, Nature, Victory

“Instead of the negative and relative stability of Cold War times, we all need positive stability based on collective interaction, an indifferently correct neighborhood is impossible on our continent. The principle of indivisibility of European security should be legally binding, relations between the US, Europe and Russia need a qualitatively new interaction that could help solve common and global challenges.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

In his speech from April 2010 http://rt.com/news/lavrov-council-europe-speech/

War, Time, Help, Indifference

“What people are desperate for, not just in Virginia but in this country, are people who will have a positive vision, who will actually speak to the issues that truly matter–the issues that are real issues in Virginia right now–like real gang violence, public safety, the issue of protecting history in Virginia with our monuments, some of the things that in our race in Virginia, like the economy and jobs, these are the things that have defined these races. Yet the Democrats won’t talk about that because they don’t have solutions, and they don’t want to.”

Jill Vogel (1970) American politician

Jill Vogel: VA Dems Focused on Division over Issues Because ‘They Don’t Have Solutions’ http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/11/06/vogel-va-dems-focused-division-issues-dont-have-solutions/ (November 6, 2017)

People, History, Country

“I seriously pondered over Mrs Gandhi’s thinking. I told her that this course would not be proper, as it would have serious repercussions. The entry of police into the complex was bound to inflame the public mind. Plausible alternatives could definitely be considered. She positively gave me an impression that she agreed to what I said. I tried my best to persuade her not to take any provocative step, but to adopt subtle methods to dislodge the armed men from religious places. Reflecting over this suggestion, she said that she would certainly apply her mind to other means, but did not disclose how her mind was working.”

Zail Singh (1916–1994) Indian politician and former President of India

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, p. 172.

Men, Thinking

““You sound like a rugged individualist,” said Webster.
“You say that like you think it’s funny,” yapped the mayor.
“I do think it’s funny,” said Webster. “Funny, and tragic, that anyone should think that way today.”
“The world would be a lot better off with some rugged individualism,” snapped the mayor. “Look at the men who have gone places—”
“Meaning yourself?” asked Weber.
“You might take me, for example,” Carter agreed. “I worked hard. I took advantage of opportunity. I had some foresight. I did—”
“You mean you licked the correct boots and stepped in the proper faces,” said Webster. “You’re the shining example of the kind of people the world doesn’t want today. You positively smell musty, your ideas are so old. You’re the last of the politicians, Carter, just as I was the last of the Chamber of Commerce secretaries. Only you don’t know it yet. I did. I got out. Even when it cost me something, I got out, because I had to save my self-respect. Your kind of politics is dead. They are dead because any tinhorn with a loud mouth and a brassy front could gain power by appeal to mob psychology. And you haven’t got mob psychology any more. You can’t have mob psychology when people don’t give a damn what happens to a thing that’s dead already—a political system that broke down under its own weight.””

Clifford D. Simak book City

Source: City (1952), Chapter 1, “City” (pp. 34-35)

Men, People, World, Way

“At the invitation of Her Majesty's Government, the United States is about to station on the soil of the United Kingdom nuclear weapons which, we are told, will be used only after consultation and by joint decision with Her Majesty's Government. Anyone who, after the experience of the last few days and of recent years, imagines that the United States will defer to the views of the Government of this country is living in a dangerous fool's paradise. Anyone in office who entertains that illusion is in no position to serve the security of this country.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1983/oct/26/grenada-invasion in the House of Commons (26 October 1983) during the debate on the American invasion of Grenada. 1980s

Fools, Imagination, Decision, Country

“But even when the Muslim position was not that strong, say, during Mahmud’s son Ibrahim’s campaign in Hindustan when “a fierce struggle ensued, but Ibrahim at length gained victory, and slew many of them. Those who escaped fled into the jungles. Nearly 100,000 of their women and children were taken prisoners…””

Ibrahim of Ghazna (1032–1099) sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3 quoting Maulana Ahmad, Tarikh-i-Alfi, E.D., V, 163; Farishtah, I, 49.

Women, Children, Strong, Victory

“Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well-established truths about the human mind: our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, Waking Up (2014), p. 8

Truth, World, Way, Thinking

“One of the first algebraists to accept negative numbers was… placed negative numbers on a par with positive numbers and gave both roots of a quadratic equation, even when both were negative. Both Girard and Harriot used the minus sign for the operation of subtraction and for negative numbers.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), pp. 252-253.

“You just can't have a position where some pumped up bunyip potentate dismisses an elected government.”

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

In reference to former Governor-General John Kerr. The Great Crash for The World Today book launch, 9 November, 2005.

