Quotes about position
page 6

“To give your positive or negative attention to something is a way of giving energy. The most damaging form of behavior is withholding your attention.”

Masaru Emoto (1943–2014) Japanese writer

Source: The Hidden Messages in Water

Way, Behavior

“Their position seems to be that their God is so great he doesn't even have to exist.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact

God

“(On being in a position of leadership) Even if it's your dog, you've got authority over somebody. Start treating him better.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Dogs

“In matters of the heart as well, a certain level of negativity and suspicion is universally recommended. You may try to project a thoroughly positive outlook in order to attract a potential boyfriend, but you are also advised to Google him.”

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) American writer and journalist

Universe, Heart

“I am a glorious child of God. I am joyful, serene, positive, and loving.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Love, God

“You cannot expect to live a positive life if you hang with negative people.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Life, People

“It was so much easier to be angry. Being angry made him feel strong, even though-- and this contradiction did nothing to diminish his anger-- he was angry only because his position was so weak.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Feeling, Strong, Anger

“To show a longing for anything that one cannot have, for instance, is not a clever position.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Source: The Signature of All Things

“If I gave you a pity position it wouldn't be in my office.”

Janet Evanovich book Eleven on Top

Source: Eleven on Top

“People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

People, History

“He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.”

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) English dramatist, poet and translator

Love, Money

“I have noticed that people are dealing too much with the negative, with what is wrong…. Why not try the other way, to look into the patient and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

People, Way

“‎"Make an obstacle an opportunity, make a negative a positive.”

Lance Armstrong (1971) professional cyclist from the USA

“Louis-Cesare slowly pulled himself into a half-standing position against the side of the winery.'What? Did you think one little mage was going to do me in?' He swallowed hard. 'Hell, that was just a warm-up.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Midnight's Daughter

Hell, Thinking

“I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists

History, Change, Anger

“Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief,
but it is belief that is the positive, it is belief
that sustains thought and holds the world together.”

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

World

“Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed

Attitude, Positive, Personality

“The only good thing I've ever noticed about money, the only positive aspect of an otherwise pretty vulgar commodity, is that you can use it to buy things.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller

Money

“Besides, all my New York friends were in the negative, nightmare position of putting down society and giving their tired bookish or political or psychoanalytical reasons, but Dean just raced in society, eager for bread and love.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Love

“The doctrine of toleration requires a positive as well as a negative statement. It is not only wrong to burn a man on account of his creed, but it is right to encourage the open avowal and defence of every opinion sincerely maintained. Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.”

Leslie Stephen (1832–1904) British author, literary critic, and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography

The Nineteenth Century, vol. 13 (1883) p. 665

Thinking, Sincerity

“The more clearly we express it that the whole weight of our future victories will lie on our enemies, the more, in my opinion, will it tend to shorten the war. We have covered a considerable distance towards peace. The Entente no longer has any possibility of beating us economically. Do they think they can beat us militarily, now that our position in the West has become better that it ever was? If the statesmen of the Entente wanted understanding, they ought to have taken advantage of the situation now, when the Reich Chancellor has offered them the hand of understanding. They are playing a wanton game with their misguided peoples. Let the example of Russia be a warning to them. Russia, which offered us the hand of understanding, could have obtained a good peace of understanding if she had not risked this peace through the arrogance of Trotsky. May this struggle bring us victory, but may it also bring the benefits of this victory for Germany's future.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

War, People, Lie, Peace

“The necessity for leaders to possess optimism and ego serves to answer the age-old question: Are leaders born or are they made? They are born. A leader is born with an optimistic disposition or she is not. If she is not, then no amount of "optimism training" is going to make her view the world in an overwhelmingly positive, opportunistic light.”

Marcus Buckingham (1966) British writer

Source: The One Thing You Need to Know (2005), p. 69

Age, World, Optimism, Question

“It's a fairly unique position; to have been in charge of prison funding and then to have been an inmate. I wish I'd been more generous.”

Jonathan Aitken (1942) Conservative Member of Parliament, former British government Cabinet minister

As quoted in The Times (3 June 2000).

“Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2003, Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (2003)

“Immaterial labor has become hegemonic in qualitative terms and has imposed a tendency on other forms of labor and society itself. Immaterial labor, in other words, is today in the same position that industrial labor was 150 years ago, when it accounted for only a small fraction of global production and was concentrated in a small part of the world but nonetheless exerted hegemony over all other forms of production. Just as in that pgase all forms of labor and society itself had to industrialize, today, labor and society have to informationalize, become intelligent, become communicative, become affective.”

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

109
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

World, Intelligence, Communication, Parting

“I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at the end that I would love to live.
Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession to question or counter that one strong view queers the law.
The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "radical" by many within the profession, yet the positions that I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and significant figures in the history of this branch of the law.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)

Love, Life, Books, World

“When you are in the position privileged access, like a system administrator, you are exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale then the average employee…”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Praxis films, 2013
2013

“Unfortunately, too many academics retreat into narrow specialisms, allow themselves to become adjuncts of the corporation, or align themselves with dominant interests that serve largely to consolidate authority rather than to critique its abuses. Refusing to take positions on controversial issues or to examine the role they might play in lessening human suffering, such academics become models of moral indifference and examples of what it means to disconnect learning from public life. This is a form of education, as Howard Zinn notes, where scholars “publish while others perish.” Even many leftist and liberal academics have retreated into arcane discourses that offer them the safe ground of the professional recluse.”

