Quotes about possible
page 26

“But, is it possible for princes and ministers to be enlightened, when private individuals are not so?”

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

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Introduction, p. liv

“The visual possibility of seeing the historical person (as opposed to the eternal Qur'anic man) on screen is arguably the single most important event allowing Iranians access to modernity.”

Hamid Dabashi (1951) American academic

Close-up: Iranian Cinema Past, Present and Future

Personality

“I never did approve, when at the Bar, and I do not approve now, when on the Bench, of the practice of not deciding a substantial question when it is fairly raised between the parties and argued, simply because it is raised by demurrer. It is a great benefit to all parties to have the question in the case speedily and cheaply determined, and the practice of demurring ought, if possible, to be encouraged.”

George Jessel (jurist) (1824–1883) British politician

Fothergill v. Rowland (1873), L. R. 17 Eq. Ca. 139.

Question

“Nine-tenths of our crimes an' calamities are made possible by th' automobile. It has unleashed all th' pent-up criminal tendencies o' th' ages. It's th' central figure in murders, hold-ups, burglaries, accidents, elopements, failures an' abscondments. It has well nigh jimmed th' American home…. No girl is missin' that wuzn' last seen steppin' in a strange automobile…. An' ther hain't a day rolls by that somebuddy hain't sellin' ther sewin' machine, or ther home, or somethin' t' pay on an automobile…. Maybe th' jails an' workhouses are empty, but that's not because th' world is gittin' better. It's because all th' criminals escape in automobiles.”

Kin Hubbard (1868–1930) cartoonist

Writing as his character, "th' Hon. Ex.-Editur Cale Fluhart." as quoted in The American Humorist : Conscience of the Twentieth Century (1964) by Norris W. Yeats, p. 107.

Age, World, Home, Girl

“The impossible lives next door to the possible; people ring its door bell by accident all the time.”

Tibor Fischer book The Thought Gang

Page 226.
The Thought Gang (1994)

People, Time

“Philosophy … is interesting because it expresses, in a form as clearly defined as possible, the tendencies of this or that period, much more than it really creates them; and even if it can be said to direct them to a certain extent, it does so only secondarily and when they are already formed.”

René Guénon (1886–1951) French metaphysician

Source: The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), p. 75

“I was operating under the theory that, even though Baker had been responsible for my appointment, I was representing all three minority senators-Baker, Edward Gurney of Florida, and Weicker. If differences arose within the minority there was no question about where my loyalty lay and whose directions I would take, but I believed that I should try to respond to the wishes of Weicker and Gurney in every way possible.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

page 25
At That Point in Time, Loyalty to Baker

Way, Question, Loyalty

“I go to the typical state school and try to infiltrate it. Yes!... One can do something in the institutions in trying to infiltrate them, and outside one can do something to set a model in place... One must work with divers methods anyway. One must always carry on with what is possible.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

1970's, Every Man an Artist: Talks at Documenta 5', 1972

School

“Each time I spoke, I gained a little courage. It took a long while—but today I have more happiness than I ever dreamed possible. In rearing my own children, I have always taught them the lesson I had to learn from such bitter experience: No matter what happens, always be yourself!”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), p. 14

Happiness, Children, Dreams, Courage

“I agree with you likewise in your wishes to keep religion and government independent of each Other. Were it possible for St. Paul to rise from his grave at the present juncture, he would say to the Clergy who are now so active in settling the political Affairs of the World. “Cease from your political labors your kingdom is not of this World. Read my Epistles. In no part of them will you perceive me aiming to depose a pagan Emperor, or to place a Christian upon a throne. Christianity disdains to receive Support from human Governments. From this, it derives its preeminence over all the religions that ever have, or ever Shall exist in the World. Human Governments may receive Support from Christianity but it must be only from the love of justice, and peace which it is calculated to produce in the minds of men. By promoting these, and all the Other Christian Virtues by your precepts, and example, you will much sooner overthrow errors of all kind, and establish our pure and holy religion in the World, than by aiming to produce by your preaching, or pamphlets any change in the political state of mankind.””

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 6 October 1800 http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-32-02-0120,” Founders Online, National Archives. Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 32, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 204–207

Love, Men, World, Peace

“Another conspicuous failure of classical mechanics was with one aspect of the problem of radiation. …Imagine a crowd of steel balls rolling about on a steel floor. …There must… be a steady leakage of energy from… causes, such as air resistance and the friction of the floor, so the balls will eventually lose energy, and, after no great length of time, will be found standing at rest on the floor. The energy of their motion seems to have been lost… most of it has been transformed into heat. The classical mechanics predicts that this must happen; it shows that all energy of motion, except possibly a minute fraction of the whole, must be transformed into heat whenever such a transformation is physically possible. It is because of this that perpetual-motion machines are a practical impossibility.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Imagination, Failure, Problem, Time

“Although it is obvious that the Keynesians were all wrong and interventionism and central economic planning don’t work, whom are we listening to for advice on getting us out of this mess? Unfortunately, it’s the Keynesians, the socialists, and big-government proponents. Who’s being ignored? The Austrian free-market economists — the very ones who predicted not only the Great Depression, but the calamity we’re dealing with today. If the crisis was predictable and is explainable, why did no one listen? It’s because too many politicians believed that a free lunch was possible and a new economic paradigm had arrived. But we’ve heard that one before — like the philosopher’s stone that could turn lead into gold. Prosperity without work is a dream of the ages.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

The Austrians Were Right, November 20, 2008 http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/tx14_paul/statement_11_20_08.shtml http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PIEGK0IbA4 2000s, 2006-2009

Age, Dreams

“There is no logical basis to support the theory that plants feel pain. The dubious possibility that they might, however, is no justification for killing obviously sentient beings. Any rational person understands the striking difference between slitting the throat of a sentient animal and plucking a fruit or vegetable.”