“However, [Novick] does not account for the reality that views of Israel as being "beleaguered" are part of the same Zionist and Israeli strategy positing rising anti-Semitism to garner more support and immigration to Israel after the pool of immigrants had dried up in the mid-1950s. His point is that the perception of anti-Semitism is what led to more talk of the holocaust. However, it is this causal relationship that is suspect. One could posit that perceptions of a "beleaguered Israel," "oppressed" Soviet Jews, and the new "anti-Semitism," as well as talk of the holocaust, are all part of the same phenomenon rather than being caused by each other. One could further posit a different causal relationship with much of the same evidence Novick provides: namely, that it is Zionism, Israel, and America's use of past Jewish victimization to advance the Zionist agenda that informs the exaggeration of the relatively mild Soviet discriminatory policies against Jews (among other national and religious groups facing similiar discrimination) as holocaustal, the presentation of Israel as a victim of the new Arab "anti-Semites," or the condemnation of any criticism of American Jewry's support for Zionism or any criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitic."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness"

Support, Reality, Past, Parting

“Gentrification is a process that hides the apparatus of domination from the dominant themselves. Spiritually, gentrification is the removal of the dynamic mix that defines urbanity—the familiar interaction of different kinds of people creating ideas together. Urbanity is what makes cities great, because the daily affirmation that people from other experiences are real makes innovative solutions and experiments possible. In this way, cities historically have provided acceptance, opportunity, and a place to create ideas contributing to freedom. Gentrification in the seventies, eighties, and nineties replaced urbanity with suburban values, … so that the suburban conditioning of racial and class stratification, homogeneity of consumption, mass-produced aesthetics, and familial privatization got resituated into big building, attached residences, and apartments. This undermines urbanity and recreates cities as centers of obedience instead of instigators of positive change.”

Sarah Schulman (1958) American writer

Source: The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination (2012), p. 27

People, Family, Way, Idea

“Only in firm co-operation with a Great Russia will Germany have the chance of regaining her position as a world power…Britain and France fear the combination of the two land powers and try to prevent it with all their means—hence we have to seek it with all our strength…Whether we like or dislike the new Russia and her internal structure is quite immaterial. Our policy would have had to be the same towards a Tsarist Russia or towards a state under Kolchak or Denikin. Now we have to come to terms with Soviet Russia—we have no alternative…In Poland France seeks to gain the eastern field of attack against Germany and, together with Britain, has driven the stake which we cannot endure into our flesh, quite close to the heart of our existent a a state. Now France trembles for her Poland which a strengthened Russia threatens with destruction, and now Germany is to save her mortal enemy! Her mortal enemy, for we have none worse at this moment. Neva can Prussia-Germany concede that Bromberg, Graudenz, Thorn, (Marienburg), Posen should remain in Polish hands, and now there appears on the horizon, like a divine miracle, help for us in our deep distress. At this moment nobody should ask Germany to lift as much as a finger when disaster engulf Poland.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Memorandum (4 February 1920), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 68.

World, Fear, Appearance, Chance

“The right hon. Gentleman's statement was that Germany has already at this moment a military air force which is approaching equality with our own, and that by this time next year, if Germany continues to execute her programme without acceleration and if we continue to carry out the increase announced to Parliament in July last, the German military air force will be at least as strong as, and may be stronger than, our own…It is not the case that Germany is rapidly approaching equality with us…Even if we confine the comparison to the German air strength and the strength of the Royal Air Force immediately available in Europe, Germany is actively engaged in the production of service aircraft, but her real strength is not 50 per cent. of our strength in Europe to-day. As for the position this time next year, if she continues to execute her air programme without acceleration and if we continue to carry out at the present approved rate the expansion announced to Parliament in July…so far from the German military air force being at least as strong as and probably stronger than our own, we estimate that we shall still have in Europe a margin—in Europe alone—of nearly 50 per cent.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1934/nov/28/debate-on-the-address in the House of Commons (28 November 1934). 1934

Strong, Time

“As mineralogy constitutes a part of chemistry, it is clear that this arrangement [of minerals] must derive its principles from chemistry. The most perfect mode of arrangement would certainly be to allow bodies to follow each other according to the order of their electro-chemical properties, from the most electro-negative, oxygen, to the most electro-positive, potassium; and to place every compound body according to its most electro-positive ingredient.”

Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779–1848) Swedish chemist

Jöns Jacob Berzelius, An Attempt to Establish a Pure Scientific System of Mineralogy (1814), trans. J. Black, 48.