Henry Giroux (1943) American academic

"Higher Education Under Siege: Implications for Public Intellectuals," Thought and Action (Fall 2006), p. 64

Life, Education, Suffering, Learning

“Labor has a universal position of opposition to the death penalty both at home and abroad… It is not possible in our view to be selective in the application of this policy.”

Kevin Rudd (1957) Australian politician, 26th Prime Minister of Australia

ALP in 'me-too' policy mess over death penalty, 10 October 2007, 13 February 2008, The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rudds-metoo-policy-mess/2007/10/09/1191695909938.html, Statement made in 2002. 2002

Death, Penalty, Home, Universe

“The great moral lesson which Saul's history leaves for the instruction of mankind is this: That without true piety the finest qualities of character and the highest position in society will utterly fail to make a true and noble man. If Saul's heart had been true to God, he would have been one of the grandest specimens of humanity; but, lacking this true obedience to God, he made his life an utter failure, and his character amoral wreck.”

William Mackergo Taylor (1829–1895) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 453.

Life, God, History, Failure

“So many people are throwing up their hands because the world has gotten so dark, but I went against the current and I actually found more light and positive energy. That was a great feeling.”

Sophie B. Hawkins (1967) American musician

Quotations from SophieBHawkins.com

People, World, Feeling, Light

“From the beginning while we were engaged in these issues, I said in interviews with those who came from abroad, even in Najaf or Paris or among my personal words, I have always said that clerics have an occupation which is more important than these executive jobs, and should Islam become victorious, clerics would dedicate themselves to their own occupation. But as we went on with the revolution, we found out that if we tell all clerics to go after their mosques, this country would fall into the throat of America and Soviet Union. We experienced and saw, those who took the lead but were not clerics, even though some of them were religious people, our revolutionary path was not according to their taste, therefore… we temporarily deviate from our original word until this country could be administered by those other than clerics, then clerics will go back to their preach and their own position and they will leave executive matters to others who work for Islam.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Imam's Sahife. vol. 16, p. 349,350. (21 June 1982)
Foreign policy

People, Victory, Personality, Country

“In Australia during WWII, a couple of established poets invented the supposedly nonsensical works of a fictitious poet called Ern Malley and used them to discredit the modernist pretensions of the young editor who printed them. It never occurred to them that as writers of talent they were not in a position to suppose that they could deliberately write something perfectly meaningless.”

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

'Congratulations!', on scams, frauds and hoaxes.
Television and radio, Radio 4: A Point of View

“Balanced means the entire negative and positive considerations are given attention so that the road in thinking that is being taken always be moderate.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

56th International Quran Recital and Memorisation Competition https://books.google.com.my/books?id=P3ZODwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, 16/6/2014

Thinking

“The social system is, thus, a very complex entity. As an organization of human interests, activities and commitments, it must be viewed as a system and in functional perspective. This is the key to its lines of organization, its modes of differentiation, and its integration. Such a system may be considered as both structure and process, in different aspects and for different scientific purposes. Structurally, we have suggested that there is a double basis for systematizing differentiation and variation : that internal to the primary social system itself and that involved in its relations to its primary environments, as analyzed with reference to the general system of action. Processually, the categories of analysis must follow from and integrate with those of structure. I suggest that, given the central position language as definitive of human society, the more differentiated and specialized symbolic media of interchange constitute the master scheme for the systematic analysis of social system processes.”

Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) American sociologist

Talcott Parsons (1968) "Systems Analysis: Social Systems" in: David L. Sills ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. p. 472

“A Britain which denounced the insanity of the nuclear strategy would be in a position to direct its influence at the United Nations and in the world at large, in a manner at present denied us”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

newspaper article, 1960.
1960s

World

“Could you get O positive this time? That's my favorite.”

Zac Brewer book Eighth Grade Bites

Vladimir Tod, Eighth Grade Bites, page 7 (2007)
The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod (2007-)

Time

“First of all, no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like. Nor, again, does anyone know his conception of the good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the special features of psychology such as his aversion to risk or liability to optimism or pessimism. More than this, I assume that the parties do not know the particular circumstances of their own society. That is, they do not know its particular economic or political situation, or the level of civilization and culture it has been able to achieve. The persons in the original position have no information as to which generation they belong.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), p. 117

Life, Intelligence, Optimism, Nature

“Looking back at this period (1965-1967), I have often wondered why General Taylor was seemingly unable to convince President Johnson that the U. S. strategy was a losing one. Taylor had been successively President Kennedy's special adviser, chairman of the JCS, U. S. ambassador to Saigon, and President Johnson's special consultant. (Taylor calls this latter position a "lame duck" consultant, partially answering my question.) Clearly Taylor not only knew the problems and pitfalls but also was in a position to wield great influence. The nagging question, though, remains- why was he not more successful in bringing about a sounder strategic approach to the war?”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 45