Joanne Stepaniak (1954) American writer

Source: Being Vegan (2000), p. 43

Pain, Feeling, Understanding, Support

“"Ylma is having you work it out in the most gruesome way possible… so that when she teaches you how it's really done, it'll seem that much easier…. Like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer—it feels so good when you stop." This was the oldest joke in the world, but Barb hadn't heard it before, and he became so amused that he got physically excited and had to run back and forth across the kitchen several times to flame off energy. A few weeks ago, I would have been alarmed by this and would have tried to calm him down, but now I was used to it, and knew that if I approached him physically things would get much worse.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Part 4, "Anathem"
Anathem (2008)

World, Way, Feeling, Time

“The most signal triumphs of the Romantic portrayal of memory are not those which recall past happiness, but remembrances of those moments when future happiness still seemed possible, when hopes were not yet frustrated.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 3 : Mountains and Song Cycles

Happiness, Hope, Memory, Past

“I'm a pessimist about probabilities, I'm an optimist about possibilities.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

As quoted in "Lewis Mumford Remembers" by Carey Winfrey in The New York Times (6 July 1977)

“The use of the term institution has become widespread in the social sciences in recent years, reflecting the growth in institutional economics and the use of the institution concept in several other disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, politics, and geography. The term has a long history of usage in the social sciences, dating back at least to Giambattista Vico in his Scienza Nuova of 1725. However, even today, there is no unanimity in the definition of this concept. Furthermore, endless disputes over the definitions of key terms such as institution and organization have led some writers to give up matters of definition and to propose getting down somehow to practical matters instead. But it is not possible to carry out any empirical or theoretical analysis of how institutions or organizations work without having some adequate conception of what an institution or an organization is. This paper proposes that those that give up are acting in haste; potentially consensual definitions of these terms are possible, once we overcome a few obstacles and difficulties in the way. It is also important to avoid some biases in the study of institutions, where institutions and characteristics of a particular type are overgeneralized to the set”

Geoffrey Hodgson (1946) British economist

Source: Economics and institutions." 1988, p. 1; Abstract

Way, History, Study, Science

“Design, properly viewed, is an enormous liberation of the intellectual spirit, for it challenges this spirit to an unbounded speculation about possibilities.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Design of Inquiring Systems (1971), p. 13; cited in Jong S. Jun, Frank P. Sherwood (2007) The Social Construction of Public Administration. p. 76

“Sending large numbers of people to explore and settle Mars in the decades ahead isn't inevitable, but it is entirely possible. The biggest challenge isn't the engineering and spacecraft, however difficult they may be. Instead, it's making sure that a sustained Mars campaign proceeds as a national priority, and that will happen only if the American people are behind it. We have the opportunity now to make this happen. We might not be so fortunate in the future.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Page 13 Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007), Foreword to Marc Kaufman's Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission https://books.google.com/books/about/Mars_Up_Close.html?ido6XaCwAAQBAJ&hlen. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.

People, Future

“It is worthy of emphasis that the United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change - even radical change - possible without violent upheaval. The United Nations has no vested interest in the status quo. It seeks a more secure world, a better world, a world of progress for all peoples. In the dynamic world society which is the objective of the United Nations, all peoples must have equality and equal rights. The rights of those who at any given time may be in the minority - whether for reasons of race, religion, or ideology - are as important as those of the majority, and the minorities must enjoy the same respect and protection. The United Nations does not seek a world cut after a single pattern, nor does it consider this desirable. The United Nations seeks only unity, not uniformity, out of the world's diversity.”

Ralph Bunche (1904–1971) American diplomat

Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time (1950)

People, World, Peace, Religion

“To say that an arms race always leads to war seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse. A government resolved to attain ends detrimental to its neighbours, which does not shrink from the possibility of war, makes preparations for war, its neighbours take defensive action, and you say an arms race is beginning. But this is the symptom of the intention of one government to challenge or destroy its neighbours, not the cause of the conflict. The pace is set by the potential aggressor, and, failing collective action by the rest of the world to resist him, the alternatives are an arms race or surrender.”

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

Interview https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/01/winston-churchill-new-statesman-archive with Kingsley Martin for the New Statesman (7 January 1939) The 1930s

War, World, Horse

“On protests against going to war with Iraq: "One woman bore a picture of some female genitalia – possibly hers, the provenance was obscure – over the caption 'This Bush Is For Peace.' Another waxed eloquent: 'Trim Bush.' Out in Marin County somewhere, other bushes for peace disrobed, lay down on a hillside, and formed the words 'No War.' I wonder if there are any conflicted nudists, with a bush for Iraq and a rack for Bush.”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

The Spectator, 25 January 2003

War, Peace

“Let me also remind you that zero, like all of mathematics, is fictional and an idealization. It is impossible to reach absolute zero temperature or to get perfect vacuum. Luckily, mathematics is a fairyland where ideal and fictional objects are possible.”