Parting, Perfection

“Many Christians have been duped into accepting a false idea: that there is a 'neutral' position they can take in regard to social issues. Some Christians even accept the myth that the U. S. Constitution declares that there should be a separation of church and state. They are hesitant to inject Christian beliefs into politics. God's Word, however, makes it clear that there is no neutral position.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

State of the Nation" webcast], Answers in Genesis (February 16, 2010)

God, Idea, Falseness

“To create a harmonious inner existence is a positive act with far-reaching effects, and not an act of isolation. To desire peace strongly is to help achieve it.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 337, Page 16
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 8

Peace, Help

“The members of the Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Herbert Feigl, Fritz Waismann, Kurt Godel, Otto Neurath and others) are working out a ‘Logical Empiricism’. Following Ernst Mach and Poincaré, but above all Russell and Wittgenstein, all the sciences are treated uniformly. Carnap’s Logischer Aufbau der Welt (1928) shows in which direction future systematic work will move. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) clarified, among other things, the position of logic and mathematics; besides the statements that make additions to what is meaningful, there are the ‘tautologies’ that show us which transformations are possible within language. By its syntax the language of science excludes anything that is meaningless from the very beginning.”

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist

Source: 1930s, "Physicalism" (1931), p. 52

Mathematics, Science, Future

“Isn't it said, and should it not be believed, or at least affirmed, or at any rate not repudiated, that you should expect to suffer for this; that you should expect to be reviled; that you should be proud to be abused; that you will be told that what you believe is absurd; that you should be glad to hear it, for His sake; that those who despitefully use you is to be expected. And isn't that a rather dignified position, a rather honorable position for the Church to take? Something that even an atheist, and humanist, and Marxist like myself can understand and respect. But instead what do we get? An endless whine of self-pity, of "Well why are they picking on us. They wouldn't say that about the Jews!" And an endless play on the ethnic politics and identity politics card. An endless appeal to self-pity. Well you should be proud that you're in a fight for your politics and your Church. And you seem instead to be resentful about it, and perhaps, who knows, a little insecure. However, for the main part of it, you only have to open a paper to see the exaggerated deference paid to every utterance of his Holiness the Pope, wherever he goes, and the extraordinary deference shown to him whenever he visits these shores and decides to grace us with his presence.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2000, "Hostility Of America to Religion" (2000)

Understanding, Suffering, Fight, Parting

“Here, in seeing that Final Cause — causation at the call of self-posited aim or end — is the only full and genuine cause, we further see that Nature, the cosmic aggregate of phenomena and the cosmic bond of their law which in the mood of vague and inaccurate abstraction we call Force, is after all only an effect.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Limits of Evolution, p.39

Law, Mood, Nature

“[My] publicity agent … went to hear Father Divine and he had a sermon and his subject was 'you got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.' And I said 'Wow, that's a colorful phrase!”

Johnny Mercer (1909–1976) American lyricist, songwriter, singer and music professional

And I said 'Wow, that's a colorful phrase!' Interviewed 1971 https://findingaids.library.unt.edu/?p=collections/findingaid&id=959&q=&rootcontentid=204947 by [Gilliland, John, Pop Chronicles the 40's: The Lively Story of Pop Music in the 40's, 978-1-55935-147-8, 31611854] Tape 1, side B. Quoted by PDF, '40s Sounds Return to Radio, 1972-10-29, Oakland Tribune, Bob, MacKenzie, 2009-04-03, http://web.archive.org/web/20120209175145/http://www.sfradiomuseum.com/audio/ksfo/1972/Trib_Pop-Chronicles-Article-2_1972.pdf, 2012-02-09 http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/ksfo/1972/Trib_Pop-Chronicles-Article-2_1972.pdf,

Color

“This was Barrington Erle, a politician of long standing, who was still looked upon by many as a young man, because he had always been known as a young man, and because he had never done anything to compromise his position in that respect. He had not married, or settled himself down in a house of his own, or become subject to the gout, or given up being careful about the fitting of his clothes.”

Anthony Trollope book The Prime Minister

Source: The Prime Minister (1876), Ch. 11

Housing, Clothes

“But supposing there is a German guarantee, of what is its value? It is unnecessary to accuse Germany of perfidy. Not only the Nazi Government but all previous German Governments from the time of Frederick the Great downwards have made their position perfectly clear. To them an international assurance is no more than a statement of present intention. It has no absolute validity for the future.”

Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom

Letter to The Guardian after the Munich Agreement of 1938, as quoted in Plough My Own Furrow (1965) by Martin Gilbert, pp. 416-20,