War, Question, Problem, Success

“The Chartered ccountants by virtue of their qualifications, experience and training can render valuable services in these difficult times in areas which are vital to economic and industrial growth. It should be the duty of the members of the profession in the Northern India Regional Council, apart from examining accuracy of transactions, the modern auditor should also look into the propriety of such transactions… the profession has to develop uniform accounting principles, standard terminologies and precise definitions of various accounting concepts. This was desirable from the point of view of providing reliable information in the financial statements for the benefit of the intending investors, members of the public, government agencies and financial institutions. This will enable individuals and organisations to form a fairly accurate judgment of the financial position by a study of the audited financial statements of companies.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) the fifth President of India and a politician

Source: From the Desk of the Chairman... http://nirc-icai.org/Newsletter/NewsletterFebruary2012.pdf, Northern India Regional council of the ICAI, News Letter, February 2012

Study, Time, Training

“We are a nation of laws and we must enforce our immigration laws. This is one way we uphold our greatest responsibility of providing for the common defense. It is in the best interest of the citizens of the United States and our homeland security that we ensure that all those wishing to come and stay in our nation not only contribute in a positive way to our American society, but also come here in the proper and legal way. Amnesty should never be the answer. As Congress moves forward with responsible immigration reform, I will work to ensure any actions are made in the best interest of American families, tax payers, and those seeking to come to America through proper, legal channels.”

Buddy Carter (1957) State Senator

Carter: President Trump Made Right Move on DACA https://buddycarter.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2350 (September 5, 2017)

Family, Law, Way

“It is a fact that nine-tenths of the HUMAN RACE never have and never will think for themselves, about anything. Whether it's music or Reaganomics, say, almost everybody prefers to sit and wait till somebody who seems to have some kind of authority even if it's seldom too clear just where they got it to come along and inform them one and all what their position on the matter should be. Then they all agree that this is gospel, and gang up to persecute whatever minority might happen to disagree. This is the history of the human race, certainly the history of music.”

Lester Bangs (1948–1982) American music critic and journalist

"Untitled Notes" (1981), p. 374
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

Music, History, Thinking, Waiting

“The main defect of idealism in philosophy and history is that it attempts to analyze the properties of societies by inference from the content of the dominant systems of ideas in those societies. But this neglects altogether the fact that there is not a unilateral relationship between values and power: the dominant class is able to disseminate ideas which are the legitimations of its position of dominance. Thus the ideas of freedom and equality which come to the fore in bourgeois society cannot be taken at their “face value,” as directly summing up social reality; on the contrary, the legal freedoms which exist in bourgeois society actually serve to legitimize the reality of contractual obligations in which propertyless wage-labor is heavily disadvantaged as compared to the owners of capital. … While ideologies obviously show continuity over time, neither this continuity. nor any changes which occur, can be explained purely in terms of their internal content. Ideas do not evolve on their own account; they do so as elements of the consciousness of men living in society.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

(describing Marx’s view), pp. 41-42.
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971)

Men, History, Idea, Reality

“Conflicting intellectual positions may actually come to supplement one another.
It is imperative in the present transitional period to make use of the intellectual twilight which dominates our epoch and in which all values and points of view appear in their genuine relativity. We must realize once and for all that the meanings which make up our world are simply an historically determined and continuously developing structure in which man develops, and are in no sense absolute.”

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) Hungarian sociologist

Ideology and Utopia (1929)

World, Sense, Appearance

“I think that Tunisia's achievements over the past two decades are now well known, and are testified to by numerous regional and international organizations and all honest observers. But what interests me in the first place is the feeling of all Tunisians that these achievements have positively changed their life.”

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1936–2019) Tunisian politician

Answering to the question of top Labenese Journalists, about his 2 decades of career, in the interview, (June 2008). http://www.thefreelibrary.com/President+Zine+El+Abidine+Ben+Ali's+interview+with+Mr.+Melhem+Karam,...-a0179997212

Life, Feeling, Thinking, Change

“The positive energy theorem was for half a century or more an open challenge to relativists. Many attempts were made to prove flat spacetime was stable, but none completely succeeded completely until a majestic tour de force of geometric reasoning of Shoen and Yau. This was followed two years later by a proof of Witten, which was as elegant as it was short. It is this proof of Witten’s that we take as a template here for the quantum theory.”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

"Positive energy in quantum gravity" arXiv (Jun 10, 2014)

“Dialectics is the way of seeking for truth by talking with others from different points of view, through "Yes" and "No," until a "Yes" has been reached which is hardened in the fire of many "No's" and which unites the elements of truth promoted in the discussion. It is most unfortunate that in recent years the name "dialectical theology" has been applied to a theology that is strongly opposed to any kind of dialectics and mediation and that constantly repeats the "Yes" to its own and the "No" to any other position. This has made it difficult to use the term "dialectical" to denote theological movements of a really dialectical, that is a mediating, character; and it has resulted in the cheap and clumsy way of dividing all theologians into naturalists and supernaturalists, or into liberals and orthodox. The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich 1948 Introduction”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