Doron Zeilberger (1950) Israeli mathematician

" " (nothing) published in the Personal Journal of Shalosh B. Ekhad and Doron Zeilberger

Mathematics, Perfection

“The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way someday.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

Way

“I ought to respect myself for my friends' sake, and my children's. It is time, at fifty-six, to begin, at least, to know oneself, — and I do know what I am not, and your regard for me has at least awakened me to believe in the possibility that I may yet make some impression with my "light" — my "dews" — my "breezes" — my bloom and freshness, — no one of which qualities has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from John Constable's letter to C.R. Leslie (March 1833), from The Letters of John Constable, R.A. to C. R. Leslie, R.A. 1826-1837 (Constable & Co., 1931), p. 104
1830s

Children, World, Light, Time

“Between religion's "this is" and poetry's "but suppose this is" there must always be some kind of tension, until the possible and the actual meet at infinity.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Anagogic Phase: Symbol as Monad

Religion

“The individual who is subordinate to an objective law feels himself determined by it, while he, in turn, in no way determines the law, and has no possibility of reacting to it in a manner which could influence it—quite in contrast to even the most miserable slave, who, in some fashion at last, can still in this sense react to his master.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

“Domination” (1908), in On Individuality and Social Forms (1971), pp. 113-114

Law, Way, Feeling, Fashion

“Right trusty and well beloved, we greet you well, and as ye love the weal of us, and the weal and surety of your own selves, we heartily pray you to come unto us to London in all the diligence ye can possible after the sight hereof, with as many as ye can defensibly arrayed, there to aid and assist us against the Queen, her blood adherents, and affinity, which have intended, and daily doth intend, to murder and utterly destroy us and our cousin the duke of Buckingham, and the old royal blood of this realm, and as it is now openly known, by their subtle and damnable ways forecasted the same, and also the final destruction and disinheriting of you and all other inheritors and men of honour, as well of the north parts as other countries, that belong to us; as our trusty servant, this bearer, shall more at large show you, to whom we pray you give credence, and as ever we may do for you in time coming fail not, but haste you to us hither.”

Richard III of England (1452–1485) English monarch

Letter to the “Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the city of York” again as Lord Protector, June 1483, reprinted in Richard the Third (1956) http://books.google.com/books?id=dNm0JgAACAAJ&dq=Paul+Murray+Kendall+Richard+the+Third&ei=TZHDR8zXKZKIiQHf2NCpCA

Love, Men, Way, Time

“Now - how can we possibly examine something we use all the time and presuppose in every statement? How can we criticize the terms in which we habitually express our observations? Let us see! The first step in our criticism of commonly-used concepts is to create a measure of criticism, something with which these concepts can be compared. Of course, we shall later want to know a little more about the measuring stick itself; for example, we shall want to know whether it is better than, or perhaps not as good as, the material examined. But in order for this examination to start there must be a measuring-stick in the first place. Therefore, the first step in our criticism of customary concepts and customary reactions is to step outside the circle and either to invent a new conceptual system, for example a new theory, that clashes with the most carefully established observational results and confounds with the most plausible theoretical principles, or to import such a system from outside science, from religion, from mythology, from the ideas of incompetents, or the ramblings of madmen. This step is, again, counter-inductive, Counter-induction is thus both a fact”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

science could not exist without it - and a legitimate and much needed move in the game of science.
Pg 68.
Against Method (1975)

Religion, Game, Idea, Science

“Mr. Herschel … brought with him the calculations of the computers, and we commenced the tedious process of verification. After a time many discrepancies occurred, and at one point these discordances were so numerous that I exclaimed, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam," to which Herschel replied, "It is quite possible."”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Babbage in November 1839, recalling events in 1821; quoted in Harry Wilmot Buxton and Anthony Hyman (1988), Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Charles Babbage. "Computers" here refers to people calculating by hand.

God, Time

“Very often people do not seem to understand the difference between control and suppression of an emotion. Say, one has a strong desire to enjoy a certain thing but there is no possibility to fulfil that desire. Here the desire is suppressed. On the other hand a desire for a certain enjoyment comes. The man can easily fulfil that desire, but he knows that the desire is bad for his growth and he discriminates and decides not to have that low desire. Here, it is called control. Suppression is bad and to discriminate, decide and to control an emotion is very good and there is a great need for it in this so-called scientific age.”

Swami Narayanananda (1902–1988) Indian guru

Brahman and the Universe (1978), in Minor Works II (2001), p. 62

People, Age, Understanding, Strong

“We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means--all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity.”