Time, Future

“Although Fox's private character was deformed by indulgence in vicious pleasures, it was in the eyes of his contemporaries largely redeemed by the sweetness of his disposition, the buoyancy of his spirits, and the unselfishness of his conduct. As a politician he had liberal sentiments, and hated oppression and religious intolerance. He constantly opposed the influence of the crown, and, although he committed many mistakes, and had in George III an opponent of considerable knowledge of kingcraft and immense resources, the struggle between him and the king, as far as the two men were concerned, was after all a drawn game…the coalition of 1783 shows that he failed to appreciate the importance of political principles and was ignorant of political science…Although his speeches are full of common sense, he made serious mistakes on some critical occasions, such as were the struggle of 1783–4, and the dispute about the regency in 1788. The line that he took with reference to the war with France, his idea that the Treason and Sedition bills were destructive of the constitution, and his opinion in 1801 that the House of Commons would soon cease to be of any weight, are instances of his want of political insight. The violence of his language constantly stood in his way; in the earlier period of his career it gave him a character for levity; later on it made his coalition with North appear especially reprehensible, and in his latter years afforded fair cause for the bitterness of his opponents. The circumstances of his private life helped to weaken his position in public estimation. He twice brought his followers to the brink of ruin and utterly broke up the whig party. He constantly shocked the feelings of his countrymen, and ‘failed signally during a long public life in winning the confidence of the nation’ (LECKY, Hist. iii. 465 sq). With the exception of the Libel Bill of 1792, the credit of which must be shared with others, he left comparatively little mark on the history of national progress. Great as his talents were in debate, he was deficient in statesmanship and in some of the qualities most essential to a good party leader.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

William Hunt, 'Fox, Charles James (1749–1806)', Dictionary of National Biography (1889).
About

Life, Men, Hate, War

“[Tim Cook's] position at Apple was to do the things Steve didn't want to do and to never be a threat to Steve, which means he likely is everything Steve isn't — yet he is trying to fit into a spot custom designed for Steve. Talk about your round peg in a square hole.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Meg Whitman vs. Tim Cook by the Numbers http://technewsworld.com/story/74694.html in Tech News World (26 March 2012)

Cooking

“The extraordinary significance that music holds for Delacroix, and which contributes most to his admiration for Chopin, is a symptom of the new hierarchy of the arts and the prominent position which music occupies in it. It is the romantic art par excellence and Chopin the most romantic of all the romantics. In his relation to Chopin, Delacroix’s intimate connection with romanticism is brought most clearly to light.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

Source: The Social History of Art, Volume III. Rococo, Classicism and Romanticism, 1999, Chapter 6. German and Western Romanticism

Art, Music, Light

“Life passes, with us all, a day at a time; so it passed with our friend Tom, till two years were gone. Though parted from all his soul held dear, and though often yearning for what lay beyond, still was he never positively and consciously miserable; for, so well is the harp of human feeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string can wholly mar its harmony; and, on looking back to seasons which in review appear to us as those of deprivation and trial, we can remember that each hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so that, though not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 22 "The Grass Withereth — the Flower Fadeth".

Life, Feeling, Soul, Appearance

“A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

p, 125
Collaborations with others, Science Order, and Creativity (1987)

People, Change

“Considering his position he became wonderfully free from the chronic melancholy which is taking hold of the civilized races with the decline of belief in a beneficent Power.”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Third: The Rally, ch. XVIII
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

“Accepting the view that man was prior in the creation, some Scriptural writers say that as the woman was of the man, therefore, her position should be one of subjection. Grant it, then as the historical fact is reversed in our day, and the man is now of the woman, shall his place be one of subjection?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton book The Woman's Bible

The Woman's Bible (1898)

“I don't have to stand here and defend the campaign of 1988. I'd be perfectly prepared to do it, but I was elected. I put confidence in the American people, their ability to sort through what is fair and what is unfair, what is ugly and what is un-ugly, and be as positive as possible.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

News conference (7 November 1989) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=17762

People, Confidence

“Where does your responsibility begin here? Wiping away the nebula from your sight, you struggle to find where you really are. You're trying to find the direction of the flow, struggling to hold on to the axis of time. But you can't locate the borderline separating dream and reality. Or even the boundary between what's real and what's possible. All you're sure of is that you're in a delicate position. Delicate-and dangerous. You're pulled along, a part of it, unable to pin down the principles of prophecy, or of logic. Like when a river overflows, washing over a town, all road signs have sunk beneath the waves. And all you can see are the anonymous roofs of the sunken houses.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 29, A Boy Named Crow

Dreams, Reality, Time, Parting

“Idiotic statements like “porn degrades women” or “pornography is the subordination of women” are only credible if you never look at pornography. Preachers, senators and feminist zealots carry on about material they have no direct contact with. They usually rely on a few selectively culled inflammatory examples that bear little resemblance to the porn market as a whole. Most pornography shows women in as many dominant as subordinate positions, with the latter usually steamily consensual.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 65

Women

“There,' I said to a friend, 'lies the best man I ever knew or ever expect to know; he was just to all men, and his heart was full to overflowing with kindness toward those who accomplished his death.' I have been satisfied that the persons who called at the Malvern were some of the assassins who would have killed him there if they could have got on board, and they could easily have escaped in the confusion by jumping overboard and swimming to the shore, which was not more than twenty yards distant. More-over, I do not think that the prime instigator of the deed was ever suspected, though I have my own opinion on the subject, as also had Senator Nye, that stanch old patriot who held, in the latter part of the war, a position somewhat analogous to that of a minister of police, or was in consultation, by the wish of President Lincoln, with the police authorities of our great cities. He picked up many interesting incidents in relation to the President's assassination which he talked about freely to me; but he was a prudent man, and a politician, and did not desire to raise questions which might affect his personal interests in the future.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), pp. 319–320