The Protestant Era (1948)

Truth, Way

“Normally, anyone disreputable enough to flatly affirm such positive proclamations without adequate support would lose the respect of his peers and be accused of outright fraud; anyone but a religious advocate that is. When allegedly holy men do the exact same thing, then its not called fraud anymore. Its called “revealed truth” instead. That’s quite a double-standard, innit? Like when some minister gets on stage at one of those stadium-sized churches -to state as fact who God is and what God is, and what he wants, hates, needs, won’t tolerate, or will do -for whom, how, and under what conditions; they don’t have any data to show they’re correct about any of it, yet they speak so matter-of-factly. Even when they contradict each other they’re all still completely confident in their own empty assertions! So why do none of these tens of thousands of head-bobbing, mouth-breathing, glassy-eyed wanna-believers have the presence of mind to ask, “how do you know that?” Well, for all those who never asked the question, here’s the answer; they don’t know that! There’s no way anyone could know these things. They’re making it up as they go along. These sermons are the best possible example of blind speculation; asserted as though it were truth and sold for tithe. If anyone or everyone else would be called liars for claiming such things without any evidentiary basis then why make exceptions for evangelists? For these charlatans are obviously liars too! The clergy are in the same category of questionable credibility as are commissioned salesmen, politicians, and military recruiters.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"4th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80nhqGfN6t8, Youtube (December 25, 2007) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, God, Hate, Truth

“This new declaration which emphasizes the necessity of global disarmament is based on the purposes and principles of the United Nations, in particular the prohibition of the threat and use of force, and on the obligation to negotiate disputes in conformity with the UN Charter. It is a strong and positive example for the entire world.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

CELAC / Zone of Peace: “A key step to countering the globalization of militarism” – UN Expert http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14215&LangID=E. 2014

World, Strong

“I’m sick of hearing how far we’ve come. I’m sick of hearing how in some cases women are superseding men, progressing to positions of middle and upper management. Above all, I’m sick of hearing about the pipeline, about the path to the top supposedly thick with women who will, in the fullness of time, be rewarded for their patience and virtue. The following figures speak for themselves: Three percent of Fortune 500 companies are headed by women; 16.8 percent of members of the U. S. Congress are women; 7 percent of tenured engineering faculty in four-year institutions are women. The fact is that so far as leadership is concerned, women in nearly every realm are hardly any better off than they were a generation ago.”

Barbara Kellerman (1939) American academic

Barbara Kellerman in Harvard Business Review; Cited in " Quote of the week: Barbara Kellerman http://theweek.com/articles/494754/quote-week-barbara-kellerman," at theweek.com, April 30, 2010.

Women, Men, Time, Patience

“In the history of madness, two events signal this change with singular clarity: in 1657, the founding of the Hôpital Général, and the Great Confinement of the poor; and in 1794, the liberation of the mad in chains at Bicêtre. Between these two singular and symmetrical events, something happened, whose ambiguity has perplexed historians of medicine: blind repression in an absolutist regime, according to some, and, according to others, the progressive discovery, by science and philanthropy, of madness in its positive truth. In fact, beneath these reversible meanings, a structure was taking shape, which did not undo that ambiguity but was decisive for it. This structure explains the passage from the medieval and humanist experience of madness to the experience that is our own, which confines madness in mental illness.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Preface to 1961 edition
History of Madness (1961)

Truth, History, Decision, Science

“It has helped me keep in mind all times that not all lawyers always work in the best interests of their clients. Itis a very delicate situation. If a lawyer does not appear to the judge to be working in the best interest of the clients, I think the way to deal with that is to have hearings on the record and hope that the parties might appear. Sometimes from the bench, or sometimes in a conference on the record, the court is in a position to give guidance that not only is for the ears of the attorney, but may also be for the ears of the litigant, him or herself.”

Thomas Hardiman (1965) American judge

Judicial and Executive Nominations (November 14, 2006)

Hope, Way, Thinking, Appearance

“The free creativeness of mind is possible because, […] the world ultimately exists, not of material stuff, but of patterns, of organization, the evolution of which involves no absolute creation of an alien world of material from nothing. The purely structural character of reality thus helps to render possible and intelligible the free creativeness of life and mind, … The energy which is being dissipated by the decay of physical structure is being partly taken up and organized into life structures … Life and mind thus appear as products of the cosmic decline, … Our origin is thus accidental, our position is exceptional and our fate is sealed, with the inevitable running down of the solar system. Life and mind, […] are thus reduced to a very casual and inferior status in the cosmic order […] – a transient and embarrassed phantom in an alien, if not hostile universe. […] The human spirit is not a pathetic, wandering phantom of the universe, […] but meets with spiritual hospitality and response everywhere. Our deepest thoughts and emotions are but responses to stimuli which come to us not from an alien, but from an essentially friendly and kindred universe.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

Smuts expounding a confrontation of opposites in his presidential address to the British Association in September 1931, as cited by W. K. Hancock in SMUTS 2: The Fields of Force 1919-1950, p. 232-234

Life, Hostility, Fate, World

“The essence of modernism lies in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence. Modernism used art to call attention to art. The limitations that constitute the medium of painting - the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the pigment - came to be regarded as positive factors, and were acknowledged openly.”