Derrick Jensen (1960) American environmentalist

Listening to the Land

Women, Children, World, Nature

“Here we are, up to our ears in transcendence: Any organization or function is controlled by it. The building blocks for making living creatures are utilized by it. Thus, the entire world of living beings is transcended by phenomena that create finality. Natural selection working for the continuance and welfare of animals, plants, and man himself, is seen to be the grand law which organizes the living universe. So the Darwinians, who fancied they had exorcized finalism and transcendency but forgot to analyze critically the idea of natural selection, failed to see its implications or metaphysical consequences. They thought they were absolved from giving any finalization or deistic interpretation by decreeing that on earth all is but deceptive appearances; finality is a sham, guided evolution illusory. How is it possible to understand such an attitude?”

Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985) French zoologist

Grassé, Pierre Paul (1977); Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation. Academic Press, p. 2-3
Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation (1977)

World, Law, Idea, Understanding

“Even if victory were possible, it still couldn’t provide meaning or genuine happiness, because saying “I want to be the best” is simply the polite way of saying “I want everyone else to be worse.””

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 2 “Facing the Ultimate Archenemy” (p. 58)

Happiness, Way, Victory

“Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.”

Fran Lebowitz book Social Studies

"People".
Social Studies (1981)

People

“Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome! Your great country [of China] makes our Happy Meals possible!”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

Happiness, Country

“Tis possible, young sir, that some excess
Mars youthful judgment and old men’s no less;
Yet we must take our counsel as we may
For (flying years this lesson still convey),
’Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise,
And not to use, but still correct one’s eyes.”

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) English poet

Thesis and Antithesis http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CloughArthurHugh/verse/poemsproseremains/antithesis.html, st. 4.

Men, Youth, Flying

“Is it possible for us to make an analysis which will disclose this element that has wrought such a strangely different result here in our country? It must be an element that was present among the peoples of Europe while they were still in Europe. It could not have been brought here except by them. There has been nobody else to bring it. The original human materials were the same in both cases.”

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

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

People, Country

“We can not… escape the conclusion that the rule of reasoning by recurrence is irreducible to the principle of contradiction. …Neither can this rule come to us from experience… This rule, inaccessible to analytic demonstration and to experience, is the veritable type of the synthetic a priori judgment. On the other hand, we can not think of seeing in it a convention, as in some of the postulates of geometry. …it is only the affirmation of the power of the mind which knows itself capable of conceiving the indefinite repetition of the same act when once this act is possible. The mind has a direct intuition of this power, and experience can only give occasion for using it and thereby becoming conscious of it.”

Henri Poincaré book Science and Hypothesis

Source: Science and Hypothesis (1901), Ch. I. (1905) Tr. George Bruce Halstead

Thinking

“Considering the part played by the sciences in the story of our Western civilization, it is hardly possible to doubt the importance which the history of science will sooner or later acquire both in its own right and as the bridge which has been so long needed in between the Arts and the Sciences.”

Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) British historian

The Origins of Modern Science (1957) Introduction

Art, History, Science, Parting

“The ambiguity of progress becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil — possibilities that formerly did not exist. We have all witnessed the way in which progress, in the wrong hands, can become and has indeed become a terrifying progress in evil. If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth (cf. Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

In Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html (30 November 2007) 2007

World, Way, Evil

“Perhaps there was too much of religion in one sense; the word is English, smacks too much of things external such as creeds, rites, an external piety; there is no one Indian equivalent. But if we give rather to religion the sense of the following of the spiritual impulse in its fullness and define spirituality as the attempt to know and live in the highest self, the divine, the all-embracing unity and to raise life in all its parts to the divinest possible values, then it is evident that there was not too much of religion, but rather too little of it — and in what there was, a too one-sided and therefore an insufficiently ample tendency. The right remedy is, not to belittle still farther the agelong ideal of India, but to return to its old amplitude and give it a still wider scope, to make in very truth all the life of the nation a religion in this high spiritual sense. This is the direction in which the philosophy, poetry, art of the West is, still more or less obscurely, but with an increasing light, beginning to turn, and even some faint glints of the truth are beginning now to fall across political and sociological ideals.”

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

The Renaissance in India (1918)

Life, Truth, Religion, Art

“The term rationalize refers to any situations in which a person's action is described with reference to some supporting reason or cause. The term “legitimate” refers to one criterion by which rationalizations are selected from the many possible explanations for action. Justifications or rationalizations are selected primarily when they are acceptable explanations in a given social context. This means they fit with the facts as known according to the rules of behavior generally followed.”

Gerald R. Salancik (1943–1996) American organizational theorist

Source: A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design. 1978, p. 231

Behavior, Support, Personality

“Man is usually not content simply to register the observables that surround him; he needs to refer them as far as possible to the invariances of his environment.. The underlying causes of events, especially the motives of other persons, are the invariances of the environment that are relevant to him; they give meaning to what he experiences and it is these meanings that are recorded in his life space and are precipitated as the reality of the environment to which he then reacts.”

Fritz Heider (1896–1988) German psychologist

Source: The psychology of interpersonal relations, 1958, p. 81

Life, Motivation, Reality, Personality

“It is not uncommon for intelligent adults to turn into passive observers of their own incompetence in anything but the most elementary mathematics. Individuals may see the direct consequences of this intellectual paralysis in terms of limiting job possibilities. But the indirect, secondary consequences are even more serious. One of the main lessons learned by most people in math class is a sense of having rigid limitations. They learn a balkanized image of human knowledge which they come to see as a patchwork of territories separated by impassable iron curtains.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

People, Intelligence, Mathematics, Knowledge

“I sought out clandestine affairs of my own, which wasn't hard in a Mexican community, where it's possible to be a fag and not a fag. Men satisfy their urges secretly, confident that their public sexuality displaces any suspicion or speculation about their private one.”