Death, Men, War, Question

“Europeans are unable to understand why a young Libyan came to Europe in the first place, and why apparently under no circumstances does he wish to return home. Specifically, Europeans — for a variety of 20th-century historical and cultural reasons — often are either ignorant of who they are or terrified about expressing their identities in any concrete and positive fashion. The result is that Europe cannot impose on a would-be newcomer any notion that consensual government is superior to the anarchy and theocracy of the Middle East, that having individual rights trumps being subjects of a dictator, that personal freedom is a better choice than statist tyranny, that protection of private property is a key to economic growth whereas law by fiat is not, and that independent judiciaries do not run like Sharia courts. It most certainly cannot ask of immigrants upon arrival that they either follow the laws of a society that originally made Europe attractive to them, or return home to live under a system that they apparently rejected. I omit for obvious reasons that few present-day Europeans believe that Christianity is much different from Islam, and apparently thus assume that terrorists might just as well be Christians.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, Europe at the Edge of the Abyss (2016)

Law, Home, Fashion, Understanding

“We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

LOVE (1972)

People, World, Feeling

“If in later life she has mastered her hunger drive by ego control, she may assume that she can control her fate herself. But that ego may in fact be very weak, because it has been built by cutting herself off from the mainstream of life through severe dieting. It is built on negative rather than positive need. In a real life crisis, such an ego may fail to operate because she does not know consciously what her own needs are. […] An ego which sets itself up against Fate is attempting to usurp the power of the Self; it swings from light to dark, from inflation to depression. Only when her ego is firmly rooted in her own feminine feeling can a woman be released from her compulsive behavior.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter (1980), p. 33

Life, Hunger, Fate, Behavior

“Notwithstanding their attacks on the basic conception of rationalism, on synthetic a priori judgments, that is, material propositions that cannot be contradicted by any experience, the empiricist posits the forms of being as constant.”

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) German philosopher and sociologist

Source: "The Latest Attack on Metaphysics" (1937), p. 146.

“You got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister inbetween.”

Johnny Mercer (1909–1976) American lyricist, songwriter, singer and music professional

Song Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive

“This chapter [of the destruction of temples], however, though significant, was only a part of the Muslim behaviour-pattern as recorded by Muslim historians of medieval India. The other parts were:
1) mass slaughter of people not only during war but also after the armies of Islam had emerged victorious;
2) capture of large numbers of non-combatant men, women and children as booty and their sale as slaves all over the Islamic world;
3) forcible conversion to Islam of people who were in no position to resist;
4) reduction to the status of zimmis or non-citizens of all those who could not be converted and imposition of inhuman disabilities on them;
5) emasculation of the zimmis by preventing them from possessing arms;
6) impoverishment of the zimmis through heavy discriminatory taxes and misappropriation of a major part of what the peasants produced;
7) ruination of the native and national culture of the zimmis by suppressing and holding in contempt all its institutions and expressions.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

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

Women, Men, War, Children

“When we come to inanimate elements, the prevailing view has been that time and sequential change are entirely foreign to their nature. According to this view they do not have careers; they simply change their relations is space. We have only to think of the classic conception of atoms. The Newtonian atom, for example, moved and was moved, thus changing its position in space, but it was unchangeable in its own being. …In itself it was like a God, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

God, Nature, Thinking, Change

“Plato in his allegory of the soul—in the Phaedrus—though he apparently divides the passions which draw the human chariot into two classes, the heavenward and the earthward—figured by the white horse and the black horse respectively—does not recommend that the black horse should be destroyed or dismissed, but only that he (as well as the white horse) should be kept under due control by the charioteer. By which he seems to intend that there is a power in man which stands above and behind the passions, and under whose control alone the human being can safely move. In fact if the fiercer and so-called more earthly passions were removed, half the driving force would be gone from the chariot of the human soul. Hatred may be devilish at times—but after all the true value of it depends on what you hate, on the use to which the passion is put. Anger, though inhuman at one time is magnificent and divine at another. Obstinacy may be out of place in a drawing-room, but it is the latest virtue on a battlefield when an important position has to be held against the full brunt of the enemy. And Lust, though maniacal and monstrous in its aberrations, cannot in the last resort be separated from its divine companion, Love. To let the more amiable passions have entire sway notoriously does not do: to turn your cheek, too literally, to the smiter, is (pace Tolstoy) only to encourage smiting; and when society becomes so altruistic that everybody runs to fetch the coal-scuttle we feel sure that something has gone wrong. The white-washed heroes of our biographies with their many virtues and no faults do not please us. We have an impression that the man without faults is, to say the least, a vague, uninteresting being—a picture without light and shade—and the conventional semi-pious classification of character into good and bad qualities (as if the good might be kept and the bad thrown away) seems both inadequate and false.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