Clement Greenberg (1909–1994) American writer and artist

1960s, Modernist Painting (1960)

Art, Support, Painting

“Rising interest rates have been advertised for so long and in so many places that anyone who has not appropriately hedged this position by now obviously is desirous of losing money.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Novermber 2004 in a speech in Frankfurt.
2000s

Money

“I keep asking, how long will we go on defending South Korea from North Korea without payment? South Korea is a very very rich country. They're rich because of us. They sell us televisions, they sell us cars. They sell us everything. They are making a fortune. We have a huge deficit with South Korea. They're friends of mine. I do deals with them. I've been partners with them, no problem. But they think we're stupid. They can't believe it. We are defending them against North Korea, we're doing it for nothing. We're not in that position. When will they start to pay us for this defense? Isn't it really ridiculous when you think of it? They make a fortune on the United States and then they got some problems, and what happens? They call the United States to defend them, and we get nothing?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

"From the Desk of Donald Trump: South Korea" https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=agk9ZCrYol4 YouTube (10 April 2013) 2010s, 2013

Stupidity, Cars, Problem, Thinking

“Our military force at this moment is as efficient in discipline as it is in numbers; and this not only in the regular army, but in the militia, volunteers, and other descriptions of force. We have six hundred thousand men in arms, besides a navy of two hundred thousand. The masculine energies of the nation were never more conspicuous, and the country never at any period of its history stood in so proud and glorious a position, as at present. After a conflict for fifteen years, against an enemy whose power had been progressively increasing, we are still able to maintain the war with augmenting force and a population, by the pressure of external circumstances, consolidated into an impregnable military mass. Our physical strength has risen when it has been called for; and if we do not present the opposition of numerous fortresses to an invader as the continent does, we present the more insuperable barrier of a high-spirited, patriotic, and enthusiastic people.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (26 February 1810), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 3-4.
1810s

Men, War, People, History

“The difference in sex does not hinder the ability of being strong on the levels of thinking, giving, having a strong willpower and the ability to take the right decision and the right position after studying all options, once the circumstances that favor creativity and rational thinking are available.”

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) Lebanese faqih

The Woman's Personality and Role in Life http://english.bayynat.org.lb/WomenFamily/role.htm.

Sex, Thinking, Decision, Study

“Big industry, and the limitless expansion of production which it makes possible, bring within the range of feasibility a social order in which so much is produced that every member of society will be in a position to exercise and develop all his powers and faculties in complete freedom. It thus appears that the very qualities of big industry which, in our present-day society, produce misery and crises are those which, in a different form of society, will abolish this misery and these catastrophic depressions.
We see with the greatest clarity: (i) That all these evils are from now on to be ascribed solely to a social order which no longer corresponds to the requirements of the real situation; and (ii) That it is possible, through a new social order, to do away with these evils altogether.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

Exercises, Freedom, Appearance, Evil

“I've tried several varieties of sex, all of which I hate. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic; the others give me a stiff neck and/or lockjaw.”

Tallulah Bankhead (1902–1968) American actress

Tallulah, Darling: A Biography of Tallulah Bankhead (1980)

Hate, Sex

“We were recording a song called "I Don't Ever Want To Be Without You." The same Christian record company radio guy called me and asked me if we could change the song's title and lyrics. when I asked why, he said, "Because there are two negative words in the title-don't and without … I'd like some positive ones; can you call the song, 'I Always Want To Be With You?"'”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary

Guy, Change

“When the fight comes, always endeavour to chase the enemy around to your left side. Chase him towards awkward places, and try to keep him with his back to awkward places. When the enemy gets into an inconvenient position, do not let him look around, but conscientiously chase him around and pin him down. In houses, chase the enemy into the thresholds, lintels, doors, verandas, pillars, and so on, again not letting him see his situation.
Always chase the enemy into bad footholds, obstacles at the side, and so on, using the virtues of the place to establish predominant positions from which to fight. You must research and train diligently in this.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Fight, Housing, Training

“Posito I assume and when I say posito, I have the right to assume the unlikely; therefore posito, I assume that Mr. A. A., whose promises supposedly have not weakened him, went to work and wrote the system. Posito, I assume, and when I say posito, I have the right to assume what is more unreasonable than the most unreasonable; therefore; posito, I assume that if Mr. A. A. did not write the system, then Mr. B. B. wrote it-then what? Let us linger for a moment on this thought, with which, of course, we have all been familiar for several years: the thought of the prospect for the hope of the system. Therefore, in order to be very brief, posito, I assume that the system appeared here in Copenhagen, then what? Then one would indeed have to read it, unless Mr. C. C. would instantly be kind and philanthropic enough to promise a summary of the system and also position us in the point of view; then we would again be saved by the promise. If this does not happen, then of course one would have to read it. How troublesome, and who would finally benefit from that?”