Rigoberto González (1970) American writer

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)

Men, Confidence, Communication

“Radiation, unlike smoking, drinking, and overeating, gives no pleasure, so the possible victims object.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

As quoted in The Journal of NIH Research (1990), 2, 30
General sources

Pleasure, Drink

“I cannot refrain… from expressing my surprise that, according to the report in The Times there should be so much complaint about the difficulty of understanding the new theory. It is evident that Einstein's little book "About the Special and the General Theory of Relativity in Plain Terms," did not find its way into England during wartime. Any one reading it will, in my opinion, come to the conclusion that the basic ideas of the theory are really clear and simple; it is only to be regretted that it was impossible to avoid clothing them in pretty involved mathematical terms, but we must not worry about that. …
The Newtonian theory remains in its full value as the first great step, without which one cannot imagine the development of astronomy and without which the second step, that has now been made, would hardly have been possible. It remains, moreover, as the first, and in most cases, sufficient, approximation. It is true that, according to Einstein's theory, because it leaves us entirely free as to the way in which we wish to represent the phenomena, we can imagine an idea of the solar system in which the planets follow paths of peculiar form and the rays of light shine along sharply bent lines—think of a twisted and distorted planetarium—but in every case where we apply it to concrete questions we shall so arrange it that the planets describe almost exact ellipses and the rays of light almost straight lines.
It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. …according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. …In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests. Einstein's theory need not keep us from so doing; only the ideas about the ether must accord with it.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Theory of Relativity: A Concise Statement (1920)

Books, Way, Imagination, Mathematics

“ To be able to read and write, therefore, is to learn to profit by and take part in the greatest of human achievements -- that which makes all other achievements possible --namely, the pooling of our experiences in great cooperative stores of knowledge, available […] to all. From the warning cry of primitive man to the latest newsflash or scientific monograph, language is social. Cultural and intellectual cooperation is the great principle of human life. ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Pooling of Knowledge, p. 14

Life, Knowledge, Learning, Reading

“I couldn't advise others to try such a long distance marriage, but for us it works perfectly. We are three thousand miles apart, it is true, but the big thing is that we each have our careers without interference from the other. My husband can't leave his practice and I can't leave Hollywood, but neither of us has any thought of giving up either the career or each other. Some day we shall again live in our 'honeymoon' apartment - but in the meantime, for us, this is the best possible way.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

The Girl Nobody Knows; New Movie Magazine, Reginald Taviner (October 1932) http://www.irenedunnesite.com/press/new-movie-magazine-october-1932/.

Marriage, Way

“Every culture, or subculture, is defined by a set of common values, that is, generally agreed upon preferences. Without a core of common values a culture cannot exist, and we classify society into cultures and subcultures precisely because it is possible to identify groups who have common values.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, Economics As A Moral Science, 1969, p. 12

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

Ada Leverson (1862–1933) British writer

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

Pain, Beauty, Way, Nature

“After Ashoka's lavish sponsorship of Buddhism, it is perfectly possible that Buddhist institutions fell on slightly harder times under the Sungas, but persecution is quite another matter. The famous historian of Buddhism Etienne Lamotte has observed: "To judge from the documents, Pushyamitra must be acquitted through lack of proof."…The only reason to sustain the suspicion against Pushyamitra, once it has been levelled, is that "where there is smoke, there must be fire"”

Pushyamitra Shunga King of Sunga Dynasty

but that piece of received wisdom is presupposed in every act of slander as well.
E. Lamotte: History of Indian Buddhism, Institut Orientaliste, Louvain-la-Neuve 1988 (1958), quoted in Elst, K. (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism.

Wisdom, Time

“Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Elliot's Debates, volume 2, p. 364. (28 July 1788)

Change

“It is imperative that we restrict in every possible way the influence of neo-Stalinists in our political life.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Police Dictatorships

Life, Way

“Perhaps it was his return to Paris [In June 1919 Piet Mondrian returned to Paris] that was needed to provide him with fresh new possibilities in his work. Invigoration. His most recent work is without composition. The division of the picture plane is modular. That means ordinary rectangles, all the same size. The only contrast is in the colour. In my view, this runs counter to his theory concerning the abolition of position and dimension. This is in effect equality of position and dimension.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote from his letter to the Dutch modern architect Oud, 24 June 1919; as quoted in Mondrian, -The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 126
1912 – 1919

“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

Aliens Cause Global Warming (2003)

War, Truth, Science

“The only valid thing in art is that which cannot be explained. To explain away the mystery of a great painting – if such a feat were possible – would be irreparable harm… If there is no mystery then there is no 'poetry', the quality I value above all else in art. What do I mean by 'poetry'? It is to a painting what life is to man… For me it is a matter of harmony, of rapports, of rhythm and – most important for my own work – of 'metamorphosis”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

1946 - 1963, interview with John Richardson' (1957)