Love, Hate, Feeling, Soul

“Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens Chapter VI "Old Curiosity Shop" (1911)

“Let positive, strong, helpful thoughts enter into your brains from very childhood. Lay yourselves open to these thoughts, and not to weakening and paralysing ones.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Strong, Help, Childhood

“Recently in our country, there has been a steadily increasing number of people who dislike work and pursue leisure and extravagance. Almost everywhere individuals and organizations are fighting with resultant loss of energy that is needed for positive action. In order to save them from this situation, a principle of judo, based on the maximum efficiency concept should be applied as one aspect of modern society and as a natural result of the application of the principle of maximum efficiency, a mutual welfare and prosperity is believed to be the only effective way to ease and neutralize the forces among these individuals and organizations.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

Also quoted in "Hints For Judo" by D. Risei Kano, at usadojo.com http://www.usadojo.com/articles/hints-judo.htm Kodokan Magazine (1974)

People, Way, Nature, Loss

“If one tries to understand the position of art today, one must also try to understand the conditions that have created the development of our perception of art and our perception of the relation to the individual and to society. The artist takes an active part in the campaign to deepen this our knowledge of the basis of our existence, the basis which, for him, makes possible an artistic creation. The artist's interest cannot be restricted to a single field; he must seek the highest perception of everything, of the whole and its details. Nothing can be sacred to him, because everything has become important to him.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

1940 - 1948, Intimate Banalities' (1941)

Art, Understanding, Knowledge, Parting

“To ignore social costs because they require an evaluation by society… and to leave social losses out of account because they are 'external' and 'non-economic' in character, would be equivalent to attributing no or ‘zero’ value to all social damages which is no less arbitrary and subjective a judgement than any positive or negative evaluation of social costs.”

Karl William Kapp (1910–1976) American economist

Source: Social Costs of Business Enterprise, 1963, p. 12. Cited in: M. Rangone & S. Solari (2012) "Southern European capitalism and the social costs of business enterprise". in: Studi e Note di Economia, Anno XVII, n. 1-2012, pp. 3-28

Loss

“But if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Clinton Speech For National Multi-Housing Council https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 (24 April 2013), WikiLeaks. Attributed

People

“Those who urge an alliance with Assad cite the example of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet despot who became an ally of Western democracies against Nazi Germany. I never liked historical comparisons and like this one even less. To start with, the Western democracies did not choose Stalin as an ally; he was thrusted upon them by the turn of events. When the Second World War started Stalin was an ally of Hitler thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union actively participated in the opening phase of the war by invading Poland from the east as the Germans came in from the West. Before that, Stalin had rendered Hitler a big service by eliminating thousands of Polish army officers in The Katyn massacre. Between September 1939 and June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin was an objective ally of Hitler. Stalin switched sides when he had no choice if he wanted to save his skin. The situation in Syria today is different. There is no alliance of democracies which, thanks to Obama’s enigmatic behavior, lack any strategy in the Middle East. Unlike Stalin, Assad has not switched sides if only because there is no side to switch to. Assad regards ISIS as a tactical ally against other armed opposition groups. This is why Russia is now focusing its air strikes against non-ISIS armed groups opposed to Assad. More importantly, Assad has none of the things that Stalin had to offer the Allies. To start with Stalin could offer the vast expanse of territory controlled by the Soviet Union and capable of swallowing countless German divisions without belching. Field Marshal von Paulus’ one-million man invasion force was but a drop in the ocean of the Soviet landmass. In contrast, Assad has no territorial depth to offer. According to the Iranian General Hossein Hamadani, who was killed in Aleppo, Assad is in nominal control of around 20 percent of the country. Stalin also had an endless supply of cannon fodder, able to ship in millions from the depths of the Urals, Central Asia and Siberia. In contrast, Assad has publicly declared he is running out of soldiers, relying on Hezbollah cannon fodder sent to him by Tehran. If Assad has managed to hang on to part of Syria, it is partly because he has an air force while his opponents do not. But even that advantage has been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Four years of bombing defenseless villages and towns has not changed the balance of power in Assad’s favor. This may be why his Russian backers decided to come and do the bombing themselves. Before, the planes were Russian, the pilots Syrian. Now both planes and pilots are Russian, underlining Assad’s increasing irrelevance. Stalin’s other card, which Assad lacks, consisted of the USSR’s immense natural resources, especially the Azerbaijan oilfields which made sure the Soviet tanks could continue to roll without running out of petrol. Assad in contrast has lost control of Syria’s oilfields and is forced to buy supplies from ISIS or smugglers operating from Turkey. There are other differences between Stalin then and Assad now. Adulated as “the Father of the Nation” Stalin had the last word on all issues. Assad is not in that position. In fact, again according to the late Hamadani in his last interview published by Iranian media, what is left of the Syrian Ba’athist regime is run by a star chamber of shadowy characters who regard Assad as nothing but a figurehead.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: No, Bashar Al-Assad is no Joseph Stalin http://english.aawsat.com/2015/10/article55345413/opinion-no-bashar-al-assad-is-no-joseph-stalin, Ashraq Al-Awsat (16 Oct, 2015).