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

Prefaces, Nichol, 1997 p. 39-40
1840s, Prefaces (1844)

Hope, Appearance, Reading

“They were murderers and they still are, but policemen are like dogs on a leash.… The police function under political direction. They go after whoever they are sent after, and that's where the problem comes in.… Black people were moving out of their traditional position in America. Nobody knew what to do about it. The white politicians were confused, the blacks were confused.… the police were told to go out, stop those civil-rights marches … and they went out and did that. When you talk to police now who participated in that, you find out that they were in the same position we were in — just trying to find the right formula.”

Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) American activist

Interview by Reason magazine (1986)
1980s

People, Dogs, Problem

“Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Ash-Wednesday (1930)

Hope, Spring, Flowers, Drink

“We are now in a position to prove the following propositions : —
1. The distance of the sun from the earth is greater than eighteen times, but less than twenty times, the distance of the moon (from the earth); this follows from the hypothesis about the halved moon.
2. The diameter of the sun has the same ratio (as aforesaid) to the diameter of the moon.
3. The diameter of the sun has to the diameter of the earth a ratio greater than that which 19 has to 3, but less than that which 43 has to 6; this follows from the ratio thus discovered between the distances, the hypothesis about the shadow, and the hypothesis that the moon subtends one fifteenth part of a sign of the zodiac.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

p, 125
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)

Time, Sun, Parting

“When conspiracies have governmental powers, they can usually cover up their guilt at the time and they often destroy evidence so thoroughly that later generations are left with a puzzle they can solve only partially or tentatively. We now know only that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was arranged by a conspiracy for the dual purpose of eliminating a political figure who was no longer useful and of exciting fresh animosity against the Southerners who had been conquered, and whose country had been destroyed, in the unconscionable war of aggression of which he had been the ostensible leader; but, aside from a few hirelings, the only person whom we can positively identify as a member of the conspiracy is Stanton, who was the Secretary of War in Lincoln’s cabinet, arranged many of the practical details, and was able, after the event, to silence key witnesses, although we can only guess what it was they knew that made it necessary to have them judicially murdered. And Stanton seems to have been only a local manager for principals whose identity we can only surmise.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"Revised Historiography", Liberty Bell magazine (April 1980)
1970s, 1980s

War, Silence, Time, Personality

“If someone were to discover, for instance, that under hitherto unobserved circumstances stones were able to speak, it would take only a few pages to describe and explain so earth-shattering a phenomenon. On the other hand, one can always write yet another book about positive thinking, and this is far from being of only academic interest, since it involves a method that makes it impossible ever to arrive at a clear resolution of life's most important questions. Human activities might be graded by the quantity of words required: the more words, the worse their character. All the knowledge that has led our species from wearing animal skins to people flying, complete with proofs, would fill a handful of reference books, but a bookcase the size of the earth would not suffice to hold all the rest, quite apart from the vast discussions that are conducted not with the pen but with the sword and chains. The thought suggests itself that we carry on our human business in a most irrational manner when we do not use those methods by which the exact sciences have forged ahead in such exemplary fashion.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities (1930–1942)

Life, People, Books, Fashion

“If you defend a behavior by arguing that people are programmed directly for it, then how do you continue to defend it if your speculation is wrong, for the behavior then becomes unnatural and worthy of condemnation. Better to stick resolutely to a philosophical position on human liberty: what free adults do with each other in their own private lives is their business alone. It need not be vindicated — and must not be condemned—by genetic speculation.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin

"So Cleverly Kind an Animal", p. 267
Ever Since Darwin (1977)

People, Behavior, Business

“The worst offenses of slaves against the white men's code were rebellion and running away. Drunkenness, stealing, hiding out from work, personal filthiness, carelessness of property, fighting, and general brutality had various positions in the scale of misdemeanors. Negro preachers often bred discontent by their unnecessary restraint upon pleasure, and, if itinerants, had to be watched closely for abolitionist or seditious doctrines.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

The Making of America (1986)

Men, Pleasure, Fight, Personality

“Both artists and neurotics speak and live from the subconscious and unconscious depths of their society. The artist does this positively, communicating what he experiences to his fellow men. The neurotic does this negatively.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 1 : Introduction : Our Schizoid World, p. 21

Men, Communication

“In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Margaret Wheatley (1992), as quoted in 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself (2004) by Steve Chandler, p. 123

“It's shocking, the positions,
the unchecked simplicity with which
one mind contrives to fertilize another!
Such positions the Kama Sutra itself doesn't know.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"An Opinion Concerning the Question of Pornography"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The People on the Bridge (1986)

“Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead.
He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.
He was an Indian with a white man's spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Saturday Pioneer (20 December 1890)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)