Life, Art, Painting

“My sincere desire in the composition of the book was to give the true view of the history of nature, with as little disturbance as possible to existing beliefs, whether philosophical or religious.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 388

Books, History, Nature, Sincerity

“Cambodia is not a peaceful place for good people to live in. In this situation, there are only 3 available options for you. Firstly, live in fear which you try to hide, whereas possible, in order to live comfortably even when you’re aware that it is an injustice for you and other victims in the society. Secondly, learn to be an evil person and ignoring your conscious as a human for the survival of…”

Khem Veasna (1971) Cambodian politician

Quoted on his facebook profile (3 April 2015)

People, Fear, Peace, Learning

“It is not possible to design a laboratory resource allocation experiment without designing an institution in all its detail.”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Source: "Microeconomic systems as an experimental science," 1982, p. 923.

“It is possible, in the interests of a false religion (such as Nationalism or Fascism) to avert one's eyes from the plain fact of human brotherhood; but the fact stubbornly remains, and we ignore it at our peril. We are all in the same boat, and we live in the shadow of a common doom.”

Gerald Bullett (1893–1958) British writer

Gerald Bullett, "Walt Whitman" in", in Alfred Barratt Brown, Great Democrats, 1934 (reprinted by Spokesman Books, 2013).

Religion, Falseness

“THE GENIUS of the industrial system lies in its organized use of capital and technology. This is made possible, as we have duly seen, by extensively replacing the market with planning.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter XXXI, Section 1, p. 354

“Learning to play the guitar is a combination of mental and motor skill acquisition. And to develop motor skills, repetition is essensial…Whenever musicians have trouble executing a passage, they generally tend to blame themselves for not having enought talent. Actually, all that's wrong is they don't know where their fingers are supposed to go…You should learn the piece in your head before you play it. And when you do play it, play it so slow that therre's no possibility of making a mistake.”

Howard Roberts (1929–1992) American guitarist

Ralph Denyer (2002). The Guitar Handbook. p. 66.

Learning

“Every possible effort should be made to stop recruiting for the Armed Forces. This may, and probably would, lead to some form of conscription being proposed or introduced. Thus would be provided a most favourable political platform upon which to fight the National Government.”

Stafford Cripps (1889–1952) British politician

Forward, 3 October, 1936, quoted in Talus, Your Alternative Government (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1945), p. 36.

Effort, Fight

“It is clear that a retreat from the social, based largely on the experience of defeat and consequent resignation, promotes the personal as the only possible terrain of authenticity.”

John Zerzan book Future Primitive and Other Essays

The Mass Psychology of Misery
Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994)

Personality

“Different types of love
are possible”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Desert Island Disk
Lyrics, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)

Love

“When we make our own calculations, we need so many numbers and factors that any mistake is possible. The Lord's calculation boils down to love.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 15

Love

“Courts of equity have always considered it of the greatest possible importance that parties should not sleep on their rights.”

John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly (1802–1874) English Whig politician and judge

Browne v. Cross (1852), 14 Beav. 113.

Sleep

“In 1982, when he was 45 and Philadelphia 76er owner Harold Katz was hot after him, the Houston Chronicle's George White asked Elvin Hayes if Chamberlain could still play. "Some things about Wilt, you never forgot," Hayes said. "He was such an awesome physical specimen. To go up under Wilt Chamberlain, to be down there and look up at him when he's towering up over you waiting to dunk, was a terrifying picture. To see him poised up there, knowing he was about to sweep down with that big jam... that must be the most frightening sight in sports. The ball goes shooting through the net and you better have your body covered up because he could really hurt someone. I was scared. Everyone was scared when he got that look in his eye, that don't-try-to-stop-this look that he got when he really wanted it.... "I think Russell realized there was no way he could have stopped Wilt if he had been fully intent on making it a two-man game. No one who ever put on a uniform could have done it. When I played him, I kept this foremost in my mind: Above all, don't make him mad. Don't embarrass him. You wanted to keep him quiet as long as possible."”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

[Heisler, Mark, Larger Than Life, The Los Angeles Times, 1999-10-13]
Post-NBA life

Way, Game, Thinking, Sport

“Unfortunately not only were the rulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by having the peoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the rule of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of people grouped and established themselves around them, and under an appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a limited number of rulers.”

Leo Tolstoy A Letter to a Hindu

Source: A Letter to a Hindu (1908), III

Men, God, People, Appearance

“At this time I was hesitant to venture into the greenery, because I wasn't keen on the possibility of having spiders the size of basketballs drop onto my face from overhead branches and refuse to let go. (…) Hunger pains were moving to the 'excruciating' stage by mid-morning. After a last-ditch attempt to extract nutrients from filling my mouth with sand, I decided that, if a big spider the size of a basketball dropped onto my face and tried to eat it, I would eat it back and we could turn the whole thing into an exciting competition.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