War, World, Law, Behavior

“The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. The image of the future can act not only as a barometer, but as a regulative mechanism which alternately opens and shuts the dampers on the mighty blast-furnace of culture. It not only indicates alternative choices and possibilities, but actively promotes certain choices and in effect puts them to work in determining the future. A close examination of prevailing images, then, puts us in a position to forecast the probable future. Any culture which finds itself in the condition of our present culture, turning aside from its own heritage of positive visions of the future, or actively at work in changing these positive visions into negative ones, has no future…”

Fred Polak (1907–1985) Dutch futurologist

Source: The Image of the Future, 1973, p. 300

Change, Future

“Every Sunday, practically, we were at home to friends and guests and frequently had 20 or 30 people at the house. We mixed them all up higgledy-piggledy, young and old, people of good social position or of no position, and I believe a good time was had by all. We served cake and punch, tea and coffee, and no matter who they were everybody had to "muck in" and wash dishes and tidy up the sitting room when the day was over.”

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

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

People, Home, Coffee, Time

“Keynes didn’t make an all-out assault on Economic Man, but he often resorted to plausible psychological theorizing rather than careful analysis of what a rational decision-maker would do. Business decisions were driven by “animal spirits,” consumer decisions by a psychological tendency to spend some but not all of any increase in income, wage settlements by a sense of fairness, and so on.
But was it really a good idea to diminish the role of Economic Man that much? No, said Friedman, who argued in his 1953 essay “The Methodology of Positive Economics” that economic theories should be judged not by their psychological realism but by their ability to predict behavior. And Friedman’s two greatest triumphs as an economic theorist came from applying the hypothesis of rational behavior to questions other economists had thought beyond its reach.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Who Was Milton Friedman?", The New York Review of Books (February 15, 2007)
The New York Review of Books articles

Behavior, Idea, Question, Business

“The wreck of the Titanic functions as a sublime object: a positive, material object elevated to the status of the impossible Thing. And perhaps all the effort to articulate the metaphysical meaning of the Titanic is nothing but an attempt to escape this terrifying impact of the Thing, an attempt to domesticate the Ting by reducing it to its symbolic status, by providing it with a meaning. We usually say that the fascinating presence of a Thing obscures its meaning; here, the opposite is true: the meaning obscures the terrifying impact of its presence.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

77
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Effort

“It was around dusk when my companion and I noticed the position of sun closer to the west horizon, and the sun was going up.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

When he saw this strange phenomenon while he was travelling from London to Chicago on December 14, 1963, by a jet plane.
When Prof Jayant Narlikar saw the sun rise in the west

Sun

“Today's meeting with (Macau) Chief Executive (Fernando) Chui was a positive step. Because Taiwan has very close ties with Macau, it can be a good model for relations between Taiwan and Hong Kong or across the Taiwan Strait.”

Wang Yu-chi (1969) Taiwanese politician

Wang Yu-chi (2013) cited in " MAC head meets with Macau's top official in first trip since taking office http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/intl-community/2013/08/28/387526/MAC-head.htm" on The China Post, 28 August 2013

“For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is the brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is fraternity but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Source: Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946), pp. 330-331

Universe

“Chamberlain's stubborn, fanatical insistence on giving Hitler what he wanted, his trips to Berchtesgaden and Godesberg and finally the fateful journey to Munich rescued Hitler from his limb and strengthened his position in Europe, in Germany, in the Army, beyond anything that could have been imagined a few weeks before. It also added immeasurably to the power of the Third Reich vis-à-vis the Western democracies and the Soviet Union.”

William L. Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)

Fate, Democracy, Imagination

“Our ethnicity is part of us, however, it should not isolate or distance us from the community in which we live. People of different cultures cannot not live peacefully together unless they have respect for each other. I accept that seeking further integration is a challenge and it cannot be imposed or done under duress; the feeling has to come from within ourselves. To create an environment for that to happen, we have to develop situations and opportunities that place people in a position to make choices and this is one of them. And unless we begin to see our neighbours as people, as human beings rather than by ethnicity, it is difficult to shed our stereotypes of each other.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Opening address to the Leadership Fiji 2006 program, 9 March 2006.