People, History, Revenge, Nature

“Since the eighteenth century, enlighteners have concerned themselves—as defenders of “true morality,” whatever that may be—with the morality of those who rule. … The moralism in the bourgeois sense of decency put aristocratically refined immoralism into the position of the politically accused. … But bourgeois thinking all too naively assumes it is possible to subordinate political power to moral concepts. It does not anticipate that one day, when it has itself come to power, it will end up in the same ambivalence. It has not yet realized that it is only a small step from taking moral offense to respectable hypocrisy.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 46

Thinking, Sense

“Some scholars have argued strenuously against the idea that the organization is determined by its situation and have instead asserted that managers have free choice and are thereby to be held morally accountable (Bourgeois 1984; Whittington 1989). Contingency theory appears to some critics to be a managerially convenient ideology that justifies as inevitable organizational characteristics that are not really inevitable, because they are not really required for organizational effectiveness, and that injure the interests of employees *Schreyogg, 1980). Thus contingency theory is opposed by free choice.
An intermediate position within this debate is that propounded by Child (1972), which he terms “strategic choice” (though he is talking about choice regarding structure). This takes the contingency theory of organizational structure but shows that some degree of choice can nevertheless enter in at several stages in the process.”

Lex Donaldson (1947) British-Australian organizational sociologist

Source: The contingency theory of organizations, 2001, p. 127.

Idea, Appearance

“If the child was helpless, was the grown up person, man or woman, in a much better position?”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter IV, "Laissez - Faire", p. 46.

Personality

“What the aristocratic civilization of Rome and Greece had meant, only those greater minds, Goethe and Nietzsche, grasped: but to none were those feelings of manly vigour more unintelligible than to the womanish Armageddon of serfs of the nineteenth century; to none less clear than to those unnatural products of that unnatural time, the learned men.
The erudite was the absolute converse of the pagan positive. He studied the ancients because he could not feel them. … But not to all did antiquity remain dry and lifeless. Nietzsche lighted upon the slumber-bound beauty, and awoke her to new life, and released her from the arm of her unloved wooer.”

Oscar Levy (1867–1946) German physician and writer

Source: The Revival of Aristocracy (1906), pp. 104-105.

Life, Men, Beauty, Feeling

“People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

The Guardian [UK] (23 May 1992)

People, Happiness

“Thus far woman has struggled through life with bandaged eyes, accepting the dogma of her weakness and inability to take care of herself not only physically but intellectually. She has held out a trembling hand and received gratefully the proffered aid. She has foregone her right to study, to know the laws and purposes of government to which she is subject. But there is now awakened in her a consciousness that she is defrauded of her legitimate Rights and that she never can fulfill her mission until she is placed in that position to which she feels herself called by the divinity within. Hitherto she has surrendered her person and her individuality to man, but she can no longer do this and not feel that she is outraging her nature and her God.”

Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) American abolitionist

Written in 1857, as quoted in ch. 87.
The Female Experience (1977)

Life, God, Law, Feeling

“A ghost story of which the scene is laid in the twelfth or thirteenth century may succeed in being romantic or poetical: it will never put the reader into the position of saying to himself: "If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!"”

M. R. James (1862–1936) British writer

Preface to More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911); cited from Michael Cox (ed.) Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) pp. 337-8.

“Speaking of the sanctions, they are not just a knee-jerk reaction on behalf of the United States or its allies to our position regarding the events and the coup in Ukraine, or even the so-called Crimean Spring. I’m sure that if these events had never happened – I want to point this out specifically for you as politicians sitting in this auditorium – if none of that had ever happened, they would have come up with some other excuse to try to contain Russia’s growing capabilities, affect our country in some way, or even take advantage of it. 4 December 2014, The Kremlin Moscow, http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/23341”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

On Ukraine

Jerk, Way, Spring, Country

“I still yearned then, and probably even more so earlier, for a strong, masculine person on whom I could pattern myself. Somebody I could admire, and imitate, and become close to and learn from. I had sought this, always, in my teachers, and my search had always ended in disappointment. I was attracted emotionally to a position that I could only despise intellectually.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Final Analysis (1990)

Disappointment, Search, Strong, Learning

“I believe we made the most beautiful thing in the world. Nobody would criticize a renowned architect's blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong. It's the same as that.”

Ken Kutaragi (1950) Japanese businessman

In response to the original PSP units' square button problems https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gamers-report-psp-malfunction/1100-6116985/

World, Beauty

“Now there’s document on a subject of states' rights and states' sovereignty which is very seldom cited but which is absolutely fundamental to understanding the status of sovereignty under the Constitution: the letter that George Washington wrote transmitting the new Constitution to the Congress on September 17, 1787. And among the ironies of this letter is the fact that John C. Calhoun in his Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, the sequel to his Disquisition on Government, cites the words that Washington used to support his position that this was a federal government, and that “federal” meant one in which the constituent parts retains complete sovereignty. And he refers to the fact that Washington refers to “the federal government of these States.””