Source: Fullyramblomatic Novels, Fog Juice, Chapter Two

Hunger, Pain, Time

“This naturally leads us to the subject to Continence. Our soi-disant manly man with a false sneer of bravado and utter lack of stability considers that Continence is not possible, and like the ostrich tries to hide from the truth. For not only is Continence possible but it is practiced with brilliant success, voluntarily, by hundreds and hundreds of men and women in all walks of life and by all castes and creeds. (Please note the stress on the word voluntarily.) But its attainment needs courage and determination of the highest degree and which is naturally out of the reach of our flabby indolent moderns, who succumb to the slightest temptation and want to drag everyone down to their own low moral levels.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Promiscuity & Continence

Life, Women, Men, Truth

“The starting point is that one is interested in the universe, one observes that one is finite and that this is intolerable. One has a limited time and apparently limited capacity with which to find anything out. Therefore it is possible to despair. There are many orders of despair, and none of them are known to normal psychology. This is demonstrated by the fact that it has not become existential. Normal psychology will never devalue anything. Existential psychology, at least to a certain point, consists of exploiting the recoil from the despair of finiteness. The recoil is a drive with at least the instinctive immediacy of the survival instinct. There is no point in saying, 'What is there to do? What could such a drive possibly tend towards?”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

The survival instinct tends to prolong life. The fundamental drive tends to inform itself about the universe.
Advice to Clever Children (1981)

Life, Universe, Time, Despair

“In solitude it is possible to love mankind; in the world, for one who knows the world, there can be nothing but secret or open war.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: Persons and Places (1944), p. 159

Love, War, Secret, World

“More than any of his predecessors Plato appreciated the scientific possibilities of geometry... By his teaching he laid the foundations of the science, insisting upon accurate definitions, clear assumptions, and logical proof. His opposition to the materialists, who saw in geometry only what was immediately useful to the artisan and the mechanic is… clear. …That Plato should hold the view… is not a cause for surprise. The world's thinkers have always held it. No man has ever created a mathematical theory for practical purposes alone. The applications of mathematics have generally been an afterthought.”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

Source: History of Mathematics (1923) Vol.1, p. 90

World, Mathematics, Science

“The disconcerting fact may first be pointed out that if you write badly about good writing, however profound may be your convictions or emphatic your expression of them, your style has a tiresome trick (as a wit once pointed out) of whispering: ‘Don’t listen!’ in your readers’ ears. And it is possible also to suggest that the promulgation of new-fangled aesthetic dogmas in unwieldy sentences may be accounted for—not perhaps unspitefully—by a certain deficiency in aesthetic sensibility; as being due to a lack of that delicate, unreasoned, prompt delight in all the varied and subtle manifestations in which beauty may enchant us.
Or, if the controversy is to be carried further; and if, to place it on a more modern basis, we adopt the materialistic method of interpreting aesthetic phenomena now in fashion, may we not find reason to believe that the antagonism between journalist critics and the fine writers they disapprove of is due in its ultimate analysis to what we may designate as economic causes? Are not the authors who earn their livings by their pens, and those who, by what some regard as a social injustice, have been more or less freed from this necessity—are not these two classes of authors in a sort of natural opposition to each other? He who writes at his leisure, with the desire to master his difficult art, can hardly help envying the profits of money-making authors.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

criticizing the Cambridge School of criticism, e.g. John Middleton Murry and Herbert Read, “Fine Writing,” pp. 306-307
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Money, Beauty, Art, Fashion

“Although teaching in the class is so terribly tiring... I continued my work perfunctorily in a way that nobody could notice it. Because I lived with that firm intention: in a few years I will start painting. And I saved for this by being as sober as possible with everything.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson:) Al is dat klassikale lesgeven ook zóó vermoeiend.. ..ik zette mijn werk plichtmatig voort, zodat wel niemand 't aan mij kon merken. Want ik leefde op het vaste voornemen: over eenige jaren ga ik schilderen. En daar spaarde ik voor, door in alles zoo sober mogelijk te wezen.
Source: 1900 - 1922, Onder de Menschen: Suze Robertson' (1912), p. 31

Way, Painting

“I'm learning as much martial arts as I possibly can. My show is packed with action. Enough to get a rise.”

Traci Bingham (1968) American actress

"Get Ready for the Battle of the Baywatch Babes", interview with TV Guide (25 March 2000) http://www.tvguide.com/news/ready-battle-baywatch-38819/.

Art, Learning

“I'm trying to stay as healthy as possible but there's no pressure to be really skinny. No. That's just a bit wrong.”

Leona Lewis (1985) British singer-songwriter

Interview with Liz Jones http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/you/article.html?in_article_id=517492&in_page_id=1908, Daily Mail, March 2008

“A mind cannot possibly consider anything beyond what it can measure or calculate; without a body it can only consider itself. Without the interruptions of hellos from the eye, ear, tongue, nose, and finger, the evolving mind huddles in the corner picking its navel.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

“Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
Et sane arduum debet esse, quod adeo raro reperitur. Qui enim posset fieri, si salus in promptu esset et sine magno labore reperiri posset, ut ab omnibus fere negligeretur? Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt.