People, Feeling, Communication, Parting

“Usually, when I’ve met the people who are meant to be in a position of power, I’ve always made sure to give them a damn good soul stare—y’know, look right in their eyes, through the blackness of the pupils and into whatever conscious field exists within. Then lock the eyes on, but let them gently defocus so that the defined parameters of the visual physical go blurry and you can feel the energy behind it, the unseeable energy that isn’t made of photons. Then, if your mind is quiet, you will be informed of the quality of their essence, or at least of the manifest persona that they believe themselves to be.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

People, Feeling, Soul

“Of all the African Amazons, only the Gorgons seem to have maintained a pure Amazon state; the others, though keeping the army purely feminine, maintained some men in their camps. [Among] [t]he Libyan Amazons …. [, ] [t]he women monopolized government and other influential positions. In contrast to the later Thermodontines, however, they lived in a permanent relationship with their sex partners, even though the men led a retiring life, could not hold public office, and had no right to interfere in the government of the state or society. Children, who were brought up on mare's milk, were given to the men to rear”

Helen Diner (1874–1948) Austrian writer and historian

.
Mothers and Amazons (trans. 1965 (original 1930s)), p. 136.

Life, Women, Men, Children

“I began to practice 'meditation', sitting cross-legged for hours, staring straight in front of me. The result was a sudden and total transformation of my inner-being. There was a sense of freedom from my personality -- from the being called Colin Wilson who was born in Leicester in 1931. I felt that 'he' was a series of responses and reactions, of ambitions and frustrations. But after half an hour of staring straight in front of me, of concentrating my attention 'at the root of my eyebrows', I felt in control of his responses and frustrations. This control brought such a sense of exhilaration and satisfaction that I often sneaked away from other people to spend just five minutes sitting cross-legged; when I was working as a labourer on a building site, I would find a quiet spot and, while the others were having a smoke, would sit in a position that could quickly be changed to an ordinary sitting posture if someone came by...”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Frankenstein's Castle (1980), p. 87

People, Sense, Freedom, Change

“I was positively stunned and have straightaway become a votary of Mathura art to the exclusion of all the other and later schools. I had some of the things in reproductions but never dreamt they were so magnificent. With the possible exception of Mahabalipuram I don’t think I have seen anything in Indian sculpture that I liked so much.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

In [Dalmia, Yashodhara, Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life, http://books.google.com/books?id=KmMctE3wAgIC&pg=PT152, 15 January 2013, Penguin Books Limited, 978-81-8475-921-1, 152–]
Sikh Heritage,Amrita Shergil

School, Art, Thinking

“Two children die. An accident and a suicide amongst so many murders. A chance death and a death of self-recrimination. Smut and the Skipping Girl have been aping their parents and elders -- perhaps they could now teach them a lesson -- all the machinations and game-playing and adjusting for sexual and emotional positioning is not worth the effort.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Fear of Drowning By Numbers

Death, Children, Girl, Game

“All the Democrats are for higher taxes. All of them are in favor of Hillary's socialist health-care plan. All of them are for higher pay for teachers and nurses — and no pay at all for anyone in the pharmaceutical or oil industries, especially Halliburton executives, who should be sent to Guantánamo. All the Democrats believe the way to strike fear in the hearts of the terrorists is for the federal government to invest heavily in windmills.
All the Democrats oppose the war. And all the Democrats who took a position on the war before it began were for it, but now believe that everything Bush did from that moment forward has been bad! bad! bad! … Finally, all the candidates are willing to sell out any of these other issues in service of the one burning desire of all Democrats: abortion on demand. If they could just figure out a way to abort babies using solar power, that's all we'd ever hear about.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"What happened to your queer party-friends?" (22 January 2004) http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2004/01/22/what_happened_to_your_queer_party-friends/page/full/ also in How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 49. 2004

War, Health, Fear, Way

“If the UK is not in the European Union, there is no way we could speak to countries such as Estonia. As a former British colony, as a former British protectorate, as someone who can speak English, we would not be able to articulate [our positions] or have a conversation. Of course we can have a conversation with Estonia or any other European government but collective decision with the UK at the forefront helps us.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Nasheed said it was in the "best interests of the Commonwealth" for Britain to remain within the union because of its ability to provide a link between the multinational bodies, quoted on The Telegraph, "Brexit would be damaging for EU-Commonwealth relations, says former Maldives president" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/maldives/12187682/Brexit-would-be-damaging-for-EU-Commonwealth-relations-says-former-Maldives-president.html, March 9, 2016.

Way, Decision, Help, Country

“Love is either a wonderful thing or a psychological disorder depending on your perspective. One thing is clear: successful people are powered by love as a positive force.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Love, People, Success, Dependency