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Rebuttal

Understanding, Support, Parting

“It must be admitted that, although I possessed a certain degree of ambition, like every other active human being, I was never animated by the desire to obtain "a post." For me "what I am" was always of less importance than "what I can," that is to say, what I was in a position to accomplish. In this way I, too, had my ambition and it was especially noticeable there where I stood with my whole heart and soul in the struggle, where the issue was the abolition of the slavery of working women.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Women, Way, Soul, Heart

“I think of novelists that I really return to and admire, you can almost sense that the book is somehow ahead of them, just a little bit ahead of them, no? You could write from the front: you could pull the book; there are masters that do that, and you can admire the architecture of it. […] I suppose what I look for as a reader is a writer who's risky, who's putting themselves in a position that's vulnerable, where the text knows a little bit more, is a bit ahead of them. And so I aspire to write those books, and that's why I suppose I put myself in that position.”

Hisham Matar (1970) American writer

at 43:30.
Blue Metropolis Festival (2013)

Books, Thinking, Sense

“Judged by the only standards which are admissible in a pure doctrine of numbers i is imaginary in the same sense as the negative, the fraction, and the irrational, but in no other sense; all are alike mere symbols devised for the sake of representing the results of operations even when these results are not numbers (positive integers).”

Henry Burchard Fine (1858–1928) American academic

Source: The Number-System of Algebra, (1890), p. 86; Reported in Moritz (1914, 282)

Sense

“Use art, be creative. No more war. No more children dying. A pawn that does not move in chess upsets the game. I know there is love in the world still and that is what I wish to surround myself with. Sacrifice your time and energy into something positive instead of the negative and you will see that change around you.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Speaking at the Get Shamrocked Irish Festival (19 September 2014).

Love, War, Children, World

“For the artist, fulfillment of self consists not in marching in the ranks of the liberators but in being entered in the roll of the Masters. The artist tends to find himself in the position of a deserter from his social group — or, at best, one who collaborates, with secret reservations.”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Source: Art & Other Serious Matters, (1985), p. 271, "Being Outside"

Secret

“There is a contrast of primary significance between Augustine and Pelagius. The former crushes everything in order to rebuild it again. The other addresses himself to man as he is. The first system, therefore, in respect to Christianity, falls into three stages: creation – the fall and a consequent condition of death and impotence; a new creation – whereby man is placed in a position where he can choose; and then, if he chooses – Christianity. The other system addresses itself to man as he is (Christianity fits into the world). From this is seen the significance of the theory of inspiration for the first system; from this also is seen the relationship between the synergistic and the semipelagian conflict. It is the same question, only that the syngeristic struggle has its presupposition in the new creation of the Augustinian system.”

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

Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers, Volume 1 Hong translation 1967 p. 14-15 1 A 101 January 14, 1837
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

Death, World, Question

“For 30 years I have watched from a central position the manifestations of the will power of Great Britain, and I do not believe the people will consent to be edged, pushed, talked and cozened out of India. No nation of which I am aware, great or small, has ever voluntarily or tamely suffered such an overwhelming injury to its interests or such a harsh abrogation of its rights. After all, there are British rights and interests in India. Two centuries of effort and achievement, lives given on a hundred fields, far more lives given and consumed in faithful and devoted service to the Indian people themselves. All this has earned us rights of our own in India.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1931/jan/26/india-1#column_702 in the House of Commons (26 January 1931) The 1930s

People, Faith, Effort, Suffering

“Those who are outside the centres of power, because of the need for a positive and not simply a stable identity, are likely to find an independent identity appealing.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Emotional amoral egoism (2008), p.180

“In the last 14 years Jewry has achieved positions of influence which it has grossly misused morally, financially and politically in an unheard-of manner, with the result that the German people crumbled morally, financially, and politically.”

Ernst Hanfstaengl (1887–1975) German businessman

Quoted in "Nazis in the News" - Mar 5, 1933

People

“Ships, houses, mills… in one word everything that is made by people must stand upright and be painted with care. This is actually a good presentation compared to other, less symmetrical things, like the trees, skies, etc. It doesn't create the painting, but it certainly strengthen the illusion. It's just like somebody who is neatly dressed, but whose tie is coming off. The windows of a house must be straight, a mill in a pure construction, the blades well-positioned in perspective.”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Schepen, huizen, molens eb in één woord alles, wat door menschen gemaakt is, moet recht staan en met zorg geschilderd worden. Dit staat juist zeer goed tegenover andere, minder symmetrische dingen, als boomen, luchten enz. Het maakt het schilderij wel niet, maar draagt toch bij tot de illusie. 't Is er net mee, als met iemand, die keurig gekleed is, maar wiens das los zit. De ramen van een huis moeten recht, een molen zuiver van constructie zijn, de wieken in het perspectief staan.
Quote of Roelofs; as cited by H.F.W. Jeltes, in Willem Roelofs : bizonderheden betreffende zijn leven en zijn werk, met brieven en andere bijlagen, Van Kampen, Amsterdam, 1911, pp. 86-87
undated quotes

People, Tree, Painting, Housing