Baruch Spinoza book Ethics

Part V, Prop. XLII, Scholium
Ethics (1677)

Men

“As much as possible, the government should purchase brand new military hardware if it really wants to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which is widely regarded as one of the weakest military forces in Southeast Asia. If we are going to pour in billions of pesos to improve the AFP, we might as well give our soldiers the best modern and sophisticated equipment we can get.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Sun Star Manila http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2015/08/18/escudero-asks-govt-stop-buying-dilapidated-military-hardware-425294 2015

“I believe that in our period it is definitely necessary that, as far as possible, the paint is applied in pure colours, set next to each other in a pointillist or diffuse manner. This is stated strongly, and yet it relates to the idea which is the basis of meaningful expression in form, as I see it. It seems to me that the clarity of ideas should be accompanied by a clarity of technique.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in Mondrian's letter to Israel Querido, Summer of 1909; published in the weekly magazine 'De Controleur' 23 Oct, 1909; as cited in English translation, in Two Mondrian sketchbooks 1912 - 1914, ed. Robert P. Welsh & J. M. Joosten, Amsterdam 1969 p. 10
1900's

Idea, Painting

“As regards the objection that possibles are independent of the decrees of God I grant it of actual decrees (although the Cartesians do not at all agree to this), but I maintain that the possible individual concepts involve certain possible free decrees; for example, if this world was only possible, the individual concept of a particular body in this world would involve certain movements as possible, it would also involve the laws of motion, which are the free decrees of God; but these, also, only as possibilities. Because, as there are an infinity of possible worlds, there are also an infinity of laws, certain ones appropriate to one; others, to another, and each possible individual of any world involves in its concept the laws of its world.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

Gottfried Leibniz (May, 1686) as quoted in George R. Montgomery, Tr., "Correspondence between Leibniz and Arnauld," Leibniz: Discourse on metaphysics; correspondence with Arnauld, and Monadology https://books.google.com/books?id=5-IeAQAAMAAJ (1916) VIII, p. 108

God, World, Law

“Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the Universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes: first, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly, he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.25

World, Idea, Question, Nature

“Voltaire remarked that it is possible to kill a flock of sheep by witchcraft if you give them plenty of arsenic at the same time. The sheep, in this figure, may well stand for the complacent apologists of capitalism; Marx's penetrating insight and bitter hatred of oppression supply the arsenic, while the labour theory of value provides the incantations.”

Joan Robinson book An Essay on Marxian Economics

Source: An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966), Chapter III, The Labour Theory Of Value, p. 22

Time

“An individual gets away from this type of self-centeredness when he pauses enough to see that no matter what he does in life, he does that because somebody helped him to do it. And he then gains the type of perspective and the type of balance which keeps him from becoming self-centered. He comes to see that somebody stands in the background, often doing a little job in a big way, making it possible for him to do what he’s doing.”

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

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)

Life, Way, Help

“It’s possible that no one who didn’t grow up in a small place can understand how beautiful this is, how the anonymity of city life feels like freedom.”

Emily St. John Mandel book Station Eleven

Source: Station Eleven (2014), Chapter 13 (p. 78)

Life, Beauty, Feeling, Understanding

“And in the end it is because of mysticism that it is possible to say that “no man is an island” and that on the contrary every man is “a part of the main.””

Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) British civil servant, educator and philosopher.

p. 27.

Parting

“In perhaps 50 years, 60 years, we can finish completely this civilization, and offer to our children the possibility to invent a new story, a new poetry, a new romanticism.”

Philippe Starck (1949) French architect and industrial designer

Design and destiny, 2007

Children

“[O]f the future form of religion little can be predicted. Its main concern may possibly be to purify, elevate, and brighten the life that now is, instead of treating it as the more or less dismal vestibule of a life that is to come.”

John Tyndall (1820–1893) British scientist

p, 125
New Fragments (1892)

Life, Religion, Future

“A number of great factories in the hands of rich capitalists, in which "slaves of work" drag out their miserable existence, is not, therefore, the goal of the development of the age of natural science, but a return to individual labour, or where the nature of things demands it, the carrying on of common workshops by unions of workmen, who will receive a sound basis only through the general extension of knowledge and civilization, and through the possibility of obtaining cheaper capital.”

Werner von Siemens (1816–1892) German inventor and industrialist

D. Appleton., (1887). The Popular Science Monthly, Volume 30.

Age, Nature, Knowledge, Science

“There must be some leeway; the church operates across the world, including in totalitarian states where a fair criminal trial is unlikely for the accused. But some standards regarding inquiries and treatment of victims must surely be possible, as well as clear guidance on assessment of recruits to the priesthood. And the exit door for bishops needs to change. … We Catholics deserve this. Especially the children the church failed to protect.”

Catherine Pepinster (1959)

Pope Francis has utterly failed to tackle the church’s abuse scandal https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/26/pope-francis-catholic-church-abuse-scandal-failed (26 July 2018), The Guardian.

Children, World, Change

“In my world, I would like to take as much positive vibrations as possible. The same goes for our music. I feel that there is a big impact.”

Kenneth Gärdestad (1948–2018) Swedish song lyricist, architect and lecturer

Regarding the connection between his fighting of his illness (skin cancer and lymphoma) and the brothers Gärdestad's music as quoted on Kenneth Gärdestad: "Blir sista stora hurraropet", Selåker, Johannes, Expressen.SE, published on 8 February 2018 (web) https://www.expressen.se/noje/kenneth-gardestad-jag-mar-samst/

World, Music, Feeling